Honda 420

As part of the rebuild on this 420 I am going through the transmission.  The person that I bought the donor engine from mentioned that it slipped out of gear occasionally.  When I inspected the gears I found a few dogs that had the corners wore down.

When you grind the "gears" in a transmission you are not really grinding gears.  The gears are always meshed together, the grinding comes from the shift dogs.  The red arrow in the above photo points to the rounded off corner of one of these dogs.  As you shift the gears slides on the shaft and the dogs engage on matching bumps on the second gear.  You cannot see them, but the yellow arrow points too them.  Rough use can cause the corners to wear down and eventually they will not stay together.

There are a lot of pieces to keep track of inside the transmission.  I put these stands together to help me keep all the gears, spacers, and what not in order as I took them off the shafts.  You can see in this photo that some of the gears have a light coating of rust on them.  Those are the gears that I took from another machine to replace the ones with worn shift dogs.

Like most ATVs and motorcycles the engine and transmission are all one unit.  This photo shows the case just before I put it back together. 

To the left of the green line is the engine stuff, crankshaft and balancer/camshaft.  To the right is the transmission, forward gears, reverse gear, and shift drum.  It all uses the same oil for lubrication and cooling.

Honda 420 Rancher - Update

This is an update on a project that has been in the works for a while.  You can see the start of it here and here.

Basically I am taking two broken machines and making one good one out of the pair.  Back in December I took all the old stuff apart and figured out what new parts I had to order.  I needed a new piston, seals and gaskets, and a few other small items.  My work shop is very small so I only have room for one project at a time.  While I was waiting for the new parts to arrive (normally a couple weeks from one of the places in the lower 48), I put all the old stuff in tubs and put them in my storage shed.

These two tubs have all the parts needed to put together a complete engine. 

It is a little off topic, but I would like to mention how great Rubber Maid brand tubs are.  I use a lot of tubs for storage and transporting things.  They make it easy to store a lot of small parts on shelves, they are relatively waterproof, and they work great for shipping awkward or heavy things through the mail.  Over the years I have used other brands, but they all seem to end up cracking eventually.  Rubber Maid makes  the toughest of the inexpensive consumer type containers. 

Here is everything all spread out.  I hope I can remember how it all goes together.

CV Boot Replacement

The Yamaha Grizzly that I have in the shop also has a couple of CV shaft boots that are ripped.  This is an important thing to fix as soon as possible.  If you operate a vehicle with ripped or torn CV boots the grease can get washed out and dirt can get in, this will quickly wear out an expensive CV joint.

Replacing a CV boot is a simple job.  Here are all the parts and pieces laid out on the work bench.  The grease in a CV joint is always messy, this is one of the jobs where I wear gloves.  I did not take any photos of taking the joint apart (mostly because I was covered in grease), but it is the opposite of putting it together.

First slide the clamp and boot on the shaft.

Slide the next pieces on the shaft.  They could be held on with a spring clip or a snap ring like this one.  When installing a snap ring take a close look at it before putting it on.  One surface has square edges and the other surface will have slightly rounded edges, this is a result of the way that they are manufactured.  You should always install them with the square edge in the direction of the thrust.

The next step is to put the balls in place and pack everything with grease.  When you buy new boots they normally come with the correct grease to put inside.

This photo shows the clamp being placed on the boot.  The clamps come in many different styles.  This one is easy to put on, you simply push the end down to tighten it and then bend the tabs over to hold it in place.  When installing the clamp you should put it on in the direction that would be less likely for the end to snag on something when it is spinning.

Here is the completed clamp with the tabs bent over.  Once you have the joint back together you should check it to make sure that it plunges in and out properly.  As the suspension goes up and down the axle length changes and that change is taken up in the CV joint.

Now the axle is ready to be installed in the vehicle.

Yamaha Grizzly 700

I have a 2008 Yamaha Grizzly 700 in the shop today.  This machine was in a minor collision and the front suspension was damaged.  The lower A-arm was bent and eventually broke after driving on it for a while.

This photo shows the broken A-arm.  The lower red arrow points to the break in the A-arm.  The upper arrow points to a cracked CV boot.  While I have the machine in the shop I am going to change the cracked boots and change the wheel bearings also.

C.O. 

Diaper Genie

Some of the work that I do is for the regional Headstart preschool program.  I do maintenance on the building in our village and a few other villages in the area.  This work involves plumbing, heating and ventilation, painting, and anything else that might come up. 

The Headstart program is now expanding to include very young children and infants. Many of these younger children wear diapers.   If you are going to have ten kids all in diapers you need a good system for changing them.  

These first two photos show the internal parts of a Diaper Genie.  It is a fancy garbage can made to hold dirty diapers.  Every time you step on the pedal the top opens up and exposes the jaws inside.  Toss the diaper inside and take your foot off the pedal.  The jaws squeeze the diaper into the can and the lid closes up.  This keeps the diapers in a compact sealed up bundle that is easy to dispose of and keeps the smell inside.

This brand new Diaper Genie did not work.  There was a problem with the way that the springs and latch mechanism were assembled.  In the rest of the world you would probably return it to where it was purchased, but that is difficult to do here, the diaper genie store is several airplane flights away.  So I took it apart and figured out how to make it work.

Here is the complete diaper changing station, ready for use.  I'm glad that I just maintain the facilities and don't have to change all those diapers.