Honda - Acura Brochures (some just recently purchased at the Honda charity sale)

Drove one just like the one in this picture in 1988 or so.  It was a test vehicle purchased by Ford.  Drove it on the Dearborn test track (had access anytime...).  It was a very nice car to drive.  The rear quarter windows went down all the way by going down then rotating to be able to go nearly all the way down.  It's a clever mechanism...

The NSX was the first All-Aluminum volume production car.  The castings for the suspension and chassis are works of art.

Clarice's first new car (1991 Integra LS - came standard with a moonroof, which was unusual at the time...).  What a nice car (huge greenhouse, fantastic suspension -- double wishbone, zippy twincam engine, very low cowl...).

From the Honda Charity Sale

I'm curious what this book has to say about the genesis of the car...  In 1990 to 1996, I worked for GM at the Advanced Concept Center California (ACC, in Newbury Park).  When I started, they told me that recently, they had done the styling work for the Impact (later named the EV1 in production), in conjunction with AeroVironment.  GM had a contract with AeroVironment (based in Pasadena area, as I recall) to do joint advanced vehicle projects.  Impact was one of those projects.  I worked on one project with AeroVironment for a "narrow lane vehicle."  It was supposed to be very narrow for use in urban environments.  (There was a meeting with about 10 people from our facility and a bunch of people from AeroVironment at their office, to discuss what the next project shoud be.  The founder of AeroVironment, Dr. MacCready was there,as well as our head, Tom Peters.  After some pleasantries, they went around the big conference room table and people shared their opinion of what they preferred as the next project.  The pre-discussion had narrowed down the choices to a super-aero car and the narrow lane vehicle concepts.  Everyone was saying that they thought the next project should be  the super-aero car.  I was one of the last people to give an opinion, just based on being in a certain seat around the table.  I was the only one who didn't go for the super-aero car.  I suggested the narrow lane vehicle because it was kind of a new concept, whereas the super-aero car is something many people of looked at and have come up with concepts in the past.  When everyone had spoken, Dr. MacCready gave his opinion and he agreed with the narrow lane vehicle concept for the same reason, that it's kind of new territory.  What was interesting is that once Dr. MacCready gave his opinion, nearly everyone started changing their mind and their opinion.  In short order, it was decided that the next project would be the narrow lane vehicle.  It turned out to be the last project with AeroVironment.  The contract was not renewed after that project.)   It had 4 wheels so it had to meet Auto FMVSS requirements (not as severe as they are now back in 1990).  We built many scale models and mocked up a full scale vehicle (tandem seating).  One of the fun things about the project was to take 3/8 scale clay models of 3 different styling concepts to the Cal Tech wind tunnel.  It was a pretty old tunnel and was pretty small but it was large enough to fit the 3/8 scale models.  We did many runs to measure drag, lift and center of pressure (including at different angles).  What was fun was that between runs, we would modify the model by adding or removing clay in critical areas to try and improve the Cd.  We added spoilers in the back, changed the shape around the outside rear view mirrors, the shapes leading into and away from the wheels, etc.  It was a lot of iterations with gut-feel for what will improve the Cd.  In the end, we improved the Cd on all the models significantly, with some pretty minor changes to the design.  We took the full scale mockup to the Arizona GM proving grounds (Mesa, AZ) to see what it would be like to drive such a small & narrow vehicle next to other cars, buses and trucks (in a safe test track environment).  The mockup was made of plywood, foam, fiberglass & plexiglass.  It had a basic electric drivetrain out  of a golf/utility cart so that it could be driven at speeds up to about 25 MPH.  Of course we went in the summer when the temperature was above 100 F!  I remember sitting in the pool/Jacuzzi late at night at the motel we stayed at, taking in the cooler night temperatures and draining some cold bottles...  I got to drive a huge school bus (with air brakes)!  So much fun...

Honda Special Tool -- Brake Disc Grinder (never heard of such a thing before...) -- added pictures of the manual

Bought this at the Honda internal charity silent auction sale (to support the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation).  Looks like it's never been used...

Note the date stamp on the paper (October 31, 1959...  Holloween 1959!).  Noritake is also known for their ceramic dinner ware.

It says "manufactured by Honda under license."  Then states some patent numbers...

Broken Spoke on Mavic Ksyrium ES Anniversaire

Broke a spoke & didn't even know it...  Rode around for couple of weeks like this.  Because of the missing spoke, the wheel isn't round and the rear brake has been dragging...

Turns out Mavic made quite a variety of wheels with similar spoke designs but not the same.  So there's a pretty big variety of spoke designs, spoke lengths, spoke end designs, etc.  Measured the approximate length of the spoke (can't see how much it extends into the wheel so estimated...).

Bought a replacement spoke online from a Bicycle store in San Luis Obispo (Art's Cycle) and the special spoke tool from a Chinese company.  Turns out that the spoke wrench doesn't fit my wheel!  (both ends of the wrench don't match...)

The old spoke adjuster is stuck and broke apart...  Will have to drill it out!  (I might take the tire off before I do that...)

First, I took a cutoff wheel (on an air tool) and cut the broken spoke flush (center punched the middle for drilling).  Yes, I took the tire off before drilling...

Drilled a small hole and used a splined remover tool to try and spin the left over threaded portion of the nipple out of the wheel.  It worked for a couple of rotations (with repeated seating of the remover tool with a hammer) but stripped out.  Drilled a larger hole to use the next size up remover tool.  After about 20 times of hammering in the tool and spinning the left over part a little bit at a time before it would slip, it finally came out.

The threads were not damaged but it looked like it had corroded together to some extent.  The threads are reverse ("righty loosy").

I don't have a reverse threaded tap set so I'm not going to mess with the threads in the wheel.

Installed the new spoke to this point (hand tightened about 3 threads, so at least I know that the threads are correct and not cross-threaded).  At this point, there's going to be pretty high tension on the spoke so the nipple will need to be turned with a wrench.  (I put some grease on the threads so that it will install easier and hopefully won't corrode together.  I don't think it will back out.  There's going to be quite a lot of tension on the spoke.  I'll put a small pen mark on the nipple/rim to check if it rotates after riding...)  The length of the spoke is correct (!).  But, I don't have the right tool for this special design nipple.  It's got 7 splines and is just a little smaller than 7 mm (6.8 mm, as measured using dial calipers).  I'm ordering a Park Tools wrench that's supposed to fit (via Amazon).  We'll see when it gets here... (still not done!)  But wait, there's more.  The nipple on the replacement spoke appears to be the same basic design as all the other original spokes on the wheel, but the diameter of the nipples are not the same!  It looks like I'm going to need two different special wrenches for the one wheel!  (I have no idea where to get the right wrench for the original spokes...  Will have to do more research...  Those French and their special nipples!!!!)

I adjusted the new spoke and now the wheel runs nearly true.  Without this one spoke, the wheel was WAY out of true (lateral runout of about 0.2 inches).  Now, that the spoke has tension on it, the runout is about 0.03 inches, I'm guessing...  I had to keep in mind that all the nipples are reverse threaded (lefty-tighty...)!

It's good to ride now.  The runout is pretty easy to tell because of the very narrow clearance to the brake pads on a road bike (usually only about 0.1 inches).  Test rode last night and the wheel runs pretty close to true and with the brakes adjusted, does not rub on the pads.

The Park Tool wrench is on the new replacement spoke with a 7-spline Mavic nipple with about a 6.5 mm OD.  The other wrench (Chinese made brand) is on one of the original spokes on the wheel, which has a 6-spline Mavic nipple with about a 5.5 mm OD.  Thus, to adjust the spokes on this wheel, both wrenches are required now!

The cheap Chinese tool had to be hand filed because the shape for the splines was inaccurate.  I used some very small jeweler's type of files to make it fit the 5.5 mm 6-spline nipples.  I got it to work.  But, because of the lack of strength in the design of the wrench and the poorer quality material used (probably with no heat treating), the wrench bent while using it (can be seen in the picture).  It worked to turn the nipples but was bending (The nipples require quite a lot of torque to turn them.  The threads of the nipple and the wheel rim threads appear to have some "sticktion" due to some corrosion...).  Park Tools makes the wrench for the 5.5 mm 6-spline nipples also.  I'll have to buy that one too...

Finally, got the tool at the bottom of the picture.  It does the same job that the cheap tool at the top of the picture does.  All this to turn the spoke nipples on one wheel!