The Kneeslider

Do You Have the Right to Repair and Modify Your Own Vehicle? Should You?

by Paul Crowe on 3/19/2013

Tools Yes. Next question? -- Unfortunately, there are those who don't agree and in the past few days the discussion of whether you and I should be able to fix or modify things we own has been getting a lot more attention. Right now, cellphones are the issue, there's quite a debate and some pending legislation dealing with "unlocking" phones so you can use them on any network you choose, service providers don't like it much, while some owners want the option, but, as noted by many, it goes far beyond cellphones. No matter where you look, but especially in the new vehicles you buy, trouble codes, diagnostics and detailed service information are often very hard to come by meaning the manufacturer has a lock on repairs, a very profitable lock.

We've all seen the "no user serviceable parts inside" label affixed to some sealed cover that voids the warranty if opened, I always read the label as "what you need to fix is in here," but service professionals employed by the manufacturer often quickly call out the unskilled owner as unqualified to work on his own device, which may very well be true, but does that mean he shouldn't be able to try?

Copyright, but what about liability?

Much of this centers around copyright issues, who invested the time and money upfront, designed the hardware and firmware, who wrote the software and who gets to use that knowledge to advantage servicing what others can't?

The other discussions I've seen and the comments following them fall pretty clearly on the side of allowing everyone to work on whatever he buys, and I fall into that crowd, ... BUT, what those others don't think about is responsibility, or more to the point, liability, if their repairs and modifications go wrong.

I used to work as a field engineer on extremely complex medical diagnostic equipment. We repaired it down to component level on printed circuit boards, a task we could not have done without detailed schematics and sophisticated diagnostic software, no matter how good we were with a soldering iron and oscilloscope. Independent service organizations had a very difficult time repairing that equipment without the proprietary service information we had. It was a high profit service business, kinda like a dealer service department.

There's a persuasive case to be made on both sides of this issue, in my case, I was highly trained by the company on the specific equipment, had the best tools available and received constant service bulletins of known issues. Periodic retraining kept my skills up to date and I had factory parts when needed, why would anyone want to go anywhere else? Sound familiar?

Equipment owners and independent repair organizations said their techs could repair the equipment just as well if they had the service manuals and software to diagnose the problem, but they didn't develop the software, design the equipment or write the manuals. [click here to continue …]

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Drysdale Godzilla V-Twin

by Paul Crowe on 3/18/2013

in Engines

Ian Drysdale's Godzilla V-Twin with master and link rods and longitudinal cam

Ian Drysdale's Godzilla V-Twin with master and link connecting rods, longitudinal cam - and a built in supercharger, too!

Ian Drysdale keeps popping up whenever we talk about interesting engines, the Drysdale V8, the Carberry V-Twin, Russell Sutton's radial and a whole lot more, but as often happens, while digging around for information on another engine, I came across the Drysdale Godzilla V-Twin which I hadn't seen before. Ian must have some gene that prevents him from building anything ordinary because once you remove the covers of this V-Twin, you know there's some wizardry involved.

Master and link connecting rods for the Godzilla V-Twin,modeled after the rods of the P&W 4360

The cylinders of the 50 degree V-Twin are perfectly inline on a single pin crankshaft, something Ian wanted to achieve, but without the common knife and fork connecting rods that limit high rpm performance. He knew the big aircraft radials used a master and link configuration, so, being a true motorhead, he bought a Pratt and Whitney 4360 and shipped it to Australia. Gotta love that. Connecting rods in hand, he knew what he needed to do and designed a master and link rod arrangement for the V-Twin. Working with designer Tony Foale, they came up with a design to get the front and rear strokes and timing just right. Hurdle number one had been cleared.

Drysdale Godzilla V-Twin longitudinal cam with 25 degree conical lobes driven by one pair of gears - parallel pushrods with a single cam!

Knowing any classic V-Twin should have pushrod valve actuation, he again went the unconventional route with an old design dating back to the 1930s and used in Mercedes GP cars and some old farm machinery, too, a longitudinal camshaft. A single cam with 25 degree conical lobes and driven by one pair of gears actuates the roller bearing hydraulic lifters that run in direct line with the cylinders, an interesting way to achieve parallel pushrods and quite a contrast to the three cam arrangement of the new Indian V-Twin. The result is far less gear noise and easier assembly and it just looks cool, too, a big plus for anyone who appreciates these things.

As any modern engine should, it has 4 valves per cylinder and a pair of gear driven balance shafts to create a very smooth running engine. Of course, Ian wasn't done yet. While the engine can be set up with normal aspiration and fuel injection, it was designed from the start to incorporate a supercharger in such a manner that it's almost unnoticeable. In the photo at the top, the little mechanism behind the rear cylinder that looks like a belt driven twin rotor supercharger, is exactly that! When all of the covers are on, you don't see it sitting out there like that, so think of the fun you could have. Good stuff.

The engine will be available in 3 displacements, 1398, 1602 and 1836cc. Though nothing is certain yet, Ian indicates he's talked with several parties about possible production, now wouldn't that be interesting?

When you look at all of the innovative features here, you have to think there's a bit of head slapping going on in some other design departments, with a lot of "Why didn't we think of that?" mumbling among the folks. Of course the simple answer is, "You're not Ian Drysdale." Geez, I like the way he thinks! I wonder where this will show up first.

Link: Drysdale Godzilla (pdf)
Link: Ian Drysdale homepage

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Another Sign Our Electric Future Will Be Delayed

by Paul Crowe on 3/14/2013

in Electric motorcycles

BMW i3 electric car comes with a gasoline powered loaner

We've written before about the limitations of electric motorcycles, cars and trucks, all because the batteries we need have been promised for years, but always seem five or ten years off. I wouldn't bring this up again except I noticed what seems to me to be a glaring surrender to reality on the part of BMW as they get ready to produce their i3 electric car.

BMW’s approach is based on several years of field testing with customers of prototype electric vehicles with a range per charge of about 100 miles. The automaker found that range was only a problem with about 10 percent of daily trips. It plans to provide a gas-powered loaner vehicle for these infrequent trips. “We offer you a fallback solution in case you purchase this car and then need to go on a 500-mile trip,” says Rolf Stromberger, BMW’s vice president of business environment and public affairs strategy.

As always, the company line is how few people really need the extra range on a regular basis, so for those "infrequent trips" they provide a fallback solution, a gasoline powered loaner. Of course, 10 percent of our daily trips means, perhaps, 30 times per year in their sample. Do you want to get a loaner that often, even 10 or 15 times? Of course, the rest of us don't need a fallback, we just set our GPS and we're off, without a detour to a dealer first to pick up our loaner and we don't have to drive to the dealer to turn in our loaner when we get back. The number of times you can use the loaner each year is limited, too, but they didn't say how many times.

They almost make it sound like there's something wrong with you if you need or want to take frequent long trips, of course if you do, you won't be looking at electric cars in the first place.

So, for $50,000 you get a car you can use for short range driving, but still requires a gasoline powered backup for longer runs. It looks like BMW got tired of waiting for the promised magic batteries, but they still felt they needed to produce an electric car because that's what the greens and the government seem to expect these days. Customers? Not so much.

Hmm, ... I wonder what we could use instead of batteries to power our vehicles, something with a lot of energy density, easy to quickly refill, available everywhere, ... no, don't tell me, I'll think of it, ... let's see, what could it be?

Link: Technology Review

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