Movie - The Martian

[Rednaxs60]

Have lots of time to ponder the wonders of the universe and think of useless trivia. I thought of some parallels with owning these older Goldwings while watching this movie. Watney has to address issues when and as the issues arise. At the end of the film and he is starting his lecture to the new recruits, he mentions that when out there and all hell breaks loose, you can either resign yourself to the inevitable or you can solve the issues one at a time and hopefully you'll come back home. This is similar to our love/hate relationship with these older Goldwings, or any older bike. Problems crop up and we must address each individually, then move on to the next, or cut our losses and move on to a different venue or motorcycle. When all is said and done, with everything taken care of, we get to ride these bikes until the next time a problem arises - hopefully a long time coming. Too much time on my hands. :mischief: :mischief:

 

[Two85s]

If the weather would warm up I would have less time on my hands and more time on the bike!

 

[mcgovern61]

I think that because they are bikes and we love to ride, we often forget that they are mostly now considered antiques (1976 GL1000 through 1985 GL1200).

According the Antique Motorcycle Club of America, an antique motorcycle is one that is 35 years or older. This is the only “true” official designation in the U.S., but because some states allow motorcycles to be registered or licensed as antiques after just 20 years, sometimes the definition becomes unclear.

Sometimes we expect that these poor old pieces of machinery have just been put on the road recently. The reality is, they are antiques and need the mechanical care that an antique deserves. Sure they can be ridden and mostly ridden right across the country due to the Engineering and construction by Honda. I'm pretty sure Honda never meant for these bikes to last this long anymore than Christ Craft expected my 1956 boat to still be in the water running with the original engine 64 years later.

 

[desertrefugee]

An old machine is no less a machine than one that was manufactured last week. Designed well and in good working order, it requires no special treatment other than just reasonable care and respectful operation. Stay within its originally designed operating parameters and you will be fine. In other words, ride it like you stole it. Forget its age. I do. Each and every finished motorcycle in my stable gets ridden with no thought whatsoever to its age. I don’t beat on them, nor do I baby them.

Dale Walksler the “Wheels Through Time” owner once said something to the effect of “...these machines don’t know how long they’ve been asleep. They just wake up and run like it was yesterday they were shut down.”

 

[DaveKamp]

I just completed a thread on an old engine site where a feller had an electric light plant... one that was manufactured STARTING in the 1920's, up until the start of WW2... fully automatic, meaning, you flipped a lightswitch on, and the engine started... shut the switch off, and the engine stopped...

Well, after almost a hundred years of existance, one of the relay coils had failed... crispy (more from age than electricity) varnish insulation on copper finally broke down and would no longer pull the relay in reliably. No replacements have been made for at least 60 years now, so he sent it to me, I reverse-engineered it, and manufactured a new one... under the philosophy that Men made it then, I can make it now... the only difference is that I didn't have any drawing, no data to go on- I did it totally by measuring the core's cross section, and the wire used, and estimating based on those, how many turns of wire had to go on the form, to be the same. I THINK I got it right.

It should arrive on his doorstep thursday... we'll find out soon enough. Send me some nice weather, i gotta pull that clutch slave cylinder for a refreshing, and change the plugs, see if I can get #1 to stop dropping at idle...

 

[Rednaxs60]

Good job on the relay rebuild. We will try things to keep the older machinery operating. People in countries that are not as fortunate as ours do so as well. Starting to be a lost art.

 

[DaveKamp]

USPS actually delivered a day ahead of time. Allen sent me a text with video of the machine running, and the relay is working flawlessly!

Given the choice of being lucky, or being good, I'll take lucky ANY day!!!!

 

[Rednaxs60]

Being lucky was the end result, the relay worked. Being good was getting it to the point where you were lucky!

 

[dan filipi]

I hate that word. Luck had nothing to do with it. Skill and knowledge made it happen.

 

[DaveKamp]

There's always skill and experience, but it's like being a sniper.

I'm a good shot... while my eyesight isn't what it was 15 years ago, looking a mile downrange and identifying a target through quality optics is still within my grasp. What I used to do calculations in my head, and a slide-rule and lookup tables, are now done by guys with fancy handheld computers... and what we used to do meticulously with hand measurements and mechanical balances, are now done by machines that double-check and laser-coordinate measure. Figuring trajectory, compensate for velocity loss with drag, add in humidity, and spin rate, then compound in axial drift due to a variety of factors, and place that round on a pie-pan takes lots of skill, and even with all that, there's still a host of other factors that one simply CANNOT measure or predict, such that it will assure hitting that target. The probabilities still have a substantial strangle-hold on first time success.

Of course, if I see it splash, no matter WHAT the math did to get me close, I'm pretty good at beaning the pan by observation and taking a second shot.

Winding that coil was basically the same situation- I had lots of unknown variables, and I attempted to account for as many as I could... and it just happened that when I was all done, it DID work.

Which could be explained by sheer happenenestance... or that the design parameters, way back then, were SO forgiving, that the performance envelope was so wide... that I was shooting at a pie-pan the size of the AstroDome, that even if I was WAY off, it'd still work.

And the latter is probably much more true than the former. None the less, I hit it on my very first, and rather poorly-educated-guess try.

 

[Ansimp]

DaveKamp » Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:18 am[/url]":2sc3x34p]
USPS actually delivered a day ahead of time. Allen sent me a text with video of the machine running, and the relay is working flawlessly!

Given the choice of being lucky, or being good, I'll take lucky ANY day!!!!

I use that quote with “luck or skill” when riding, skill is a necessity for safe riding but luck is even better. I still have access to an old school rewinder who now works from home (suburban block :smilie_happy: ), he specialises in small stators and solenoids. :good: