| Author | Message | ||
     Crusty |
No News Is… No News I went over to the shop today, but I didn’t get to check out the Roadster’s engine. Let me explain why. Big Guy’s (Guido) wife has been battling Leukemia for a while now. She’s gone through Bone Marrow transplants, blood transfusions, blood infusions, Chemotherapy, and God knows what else for over a year. This past week, she’s been pretty much under the weather, and Guy’s been staying home to take care of her. Little Guy (who’s bigger than his father) is running the shop. Without Guido at the shop, they’re way behind and just haven’t had time to get to the Roadster. They’re swamped with work, and people want their bikes fixed RIGHT NOW!!! I’m one of those people who want them to drop everything and attend to my bike, but having worked there in the past, and seeing how busy they are, I can put my wants aside and sympathize with the wrenches. We’re going to tear into the Roadster on Tuesday. little Guy had said Monday, but I have an appointment with my Cardiologist on Monday, so I can’t get to the shop. I asked him if Tuesday worked for him, and he agreed. (he also looked a little relieved) We all discussed what the cause of the demise might be over lunch, and it will be interesting to see if we can figure what went wrong first and caused the problem. While I was there, I sand blasted the paint off the bar ends that I bought for the Corny. Monday morning, before my Doctor’s appointment, I’ll ride by Central Mass Powder Coating and see how much they want to hit them with Black. I’m not picky about which shade of black they use (they've got about a dozen IIRC), so I’ll probably get them back pretty quick. I think that Tomorrow morning, I’ll change the oil in the Corny. Sandra had an oil filter for it in stock, so I think it’s time to get off my dead ass and just freakin’ do it. I didn’t look, but I’m hoping that I won’t have to pull any plastic off to change the oil. I’ll probably have to remove the belly pan, though. I’ll see in the morning. | ||
| Crusty |
A Gray Day It’s been overcast all day, and my mood matches the weather. Like the naked guy with the pie over his crotch, “I’m f***ing dis custard!”. It hasn’t been that bad of a day, I suppose. The Cardiologist was happy with my weight loss, and he’s willing to let me try diet and exercise instead of drugs to lower my cholesterol. Everything about the visit was positive. My EKG showed a regular, steady heartbeat, my blood pressure was 120/78 everything looked good. When I left Mass Heart & Rhythm, I went by Blue Heron, and Ryan did get the e-mail with the drawing, and everything is on schedule. He just didn’t let me know that he got it. I should have the ******** next week. I posted on BadWeB that I probably won’t be able to make the West Virginia Rally. Immediately, a bunch of good people offered me bikes to ride. (Typical of BadWeB) I can’t accept, though. I know that they’re trying to help me and by refusing, I’m denying them the opportunity; but I just can’t do it. One of my most basic tenants is that Trouble is attracted to a borrowed bike. If something happened to somebody else’s bike while I was riding it, I don’t have the money to fix it. Even if they didn’t mind, it would haunt me. I have enough to worry about with the Roadster and the Corny. I don’t have room for any additional worries at the present time. Besides, there’s a chance that I will be able to make the trip. I’m not saying anything until after we tear into the engine on the Roadster tomorrow. If the damage is as bad as I think it’s going to be, then my chances of getting to Harrisville are very improved. The Corny is making a ticking sound when I’m rolling to a stop. It’s not engine related. It’s either transmission or final drive; I can’t quite determine which. I suspect it’s going to be the U-joint, but I haven’t tried to locate the source of the sound. Also, it’s intermittent. It only makes the sound on occasion and sometimes, the clicking is louder than other times. I just have no desire to chase it down. I really get the feeling that that bike came to me to die. Once I get the Roadster up and running again, I’m going to let the Kaw go as a parts bike for very short money. I just hope it lasts long enough to get the Sportster fixed. I got home this afternoon and took a nap. I very seldom nap, but today, I was extremely tired. I woke up and fixed a cheeseburger for dinner and I have all the enthusiasm of an arthritic snail being herded toward a salt pile. Well, tomorrow I’ll go over to the Shop and hopefully they’ll have a lift available and I’ll be able to tear into the Roadster. I still think it was the oil pump gear that caused the failure. We’ll see. (Message edited by Crusty on August 01, 2016) | ||
| Thumper74 |
I feel the same way... I was offered a ride, but I'm hesitate to accept it, though it's sitting in my shop right now... The WVBR is still worth a drive down if you can't get a bike in time. Good people. Good times. A wedding, apparently. Fire pit Jenga. Some booze. Lots of beer. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
John, the WVBR is bike optional event. Glitch and Ann are riding up with Etennuly with their car on his trailer. I am trailering my bike down and my truck is available for you to drive. Judy sure would love to see you! Just catch a ride with Froggy and hang out for the weekend. | ||
| Crusty |
I'll do my best to be there. I should know more when I get home tonight. I'll keep you all posted. If there's any way I can do it, I'll be there. I've been looking forward to this since last year. There has to be a way I can go and feel right about it. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Well, if you take whichever of Froggy's Uly's he keeps wrecking, you can't do anything worse to it than anything that's already been done to it.  I know what you mean about a borrowed bike. It's really hard to enjoy yourself. I'm thinking about replacing the crank in my 2007 this winter. At that point, the bike will have a salvage title anyway, with a replaced crank, and 30k miles on it. Even as a parts bike, there aren't many parts on it that aren't beat up or worn. So it's value really will be very low, maybe $1000. The appeal of fixing it is that I can just loan it to anyone and tell them that the deal is if something mechanical fails, it's my problem, it's an old bike. If they wreck it, they agree to buy the structural parts needed to get the bike operational again, with no regards for cosmetics. It would be fun to have a beater bike kicking around for bad ideas like a dual sport tour on a Uly around the Michigan upper peninsula. The XT buellerxt sold me is just too pretty to not take good care of. | ||
| Damnut |
If you don't want to borrow a bike, I'll let you borrow my Jetta diesel. It gets better gas mileage than most Buells. | ||
| Crusty |
What A Difference A Day Makes Yesterday, I had a pretty bleak outlook on Life in general; tonight, I feel much more positive. My day didn’t start out as positive as I was hoping. It was raining when I woke up, and the rain didn’t stop until I was almost to the shop. I was both looking forward to tearing into the Roadster and dreading it at the same time. When I got to the shop, Little Guy was back in the lunch area having coffee. he told me that he’d started on the bike yesterday, but before he told me what he found, he insisted that I have a cup of coffee and relax. He then told me that, basically, my engine is junk. I had been thinking about buying an 883 and putting my heads and a set of 1250 barrels and pistons on it and making a full size engine for less than the price of a used engine from Pinhead. Uh uh. the rear head is junk. there is over an eighth of an inch in play in the rod, and the valve broke off and destroyed the piston crown and the valve bouncing around trashed the head. The seat looks pretty totaled, and there are lots of gouges in the top of the combustion chamber. There was a lot of aluminum in the intake manifold and even in the Carb. Guy never even took off the front head. Last night, anticipating the worst possible scenario, I searched fleaBay for Sportster Engines. I found a boneyard in Plaistow, NH that had a 2005 1200 engine for $1925. So, after I looked at the dead parts and felt the rod for the free play, I called Rick’s Motorcycle and told them I wanted to buy that 1200 engine and that I wanted to come pick it up. The woman I spoke to was very sympathetic when I explained what happened to the Roadster, and she told me that they would knock the price down a bit since I was coming to get it at their shop. The guys at GP had done a little business with Ricks, over the years, and they had a good opinion of them. I hung up and told everybody that I’d just bought a replacement motor, and I asked Jimmy if I could borrow his truck. he said no, so I said, OK. Then Tory said for me to take his car.I told him I didn’t want to put an engine in the car, ‘cause I didn’t want to damage the back seat, and he said, don’t worry about it. There’s a sheet of plastic over the seat, and it would be OK. At that point, Jimmy said, “It’s stupid to try to carry a Sportster engine in the back of a car. Besides, I’m going to give John a ride to pick it up.” Typical Jimmy. He’ll insult the shit out of you, then do you a big favor. He was stalled on the POS Honda he was working on, waiting for parts, so he had the time. So Jimmy and I went to New Hampshire and picked up the engine. (We also stopped at a gun shop in Plaistow. Jimmy is into guns and knows the folks who run the gun store) When we got to Rick’s, the owner gave me a receipt for the engine, and I saw that they only charged me $1800. Sweet! I paid for it with my MasterCard, and he told me that there was a 30 day guaranty on the engine. Jimmy and I put it in the back of the truck and strapped it down, then we headed back to the Shop. When we got the engine into the shop, we did a compression test on both cylinders, and checked to see if it was pumping oil and shifted the transmission through all the gears in both directions. The mileage of the engine is unknown, but it looks clean and shiny all over. No stains on the aluminum or visible indications of a lot of use. I think it came from a low mileage bike that was stored inside. That was all that was going to get done today. I told Guy that I didn’t want to be a pain in the ass, and that I wouldn’t bug him. I know how irritated I would get when customers would do that to me when I worked in a shop. I said to just let me know if there was anything I could do to help. Then, as I was leaving, I ran into Adam who worked at the shop years ago. To make a long story short, he wants to buy the Corny. He’s got a couple of other Concours parts bikes, and my Kaw would be the perfect addition. I told him everything that I know is wrong with it, and he still wants it. Nice! Just as we were finishing our conversation, Guy came out and said that if I wanted to be there tomorrow morning at 10:00 when they open, we could put the Roadster on a lift, and I could start tearing into it. You know where I’m going to be tomorrow. Wah-Freakin’-Hoo!!! (Message edited by Crusty on August 02, 2016) | ||
| Pwnzor |
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| Hughlysses |
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| Greg_e |
Very good. Out of the busted engine, what can you sell for parts? Just wondering how much you can recoup on this whole mess. | ||
| 86129squids |
+1, what Greg said. By the time you sell the Connie and maybe your old motor for parts, you might come out pretty well for cash outlay... Great news! Does this mean you'll be making Mark's place soon for BBQ?  | ||
| Tootal |
 Great news John! REALLY glad to hear that! | ||
| Crusty |
Pictures from the Shop Guido and Guy  Guy, Tory and Emma at the Lunch Table  Sandra  Jimmy (he hates having his picture taken)  | ||
| Crusty |
The Roadster Engine The Connecting Rod has 1/8" up&down play  The rear head. It actually looks a lot worse in real life  My Naked Roadster  | ||
| Crusty |
Wow! Am I Out Of Shape! I went down to the shop yesterday, and spent the day working on the Roadster. It’s been two years since I put in a full eight hour day working and it kicked my ass. This morning, my whole body feels like it’s made from cardboard that’s been left out in the rain, then dried. Very stiff. I have to keep this short, ‘cause I have to go back and put in another eight today. The old engine is out. It took me most of the day to accomplish that. It was a lot more complicated than I expected. Also, it took a good bit longer because I was cleaning as I went. The Roadster will be really clean when I finally get it all back together. I don’t expect to have it all done today, but I’m hoping that I’ll be riding it this weekend. I’ll bring the camera and take a couple of pictures as it progresses. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Great news John! | ||
| Reepicheep |
You are a brave man. When I go that far, every step is it's own zip lock bag with all the parts involved and a label and notes on what tools I need. I'm a big chicken that way. | ||
| Tootal |
Much more fun to rip and shred and throw it in one pile! Then it's like a giant puzzle! Don't you like puzzles!?  | ||
| Pwnzor |
I rank this adventure/implosion/teardown/rebuild as nothing less than  | ||
| Crusty |
I have four very experienced mechanics in the shop to turn to when things get too difficult for me to sort something out; plus, I'm not a bad mechanic in my own right. I've built some pretty complex equipment over the years and I've worked as a motorcycle mechanic a few times in different shops (including the shop) as well. I knocked off a little early today, so I could come home and fix a decent dinner. Here's the Roadster as of 4:30 this afternoon   Hopefully, I'll have her up and running by this time tomorrow. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Looking good! I like the black primary cover. | ||
| Tootal |
Looks great John! Call me if the starter's fried!  | ||
| Ourdee |
I'm starting to smile a little. Thanks, John. | ||
| Reepicheep |
So clean! | ||
| Pwnzor |
I'm really glad this bike is coming back together. After all you went through to get the bags, tank, seat, etc. just the way you wanted it... More pictures of the build, please. Couple of Harley guys here at work are now watching this with great interest. | ||
| 86129squids |
GITERDUUUN!!! Somehow I see a heaping plate of WV BBQ coming your way! That Connie was adequate, but not sufficient. When your "true love" fires back up, very soon now, you'll be on top of the world. Flavor of: AWESOME!!! | ||
| Pwnzor |
Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2016 - 06:48 pm: Hopefully, I'll have her up and running by this time tomorrow. OK, where are we at on this? | ||
| Crusty |
So Close And Yet So Far I put in a nine hour day today and still didn’t get everything done. There are a lot of time consuming details that had to be addressed that I had’t thought about, like draining the primary chain case and adjusting the primary chain (it was way too tight), routing all the wires in the harness the proper way, replacing things like exhaust gaskets, O-rings, washers, bolts and so forth. However, just before 6:00 this evening, I hit the starter button and she fired up and ran smoothly. It was weird; I was both anticipating and dreading starting the bike. I kept looking over my work and triple checking everything to make sure I didn’t forget something important. One thing that I didn’t think of was that the bottom end of the engine might be full of oil. I put 3 quarts of oil in the tank, and the tank was heading toward an overflow when I shut the bike down. Boy, did Guido give me greif about that! I’ll drain a bit out in the morning before I try to start it again.There’s a lot of detail work that has to be done, as well. I want to open the derby cover and check the clutch adjustment, then I can adjust the cable. it’s also going to take a while to clean up the tools and put them all back in their proper places. Today, I felt like one of the crew, and not a guest they were being nice to. When Guido came into the shop and started to yell at me for turning the fan so it was blowing on me (there was nobody else in the shop when I did it), and telling me how selfish I was being by depriving both Jimmy and Guy of a cool breeze, I got to tell him, “Ah go **** yourself, ya miserable p***k!” Fun Times, for sure! Anyhow, barring any bizarre unforeseen circumstances, I hope to be riding a Roadster around Massachusetts tomorrow evening. Here are tonights two photos. The bike is on a gas IV, I took these just after the bike ran.   If you look closely at the photos, somebody stuck a plastic bottle of Holy Water under the Rok Straps on the back of the sissy bar. I don't know who did that, but If it helps, I'm all for it. I need all the help (Heavenly, especially!) that I can get! (Message edited by Crusty on August 05, 2016) | ||
| Ourdee |
Fan turning can be near suicidal where I work. Be careful there. |
