I’ve been busting it to finish up. Due to that there was no time for pictures or post. 7 days a week working after work and weekends as hard and fast as I could, while still doing my best to pay attention to the details and get everything right on this new buggy.
It finally came fully together the morning of our trip for Harlan last Thursday. I had rode for about an hour the previous day to troubleshoot a few small things, but Harlan was the shakedown run! I guess I trust my engineering ability to drive 5.5 hours for shake down.
Oh yeah I had barely any brakes, but hey low gears right?
Thursday night when we arrived the CORE crew was ready to drink some beverages and fix my junk (brakes) in the parking lot as usual. Yep, I’m the guy who shows up with no tools and in need of parking lot repairs. With the vast wheeling knowledge at that camp fire we were able to determine that my issues with bleeding the brakes come from A. The front calipers being on the wrong sides causing the bleeder screws to be on the bottom which didn’t allow the air to come out. Solution: switch the calipers and re-bleed. B. The rears were meant to be mounted on the rear of the axle and I mounted them on top of the axle. This caused the bleeder to be down as well. Solution: take of calipers, use makeshift spacers to bleed them the correct direction.
Friday was the first day of wheeling and there were no issues until just after lunch. My only half ass fix failed. In an effort to save some dough I bough an orbital through a company in Poland. The orbital works fine but uses 1/2” BSP fittings which uses dowty seal washers. I didn’t realize this until a couple days before the trip. I was told that Orings MIGHT get me by. They lasted half of a day. Luckily some folks were camping at the top of Rail Trail. I was waiting at the top with my weeping orbital. These folks were probably some of the coolest people and gave me every tool and part they could find. The best solution ended up being about 15 wraps of Teflon tape around the fittings and screwing the metal surfaces together as tight as possible. This got me through the rest of the weekend without a drop.
Many trails were ran: Lions Den, Mason Jar, All the rock gardens, etc. . And the rig was really tested out. I am blown away with how well it works with these bald Tars. It took a beat down on valve stem and didn’t come close to overheating. There’s a few things to improve on that I’ll list later. But overall I am thrilled with the new rig.
@rcalexander105 with the pics! Thank you sir.
Hey Grant is a hell of a welder, he may come help you if needed? 
Glad to hear it man!
