Go to Pictures of Burningman 2006

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The couch started from a comment made by Perry in 2003. He said it would be nice if the couch raised up so that we could see the man burn over the heads of the crowd. I said I could do that.
In 2004 I started building it. See the page on 2004.


Photoshop vision.
Peter helped a lot in 2004. I wanted the couch to be gas powered but I let him talk me into electric motors. That summer was murder on both of us but we finished the couch and made it to Burningman. It was a superhuman effort for both of us. We worked on the couch until the last minute. As I remember we didn't even test drive it in its last configuration, but I could be wrong. I've blocked most of those memories. We didn't bring water, food, or even one change of clothes, but we brought a one thousand pound motorized hydraulic couch. The couch ran for a day or two and then the elecric motors burned up. We had the little couch, whose electric motors also burned up and an electric bike whose motors burned up, and a gas powered go cart weird thing that Brendan built at the last minute. We ended up taking the gas motor off Brendan's contraption and putting that on a piece of plywood screwed to the little couch. That ran the rest of Burningman without problems. The Big Couch was just a stereo for a while then that quit and nothing worked on it at all.
This is me with the couch in 2004 wondering why it won't go. Why won't it go? Because it is electric?
BM2004 Photos: Peter, Brendan, Peter and Brendan, Camp1, Camp2, Camp3, Dave at night, Dave dusty.
Fire Movie. 		2005 Summer - I did not work on the Aerothrone. We took the little couch.
11/22/05 Went with Jim Cardoza into the hills and picked up a Free 1970 Honda 90 scooter, for the engine. Many hours of driving to get parts for it. Jim's brother, Gene, rebuilt the head and put in a lot of time on this engine. The 35 year old engine wasn't perfect for the couch. It had a six volt battery. No starter. Short rusted throttle cable, and the Muffler was pretty badly rusted.
2/14/06 Email to Jim: I have the scissors back on the couch. I need to weld the little brackets and then install the hydraulics. At some point before this, it is not recorded in history, but Peter helped me replace some bent stuff on the couch. Beefed up a few spots. Cut off a lot of the old electric crap. I also put steering on.
2/14/06 - Jim wrote, "The hard part is getting the starter and shifter mechanism to work. Its starting to sound a bit shifty.
I wrote, "This is true. But the worst that can happen is that it will be stuck in one gear or mechanical shifting when it is down. And it will be difficult to start. Maybe lowering the couch starts it.
   

Jumping ahead
May 28 2006
Bought an engine on Ebay for $225 or so.
Here it is mounted and hooked up. The Muffler had to be repositioned. You can see the Carb Manifold in upper right. The Carb had to be repositioned to clear the scissors when the couch is down.

Luckily I had aluminum tube the right size for the carb manifold and I had steel tube the right size for the muffler.

Another shot of the Carb Manifold. The Carb is twisted a little too much. It was turned to the left so I changed it. Now its a little too far to the right but it will be fine.

 
Engine electrical parts: Electronic ignition, starter solenoid, and Regulator. It's not putting out much voltage but, after fooling with it for a long time, I am just going to leave it until later. Not shown in this photo is the relay I added to make the output of the regulator connect up to the battery directly instead of going up the scissors and then back down. Long story.
I bought on Ebay a motorcycle brake. I bought this a long time ago. It was one of the first things I mounted on the couch. But its not finished. I intended to get a loong brake hose and run that up to the beake pedal, but it turns out no one is certified on the west coast to make flexible brake lines. I went to two hydraulic hose companies and was told basically the same thing. Brake fluid dissolves hydraulic hose and hydraulic fluid eats through the rubber in the master cylinder.
So From the the pedal down to a staging area, we'll have to have mechanical cable. Luckily I mistakenly bought a huge cable some time ago on ebay. But it turns out that the cable is the right size and only slightly bigger than necessary for the brake. Mistakes sometimes cancel out.
This is the master cylinder. The hose is only about 14 inches or so. I didn't measure it. It needs to be pushed and the cable pulls. So that is why the cable has a can in the shot above. My wonderful girl friend, Vicki, made that cam. She also installed the switches that run the motor from upstairs. I call the couch part, the upstairs, since it raises up so high.
Switches installed by Vicki. The new engine starts right up when the starter button is pressed. It doesn't matter if the ignition is on or not. The ignition rocker only turns off the regulator so it won't drain the battery when the couch sits for a long time. The black push button turns the engine off. We could have done that with a relay but we decided it was easier to install a switch, since the wires were already run. There is no key. Some one could read this and steal the couch. But I have not shown the details of the automatic acid bath knife throwing, poison dart alarm system.


Jumping ahead again to June 2006

We test drove the couch with this steering set up. I used relays and a simple rocker switch to control the gear motor. Trying to go up and down and steer at the same time proved difficult and unatural.

Aric ended up crashing into the curb, which bent the axle a little. I decided to go back to the drawing board. I enlisted Phil from next door and he hooked me up with a controller. Now it several months later and thst is still not working. We have not test driven it.

Now we have a joy stick. The buttons are shift up and shift down for the honda motor, raise up and lower the hydraulics, start the motor and kill, and blow the whistle. The joy stick turns the wheels using the controller which we still don't have. We burned up one and then lost it, the second is taking a while to get here. Inside the arm rest is a 24 volt to 12 converter. We are 24 volts now.

Before painting picture.
July 30th weekend. Vicki and I took everything off and painted the frame and scissors. It's not totally back together yet. We continue to work on the couch as if it were running. We have not even test drove it with a controller. I am prepared for disappointment. It is fun wroking on it even if we end up cutting it up and throwing it in the dumpster.