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A correspondent sent that image of the fan of turbofan engine, along with a
write-up attributing it to "Chinese maintenance." That sort of damage, what a contrast to the high technology
of these modern engines. Looks like it's been ingesting jade Buddhas and cast-iron geese on unpaved runways.
One could say 'Well, tt's only the fan,' not the compressor or, one wonders, the turbine itself. What do the
innards look like? You can imagine beer cans and bodies of little children jammed up in front of the
combustion chambers. What's the air-travel fatality rate in China?
This image reminds me of going on motorcycles to Mexico with my buddy Ron
in the summer of 1964. We were 22 years old.
The engine was that of a BSA Gold Star 500 cc, single, 1951 model I think it was.
Ron had paid $100, and it came in three bushel baskets, with all the parts there, including the needle bearings for
the big ends of the connecting rod.
That's what Ron rode to Mexico. Me, I was on a borrowed Harley Sprint 250, Italian
made, I think it was. It has laid in a creek in N.W. Washington, D.C., where a their had dumped it; the piston
rings had rusted to the cylinder wall and had to be fixed with a large torque bar to break it free. We were
riding from Washington, D.C., to Chapala Mexico, on Lake Chapala, about 40 km south of Guadalajara and about
600 miles south of Texas. We had one-month visas, which required us to leave the country — with our bikes! —
i.e., there was a law against selling motor vehicles there. (It cost me $9.50 for gas and oil for the whole
trip down.)
We were in Chapala for about ten days, staying with a retired uncle of mine and
tooling around the lake in country side, up and down steep hills, off-road, of course, both of us often on
Ron's BSA, running on the cheap, low-octane Mexican gas which finally took its toll, or such
is our best theory of how the engine got damaged.
We heard no engine knock (due to the cheap gas), which much have been happening, or
other signs of damage, but after 10 days or so, when we started our journey back north, Ron noticed, somehow
(I was miles ahead of him at the time, as it was our habit often to ride out of site of one another), that oil
wasn't returning to his oil tank. Dry-sump engine, of course.
We were fewer than 20 km out of Chapala, on the road to Guadalajara. Ron's engine
would run, but the sump must have been full of oil.
We got back to Chapala and took the cylinder head off that day. When we slipped
the cylinder off the piston, one of its thrust faces was gone, dropped somewhere in the crank case, and ground
up enough that pieces of it had got in the oil pump and jammed it up, which caused the teeth on the oil-pump
drive shaft to strip away.
Situation looked hopeless. I suggested we ditch the bike there, in Chapala, and
head north on the Sprint and somehow sneak across the border. But Ron, of the persevering sort, said no, he
was going to fix it.
There were three telephones in Chapala, one at a drug store in the main street.
We called home and got our girlfriends to scrounge up the parts: piston (0.010" oversize, plus 0.020" over rings),
oil pump, and oil-pump driveshaft.
The parts arrived pretty fast. We had time to fix things and get to the border.
The piston they sent was standard size, not oversize to fit the cylinder bore, so
we were going to have some piston slap. They sent the 0.020" over rings, which we cut down to fit the cylinder. They
sent an oil pump but no oil pump driveshaft. So there was no way to pump oil.
To me, it was hopeless, and I pointed that out, but persevering Ron was unperturbed: he
was going to get his bike to Texas, at least.
'Twas my idea to rig up our tire pump to alternately pressurize and (very) partially
evacuate the oil tank so as to pump the oil and keep the sump "dry." We needed one-way valves, however, and
naturally there were none in Chapala; Ron carved them from wood (no springs; we figured the oil flow would
suffice) and installed them. We put the piston on the rod and slipped the cylinder over it. So far so good.
Ron was about the slap the head on when I suggested we crank it through once, to make sure the rings
didn't bind or something.
As Ron cranked slowly, the piston came up to dead center. He cranked a little more,
and the piston kept coming up more — till it was 3/8ths of an inch too high, the top ring popping out.
I said something like, "Jesus, man, c'mon, let's take my bike and get outta here."
He said No, that a thick spacer between the cylinder and the block would fix the
problem.
Obviously the pushrods would have to be extended, and it was all hopeless to me, which I
pointed out.
Ron got some pieces of steel rod and a hacksaw. He gut 3/8-inch lengths. He got an
eighth-inch wood drill bit and a hand-cranked drill to make the spacers fit the lifters and mate with the pushrods.
Wondefully clever, and technically audacious, it seems in perpetual retrospect if not at the time.
When we fired it up, flames shot out around the head gasket between the head and the
cylinder, same as it had when we'd originally reassembled the bike back in D.C. Takes a few minutes for carbon
deposits and heat to seat everything down, which shortly happened, but the metallic noise of the piston banging
around was loud and novel. The noise lessened as the engine warmed up on a maiden cruise that evening around
Chapala. We were going to leave the next morning, which we did. Bear in mind that Ron had to use one hand to
pump the oil while he drove. (The tire pump was lashed to the rear side of the bike.)
Oh, I forgot: we needed to lift the cylinder 3/8th inch above the block. For that, Ron
found a piece of 1/8th-inch Masonite, i.e., fiber board, and he made three thick spacers to
separate the cylinder high enough from the block and also keep the oil inside.
I could write a small book about the trek north, just the 1st day of it. I was
recovering from dysentery — to which, that bout of it, I attribute an enduring bowel problem that, to this
day — though it's probably mostly caused by my imagination at this point — impedes my desire to travel; really,
I do think it's all psychological these past 45 years or so, though that knowledge and certainty does not
lessen the problem.
North from Chapala we had to stop every ten miles or so to tighten the nuts that
held the cylinder to the block as the Masonite spacers compressed in the heat and oil. It might not have been
my imagination, thinking we could see the cylinder moving with respect to the block each time we stopped for
maintenance. In any case, after about 200 miles into central Mexico on an unpatrolled road we'd chosen so as to
shorten our trip to Texas by a hundred miles or so, the cylinder tightening process had gone far enough that
all the clearance in the valve train was gone — i.e., the valves could no longer close. Also, the piston
would soon have been bouncing off the head. We were in the middle of Mexico, on a road with no traffic.
I suggested we push the bike into the desert brush beside the road. But Ron, you
know . . .
We ate the last of our food and waited for a truck or other large vehicle we might
flag down. But nothing came.
Me, because of the dysentery, every hour or so I was shitting out water clear
enough to drink. But, at 22, it wasn't so bad. The desert that time of year was green, because of the
"rainy season," and the green buttes were novel and neat to see compared to the documentary views I'd mostly seen
of deserts to that time.
From where we sat and waited by the side of the road, we could see a large plain
extending to the south and west with hills in the distance. In the other direction, the brush was tall enough
to block our view.
We waited probably less than an hour, then we decided to make progress at least by
pushing our bikes down the road. We must have considered towing Ron's bike with mine, but I have no memory of
even thinking that.
It was early or mid August so you'd think it would have been hot, but the altitude was
probably 6- or 7-thousand feet and the air was cool, and, as I mentioned, the desert's green patina was worth
contemplating. I don't recall being concerned about our situation, but my anal pore was burning some from the flux.
We pushed the bikes on down the road, around a sweeping left curve, then a right one,
then came to a short straight section that ended at a T about half a km from where we had sat waiting. At
that T, a road sign pointing to the right said "Zacatecas, 0.5 km" or something. There was nothing in view, the
horizon was near: Zacatecas was down a hill beyond the the top of a rise we were on. We rolled into town. A train
station was at the bottom of the hill, right on the edge of town. You can look up Zacatecas, it's the capital
of the state of Zacatecas. A pretty big town, much larger than Chapala.
We bought first-class tickets for 20 pesos (~$3) to the city of Toreon, about 200
miles west. The train would arrive to take us there the next morning. We lodged the bikes that evening with the
train station people. In the evening twilight I went out and dumped some more water on the tracks, out of
public view (the train station toilets had never been flushed), and since it was Friday night we went to
one of the seranadas or pasadas or whatever they're called in one of the city's town squares, where the girls
walk one direction around the square and the boys the other, with live music and we gave flowers to girls.
The next three days on the slow train (max speed ~11mph), I'll spare the story
about my fever, the Indians, tamales, and bribes we had to pay to get our bikes back. At least it was cheap and
we must've looked fearsome enough to keep malefactors at bay.
Sort of related, here's a YouTube motorcycle crash
compilation.
Some horrible scenes here, but I like to imagine what's going through the minds of
people in these scenes. I'm sure it's all in slow motion for them.
Send comments to me.
NOTE: To repeat: I write the hypertext codes for
this site myself. I tailor it for Firefox so it might look distorted on other
browsers.
Check with me Bob
to discuss vaporizers. As always, thanks for the email.
 11/04/11 — The little green
dots near the top of the image are particles of what is commonly called
"steam" — i.e., "aerosol particles" which, in this instance, are tiny water droplets rising from water that is boiling off of the hot electrical resistor. This comment is
Seeing Small Things with a Cheap Laser.
 11/03/11 — God the Sun — and
The Wealth Argument for a Space Program.
 11/01/11 — There are lots of good reading lamps
on the market, even LED ones. Still, I had to make my own Massively
Brass LED Lamp, which came out pretty good.
 10/17/11 — Does it really take ~2,000
lbs to push two uranium nuclei right up against each other? I'm still not sure I did the
calculation right. Check out my two electrical charge
calculations, show me where I'm wrong, and stop me before I calculate again, please.
 9/10/11 — "Photons
and Electrons: A Speculation on the Material Basis of Consciousness, Inspired by Mr.
Feynman and Captain Picard's Holodeck Horse. What happens on the
holodeck stays on the holodeck. – Anon
 7/15/11 — It looks like I'm still making
vaporizers — if the price is right. Specifically, I'm open to making
Tobacco Master units. Check out
my latest creation. Contact me, Bob, if you want to talk vapor and means related thereto.
 5/16/11 — The water just keeps coming
and coming. Click on the image for a link to an amazing tsunami video.
 5/12/11 — A comet heads in toward the sun, then a billion
tons of mass come come flying off a nearly a million miles an hour. Was there
a connection? Probably not, but the videos are worth a few moments of contemplation.
 3/14/11 — Terms like "million tons"
and "billion tons" are sometimes mentioned in the news. How much is a million tons of
something? Here are some visual perspectives for Thinking
about Big Things to get a grip on the millions of tons of canned tuna, coal,
corn and other things produced annually by 375 million tons of living human tissue.
 3/7/11 — Latest
Project — Vertical Lift. This is a diagram of what I thought was a great
idea, when I was 11 years old in 1953, and flying saucers were hot items in the news.
Anyone with the slightest knowledge of aerodynamics and Newton's Third Law of Motion
should see the silliness of the thing.
3/7/11 — APOD
Solar Flare for today.
2/28/11 — Need Money? Check out this proven, free, money-making
idea.
 2/26/11 — Uncle Harry's good friend
Bill explains Barney Frank's scheme to "transfer wealth"
by giving mortgages to poor people who have no hope of paying them off.
 2/25/11 — A correspondent whose name is Jesse says he believes
the idea global warming is fiction. He wrote to ask if I believe in it. I said no, the
idea of Global Warming is Unbelievable — but 'tis plausible.
2/24/11 — God's Sex Joke
 2/22/11 — A Pneuma owner and long-time correspondent asked if I'd ever
experienced a thrown connecting rod in a car engine. Here's my write-up on a
Thrown Rod, which will I hope provoke me to
describe how ol' buddy Ron patched up his 1951 BSA Goldstar in Chapala, Mexico, when
his piston disintegrated when we were there in the summer of 1964. There's also a
link to a neat video of motorcycle accidents.
 2/22/11 — The New Yorker's image of what an in-coming
asteroid would look like (February 28 issue) is different from the one I have
in my thoughts on certain details of an asteroidal impact.
 2/17/11 — Most fossils we see
represent the remains of plants or animals. But some fossils are different, such
as the 3.5-million year old Laetoli
footprints of ancient humans. I found an Unusual
Fossil near Hancock, Maryland, some years ago. Took me a few minutes to
figure out what it was. Others might see what it is immediately.
2/16/11 — Slow-Motion view of Saturn V Liftoff
 2/13/11 — Within the past year or so
it became clear that if a person presents something to the public, some personal creation
such as, say, Andy Warhol's art or the movies of Tom Cruise or John Travolta,
A Lot of People will like it and want more.
A comment on two articles.
2/8/11 — Uncle Harry and the Big Picture
 1/29/11 — Fear,
Terror & Marijuana — The word "fear" in the title of today's
comment refers to the "uneasiness" I feel when I use marijuana.
1/26/11 — Fast Brains
12/24/10 — A Comment of Portable Vaporizers
9/15/10 — I didn't learn to read till I was 31. What's funny, sort of, was
that, by then, I had got a degree in mechanical engineering and taught AP math and
physics. Marijuana was involved in learning to read. Check out my write-up on
Marijuana and Reading.
Contact me, Bob, if you
have a comment or question.
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