Episode 20 of Project Binky is up on YouTube. This is the saga of Bad Obsession Motorsport and its quest to turn an old Mini into a Celica All-Trac powered rally beast. As you might imagine, this is a journey fraught with fabrication peril. Thankfully the Bad Obsession team are amazing in this space. From small items you’d never think of (the headlight wire placeholder tab for when the front clip is open or off) to large scale changes requiring many weeks of measuring, cutting, and tea. The latest episode provides an update on some wiring placement, but it also features an ingenious solution to a rather difficult problem.
The alternator needs to charge up the battery and also run the AC system. But the placement of pulleys on the back of the engine make for a difficult run to the alternator which was to sit above the gearbox. The solution is to fashion new pulleys. Use a fascinating flexishaft. Fab up alternator brackets. And then run the system from the back of the engine, around to the side, under the side of the intake, and on out to the alternator where it sits above the gearbox.
This is a long episode, so if you want to jump straight into the alternator fabrication work then skip ahead to about the 17:40 mark. It’s worth your time though, because the skill on display here is top notch.
Project Binky has an alternator problem and it's been solved in an insane way
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6 responses to “Project Binky has an alternator problem and it's been solved in an insane way”
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To be fair, tea consumption is terribly, terribly important to the proper functioning of British society. It is something that Americans, in particular, have enormous difficulty understanding. At least in part because they think that tea is made with a tea bag, with water that is not actually boiling, directly in a cup rather than in a teapot.
The intellectual power released by the proper making, and appropriate consumption of tea are ably, and quite clearly, demonstrated in this wonderful series of videos.
It is no wonder that the car is named after the mythical horse of death itself. (That is, if you read Terry Pratchett’s excellent ‘Discworld’ books.)-
I really really really need to read those books,
Is that where the name for this comes?-
You really really do.
They are hilarious. Terry Pratchett, himself, started his writing career as a journalist, who switched to being a publicist, and had become employed by an electricity generator who owned some nuclear power plants. He started with them at about the time of the Three Mile Island incident, and soon thought that if he had to make things up about nuclear safety, he might as well start writing fiction.
Yes Binky is the horse of Death, himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_(Discworld)
“Binky is Death’s steed, named so by Death because it is “a nice name”. He is a living horse; Death tried a skeletal steed, but kept having to “stop and wire bits back on”. Death also tried a fiery steed, but it repeatedly set his barn and his robe on fire.
Binky is rather more intelligent than most horses and is pure, milky and white ( it is noted in some novels that Binky is an exception to the biological rule of “grey” equines). He can fly by just creating his own ground-level, as well as travel through time and across dimensions, sometimes leaving glowing hoofprints in his wake, but is in all other respects a perfectly ordinary horse. He is well-treated, and loyal to his master and Susan, Death’s grandaughter. His shoeing is done by Jason Ogg, the Lancrastian blacksmith of mythical skill. Binky is not immortal, but while in Death’s service does not age. Binky gains part of his powers by sharing one of Death’s qualities: he’s so much “realer” than ordinary things such as walls, great distances, or time that he can simply ignore them.
Death gave Susan a “My Little Binky” gift set for her third birthday. It was returned by her parents, fearing that it would make her a less “normal” child.” -
Standard advice for the Discworld books is DON’T start with “The Colour of Magic” even though it’s the first book. Read pretty much any of the others first (and second, and third…) as the first one is far from Pratchett’s best work. I know several people who were put off of the series after starting (and promptly stopping) with that one, only to become hooked after being persuaded to try again with one of the other titles.
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I can just imagine how complicated they can make this, will have to catch it later
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So… wouldn’t a Flexishaft (or Pontiac’s Rope drive) have been a great steering shaft for the Wombat?
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