PollyMobiles Rebuild

[SuperUno]

Or run a Peltier cooler under them : http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...0.H0.Xpelti.TRS0&_nkw=peltier+cooler&_sacat=0

 

[Huggy444]

What's the important of the catch can?

Like, I have one, but as standard it just goes back into the inlet manifold - is it really worth all the hassle just to collect some oil vapour?

 

[h701micra]

What's the important of the catch can?

Like, I have one, but as standard it just goes back into the inlet manifold - is it really worth all the hassle just to collect some oil vapour?

Having a monitor on oil vapour is a good measure on engine health. More vapour shows a decease in engine health etc
And it stops contaminants in the inlet tract for a cleaner running engine too

Why aren't they fitted as standard if they're that good... manufacturers can't trust owners to remember to empty them and a blockage in the pcv system can be problematic

It's having a catch can that does the job properly. Most cans are exactly that a void can, which works purely off condensation, they all do but bare with me (hence need be cool)
Proper cans have a divide between the inlet and the outlet and force the air through a form of catching said vapours. Steel wool, aluminium mesh etc. Relying less on condensation alone

 

[pollyp]

Steel and perspex would act more of an insulator. I'd use aluminium

The sides are fairly simple and you wouldn't want to fully seal it to allow air to flow out as long as there's a good ducted supply in you'll be fine
Inspection again is simple too. The lid on mine slides into a smaller channel and held down one side with r-clips on some 8mm stainless bolts with a hole through them
Add some sticky back foam more to prevent rattling than a seal and bingo

I'll share a drawing of mine with you as it's easier than trying to describe it

for a vented heat shield enclosure with cool air blowing through it, it's beneficial to use an insulator to prevent infrared heat from the rad/engine from reaching the catch can/pod filter whilst the cool air flowing inside does the job of keeping things cold.

 

[pollyp]

Or run a Peltier cooler under them : http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...0.H0.Xpelti.TRS0&_nkw=peltier+cooler&_sacat=0

disadvantages outweigh the tiny benefit.
complicated to fit & service,
power draw,
bulky & heavy,
only cools small spot vs ducting outside cold air over entire jar for free,
jar bottom ain't flat

 

[pollyp]

What's the important of the catch can?

Like, I have one, but as standard it just goes back into the inlet manifold - is it really worth all the hassle just to collect some oil vapour?

just what andy said above.
for NA there's only a very little benefit of keeping the inlet cleaner and reduce some HC emissions.
it's mainly in forced induction where an oil catch can becomes essential in reducing chances of detonation over the long term (especially if the setup is stressed so close to failure) by keeping oil vapour out of the inlet.

 

[pollyp]

refined the catch can with a better flow

CFD showing the flow is better. vapour flowing along most of the jars surface for longer period to condense.

printed

assembled & smoothed

fitted & plumbed. notice I've moved & bent the card heatshield forward abit towards the radiator

so that it scoops any cool air between the rad & chassis towards the catch cans

flow of cool air from the catch cans pov

going for another drive, it definately works better now, glass is kept cooler and more vapour has condensed over a short distance.

 

[pollyp]

was just doing a little cleaning spree in the house & garage & decided to resolve this annoying feature on me old crane where the valve end catches on the cast flange bit (abit of a late fix since I'm done with engine changes but meh it'll be easier to use in future)

cut the obstructing flange off and welded a T handle on the end, much better to use now.

 

[pollyp]

since the catch cans are now relocated, time to remove the old mounts and close off the heat shield

rather than cut a new fresh shield, I just welded a small piece onto it.

does the job

 

[pollyp]

raised the RH seat rail to tilt the seat further away from the seat belt

and tried to make a new camera rig

but after a test drive, the sun roof frame is wayy too flimsy and the video shakes slightly over bumps so will have to either reinforce the frame or rethink the mount

 

[pollyp]

since the sunroof frame is too flimsy, decided to use the previous solid camera rig beam and just made the rig arm less pointy n lethal

during the recent hot weather, I notice the vents were just swirling hot air around.
there's only one little port hole in the boot wheel well that was probably blocked by some luggage and not helping.

so to make more vents, I cut these slots

and just bend em out

seems to vent abit better now

 

[pollyp]

Tuning cold crank enrichment & injector setting

Recently I noticed the car seems to struggle abit to fire up in the morning and the mixture seems abit too rich during boost (10.5afr) compared to when it was first remapped (11.5afr).
So lets log the telemetry to see what's going on.

#Assess Cold Start Data#



2016-06-25 cold start
temp = 19C
battery voltage = 12v
battery voltage drop during crank = 9.5v
injector duration during crank = 5ms
timing during crank = 5deg
timing after crank = 23deg

I think the battery's beginning to fail cos the ECU only see's 12v whereas a fresh battery would've sent 12.4v

looks like during cranking, the injector's only firing 5ms compared to the original 20ms.
the cold crank wasn't a good start so I'll try again next morning.



2016-06-26 cold start
temp = 18C
battery voltage = 11.9v
battery voltage drop during crank = 9.8v
injector duration during crank = 5ms
timing during crank = 5deg
timing after crank = 23deg

Once again it's under-fuelling during cold crank making it stuggle to fire up, but the datalog then freezes.

2016-06-26 warm start
temp = 29C
battery voltage = 12.2v
battery voltage drop during crank = 9.5v
injector duration during crank = 5ms
timing during crank = 11deg
timing after crank = 22deg

Recranking the slightly warmer engine after the laptop froze. With the battery freshly charged, cylinders now cleared up & warm, it obviously fires up alot better.

#Cleaned MAF & Dizzy#

I noticed in the datalog during idle that the MAF reading is slightly less than afew yrs ago.
maybe the sensor is abit dirty? So I cleaned the MAF and also cleaned the dizzy cap to help cold start ignition

2016-06-26 hot start after cleaning MAF
temp = 71C
battery voltage = 12.1v
battery voltage drop during crank = 10v
injector duration during crank = 3.5ms
timing during crank = 5deg
timing after crank = 15deg

Checked the MAF after cleaning and the idle reading is still the same.

#Increase cold crank enrichment#

The next morning I increased the cold crank enrichment graph

2016-06-27 cold start more enrich
temp = 17C
battery voltage = 12v
battery voltage drop during crank = 8.6v
injector duration during crank = 16ms
timing during crank = 5deg
timing after crank = 23deg

The injectors are now firing 15ms during cold crank which has made it fire up alot more readily.

#Tune WOT mixture#

Now that cold start is sorted, the next issue is that the mixture during WOT is too rich (10.5afr compared to original 11.5afr) and during idle the fuel trim has pulled back to 90%.
It's overfuelling, perhaps a result of the injectors being recently cleaned and rebuilt fuel lines?

So I retuned the injector multiplier & latency settings in Nistune till the AFR is now closer to the original map.

 

[pollyp]

Purchased a standard 82C thermostat from the local parts store to replace the 92C unit and stop my coolant from boiling on trackdays.

Put it in boiling water to verify it opens closes at 82C.



Whilst heating the pan up, it takes a slight delay for the 82C heat to reach the cold wax inside through the copper jacket.
Once the surrounding water reached 95C you could see the valve rapidly open up as the wax inside had just gone above 82C.
During the cool down the valve begins to close from 95C and fully closes at 83C.

 

[pollyp]

removed the 92C unit

cleaned the housing and fitted the 82C thermostat

 

[Daniel_]

I'd save the 92*C stat for MOT, you can achieve slightly better emissions with a hotter running engine.

Any reason why you are shooting for 11.5 AFR under boost? Have you tried aiming for 12.0?

 

[pollyp]

I'd save the 92*C stat for MOT, you can achieve slightly better emissions with a hotter running engine.

Any reason why you are shooting for 11.5 AFR under boost? Have you tried aiming for 12.0?

noted, but even at 92C for last years MOT it barely passes emissions cos of all the oil burning past the rings and old turbo.
nowadays with a fixed turbo it maybe different.

11.5afr at WOT was what she ran when it was remapped & proven to be stable and it's best to maintain that for safe running, especially on track.

 

[pollyp]

the bumpers are looking abit battered so it's time to respray em before japshow

removed the broken mesh

few hours of sanding it all over in the rain

 

[pollyp]

middle of cross member has developed a crack from the stress of the central beam. It ain't priority and cba to weld it at the moment

painting the two bumpers in the garage was a PITA with little room and poor lighting

whilst laquering, the damn halfords can kept spitting blobs at the bumper and caused this arghh

hot glue a new mesh onto the front bumper

the toe hook was sitting crooked which affects the bumper alignment, due to this snapped bolt since I brought the car. plus the copy-part crossmember doesn't have a nut for under the toe hook.

tried welding a nut onto it but the thread has truley rounded off and just spinning

no other option but to cut a section off the crossmember to rebuild. this has turned from a 10min fitting bumper - into a 6hr welding job.

made a new piece with captive nuts

also made some m10 bolts I didn't have

was abit tricky welding onto the thin swiss cheese crossmember, ain't pretty but it'll hold

for the first time, she actually has a fully secure toe hook

and it sits flat with the bumper

quickly reassembled in few mins

 

[pollyp]

from far away it ain't too bad.

went out to practice some launches for santapod. jeez my rear disc handbrake is so weak, they barely able hold the car still when I'm doing a burnout.
hmm nothing like the smell of burning rubber with a cloud of tyres, oil & rich soot behind

 

[pollyp]

I was washing the car and wanted to remove this tyre mark on the rim from recently running over a curb during a bad mood.
wd40 didn't budge it, so curiously tried halfords cutting compound and it worked so well to reveal the white paint.
ah hang on, I wonder if it would work on removing all this cooked brake dust from prematurely bedding my brakes on a fresh powdercoat and ruining it more with carb cleaner?
to my surprise it worked like a magic eraser

oh right, lets take all the wheels off

here's the baked dust and solvent ruined alloys

the compound is like rough toothpaste but the process is SOO slow and labour intensive. I had to rub every contour of the wheels as hard as I can with my poor fingers n thumbs till they're sore but can see the dirt slowly rub away to reveal the luvely pure white clean paint

got abit carried away, the compound works brilliantly at polishing the cooked carbon off the stainless tail pipe, I've even wirebrushed and polished the inside of the pipe!
heck I've never seen the pipe soo shiney

recreating my profile pic with a shiney kasandra.
damn she's sexy

well, polishing inside the tail pipe won't work for long cos it immediately get spattered with black sooty watery exhaust

all clean, packed & ready for japshow tomorrow

 

[Huggy444]

See you tomorrow afternoon!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

 

[pollyp]

See you tomorrow afternoon!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

look forward to it alex.
no matter the rain or shine, tis gonna be cool weekend

 

[Love_Whiskey]

Awesome, see you tomorrow


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[pollyp]

Will do

 

[pollyp]

Japshow 2016

so with a clean car and overcast day I set off down towards Santapod and few minutes later on the motorway it rained heavily. well that's all the polishing effort wasted

arrived in Santapod at 2pm after the rain has passed, drove around the camping fields wonder where on earth are they? found everyone right at the back end of the field.
quite afew micras this year and all arranged in a C-circle like fight club

said hi to familiar and new members, gave Abi her bday present, setup tent and unpacked car.
now that it's getting drier, I went to register at the santapod HQ with alex & edward & ben and began to join the long queue.

me & alex tried to stay side by side, pointing to marshals we're racing together.
we eventually got to start together.

for the first run, all the dampers were full hard to reduce weight transfer and keep weight forward, tyres were 2.2/3.0bar front/rear, fuel was 15%



warmed up the tyres in the burnout, held revs at 4k and dumped the clutch. revved too much into my peak torque band and had too much wheelspin so had to back off to regain traction which really slowed my launch.

RT: 0.6055s
60ft: 2.3427
330ft: 6.3441
1/8 ET: 9.7142s
1/8 MPH: 72.98
ET: 15.1237 @ 89.27mph

this was a nice improvement over my very first attempt at 2011 of 15.2s with a boot full of heavy tools.
looking at trackside footage, alexs 1.4L rally k11 was doing nicely keeping up with me down the strip

for the second run I softened the front dampers by 5 clicks to allow the wheels to rebound and maintain traction.

before our turn, the Fireforce 5 Jet funny car went first. what an awesome machine to witness up close for the first time from behind at the pit line.

hear the engine spool up which is always awesome
I grabbed my ear plugs cos I know this'll be LOUD.
jet was at idle and sounded like a normal jet liner which is fine. but then he warmed up the afterburner with a spit of flaming fuel and BOOOOM! OMG I never expected the intense shockwave from the fuel exploding in the jet pipe to shake the floor and punch my chest!

it was insane feeling the explosive shockwave repeatedly. then the rpm rises along with tension. now when he engages the afterburner to nudge the car forward to the start it goes from boomy to "Screaming Ripping the surrounding air apart"

3..2..1..whooosh! an orange diamond shockwave flames behind the car and the afterburner noise was surprisingly smoother than when it was idling, like a very loud blow torch.
it was hilariously awesome



resumed my second run against a turquoise nova. marshall pointed me to the right of the burnout stage prob cos I have normal tyres and I wanted to do a dry burnout on the clean tarmac.
launched with abit less rpm but had a more stuttery skipping.



slightly better reaction and I actually went into the high 14 times

RT: 0.5533
60ft: 2.2842
330ft: 6.2019
1/8 ET: 9.5158s
1/8 MPH: 75.18
ET: 14.8315 @ 89.97mph

that was the last run till it shut at 8.
the next morning, very early and slightly drizzly/overcast we headed over to the stand and parked next to alex. Abi & Jonny doing a gr8 job organising it all.
wiped kasandra clean to be abit more presentable.

went to get registered on the strip with few more members and queued up.

for the third run on a sunday morning I reduced dampers 10clicks from hard and front tyres down to 2bars to help traction and skipping, fuel down to 10%.
rather than burnout on the messy damp patch, I read about going around the patch and do a dry burnout on normal tyres without contaminating them. the marshall didn't like that n told me off, woops



launched at 3k and it's alot better. revs dip abit and keeping it out of boost & torque band so the tyres maintain traction with minimal spin then the boost kicks in and shift up.
amazingly did my fastest time of 14.8278s

RT: 0.4424
60ft: 2.1898
330ft: 6.1467
1/8 ET: 9.4840s
1/8 MPH: 74.04
ET: 14.8278 @ 90.70mph

the MSC stand was jam packed full.

 

[pollyp]

it was getting close to 11am for the handlling track course to begin soon some & alex went over to the action arena abit early to register. dampers full hard and pumped front tyres to max 3bars.

the slalom layout was vaguely similar to the one I did back in 2011 at the same spot so had afew runs getting better. doing the 360 with a very weak disc handbrake was very tricky. kasandra screaming away in 1st gear as I hold onto the wheel firmly



that was tons of fun.
the second round pushing abit more.



we knew who the winner was but the big rain cloud soon come down so we didn't get to announce the runners up.

I went to fill up the tank and back at the stand after the rain, most ppl were thinking of leaving. said goodbyes and I line up for a final run down the strip.
I was up against this red mitsubishi with a nice blond lass



the heavy fuel really slowed the car back down to 14.8s

RT: 0.5743
60ft: 2.2544
330ft: 6.1751
1/8 ET: 9.5234s
1/8 MPH: 73.45
ET: 14.9597 @ 89.09mph

grabbed my time slips and packed the tent ready to pop over to andy h701 then back home. a nice weekend

 

[Low Rider]

Would have been interesting to let the fronts down more to ~15psi on a final run to see if there was any more in the 60ft time.

 

[Huggy444]

I was running at 22 psi and Paul seemed bemused... Told him to run lower pressures!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

 

[Low Rider]

I was running at 22 psi and Paul seemed bemused... Told him to run lower pressures!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

I'm on R888R, so I'm running anywhere from 1.8-2.0bar for the road.

 

[pollyp]

Would have been interesting to let the fronts down more to ~15psi on a final run to see if there was any more in the 60ft time.

aye running the soft walled T1R at lower pressures to give more compliance during launch and low fuel weight really helped. next time at japshow final I'll try lower pressures.

 

[pollyp]

I was running at 22 psi and Paul seemed bemused... Told him to run lower pressures!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

h701 also runs about 1.5 - 2 bars too.
I had to pump mine to max 3 bars to stop em folding under, understeer and the shoulders wear more as though it's underinflated, although mine is prob abit heavier than urs or andys.

 

[pollyp]

on sunday night after japshow, I drove over to andyh701 on the way home for a visit and check out his k11 & bmw.

andy showed his beemer. the throttle was unusually very very stiff n sluggish/sticking.
I noticed the outer cable was very floppy soft, prone to jamming, and it's routed in a very tight radius around the engine, which I believe is causing the resistive jamming.
so we rerouted the cable in a much more gentle smoother path and this removed almost all of the resistance for a better throttle response (although not quite as silky light as mine).

I got to drive it around, it definately feels and appears like a big heavier car. with ultra low profile tyres n suspension I feel tons of road rumble through the seat n steering but the dynamically through corners it feels weighty & stable/planted and the exhaust is typical bmw raspy but we both agreed that it's wayy too insulated that we can't hear the engine (only hear it with windows opwn) which makes it hard to judge rpm for gear shifts and speed.
gear knob was very short & notchy and clutch is light & bitey, throttle is abit like a modern laggy drive by wire. but just need time to get used to it.

the micra is a gold/silver facelift SE with afew luxury features n chromey trim and aircon. uses OBD2 plug so I can't connect my laptop to it for diagnostics. battery was really dying failing to hold any charge so had to jump start.
engine starts fine and no major issues. pressed aircon button with the blue light but I notice the pump clutch wasn't engaging.

it took us all night & morning trying to figure out why power ain't getting to the pump clutch or if it's a short?
the switch was working, fuse was intact, relay was fine, relay socket had 12v supply, and the wire from relay to pump clutch was intact.

figured the relay circuit also checks through a "dual gas pressure" switch (to check aircon actually has gas pressure) before powering the pump.
the switch ain't closed (no pressure). check aircon valve, yup no gas. shorted the dual gas switch connector and now the aircon pump clutch engages
so it's just simply out of gas

went for a test drive. at low speed she drives like any normal 1.3L with a torquey low/mid end but oddly has a flat spot above 3/4 throttle and runs abit out of poof near top end.
would've expected abit more from a 1.4 coilpack compared to a 1.3L dizzy.
suspension is normal boat-like but what I really like is the rapid short PAS steering rack, similar to max plesters march G#. If I can swap this rack into mine it'll be brilliant.

but back home we found the rad cap wasn't fully on, rad was dry and gauge was HOT. oops, quickly poured water back in but I think the HG fire ring is beginning to go cos it's constantly foaming the coolant and revving the engine spits it out. she'll need a new HG.

before leaving home, andy needed me to CAD some gaskets up and as a surprise reward for helping him, he gave me his new untouched mini-lathe since I've always wanted one, he needed space.
thank you so much andyH701 xoxo

 

[pollyp]

Rebuild new Mini-Lathe

so here's the new Amadeal CJ18A mini lathe I got from andy. weighs almost like a bare cg13de block.

comes with extra cogs, tools and jaws.

been reading up on these mini lathes which are probably made in china with afew quality & assembly issues to watch out for.
so before even starting the machine, lets assess and fix any issues first.

took the cover off and look at this speed sensor cable dangling so close to the cogs :/

one of the cover bolt holes too large, needs a washer

the controller PCB & wires are separated from the spinning lead-screw rod by this thin plastic, ain't gonna last long till it shorts out something

control panel off and there's a slight bird-nest of wiring that could foul the lead screw rod, needs organising

separate earth wires screwed onto rusty metal

removed speed sensor

all that rust inside the barrel needs clearing

gearing for the lead screw

removed idler cog

here's the sprung gear selector bracket for switching the direction of the lead-screw

remove the cover for the drive pulley

spinning the belt few times, u can see how misaligned the two belt pulleys are

removed lead screw

and the feeder mount

the chuck

motor

tool holder assembly needs a good degreasing

the solid head cast block

high/low gear selector

and the bare backbone rail of the lathe

 

[pollyp]

Reassemble mini lathe

greased the high/low gear selector

fit & carefully aligned the motor & drive belt

the drive belts are too close to the casing

so had to grind some metal out to clear the belts

here's inside the chuck, looks like a differential

reoiled the stiff idler cog

assembled the rear end

rebuilt the tool holder jig

cleaned the feeder wheel

this lead-screw thread rod was a PITA. the bushings are so toleranced that the slight misalignment between the two mounting points on the chassis would jam the rod.

I had to wedge a layer of tin foil to allow the rod to spin freely

unhooked the controllers birds nest

and reorganised it neater

made a new separator plate from card

the lead screw was soo close to the controller that I had to trim a corner of this relay to have enough clearance

mechanisms all sorted

and running nice n smooth

got some cutting bits from machine mart and tested on some Alu rod.
it works nicely. needs afew tweaks and ain't perfect or stiff like this big industrial machines I used at uni but it's fine as a small craft lathe

 

[h701micra]

You sir are more than welcome I've never seen anyone so excited to receive something

It's in safe hands I know that much just from the above, glad you checked out that wiring :O

There's a cutting tool here for it too

 

[pollyp]

You sir are more than welcome I've never seen anyone so excited to receive something

It's in safe hands I know that much just from the above, glad you checked out that wiring :O

There's a cutting tool here for it too

I brought a tool from machinemart but its a tiny 8mm wide x high bit, which imo too small and doesn't cut well.
is that spare cutting tool bout 11mm high and 15mm wide to fit into the holder better?

 

[pollyp]

realised that once I get this lathe all fine tuned cutting well & stable, I could make a thin sleeve to go inbetween the sloppy LSD hole and the driveshaft to finally stop it wobbling about (provided the gap ain't wafer thin).

 

[h701micra]

It's a smaller bit so it'll be the same. I sold all my other tooling with my old lathe

 

[pollyp]

It's a smaller bit so it'll be the same. I sold all my other tooling with my old lathe

ok not a worry. I'm gonna buy a quick-release holder cos I read the standard lantern-style holder ain't that rigid or any good for cutting without stuttering/resonating, especially parting-off. setting up & swapping individual tools with the quick release will be much more consistant n easier too.

 

[h701micra]

ok not a worry. I'm gonna buy a quick-release holder cos I read the standard lantern-style holder ain't that rigid or any good for cutting without stuttering/resonating, especially parting-off. setting up & swapping individual tools with the quick release will be much more consistant n easier too.

If it stutters or resonates it'll not be the tool post itself.
That'll be machine speed/cutting tool/material issues

A tool post is as reliable as whoever tightened it down. I use a standard tool post, never anything else. It's a square, so mount the tools appropriately and rotate it where necessary. If the standard tool post was no good for cutting then all the high time lathe manufacturers are putting the wrong gear on their machines all this time. Stop reading the opinions of the Internet

 

[pollyp]

Securing the tool at the right angle n position and keeping it sharp made a difference. Needs a lot of tuning refining to get it right.

 

[h701micra]

Securing the tool at the right angle n position and keeping it sharp made a difference. Needs a lot of tuning refining to get it right.

Those small red tools aren't the greatest quality they're made for smaller lathes than this one hence the shimming required. The machine will only be as accurate as you set it up.

It won't take long to dull it but like a drill bit they must be sharpened correctly

 

[pollyp]

Those small red tools aren't the greatest quality they're made for smaller lathes than this one hence the shimming required. The machine will only be as accurate as you set it up.

It won't take long to dull it but like a drill bit they must be sharpened correctly

yeah they're just some carbide tips brazed onto some cheap soft steel.

I brought this quick change so I can easily set the correct tool height rather than fiddling with shims

and brought this set of index carbide tipped tools...but now found out that these tools are actually kinda blunt and only for very high speed, aggressive removal of hard material and not ideal for fine smooth finishes like HSS.

so wondering if I should just return em for HSS or try it & keep for later?

my first and difficult lathing task would be to make a thin 60mm dia lining between the driveshaft and loose LSD casing bore.
you think it should be made out of Brass or Alu?

 

[frank]

the finish and removal rate will come from the shape of the tip tho paul, just fashion the cutting edge with a grinder

 

[h701micra]

Brass Paul
Those aren't much good for your needs, I'd return them.

 

[pollyp]

the finish and removal rate will come from the shape of the tip tho paul, just fashion the cutting edge with a grinder

you're right there frank as I found out later on...

 

[pollyp]

Brass Paul
Those aren't much good for your needs, I'd return them.

ah bumma, yet another few quid posting em back

 

[pollyp]

here's the blue welding mask andy gave me with adjustable tint

clean it all up

at the lightest setting, it has the same level of tint as my static one but the dial can further darken it. what I'm after is actually a lighter tint so that I can see the surrounding area. see what it's like next time I weld.

next thing to fix is my bench grinder where the wheels have never sat flush and wobble/vibrate

disassembled

lathed a slight amount off so I can slip a thick straight washer over it to clamp the wheel flush

assembled and it still wobbles but abit less. meh it'll do

how here's the weak parting tool that snapped off. I was curious what if I just grinded the soft steel into a sharp tip?

afew mins of basic grinding later and to my surprise the sharp tip cuts into the Alu rod with ease and a smooth finish

noticed the carbide tipped tool is rounded so I grinded the tip till it's pointy sharp and again it lathed so much better

so lesson of the day is to grind my tips till they're very pointy for a decent cut

 

[frank]

have you tried dressing the grinding wheels paul ?

 

[pollyp]

have you tried dressing the grinding wheels paul ?

yes I tried using the dresser, which evened out the surface BUT cos it's out of roundness it all vibrates soo much and simply gets worse.
unless I put the grinding wheel on a sturdy base like a lathe to get it round & balanced?