Sundials?

 Hi, I have a friend whose birthday is the first part of February. I like to make things for friends and relatives rather than buy something, to show how special I think they are. Plus I like making things. Most of the time I struggle to come up with the "right" thing. It usually means making it from stuff I already have.

   For Marie I decided to make a sundial. I had these 2 aluminum gears sitting around for years. Both were 10" x 1/4" and 50 teeth. I didn't think to make a blog about my sundials until I was well into the project so there are no early pictures.

   One of the first things I did was find out about marking the time on the dials. For this I found a website online; https://sundials.org/index.php/sundial-registry/selectdials/CA.html     It helped me realize that I could do a sundial and gave me help figuring out the correct degrees for the latitude I needed.

https://sundials.org/index.php/teachers-corner/sundial-mathematics

   So armed with that I found the latitude of Marie's home and measured and cut out a gnomon from 1 of the gears I had.

 

   On the other gear I had already laid out the angles for the hours and did a test fit of the gnomon.

    Partly because I didn't know what I was doing or had the proper tools for engraving the lines, things were often kinda off. But I persevered. I drew a circle to put the hour numbers in and bought a set of 3/8" number and letter stamps for marking them.

    I needed to center my circle compass for the proper look and I found the center of a hard drive gear fit the 1" hole perfect and it has a center dent for the compass to fit!

   Next came mounting the gnomon. I did a test fit and figured out I could do 2 screw holes through the bottom into the gnomon. I figured 10 x 32 would work cause I had a couple of those screw already.

    Well I drilled and tapped being very careful to get the holes aligned and careful of the tap in the holes to not break. So much for that I broke 2 taps..... I repositioned the gnomon and redrilled everything this time going with 1/4-20 . It worked out though I had to cut the nose off the gnomon to make it look nice.

    I did not get any pics of hammering the numbers in. It was very hard I'm pretty sure this is not just aluminum but some kind of harder alloy. When I was too soft on the first strike it was hard to line up the stamp and not do a double stamp. It was also difficult to cut the hour lines in. I wound up with a steel ruler and an ice pick doing multiple scratches to get some depth.

   Then came polishing. I went with 220-400-600-1000 and lastly with Brasso polish on a cotton wheel on my drill press. Took forever!

Finally I wrapped it up for her birthday. 

She loved it!

SUNDIAL PART TWO;

    Of course now I wanted one for myself.... I had a piece of 1/4 x 6" copper plate and I figured I could get 2 sundials out of it. So I laid out 2 circles.

This time with all my vast experience and knowledge.........I used a wood circle cutter mounted in my drill press to mark a 5.5" inner circle and drill and tap the center for a "stick" type gnomon.

These gnomon were made from 1/4" brass rod and shaped in my drill press with my dremel tool sanding drum. I tried cutting out the full size of the disc with the cutting tool but my drill press was not strong enough and kept stalling out.

    During this process I discovered that I could use my drill press to keep the holes and the tap aligned as the holes don't go through. I used the same trick to center the end of the gnomon in the die clamped to the press table to align everything. Worked a treat!

Next up was to mark the hour lines. 6am and 6pm were at 90° on the circle and noon 90° from them.

              Then using the numbers I got off the sundial website  I used a compass to mark them.

    Most were just tick marks so I could line up what ever engraving device on later.

    I marked all the hours and drew lines, leaving the outer circle empty for the numbers.

    At the bottom I used blue marker pen to make a place for the latitude these sundials are made for.

Then I went about stamping all the hour numbers at the top of the lines. Next I clamped a straight edge by the blue line and put in the latitude numbers.

    I thought I had all the hard work done. Then it was time to cut out the sundials....... My Dewalt jigsaw was a a piece o .......!  The blades kept falling out. I replaced the holder and had the same issue. I contacted DeWalt and there was/is no redesign of the holder. So I bought a cordless Ryobi! Most of my cordless tools are Ryobi so it fits for me. The Ryobi uses the T blades and they stay in. I used it to cut out the sundials.

Of course it wasn't perfect like a circle cutter would do. There was lots of sanding off the cutmarks and nubs.

I did get them cut out eventually. I really needed to engrave the lines in deeper as they might disappear during sanding. Making a jig on my drill press table to hold the sundial I was able to clamp a steel ruler and drag my circle cutter tip. now held in visegrips, across the lines multiple times to cut and recut the lines. This was the hardest part of the whole job and I did it twice!

       Then came polishing. I went with 220-400-600-1000 and lastly with Brasso polish on a cotton wheel on my drill press. Took forever!

    I gave 1 of them to my neighbor Lynn and kept 1 for myself. Not the greatest picture, here is mine on my back porch.

   One of the things I learned is that my property doesn't have a good safe place for it. My front yard is right along the street and this being solid copper would be an easy target.

Anywho a couple of fun projects!

Again with the starter!!!

 Since the summer of 25 I have been having what I thought were battery issues. At times I could leave home and run errands and then somewhere on the way home the 109 would fail to start. Often enough that I bought a Avapow 6000 jump pack. I would hook up the jump pack, turn the key and POW it started! Even after no clicks with the key.

     I suspected the battery because the instant start with the jump pack and the fact that it was 13.5 years old. It was a Sears Platinum marine dual purpose deep cycle AGM with 1150CCA, a 31M battery. My guess is it had worn out it's welcome. Since I was spending money on my roof and paint and rain gutters I put off the battery issue since I wasn't driving often.

   So it wouldn't start, I'd charge the battery with my NOCO genius 5 charger and it would start. I did this a few times in Dec and into Jan. Always with the same result. It would start at home and my dash voltmeter showed 13v+ while running/driving. Then I would hit the hardware store or Foster's and no go. 

    Of course over all this time I checked for loose connections on the battery terminals, fuse box, starter solenoid. They all seemed good. Very confusing and frustrating.

   Two weeks ago I bought an Ancel car battery tester to check the battery internals. 

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0ARG3X?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

   I got good readings on my battery when fully charged, but it would be 14.4v and I would take it off the charger and it would drop down to 12.88 over the hours. Heck I kept it charging all night and it was 14.4v in the morning and it dropped to 13.23v with the charger on during the day! The Ancel still said good battery..... I ordered a new starter solenoid off Ebay just incase; 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/271570739389?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11401.m144671.l197929&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=7d576e77b02b4023ab52eff7f863259e&bu=43519496236&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20260117071536&segname=11401

    I asked one of my neighbors over he used to work on aircraft in the USN, so I figured he knew more than I(not too difficult!) I hooked up the Ancel and pressed the test button and it said REPLACE BATTERY My first indicator the battery was bad.

     Three days later I went to Batteries Plus and bought a new AGM dual purpose deep cycle battery only this time Money held me back and I bought a group 27 with 900CCA and not the bigger 31. It was $550.....  Swapped it right in the parking lot, turned the key...click.......tried again and it fired right up! WHEW! had me worried!

     Then I went grocery shopping and it wouldn't start. WTF!!!!!!! I jumped it and came straight home ignoring my other errands.

     Put away groceries and scrutinized my wiring diagrams. One thing kept popping into my mind, WTF! WTF? The next day I frelling checked everything I could with multimeter, test lamp, wriggling, pulling on switches, terminals, connectors, pulling what little hair I have out. You don't want to see that picture.......  Finding nothing I decided to pull the starter.

     I began that yesterday and nothing came out willingly! You know the drill? Remove bonnet tire, Throw back bonnet, disconnect battery and all hot leads to it.  Remove and clean ground strap from engine to chassis, just in case, reinstall. Undo wires at starter solenoid. Remove 17mm nut from bottom, 17mm bolts from top of starter. Try to wiggle starter out. Realize the ground strap is in the way. Remove ground strap. Wiggle starter more. Realize the exhaust down pipe is in the way. Undo clamp at bottom of down pipe. Try to wiggle the fuck out of it and it doesn't move. Remove the clamp to the rear with the donut inside. Ya need that donut out to get enough room to wiggle the gd exhaust. Get a frelling huge prybar to wiggle things, 15 minutes later the donut is out. Pry the crap out of the downpipe and nothing moves, but ya keep on trying.  Finally after some god awful energy expense things start moving and with one last tug-a-wiggle the downpipe drops to the ground.

    Then you know the starter can come out because you remember changing it in 2019, 7 years ago! Lots of turning upside down, backwards and more wiggling than a Republican, by moving it further to the front of the 109 it almost falls out.

   I took it over to the battery and put jumper cables on it to test it.

click..........click..........spin..........spin...........

   I then had a good look at the solenoid.

   There are signs of arcing on the nut holding the wire from the solenoid to the starter. I took it to my workbench and pulled that apart.  The nut was kinda tight to rotate but it was not tight on the wire connector. The following pics show the nut and connector

   I began to clean things up as I realized I had found my loose connection and had probably bought an unneeded battery.  I filed the connector flat and wire brushed everything. It was then that I realized that wasn't just some funny UK nut, but the lock washer and flat washer were welded to the nut!

   Well my new solenoid came in the day before, so I started to compare hardware and replace like for like today and get it all "factory". I even pulled out my spare starter which I rebuilt after replacing it with this one. I don't have enough of the thin nuts, which are 8 x 1.25 by the way.  All was clean and flat. I seriously tightened the bottom nuts this time. After all was together, a test with the jumper cables was SPIN BABY SPIN!

   I didn't have time today to put it all back together, due to time constraints. So tomorrow.

   I did take a picture of the old solenoid numbers just in case the one I got is wrong

    So when I sat down to write this I searched my blog for starter. I wanted to see why I replaced the first one and when. As already mentioned it was Feb 2019. The reason was the exact same issue! Now how dumb am I for not remembering that?! Don't answer that! Not only that but when the 19j engine was in It had the same issues but it turned out to be the lower stud was loose on the solenoid. Methinks the starter is too close to the down pipe and excessive/prolonged heat is causing the nut/stud to expand and contract at different rates. What do you think?

https://poppageno.blogspot.com/2019/08/200tdi-starter-replacement-in-series.html

25 Jan 2026

      Yesterday, I put it all back together with much confidence. Got the starter in and hooked up the exhaust pipe and battery cables. The exhaust I held up with a bottle jack whilst I tightened the fasteners.

 So far so good, no fires! I tried the key and Click........click, ...click....What the frell? I was bummed. Thought about it a few min and decided to pull the starter out again and either put in my spare or replace the solenoid. Now I was missing the old day when the solenoid was mounted next to the air cleaner!

     I got it out and kept thinking how I could check it off the vehicle, I still wasn't sure it was not my tractor switch going bad. I figured out I needed to hook up jumper cables just like when installed, ground to the case and power to the upper stud. Then I used a jumper with alligator clips from the + on the battery and I tickled the trigger bayonet fitting and Click......click........click, every time.

    I then got my spare out and tried the same thing and Brrrrrrrrrrr, it sprang to life. So it HAD to be the solenoid.

    That' when I had a bite for lunch and after started swapping the new solenoid for the old. Gotta admit the rubber seal goodie is shit, already has cracks in it and the old one didn't fit. I cleaned up all the crud and evidence of arcing as I went along.

   Then since I was on a roll and had all the tools out I put the starter back in, hooked up all the wires BEFORE doing the exhaust and tested it. Again NO Fires! Lucas didn't let the smoke out. Plus the starter turned the engine and it fired right up! Quickly I shut it down as the exhaust was all in the engine bay and my face.

      The exhaust was reinstalled, amazing how quick when you know the steps. Then I started it again and after shutting it down, put away the tools! I took a shower and had a celebratory beer! My second one this year! Did I say I was on a roll? I don't drink much.

    So today I did an autopsy on the solenoid. My conclusion is there was no obvious failure such as broken wire or crud. Every part that could move did, all the wires were good, on the multimeter all showed continuity. The is as you can see in the pics some evidence of arcing, which I would expect as the magnetic field moves the solenoid to engage. So I dunno. Just lived the good life up to the end!

     Best I can figure is that the magnetic field couldn't move the contact far enough to engage power to the lower stud. You can see there is some melting and shrapnel from arcing. Onr thing which might hace helped with this was the upper inlet power bolt/stud was a tiny bit loose and if it sticks out enough the moving contact will not touch the lower bolt/stud.  In retrospect I think maybe the battery was partly at fault also, if it wasn't putting out enough to make the coil fully move the solenoid contacts.........click.

On with the show!

Note to self; buy another solenoid...............