fbekholden.com

Blacky wrote: Fri Oct 24, 2025 10:27 am Very thorough and top quality work as always, I gotta ask , whats with the dust collector looking bizzo mounted on the office chair base ???

It's an old coopers brewing kit converted into a cheap cyclone dust converter. Mainly for the drop saw and the sandblasting cabinet.

Boot Popper!
A couple years back I thought it would be a good idea to shave the boot lock and install an electronic solenoid. I bodged something up at the time that used a lever located in the lock cam thingy shaft that twists when you turn the key, but was never happy. There’s also the issue of accessing a flat battery in the boot that you can only open electronically. As shaving the lock his not a deal breaker, I kinda left it in the too hard basket and moved on.

Well, after having a win with the bonnet lock/door lock solenoid, I dusted off the this thing for another crack.
To the drawing board. First draw a to scale cross section of the boot and lock mechanism. Then work out a lever that will pull the arm on the lock the required distance( ~ 15mm), given that the solenoid has a maximum pull of 22mm.

Connect lever to solenoid with piece of bike spoke bent in a jaunty fashion (took many attempts to get it to move freely).

Lock lever on pivot bolt with minimal play but no binding (2 bolts locked together in a threaded hex joiner).

Cut solenoid bracket down to fit, redrill and weld on nuts and hex joiner.

Some time later after many test fits I have this. Not much to look at so if I peek down from the top with my phone you can get a better idea. There was a surprising amount of unused room in here - perfect for a comically oversized solenoid. Installing is a fiddle, you drop the solenoid from the top, feed the base with lever and cable attached to the dangling lock through the lock hole in the bottom of the boot, screw the solenoid to the base after attaching the bike spoke, then bolt the base down with 3 screws and fit the boot lock.

Here it is on the bench to give you a better idea.
Flat battery issue will be partly solved by having a positive post in the engine bay, and partly solved by adding an after market bonnet release attached directly to the lock which will most likely live loose under the rear seat for emergency access.

Good stuff - I will need to go through this process for the 2 door

This looks good. Just got to find time to read properly.


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It wasn’t that long after all. Neat as a pin Scotty.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie