Flushing The Radiator

While preparing to wire in dual electric fans on a switch, I knew I needed to give the cooling system a clean bill of health.  I mean, what's an evening compared to peace of mind?  (Or is it supposed to be a piece of mind because I may have lost it?)

I slipped by the big box home improvement store, bought two 6-foot garden hoses, two 1-1/4" PVC reducers (to 1/2" female pipe thread), three short  1/2" pipes (2" in length, I think), one PVC ball valve, and two garden hose adapters (one male and one female, both with a female 1/2" pipe thread on the other end).

 I screwed it all together, and had a solid system, ready to flush the radiator.  I cracked the thermostat housing, and... realized a previous engine owner had mixed orange and green antifreeze (I'd filled with water at one point, but never added antifreeze).  Orange and green antifreeze do NOT mix well!

Here's the thermostat.

I think it's pretty safe to say, don't mix orange and green antifreeze.  Any way, it took some time to get all of that cleaned out, including removing the thermostat (so I can flush the engine side, of course - if that's still in there, it won't open, and you won't get any flush).  Then, it was time to flush the system.  I started with the radiator side, and put the ball valve host between the house garden hose connection and the top of the radiator (connected from the engine side), and the other hose at the other end, with the hose in a bucket.

Turn on the house connection, then turn on the ball value, and it pushed water through.  Initially, it came out a thick-ish (it wasn't really thick - it was still very much liquid), but definitely not transparent.

I emptied one bucket, filled the next, and the next one came out a little cleaner.

I switched sides to flush from the other direction (still on the radiator), and ran two more buckets, until I was satisfied with clear water.

I disconnected my lines from the radiator hosts and re-attached them to the engine, then took off the radiator side in order to flush the engine.  Again, I did this from both ends, flushing coolant from both directions.

Again, repeating until I had clear water.

Once I was satisfied that water was clear from both directions, I stopped.

I detached from from the hoses, put a new thermostat (95-degree) with switch and sensor threaded holes, and now I'm ready to run this engine once I get the fuel pump in.

Hammo Can Antenna

I needed a better way to store my Hammo Can antenna.  I ran to the local hardware store and found some 1-1/2" PVC schedule 40 pipe, because that's larger than the diameter of the antenna base.  I cut a 48" length of the pipe.

Next, I glued up some fittings so that I could thread things on.  I'm going all-external to keep the 1.5" interior dimension to fit the antenna.

After that, I needed to machine some pieces that I could set inside those end caps.  I took some UHMW round, bored it through 0.800" (to clear a male PL-259 thread, which I had put a male-to-male connector in the bottom of the antenna).  I then bored out only 1.25" deep to a 1.038" inside diameter (to grip the antenna's straight knurling).  The outside was turned down to 1.480" (a slightly slip-fit for the inside of the pipe end).

With the part parted from the rest of the stock, and inserted into the pipe, I cross drilled with a 13/64" (a clearance drill size for a 5mm screw) both the outside pipe and the part itself. 

I used the hole in the part to line it up with a drill bit, clamp a vise around it to hold it securely, then drilled the part itself for a threaded insert with the size specific for my inserts (letter "J").  I installed one heat-set insert, and bolted the part in place.  Since this is my first of four holes, I added a witness mark via sharpie so that I knew which hole went where.

The part was chucked back up into the lathe to turn it round again just on that surface, and then re-installed to the pipe with one screw.  It was then taken back to the drill press to pop the three remaining holes with the 13/64" drill bit.  The same technique was used to then clamp on the 13/64", switch to the "J" drill bit, and add clearance for the inserts.  Then, install the last three inserts, and turned back down to dimension on that insert band on the lathe again.

Next up, I heated the part up until I could force the antenna/pl-259 adapter into the part, and locked it down with a washer.  Back into the pipe went the part/antenna.

This means I can unthread this from a pipe, flip it around, and thread it back into the pipe, and I have an outside antenna that can be staked to the ground via the pipe, or return it internally to the pipe to protect it in storage.
 

Now I have a functional storage for the antenna that also doubles as a riser!