The weather is cold or wet or it's late and all you want to do is tinker with a small project on your workbench. You turn on some tunes low in the background, spread out a few tools, maybe a cold adult beverage off to the side and you have some parts of various types sitting on the bench in front of you. You slide your stool over and sit yourself down, and with the light … [Read more...]
The Two Stroke Dirt Bike Engine Building Handbook
If you're a longtime reader of The Kneeslider, you may remember a review several years ago of The Four Stroke Dirt Bike Engine Building Handbook by Paul Olesen. It's a great book if you're planning to dig into any four stroke motorcycle engine, not just one from a dirt bike. Well, since I just showed you the Rimar 2 stroke project, I thought it might be helpful for those of you … [Read more...]
Here Are Three Impressive Electric Projects You’ll Be Tempted to Try
A tip from a reader pointed me to an electric streetfighter project by Canadian James Biggar, but once I took a look, I saw he had two other projects he had already built that were just as impressive, an earlier and simpler electric motorcycle and his Cyber Trike which is an electric leaning reverse trike. All three are accompanied by fast motion build videos from start to … [Read more...]
Paul Kalenian’s All Aluminum, Water Jet Cut, Home Built Special, Lulu
If you're a man of a certain age, like I am, you might remember Mickey Thompson's Indy Racer, the Harvey Aluminum Special from the early 60s. It impressed me at the time, because of its unique look, a wide and flat oval cross section and small 12 inch wheels with low profile tires. It resembled a roller skate of sorts and it picked up the nickname of the roller skate car. I … [Read more...]
Makerspace Is Just Newspeak for Workshop
The other day I saw this article about building makerspaces in schools and the photo showed what seemed to me to be a nice workshop, similar to what schools had when I grew up. Of course, now these spaces have things like 3D printers, not a tool we had years back, but the saws and drill presses are pretty standard fare. It made me wonder if there was any real purpose for using … [Read more...]
When the Factory Gets it Wrong and You Have to Fix it
After clearing out all of this new workspace in the garage, I was looking for a worthy first project so I thought I'd start by changing the spark plugs on my F150. If you're thinking plug changes are easy, you have to know this is a 2004 Ford F150 with a Triton V8 engine. So what, you might ask? Well, back in the early 2000s, they designed the Triton V8 with a somewhat unique … [Read more...]