Soggy Week....

 We got .77" of rain today, which brings us to 1.5" for the month so far. Had a hail storm go through and it dumped enough small hail to cover the yard and street. Pretty soft hail, so no damage, but Luna didn't know what to make of it. I opened the door to let her out, and when se saw the hail bouncing off the patio she recoiled, jumped back a couple of feet, and gave me a "You're kidding, right?" look.

So, it's been a bit too cold and too humid to do much in the garage besides organize things and clean up the area. Going to be in the 70's~80's over the weekend, so I'll be able to jump back in on things like removing the steering rack, and the rusty bits on the left front corner of the car.

Keep dry, and keep your head on a swivel!

Happy May Day, and a Supra Safari

 As opposed to "Mayday", which usually isn't a happy day.....

Weather's been pretty nice, so I'm doing my Day Shift activities outside, and then go on Second Shift for my projects. Day Shift is mostly yard work and general chores / clean-up things, and being with the grandsons when they're here, usually two days a week.

Still working on the Fisher, and it's going to be hand-to-hand once I really get back into it. I checked for stray bits of wire causing a short, carefully checked the back of the board for solder shorts, and pulled the heatsinks off the four transistors to verify they were properly oriented.

No joy

So now I have to start disconnecting things from the Power Amplifier stage to see which supply is drawing all the current. Stay tuned.....Details to follow.....Film at eleven.

On to more enjoyable things, like an old car.

First off, I'd noticed that the power steering fluid I put in when I installed the new hoses 2,000 miles ago (Yes, I flushed the system until it ran clear) was already getting a distinct shade of brown indicating it, or something, was breaking down and putting trash in the fluid. The right side steering rack boot was ripped when I bought the car, and the rack was dripping oil. I put a new boot on it when I rebuilt the suspension, but now I see the left side boot is ripped. It's dry, but but it only a matter of time before the seals go out on this side.

SO......A "Re-manufactured" power steering rack assembly (bought it 11 years ago!), new power steering pump, upgraded power steering fluid cooler, new outer tie rod ends, and new urethane bushings are going to be installed.

 The 40 year old OEM rubber bushings are pretty tired, and starting to squeeze out of their mounting brackets, so replacing them will make the steering more precise.

And the obscenely dirty, rank, gross, grody-beyond-the-max and possibly hazardous, carpet is OUT of the car!

In the Summer of 1998 (I found the receipt), the master cylinder for the clutch blew the seal out, and dumped about eight ounces of brake fluid inside the car, soaking the carpet. Since the seal rarely fails all at once, it was leaking inside for quite a while. I can imagine the Original Owner going bonkers adding brake fluid to reservoir constantly, and never seeing a drop under the car! Now it's bad enough to have a spill like this, but you clean it up as quick as you can. In this case, it looks like the carpet, the carpet backing, and the sound deadening mat on on the floor pan marinated in brake fluid for 27 years. And they all bonded together. The only way I can get the backing off the mat is to vigorously wire brush it.

This is after about 45 minutes of brushing it.

Still have more crud to get out of there, but it's coming along. I'm concerned about the mat itself, as it's butyl rubber, and may have to be scraped out and replaced. If it has to come out, I'll replace it with something like "Dynamat".

The passenger side isn't as bad, as all of the brake fluid dumped into the driver's footwell, but it's still going to take a bunch of brushing. All the grey stuff next to the transmission tunnel is what has to come out.

 

And we have a new addition to the fleet.

 The car on the right is the one I bought for myself a couple of years ago. I ran that one while grandson #1 drove my older ARRMA "Senton" short-course truck. He liked mine so much that I bought him the "little brother" of mine. It has a smaller motor and battery, but still goes like stink, and runs beautifully.

Let the games begin!

 

 

 

 

New Workbench

 

Yes, four days old, and already cluttered....

It was on sale at Home Depot with free delivery, so I went ahead and ordered one. A trip to Harbor Freight netted me a belt/disc sander, and bench grinder, and finally, a decent vise. 

The WEN drill press arrived Friday morning, and was a snap to assemble. The other drill press I had was more of a toy. It would do wood, plastic, and aluminum OK, but steel? Uh....no. It just didn't have enough torque to go through more than 1/8" of the stuff.

The belt/disc sander and bench grinder are Very Nice Things to have when fabricating, and nothing beats a wire wheel in a bench grinder for cleaning bolts.

The bench vise replaces the on I left in Long Beach like a dummy. I had the bench height adjusted where I like it, and then I put the casters on it, so now I have to lower it 2" to what I like.

And of course, a nice light over it. 

Remember the "Electrical Board" I built for the grandsons? They LOVE it!

Definitely a hit, and I hear murmurs of his cousins wanting one now....

They thought it was MAGIC when I hooked a coil I wound to the voltmeter and ran a magnet through it. 

ELECTRICITY FROM NOTHING!

They're having great fun learning new things, and getting patient, clear explanations of how it happens.

I love this picture for some reason...

 

And this is where I'm currently at.

Pulled the driver's side headlight bucket out to get at the RUST that was lurking under it. This has been completely scrubbed with a brush using my Magic Mix of Simple Green, Denatured Alcohol, water, and a good squirt of Dish Soap. 

Then I went over it again with the same mix and green Scotch-Brite. That really got it clean. I even managed to get a good portion of the really stained areas back to being white. Now I'm working on the rusty battery shelf, and I have to pull the mounting bracket for the Front Strut Rod ( a 'Lateral Locating Link' in tech terms) out of the car to sand blast. Which means I have to take the other one out, too, or the finishes won't match. Not hard to do, and it has to be done to change the front sway bar, so I'll swap out the front bar when I put it back together.

 The black shelf is the battery support, which I've already sanded and put a Rust Converter product on. The hugely rusty bracket is the one that has to come off.

And we had some really interesting clouds a couple of weeks ago.

Hope you all have a very Blessed and Joyous Easter.

Rejoice! He Is Risen!

Still Here, Busy As All Get-Out!

 I just haven't felt like posting. When I photograph and post things, it takes me away from doing things, and that can be a bit annoying....

Fed the trees and shrubs, checked (and repaired) the drip system for any damage sustained over the Winter, and got the hoses and sprinklers out and ready-to-go. If anybody wants some "Guaranteed To Germinate" Maple seeds, let me know. I've got a two gallon plastic bucket full of them!

Finally broke down and bought a decent workbench. It's a "Husky" from Home Depot. It was on sale, with free delivery. I put locking casters on all four legs so I can maneuver it around when required. It's set up, and I'm going to hang a LED shop light over it tomorrow, along with bolting down my new vise. Annnnd the new drill press is arriving Friday. Not sure if I'll bolt down the bench grinder yet. I'll wire wheel a bunch of bolts and see if it moves around any.

The Fisher RS-2010 is drawing excessive current. When I powered it up in the past, it would draw around 3 Amps at 120 VAC. Now that I've rebuilt the Power Amplifier Board it draws SIX Amps at about 25 VAC, indicating I bollixed something up, so I stepped back for a few days. I'm pretty sure I know what it is, as there was some ambiguity in getting two of the transistors in each channel properly oriented.  Not the first time I've goofed, and it won't be the last!

Work is proceeding at an accelerating pace on the Supra. I'll post some pix in the next day or two.

80* Last Week, and Snowing Tonight....

 Just gotta love Springtime in the Rockies!  

We've received a bit over an inch of rain this week, accompanied by daytime temps of 30~50*, nighttime temps in the 20~30* range, and a lot of wind.

Going to be warming up all this week, so I'll be back in the garage.

Results of the Fisher Smoke Test are negative; NO smoke was released!

More to come....

The Fisher Saga Pre-Test Tales

 The Last Transistor, and associated "extra" components, has been replaced. I verified my work with a checklist, and it's very close to being powered up. I have some tidying up to do, along with cleaning the soldering flux off the back of the PA Board, and I'll do that tomorrow with fresh eyes.

And I finally bought a decent workbench for the garage. Now I have a place to mount a proper bench vise, belt/disc sander, bench grinder, and a drill press.

 

Stand by for pix!

Seventy-Eight Degrees!

 And for my friend SiG, 19% humidity!

 Just gorgeous today, and I'm out in the garage painting some small parts, and dropping the exhaust manifold off the Supra so I can get at some bolts located behind it. Good thing I decided to do this, as three of the seven bolts were almost "Finger Loose", and the two end ports were blowing exhaust out. The other four bolts came out very easily, and were soon to be loose. The manifold is mounted on studs screwed into the cylinder head, and "Prevailing Torque" nuts hold it to the studs. All seven studs came out, but the nuts stayed on them. I'm having a difficult time getting the nuts off the studs, and might just buy new ones, as they're still available from Toyota.

The infamous Last Transistor for the Fisher RS-2010 got here yesterday, so I'll be installing those later today. I saved these two for last as they have an "extra" transistor (NOT on the schematic diagram) just "scabbed in there", and I still have to document what number transistor it is, and exactly how it's connected.

Hope you enjoy the upcoming weekend, as March will be going out next week accompanied by rain and snow here.

 Keep your head on a swivel, as with the warmer weather coming, things might get spicy....!

The Fisher Saga...The Last Transistor Is On The Way!

 

Yow, this receiver was a gen-you-ine PITA to source the parts for. There are two transistors in each of the two Power Amplifiers. They're what's called a Complementary Pair, which means one is a PNP type, and the other is an NPN type, and their characteristics are matched to each other.  There are several part numbers for each pair, -BUT- while I could easily find one of the pair, the other one was nowhere to be found for any of the suitable parts I was searching for. I was finally able to hook up with a forum member who had purchased a large number of these when they were still available, and after contacting him he agreed to sell me TEN of each type I needed.

So I now have enough of the correct parts to finish the Power Amplifiers, and have some spares for future use.

Happy Birthday to Ms. Swan

 

 She's 40 years old this month. I go by the door tag that says she was built in March, 1985, but I've never tried to dig deeper to see when she was built in March. Toyota could most likely tell, but they're not saying.

She has an interesting story.......

I bought her and drove her home on New Year's Eve, 2012, so I've really had her about 12 years and a few months. I looked at about a dozen of them, and all of them either had a  rod knock, rust holes you could put your fist through, trashed interiors that looked like they'd held raccoon fights, really bad body work, missing parts, or all of the above.

She was owned by the original purchaser for 27 years, and mostly had the typical maintenance a Toyota gets. She came with a shoe box full of receipts, so I was able to determine when some of the parts had been replaced, but I considered it a spotty record at best.

The original owners lived in Redlands, CA which is in San Bernardino County, which is a very dry, hot area, so NO RUST! They sold her to a single Mom who bought it as a bribe for her teenage son. If he finished High School, got his Driver's License, and a job, she would have given him the car and taken care of the maintenance, insurance, and licensing. Needless to say, that didn't happen, so she sold it to the guy I bought it from.

He said he'd bought it "To Restore", but judging from the JDM Honda Civic he drove up in, I doubt it. He said he was being forced to sell it because his girlfriend squawked about having to park her brand new Accord in the street, while his two off-road trucks, his three motorcycles, his boat and trailer, and his two other Honda Civics were taking up all the parking spaces at their place. He wanted $3500 for her, and while he said he knew I'd take excellent car of the and fix it up, nut if I wouldn't pay the price, he had "Ten kids lined up who wanted to buy it and drift it".

OUCH! A fate worse than death for these cars!

So I coughed up the Benjamins, and brought her home.

It's been a fun ride!

The Fiser Saga: Power Amplifier Autopsy

 Yeah, it's been a few weeks, and a busy time it was with the gorgeous weather we've had for the last week.

And then I got clobbered with the cold/flu/whatever. Anywhoo...feeling much better.

Back to the Fisher RS-2010 Stereo Receiver I've now had almost a year. Yes, I'm embarrassed, but it turned out to be a LOT more work than I estimated. I'm now down to searching for ONE transistor, with all the rest having been sourced, and on-hand. The issue is that it's one of what's called a Complementary Pair, and while a sub for one of the two is readily available, it's compliment is not. Soooo....I have to dive into either finding a vendor with some in stock (NO eBay or Amazon....too many fake parts!), -OR- start going through the "sub-for-the-sub" routine, and find a complementary pair that's available. 

Bags of new transistors awaiting their long overdue compatriot.

It gets a bit tedious....

 

So what killed several transistors, and let the smoke out of three resistors? Who did the dirty, dastardly, despicable deed?

'Twas a shorted Zener Diode, it was.... that's what who dunnit! 

The diode in question is labeled "DO6" in this clip:

 In this application it's being used to develop a voltage which is 12 Volts less than the supply voltage, rather than developing "just" 12 Volts. They do this because the entire amplifier is isolated from "DC Ground", and floats between the +60 Volt and -60 Volt power supplies. The only transistor in this circuit connected to the chassis, is Q06. When the diode failed, it put Q04 into saturation (FULLY turned on), meaning it had only .65V drop across it, which in turn took out everybody connected to it by putting them into an over-voltage condition. A classic example of a Cascading Failure.

So that's where I'm at right now, changing transistors, and getting ready for a brief test when they're all replaced. After I verify all the voltages are back to where they should be, I'll be ready to run it at 50% power for a few hours while I monitor the temperatures to make sure nothing goes bonkers, and then run it Pedal-to-the-Metal for a couple of hours to see how it well it performs.

 

Gettin'n close, finally, to a resolution on this one.

Groan.....Got Clobbered By Something

 Been flat on my back since Monday. Aches like I've never had (even my knees hurt),  coughing, sneezing, going between sweats and chills, and all sorts of other things.

Finally got out of bed today for more than 30 minutes, and while I'm still a bit wobbly, at least I'm feeling somewhat better.