After the unfortunate incident last Saturday, my motorcycle was left illegal without a tail light (no brake light, no licence plate light). This would not do.
Don assembled the items needed: (more…)
That’s the sound my neck just made. I feel better now.
I’m brewing a nice cup of tea…shower is in my near future. It’s late. The engine bars took about four hours to get on, and while not totally useless, they don’t do what I wanted them to, which is to stop the stupid foot pegs from bending up at the slightest provocation. Don says that the new weld in the side cover is stronger than the original and should prevent future piercings, but we’ll see. Must remember to pack JB-weld.
I sheared one bolt in half by over-torquing. I was torquing to spec for the original bolt, but apparently not this one. Putting the bars on was a PITA as much hardware must be fit into the smallest space imaginable. Finishing up, I was having cramps in my neck, which is why I’m glad that my neck just went crunch. So I guess that was a PITN, really, which rhymes with kitten and therefore has much better associations.
My laptop still isn’t ready. A road trip just wouldn’t be the same without having important things wait until the last minute, or untried systems going out into the wilds.
Ah well. I must breathe and tell myself that this is pre-trip paranoia.
The footpeg assembly is removed (again). I loosened the exhaust pipe. It gave me access to a certain bolt, which was very large and stiff. I thought the problem through, then got the right sized socket, extension, and the Very Big Torque Wrench. The bolt got “broken”, and is now in partial disarray. Yes, I’ve been fidding with my bike alone again. Woo-hoo! I have a long way to go on the “figure out which bits to do” score, but the actual “figuring out how to get to parts I’ve been told to get to” part is coming on in leaps and bounds.
That’s as much as I’m doing until Don comes home, but I guess the engine bars really will go on tonight.
Raven’s Roads 2 looks like it will be happening. I don’t have any concerns over the bike at the moment. Interestingly, it will be an adventure in two parts. At the last minute we were invited to help with setup and teardown of a fireworks display in Napa. I get to go closer to fireworks than I’ve ever been before. I won’t be touching the fireworks themselves, but will be shovelling sand and setting mortars, etc. There’s also a wedding I want to attend. It’s going to be a trip arranged around weddings, since there’s a Vegas wedding, too. A real honest-to-goodness pink cadillac and Elvis wedding.
My bags are packed–though I do need to get a larger bag for my back seat. I’m very much simplifying what I’m taking this time; I’m becoming an Experienced Traveller. Woo-hoo.
So, the plan, such as it is, will be to leave on Saturday. Don will accompany me overnight, and I’ll putter around looking for markers, and will meet him the weekend after, too. Then I putter around for another week, return to California, do my stuff there, and return to Nevada direct from Napa. Sadly, Don and I have abandoned the idea of meeting in Vegas, so my sojourn there will be brief; attend the wedding, meet a friend, head back out.
My itinerary leaves no room for bad weather or hiccups. Therefore, if I have bad weather or hiccups, I won’t be doing the entire route. Not to worry. I’m going to see some glorious sunrises and some fabulous roads. I’ll meet wonderful people and dance with the spirits. No matter what shape it takes, it is going to be a great adventure and I should have at least 200 more snarfs to enter by the end of it.
Though I must wonder how come, having just purchased a new helmet, jacket and boots, my Bohn armour should choose this exact moment to break a zipper.
The cover is welded and the loose battery connection is re-done. The bike is ship-shape. Now, if the vendor will ship me my hardware in time for the weekend, then I can get on with the engine bars, which will be a prize PITA.
I’m particularly proud of the way I singlehandedly managed to reattach the footpeg assembly.
We were done by about ten, and got back from our test ride about half an hour ago.
Now, I get to see if anything else is going to shake loose, explode, or generally generate annoyance.
It wasn’t a 6mm bolt; it was a 7.5mm one. Luckily, there was one of those in the shed.
I got the other parts off.
Don helped me chip off the jb-weld and reveal the obnoxious gaping hole underneath.
We took it to the welder. After some debate, we decided to leave it, even though the welder said it wouldn’t be ready tonight.
I hadn’t long been home when I got a call: the hole was fixed!
I called amberlee17 and she gave me a ride there and then I helped her pack some boxes which reminded me that moving home is much, much worse than fixing up motorcycles.
Then we went out to dinner, which is much, much better than either moving home or fixing up motorcycles.
So, now I am going to go and chisel off the remains of the gasket ready for reassembly. With help, it will probably be ready within a couple of hours.
Next step: battery.
Last night we discovered that the 8mm socket we had was “stripped” and not doing much good. So the work had to cease.
This morning I purchased a new 8mm socket from the nearby home warehouse (15 minute walk).
I took off all the bolts, but was unable to get the cover off. Don had worked a great chunk of the night, and was asleep. I asked him for help at 11, but didn’t get it until nearly 1. When you gotta sleep, you gotta sleep–*that* I do understand.
He helped me remove the cover, only to find that we must now take off the alternator stator, which has 8mm bolts, and various other bits, which have 6mm bolts.
Do we have a 6mm socket? Do we squiggles.
All shade has long since departed.
I put the tools back in the shed. In so doing, I drop the three screws I already removed. It takes me a while to find them again. I also find termites (ugh). It would appear that we are going to lose our deck.
I walk to the home place again. I now have a 6mm socket. It damn well better be the right size. The ice cream guy with his little cart is a safe distance ahead. I want ice cream, but I can’t catch up with him. Luckily, there is still Ben & Jerry’s in the fridge.
Normally all this wouldn’t matter; we could take our time. But tonight the trailer park is being re-asphalted. All vehicles must be removed from the park. It will be hard to do that with a bike with its innards hanging out, no side stand, and no oil.
I’m going to be at this stupid thing until midnight. I can tell.
I’m going to have lunch now.
This is the first time I have done this much on my own, unsupervised.
Here’s what I did:
I undid the eight hex bolts (6mm) which attach my footpeg assembly to the frame. I had to improvise some leverage using a socket wrench, and it involved thinking through the problem to figure out where the wrench went.
When the assembly dropped, I unfastened/loosened my shifter assembly. (10mm.)
At this point I could see where the problem lay. There is a crack in the jb-weld, and it looks like an impact. It looks like, at some point, the footpeg assembly once again crashed against the cover (one reason why I’m getting crash bars)–though I haven’t dropped it on that side since the original incident last winter. So perhaps some car door was banged against the bike, or it was kicked. I shall never know. I’m just glad that it happened now, and not halfway down highway 6.
Then I removed, using a ratchet and 8 mm socket, the four bolts that fasten on the right-hand cover. This is an over-cover that overlays the main cover–I can’t remember why, or what, exactly, it’s protecting, but several bolts from the main cover lie underneath it. Removing the main cover is easy, but I’m going to leave it there–it will take me a long time to chip off the jb-weld ready for the welder, and it’s hot out there. That can get done tonight, in the nice cool evening, and then I will be ready to find a heliarch welder (which means they use helium instead of oxyacetaline…I wonder if this will change my bike’s engine tone to squeaky :-P)
With a bit of luck this part of the adventure should be done with tomorrow, allowing time to wheel the bikes out of the park so it can be re-asphalted on Thursday.
It’s still hot, hard work–fiddly, and annoying. But it does, I admit, afford a small shiver of satisfaction that I now for sure know how to change my own oil, take my side covers off, and do basic maintenance.
1. Growled some more
2. Ate some Milano cookies
3. Got in a consultant
4. Tried the torque wrench, but the positioning of the plug is such that it requires a 17mm SHORT socket, and we only have a long one :: shrug ::
5. Moved to the left hand side of the bike
6. Attached 17 mm wrench as high up as poss. with the wrenchy part outwards and the sockety part on the plug
7. Trod on it. (Is that what they mean by 190 foot-pounds?)
8. Squee’ed internally as the plug shifted
9. Unscrewed it
10. Felt nervous when no oil came out
11. Went oops when a bunch of oil dumped on the ground
12. Drained the oil. Check.
13. Ate some more Milano cookies. (Maybe that should be 192 foot-pounds.)
I just spent an hour a) figuring out which size wrench to use and b) trying to figure out which direction to turn the poxy oil drain plug.
When I’m head on to the plug it’s ok, I can see it. What I can’t, apparently, do is visualise what I’m supposed to do when I’m at some odd angle to the plug with the blood rushing to my head from lying on the ground so long and being in the sun.
Some people have geometric awareness. I am not one of them.
I need to drain the oil before I take off the footpeg assembly, shifter assembly, and eventually, the crankcase cover.
At least I managed to work the jack.
I called Don and told him the problem. (I didn’t win a jackpot on the lsots so figured that gainful work would still be required.) he gave me some ideas and thoughts. With this coaching and some coaxing I rather reluctantly went down to see.
With my leatherman tool I unscrewed the battery cap and inspected the wires. The connections looked good, though the wire is a bit deteriorated (says she inexpertly). I tightened the terminal screws. I was on the phone to Don when the bike fired up. if I had not been in the middle of the valet parking I would have jumped up and down and squee’ed.
There is still an oil leak, but very minor, and I believe that Carolyn brought some jb-weld and/or epoxy .Failing that, I know where there is a Walgreen’s.
So, I might have missed my first ghost town and my first dirt ride, but I learned a more valuable lesson. Look for the obvious first, wiggle wires and tighten nuts, and then get on with stuff.
I don’t feel too bad now. I *am* still unwell, with a low-grade feeling of nausea. I did bring anti-diarrheal (sp) pills along, so that ain’t a problem any more. I comfort myself with believing that I would not have done too well in the desert sun all day.
The most valuable lesson of all? I can deal with stuff. And I have a support system. A really really good support system. :)
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