Rods a’burnin’

Finished cleaning the carb and engineering a new choke lever assembly to replace the missing part.  Still need a new choke cable, but can wait for now.  Looked in the tank and it wasn’t hateful, some rust nut very minor, no sediment worth worrying about with inline fuel filters.

Moment of truth.

Held the choke closed by hand, reached the back with the other, flipped the ignition on, and hit the starter.  Nothing but crank.  
Alright, a shot of ether, just to get things moving faster, try again.
Pop vroom!  Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! 
Oh happy days! Dios’ grinning
ear to ear right now.  Ah, but the party can’t start till we look at things.  Out comes the Fluke DVOM and I’m  metering.  At battery terminals with engine running, 13.8vdc.  Good to go! Check for ripple current, less than.01vac: diode trio is perfect.  Now, were the proverbial rubber meets the asphalt: output lugs.  All dials set minimum and output at the lugs is showing 55vdc. 
Time to burn a rod or two.

Just some older 7018 I had laying around, wouldn’t have expected these beads from it, honestly.  There was some playing around with amperage range and voltage range, which is why the beads all look different.  But HOT DAMN!, it welds and friggin great.  Striking an arc is easier than lighting a match. Holding the arc is similar to working with the MIG torches. 

The cats in hiding after my hapoy dance through the house😁.

And, a Cuz with a backhoe came over as well and the lincoln is now on a stack of 4×4’s off the trailer and I can start figuring just how I am going to set it up and what I need to repair it.  I know I need a 38″x72″ sheet of steel to replace the bed where the 3/4″ ply was sitting and rotted out the deck.   I want to fix the brakes so they actuate off the tongue as well as the Pbrake lever.  Thinking a welding trailer needs torches to go with it, and I have a set of 80cuft mini bottles, but will need another set of regs, hoses and torches to go along with it.  Anywhoos, its a coming along and Dio is one exstatic camper right now.  Voodoo is dancing with me, but I’m sure he doesn’t understand, just that his daddy is happy.🙄