I don’t remember the first time I heard this old Taoist tale, but it’s worth sharing:

Two hunters, out in the early morning, stopped to admire a raging river. To their horror, they saw a limp body coming downstream towards them, repeatedly appearing and then being sucked back down into the churning waters. As the body started floating closer to the river’s edge, the two men scurried to find something with which to grab at it.

As the body was washing up on the banks, they got within feet of it to retreive it, but were instead awestruck to see the body straighten up, shake off the water and walk out towards them.

In astonishment, they asked, “Old Man, How did you survive?! How did you not drown?!”

The old man grinned, bowed to them and replied,
“It is easy. When the water goes up, you go up. And you go down when the water goes down.”

Last night I starting tearing down the 295cc Robins 4-stroke for Leigh’s E-Z-Go Golf Cart.

Quite some time ago this engine started smoking and then it would intermittently die. I’d walk out to wherever the cart quit, clean the plugs and it would be good to go for a while. I figured it was just going to be a piston ring and valve seal job, but had other projects in the works so I removed the engine from the cart and decided to take it to Mowers and Motors on Nevada Ave in Colorado Springs.

I had already expected to pay more than I wanted to, being able to do this stuff myself, but also not at all against paying someone a fair rate for a good job. So I dropped it off and after more than a month of phone calls to them and excuses, I was told, “Come pick it up. There’s nothing we can do with it.” When I got there to pick it up, I was given my previously running engine back as a bunch of parts in 3 separate boxes!

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Sometimes people come into our lives unexpectedly and their presence is an obvious indication of a higher, loving intelligence. If we’re not careful, we can be so caught-up in our own life plans that we blow right by these experiences at breakneck speed trying to do what we think is important,  missing out on the true abundance that life has to offer us far beyond our own monetary & time concerns.

I was fortunate enough this weekend to get slowed down & diverted from my own best laid plansto be able to reflect for a few days with a new, yet uncannily old, friend – a cross between Obi Wan “Ben” Kenobi and Indiana Jones, except they’re fictional, and Ben Jones is a real man (his sidekick Danny is no slouch either).

Our separate paths crossed and the visit was short as we walked together for only a few days; but worthy of more than a full chapter in life. I’ll spare you the details, as they’d mean more to me & mine than anyone reading this anyway, and as I continue to reflect on the impact maybe i’ll jot them down or reference them somewhere, sometime.

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To see these posts in the same order as the build (from start to current), click the ‘wind turbine’ link on the right.

With the frame of the wind turbine done, it’s time to make the tail boom.

This is the beginning of the tail bearing which will hang on the pivot that is already welded to the back of the yaw bearing. It is made from 1-1/4″ sched 40; is the same length as the pivot (9″); and will be notched halfway-up to fit over the pivot bracket and to allow for a ‘positive stop’ to prevent the tail from swinging into the blades when the machine furls.

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I had decided in the beginning of this project to save the metalwork for close to last because I knew it would be no big deal to bang-out in a couple of days. Now that I’ve made all the other pieces, it’s time to fabricate the frame of the machine so I can assemble it.

The stator bracket is cut from a piece of 1/4″ plate. The outer diameter is 15″ and the inner circle is 4″. The spokes are 1-1/2″ wide at the top, 2″ wide at the base, and 120 degrees apart. One 1/2″ hole for mounting the stator is on each spoke 13-3/4″ from the center. In the center of the bracket is a 1-1/4″ hole for the wheel spindle.

While I could’ve had something custom machined, I chose to go with standard parts for easy parts replacement & maintenance (bearings, etc). Therefore the spindle is a standard 1000 lb trailer axle piece that I got from Northern Tool. The assembled machine won’t weigh half that and larger ones are available for the next (upsized) machine should this one work well here.

When you get it where you like it, weld it.

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