Tailgator Blender Base by Who_Knew

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Tailgator was a brand of cordless blenders used for making mixed drinks at tailgating events, backyard parties, etc. It's a blender powered by a Weed Eater brand 2-stroke internal combustion engine. Fun!
I repaired a blender like this for a friend, and the base was missing. I drew this in Fusion 360. It uses 6 of these feet from McMaster Carr. https://www.mcmaster.com/#9541k3
The engine's lower plastic shroud also acts as a crank case cover and is sealed to the crank case with a gasket and 4 bolts. This seal is important to maintain, otherwise the engine will run rough and have poor power. I believe Weed Eater (Poulan) originally secured this with 4 10-24 thread forming screws. The people who made Tailgator removed two of these screws and installed/secured a base that holds the engine's crank vertically so it can be used to power a blender.
When I took the engine apart to repair it, I replaced the screws with studs and put a new gasket on on. Thin nuts now hold the lower shroud in place (recommend use Loc-Tite). This base/stand mounts on the same studs and is held in place by 4 nylock nuts. I figured doing it this way, the lower shroud/gasket remains undisturbed if the base is removed and replaced. Also, the base is now held by 4 fasteners to a larger surface of the shroud, should be less likely to break, as it appears the original one did.
Unfortunately, the thickness of the plastic shroud varies from screw hole to screw hole, which prevents the thin nuts from going completely into the shroud's countersinks. With some of the nuts standing proud, this base wants to be crooked. I tuned the base "straightness" with flat washers so that with the base fastened to the engine and the whole thing is on a level table, the blender jar is level.
A future version of this base could include counter bores to clear the thin nuts, so the base rests only on the shroud surfaces, and not on the shroud nuts, which tend to vary in height as previously mentioned. AAMOF, a future version could allow the use of flanged nylock nuts, which would work better with the lower shroud.
A future version of this might include a few extra feet mounted centrally, and enough clearance to be able to add a spring clamp or some such, so the blender can be clamped to the table (picnic bench). As it is, the blender cannot be run without someone keeping their hand on it. Otherwise, it vibrates so much that it tends to move around on the table quite a bit.