I was planning to work today, honest. But when I came to work, the computer system was down, with no time of availability. So I went home to do some long-postponed work on Bozo.
First was to put in an elbow pipe to put my air filter in a better position. But the elbow the local metal shop had made me was way different from what I had sketched for them and hard to cut with a hacksaw, so I ended up improvising something with rubber plumbing sleeves. I'll try to replace one part by plastic pipe later.
Next was to manufacture a heat shield around my header to try to cut down on convection of hot air from the header through the engine bay and into my air filter. I first made a prototype from cardboard and masking tape, and then I copied that using the aluminum plate I had bought earlier.
Unfortunately, I found the aluminum the metal shop had given my to be very tough to machine. The non ferrous blade on my radial arm saw would cut it OK, but drilling holes in it was an agony. I found that I could not go up more that two drill bit sizes each stage, a major pain since the holes I needed were the maximum drill bit size. Even then it took about half a minute to get through the plate. *Each* drill bit! Also, I broke my three smallest drill bits drilling the initial holes.
When drilling the last hole, to add insult to injury, the on button on my drill also was stuck. I recognized the reason must be I had touched the select button. This made me wonder, however, whether the drill was rotating the right way. It was not! While giving no clear warning sign at all, this drill had been stupidly rotating the wrong way all the time. You would think that Sears would be able to figure out that if you do not provide a clear warning, people will end up with their drill rotating the wrong way and they not even knowing it! Very stupid of Sears not to show a red light or so to indicate the drill rotating the wrong way.
In any case, I hope that the heat shield will cut down on the hot air in the intake. I have my doubts though; if the air filter cannot draw the air from the header, it will probably draw it from the radiator. The engine bay is pretty much sealed elsewhere, with no obvious route for cold air to come in.
Leon