What's That Smell???:

Saturday, July 27, 2002

Sleep in. Right... What day is this? What page am I on?? Once again, before the first light of the new morning, I was awakened. This time not by a sound. This time by a smell. A familiar smell. A strong familiar smell. A strong unpleasant familiar smell. A nearby strong unpleasant familiar smell. A nearby strong unpleasant familiar smell of SKUNK!!!! This time I laid in bed not considering whacking the creature with the flashlight in case it wanted into the tent, but fully considering it could have anything it wanted after I made a new exit in the back of the tent and had run some good distance away.

No tent flap scratching ensued, so I eventually drifted back to sleep, only to wake up a short time later as twilight began outdoors, to still have the same odor in the air. It wasn't like the skunk had sprayed and the smell was lingering in the air, but more like nearby stinky skunk butt prowling around the campground.

Drifted back off to sleep, and eventually got up about a quarter to six. Breakfast, tea, and back to work on the Pusher out in the exhibition area. Sometime during the night, someone had slipped a VW head gasket under the corner of my tent. Hmmm, the head gasket fairy had visited (thanks, Bruce, even though it was a gasoline engine part, the thought was appreciated).

Expecting to get finished by afternoon, I put the cam followers back into the cylinder head, and began to assemble the cam shaft and retaining caps. Bob, who was camping next to me decided to come by and check the progress, and asked if I had checked the cam line. "Well, no, should I?" Of course, if the head was warped, then the five camshaft bearings are no longer in a straight line, and need to be line bored to correct the "bow" that the cam will experience when it is torqued down. This necessitated a trip to the machine shop, where I learned that they didn't have a line boring machine, so there was little they could do about this problem.

Bob had me pick up some long strips of 400 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper and some brake cleaning fluid. We were going to hand-turn the camshaft bearing journals to provide additional clearance to allow for the bow in the bearing line. I thought this was going to be impossible with hand tools, but he assured me that he had done this type of repair many times, and while line boring was preferable, this would at least insure that the bearing journals would not wear excessively.

What we ended up doing was resting the rear of the cam in the head backwards so that it could be turned in free air with a ratchet, and then Bob used the sandpaper as a strop to polish the number 1, 3, & 5 cam journals to remove material. Our first session before noon was pretty productive, but we ran out of sandpaper, so Bob left to attend a lecture, while I rode the bike back down to NAPA to get more abrasive.

At some point, Tomas and Ian of Eugene Biosource showed up on site and loaded a bunch of flyers on the table.

I had expected to attend Josh Tickell's lecture on Biodiesel at 12:30PM, but I didn't want to miss Bob in case he came back to finish the job, and so I stuck around and gave "the tour" to onlookers. Bob returned about 1:30, and we did some additional clearancing on the journals, using Plastigauge to check our progress. Finally, the clearances seemed right, and we torqued the cam shaft into place and checked the rotation for binding. It felt loose and easy to turn, so I resumed installing the valve gear and got ready to put the head on the engine.

The rest of the afternoon held no new disastrous surprises. At one point, Gray was going to the auto parts store to look at electric fuel pumps for his SVO conversion on the truck, so I tagged along, purchasing four quarts of oil and a plastic drain pan so that I could empty the most likely fried oil in the crankcase sump and put in some new.

Just as we were leaving David arrived with his Biodiesel refinery trailer, which was for sale. This trailer is very well equipped, and has everything needed to produce batches of Biodiesel in 12 gallon quantities. All aspects of safety have been considered including fire suppression, first aid, personal safety (goggles, gloves, rubber aprons), Material Safety Data Sheets for all chemicals, and an eye wash station, which you can see on the left-hand cabinet door which is open. Dave was present at last year's event, and held a lecture on Biodiesel production procedures.

The cylinder head went back into place on the engine block, and I secured it using the new head bolts that had been delivered from Corvallis yesterday. I did have some head scratching trying to decipher the torque wrench specs that were supplied with the head gasket, as they were universal, covering a wide range of head gasket and engine types. After conferring with three other people to make sure that I was reading the abbreviated instructions correctly, I set to work with the torque wrench, which I had put into the car with the tools before I left home. As I was loading the wrench into the car, I asked myself why I was taking it along, as it was very unlikely to be needed with the trailer running so well after the recent rebuild. Yet another example of cosmic intervention, I almost left it at home...

It was now late afternoon, and I'd gotten the cylinder head installed, and began attaching wires, hoses and other fixtures that will be needed to complete the job. I'd hoped to have the engine running by this evening, but there is still a bit to do before I can try to start it.

Justin and Peter of Grease Works had been planning a meeting for this evening for several months. Anyone with an interest in Biodiesel was invited, particularly those who wish to start or belong to a biofuels co-op model. About 40 people or so show up in the open-air classroom to participate. I misunderstood and instead first went to the Sale Barn, where Windy Dankoff was just beginning a presentation of solar water pumping. Just before taking a seat, it became apparent that I was either in the wrong place, or here at the wrong time. Grabbed my bike and shifted over to the large canopy on the grass and settled down next to Jacques with the digital camera ready to take a few images.

They were just beginning to assemble a list of subjects to cover during the meeting. Jacques got a nice plug at the top of the board with his grass-car.com address. There were many questions about glycerin disposal, tier one certification, fee fatty acids, and a variety of other subjects which showed that the participants were mostly experienced with the production mechanics of Biodiesel. Josh Tickell sat in, interjecting a few facts when appropriate. Tomas and Ian of Eugene Biosource were also in attendance, you can just see the tops of their heads at the bottom of the image.

About 20 minutes into the meeting, after the agenda had been set and discussion began, the compact flash card in the camera became full, so I bowed out to go to the tent and get the spare card. On the way back, I got the feeling that I might be better off using this time to begin installing the intake and exhaust manifolds on the engine. Using my time wisely is important, because Jacques and Gray and I are going out to dinner at The Snaffle Bit, tonight, using the reservations we made last night.

Dinner was pretty much a bust, except for the free beer that the waitress gave us because our order got messed up.

Back at the motel, the HP crew was in full swing, with Darren supplying two 5 gallon soda containers of home made dark ale. The party had spilled out onto the balcony, and exhibitors, lecturers, attendees and magazine folk alike talked, ate and took in the warm summer night. Fortunately, most of the motel was occupied by Solwest people, so there weren't any complaints about the bit of noise the socializing caused.

Another ½ glass of beer for me, and it was time for bed. It had been a long day, and tomorrow would be another. In the parking lot of the Motel, I found that my bike had another flat tire, this time, the rear. Walked it back to the fairgrounds. Passing through the campground, a fair bit of partying was taking place at Margaritaville, and there was another group of people getting some live music going on one side of the camp.

Earplugs in and lights out for me.