The Wayback Machine: Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On

By Joe Berk

I took my Model 60 S&W apart to clean it and somewhere along the way I lost the shims I put in to reduce cylinder end shake.  A quick email to good buddy Lance Shively and a set of shims later, and I’m back in business.  That got me to thinking:  I had written a blog on installing the shims several years ago and I thought it would be a good idea to run it again.

I love my S&W Model 60 and I shoot it a lot.  It’s particularly cool after I had TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) do an action job on it.  Not content to leave well enough alone, I convinced myself that (after tracing the occasional double action misfire to not-fully-seated primers) that what I really needed was a lighter hammer spring (in addition to the lighter trigger spring I had already installed).  Wolff Springs sells a lighter hammer spring kit, and I went for the lightest hammer spring I could get.

The Wolff Springs hammer spring kit. I went with the lightest spring.

The lighter trigger spring affects single action trigger pull after you have already cocked the gun and it has nothing to do with the occasional double action misfiring I had experienced in the past.  Double action trigger pull is affected by both the trigger spring and the hammer spring, but the hammer spring is a much beefier spring and it drives most of the resistance when firing  double action.  The hammer spring, if too light, can induce misfires.

The Wolff hammer spring kit includes a standard strength spring (an 8 1/2-pound spring), a heavier spring (a 9-pound spring), and a lighter spring (an 8-pound spring).   I wanted a lighter double action pull, so I used the 8-pound spring.  The tradeoff is this puts less force on the hammer, which means it has lower velocity when it hits home, and that ups the likelihood of a misfire.

The hammer spring is easy to change, and if necessary, I can go for either of the two heavier springs at the range.  All it takes is a small screwdriver to remove the grips, and the same exotic custom tool used for disassembling the Rock Island Compact 1911 (a bent paper clip).  The photos below show how this is done.

The Model 60’s hammer spring, with the hammer in the uncocked position.
The Model 60’s hammer spring, with the hammer cocked. Note that the hammer yoke (the rod running through the center of the hammer spring) has been pushed back, exposing a hole in the rod.
A high tech, German tool steel special assembly/disassembly aid? Nah, it’s a bent paper clip and it works gang busters.
To remove the hammer spring yoke and the hammer spring, insert the paper clip into the yoke and gently release the hammer by pulling the trigger and lowering the hammer.
With the hammer dropped, the spring is captured in a compressed mode and the hammer spring and the yoke can be removed from the gun. Once this subassembly is removed, you can manually push the spring cap to further compress the spring, remove the paper clip, remove the spring cap and spring, and install the lighter hammer spring. Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.

While installing the new hammer spring, I noticed that my normal gun cleaning routine just wasn’t cutting it on the Model 60.    There was still a bit of lead in the barrel, and the powder residue was building up around the yoke.   I selected a bronze bristled toothbrush and went to work on the cylinder, the yoke, and the frame, and a bronze bore bush for the bore.  When the remnants of gunfights past were gone (you know, my encounters with zombies, as previously described), I spritzed the gun with the universal cleaner (WD40) and then I wiped it down before applying gun oil.

That’s when I noticed that the barrel-to-cylinder gap was nonexistent.  Zip.  Nada.  Zero.  The front of the cylinder was touching the rear of the barrel.  Uh oh.  That’s no good.   There’s supposed to be a gap there (like you see in the photo below), because if there’s no gap the cylinder will drag on the barrel.  That will degrade the double action trigger pull and, in a worst-case scenario, it can drive the revolver out of time (the chamber won’t be aligned with the barrel).  The technical term for the fore-and-aft cylinder movement that assures a minimum clearance when the cylinder is fully forward is called end shake.  There needs to be some, and there needs to be a gap. Ideally, that should be 0.004 to 0.008 inches.  Any less, and powder and lead residue will bind the cylinder, any more and too much gas escapes (and velocity suffers).

The barrel-to-cylinder gap. This is about .004-inch with the cylinder pushed forward, and that’s the gap I want. This was after I installed the TriggerShims.com cylinder shim.

You measure the barrel-to-cylinder gap with a feeler gage, just like you would when setting the valves on a motorcycle.  I’ve done that (as you know from reading this blog and any of the CSC shop manuals), and I already had the feeler gages I needed.

My feeler gage. I’ve probably owned this tool for 40 years. It still works. I use it for adjusting valves on my Royal Enfield, too.

After a bit of internet research, I learned that the way to address inadequate gap is by shimming the cylinder and its fit on the yoke.  That’s when I first learned there’s a business that specializes in making shims for this exact purpose.  In short order I was communicating with Lance Shively, who heads TriggerShims.com.

The cylinder shims from TriggerShims.com. They were well packaged and sent in a standard business envelope.
The cylinder shims out of the pack. I ordered the four-piece set because I had not worked with these before, I didn’t know what I would need, and they were inexpensive. They are color coded by size.

Lance and his wife, Tammy, run a real Mom and Pop operation that manufactures gun specific shims for a living.  Lance has an extensive background in small engine repair and tool and die making, and he and Tammy parlayed that into TriggerShims, which has been doing well for more than 14 years now.  Lance told me his primary concern is customer satisfaction, and I can tell you my perception in working with TriggerShims is they have mastered it. I had the Model 60 custom end shake shims in three days, there was no postage charge, and the price was more than reasonable for custom gun parts.   Lance runs a Christian business, he believes in God and country, and he’s not bashful about letting people know that.   He and Tammy also sell select items from other vendors when he finds a company he likes and believes in, but that is a very select group.  The two biggest ones are Wolff and Volquartsen.

I received the shims I ordered from Lance in just a few days, and installation was trivially easy.  I had to remove the yoke, disassemble the ejector rod from the extractor, install the shim I wanted to use (I went with a single .003-inch shim to give the clearance I wanted), and then reassemble everything.  It only took a few minutes, and the only tricky part was remembering that the ejector rod had a left-hand thread.

This screw has to be removed to allow removal of the yoke and cylinder from the revolver. You don’t need to remove the revolver’s side plate.
With the yoke removed, you unscrew the ejector rod (the knurled piece you push on to eject empty brass from the cylinder) and everything comes apart. Hold on to the ejector rod as you unscrew it so parts won’t fly away, and remember that it is a left-hand thread.
The cylinder shim(s) fit beneath the extractor spring. They are pushed into the cylinder by the extractor spring as the cylinder and yoke subassembly are reassembled. The shim(s) position the cylinder further to the rear, increasing the barrel-to-cylinder gap.

TriggerShims.com manufactures over 100 firearm-specific shims with thicknesses from .002-inch to .007-inch, with some specialty items as thick as .010-inch  and  as thin as .0015-inch.  Lance sends shims worldwide, with Australia and Canada being the biggest international customers (he also ships to more than 100 other countries).

Lance and I had a good conversation, during which he told me he enjoyed exploring the ExhaustNotes site and our blog.  One thing led to another, and TriggerShims.com is our newest advertiser.  You’ll see the TriggerShims.com logo on the ExNotes blog and all ExNotes pages, and Lance asked if he could post links to some of our Tales of the Gun stories on the TriggerShims.com site.  Hey, you bet, Lance, and welcome aboard.

I had the Model 60 on the range yesterday morning, and it is a much smoother running revolver.

More Tales of the Gun!

Never miss an ExNotes blog…sign up here for free!

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

China’s Shaolin Temple

By Joe Berk

I posted a blog yesterday about Chinese pocketknives and drew a few comments (as I know I would).  One of them mentioned Shaolin martial arts, and that prompted a response from me about the Shaolin Temple in China.  Not a lot of folks here in the US have been to the Shaolin Temple.  I know of two who rode there on motorcycles (that would be Joe Gresh and yours truly).   I covered that visit in Riding China, and I thought it would be good to share a part of that chapter with you today.  Who knows…I might even sell a few books by doing so.  You know, so you can read the rest of the story about our ride through China.

We continued riding and entered a mountainous region. I liked that a lot. The roads were nice, there wasn’t much traffic, and because we were both moving and climbing, the heat abated a bit. We stopped for a break, and a fellow came along on a 250cc Yamaha that was configured for touring. He stopped and chatted with us and we took turns taking pictures of each other. His bike looked good. We only saw a few other Chinese on our trip who were touring on motorcycles.

A Chinese motorcyclist on a 250cc Yamaha. His luggage is from Lester Peng’s motorcycle luggage company. Lester rode with us last year on the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were very close to the Shaolin Temple when we stopped to talk to the Yamaha rider. That would be our next destination this day. Another fellow then came by and he had an animated conversation with Sean (our guide). It turns out he was selling, Sean was his mark, and the guy was working Sean hard. This guy owned a restaurant and he wanted us to eat there. He was successful; we did.

We didn’t pause for naps after this lunch, but Sean was soon having another excited conversation with folks outside the restaurant. I didn’t know what they were discussing, but I later realized it was about transportation and how we would get into the Shaolin Temple. The bottom line to this conversation was that we all piled into three small gray minivans that took us about two miles down the road, back the way we had ridden to get to the restaurant.

What I learned later was that there were two ways to get into the Shaolin Temple complex. One was through the main gate, and apparently that cost more. The other was a woodsy trail through the mountains that required a climb over two or three mountains on a slippery muddy trail. If you did that, you could sneak into the Shaolin Temple complex for free. That’s what we did, and that climb was rough. The trail was slippery, and by now the temperature and humidity were up again. Had I known what was going on I would have gladly paid to go in through the front door, but I didn’t realize what we were doing until I was doing my best impersonation of a mountain goat in the hills behind Shaolin.

So here’s the deal on the Shaolin Temple: It’s famous as the home of Chinese Kung Fu. No kidding; it’s both a Buddhist Temple and a world-renown Kung Fu school (the original Kung Fu school, actually). It’s where Bruce Lee learned his craft, and if you’ve ever seen a martial arts movie with scenes that have large numbers of young Chinese guys learning the martial arts, it was almost certainly filmed here.

The Shaolin Temple was beautiful. As we walked along its well-manicured paths, a young guy went into a martial arts routine that was mesmerizing. It was something right out of a movie. The guy was executing all of these snappy martial arts stances (one seemed to flow into the next) in a manner that almost made the display a dance routine. It probably only lasted a minute or two, but when it ended, a large crowd had already gathered and everyone applauded. I enjoyed seeing it, even though I know nothing about any of this stuff.

A martial artist demonstrating his moves at the Shaolin Temple.
More moves. I told the guys I could do this, but I don’t think they believed me.

The Buddhist Temple was beautiful, but by then it was so miserably hot and humid we weren’t enjoying anything. We were in a walled courtyard that allowed no airflow, and I couldn’t seem to get my body temperature down. I was still perspiring from climbing over the mountains.

I shot a few photos of some of the figures inside the temple (yet again, the D810 Nikon’s incredible low light level capabilities came through).

A figure inside the Shaolin Temple. It’s likely Bruce Lee saw these things when he studied here.
Another huge and menacing figure inside the Shaolin Temple.  These statues were about 15 feet tall.

On our walk out (we left through the main gate), it mercifully started raining again. The rain finally helped me cool off. So far, this day was the hottest and most humid day of our ride (and I found I was saying that nearly every day for the last several days).

At dinner that night, I thought I would have a little fun with the guys. One of the dishes that evening had black fungus mixed in with the vegetables, and I loved that stuff. As I mentioned earlier, what the Chinese call black fungus is a mushroom of some sort, and I loved the taste of it. A small speck of one of the mushrooms, a black piece about a quarter of an inch long, was on the edge of my dinner bowl. I managed to pick up that tiny piece of mushroom with my chopsticks in preparation for solidifying my reputation as a chopstick martial arts master.

I told Tracy, who was sitting next to me, that I wanted him translate exactly what I was about to tell the Chinese guys in our group. He said okay, but went back to his meal. “No, Tracy,” I said. “I want you to tell the guys to stop eating and listen to what I have to say.”

Tracy looked at me for second, and then he spoke to the group in Chinese. The others stopped eating, looking at Tracy and then at me.

“We all visited the Shaolin Temple today and we saw the birthplace of Kung Fu,” I began. I paused, nodded at Tracy, and he started speaking to the group in Chinese.

“You may not know this, but like Mr. Bruce Lee, I, too, am a martial arts expert,” I said. Tracy looked at me and translated what I just said. The others stared at me, taken in by my serious demeanor.

“You know that I am an expert with chopsticks, as I demonstrated on our second night in the peanut contest,” I said. Tracy diligently continued to translate. “You may not know that I am a master at using chopsticks in the martial arts. In fact, I created a branch of Kung Fu that relies entirely on chopsticks.” As I said that, I motioned with my left hand as if I was shooing a fly away from the food on our table. It was a motion all of us had used across China at all of our dinners to get rid of the flies.

As Tracy continued to translate, and when I saw everybody look at my left hand shooing the imaginary flies away, I lunged out into the space over our table with my right hand, still holding my chopsticks. As I did so, I emitted a piercing “eeeee yah!” (my best rendition of a martial arts cry, worthy of no less a master than Bruce Lee himself). I held up my chopsticks, which still held that small morsel of black mushroom. No one could have confused that speck of mushroom for anything other than a fly captured in mid-air by a martial arts master (with his chopsticks, of course).

A loud gasp of astonishment and admiration went up from all of the Chinese riders. Before they could get a closer look, I plopped the tiny piece of mushroom into my mouth and exaggeratedly swallowed. There was a second of stunned silence at our table, followed by another gasp and heavy applause. Gresh was the only one who rolled his eyes. A legend was born that evening, my friends, and he be me.

We had a great dinner that night (I know, I’ve been saying that about every meal on this trip). Eeeeeeyah! The fly-impersonating black fungus. The chopsticks. The applause. It was wonderful.

After dinner, all I wanted to do was get back to the hotel, take a cool shower, crank the air conditioner all the way down, and get some sleep. I posted a blog that night, I went to bed, and I probably dreamed about being a chopstick martial artist.

They’re still talking about me over there, you know.

The ride across China was amazing, the adventure of a lifetime.  You can read about the adventures of dos Joes on the entire trip here:

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

A Tale of Two Pocketknives

By Joe Berk

My collecting bug has taken a turn.  Instead of guns, motorcycles, bicycles, or watches, the latest craze is pocketknives.  I’m not sure what drives the collecting bug (that is to say, what the underlying psychology is); that’s a topic for further research and when I feel like I can explain it, maybe a future blog.

I’ve been using pocketknives and inexpensive hunting knives as a filler/fulfiller on the reloading sites.  I buy a lot of reloading components online from the big reloading supply stores (Natchez Shooters Supply, Midsouth, Midway, Powder Vally, and one or two others), and they all run frequent sales where shipping is free if the order crosses a $100 or $150 threshold.  There are times when I’m under that threshold (sometimes by a lot) and that bothers me.  I can’t pass up a bargain and I want that free shipping.  I’ll use a knife to get me over the magic number.  Most lately it was a Case large Stockman pocketknife.

The Case large Stockman with polished stainless steel blades. The blade on the left is the Spey blade. The other two are for whittling, cutting twine, or whatever suits your fancy.

I’m not sure why I wanted the Case, but as I started poking around on the Midway site for things to get me over $100, the Stockman popped up.  And then it kept popping up.  If I look at something once, I’ll start getting all kinds of emails offering it.  Sometimes, I swear I can just talk about something and I’ll start getting emails with deals on that item.  Siri is a nasty and nosy bitch who seems to hear everything.

The Stockman knife looked interesting.  I knew I didn’t want plastic handles (they’re called “scales” by the knife people), and the Case knife had jigged bone.  I didn’t even know what jigged bone was (other than that it was bone of some sort).  I thought I wanted something made in America (Hack has influenced my thinking on such things, I suppose, unless something that’s made in China is a really good deal, and I’ll get to one a little lower in this blog).  The Case Stockman is American made, and they offer it in two sizes. I didn’t know what a Stockman was, either, but the name sounded kind of John Waynish and I used to live in Texas.  I saw that the knife was available in either a satin or high polish finish.  I opted for the large Stockman with a high polish finish.  It was $82, which took my $45 reloading supplies order handily over the $100 free shipping hurdle.  Yep, they got me again with that free shipping gimmick.

The Stockman knife arrived a few days later along with the $45 of cartridge case corn cob polishing media (I like my ammo shiny).  The knife is beautiful.

All the above got me to wondering:  What is exactly is Stockman, and what is its history?

The story goes like this:   Pocketknives are thought to have originally been invented five or six hundred years before the Christian era (that’s mind boggling, but I read it on the Internet, so it must be true).  The Stockman style of pocketknife is thought to have originated around 1880 in the American West as a cowboy tool.  I watched a lot of Westerns as a kid, so I feel pretty good about that.  The Stockman has three blades, with one (the large one) having its own spring and two sharing a spring (the spring is the leaf spring thingamabobber that assists the blade going into its closed position and then holds it there).  The long Stockman blade is for whittling.  I’m an old guy with a penchant for the American West, so maybe I’ll take up whittling after I finish leaning how to play “Buffalo Gal” on the harmonica.  One of the other two blades is a backup to the long one, and from what I’ve read it is the preferred blade for cutting twine.  (I’ll pick up some twine on the next Walmart visit to check this out).  And finally, the third blade, the so called “Spey” blade (spelled here as they spell it in the knife community) is for castrating young male bull calves.  You know, spaying them.  Ouch.   I read this on the Internet, too (see above regarding veracity).  I’m not going to touch this intended use.  If you’re a rancher who needs help in this area, don’t call me.

I like my Case Stockman.  I haven’t done anything other than look at it so far, but maybe I’ll whittle something later.  As mentioned above, the Stockman is made in America, although truth be told, other made-in-China knives I’ve seen look just as good (Hack, that’s your cue for a comment or two).  That brings me to the second pocketknife I recently purchased.

My new Marbles Scout King knife. I think it’s bigger than what I had when I was a Cub Scout. The uppermost blade is a screwdriver and bottle opener. The next one down is an all-purpose awl. The blade one up from the bottom is a can opener (think P38, and if you’re old enough to remember what that is, my compliments and thanks for your service to you). The bottom blade is for carving, cutting, and any of the other things you can do with a knife. It is a handsome knife.

It’s the Marbles (no, I haven’t lost mine) Scout King, and I came across it while I was reminiscing about the first pocketknife I ever owned.  That knife was a Cub Scout knife.  I have no idea who made it or where it went after I left the Cub Scouts, but I know I liked it.  I played with it constantly.  The first time I ever cut myself badly, it was with that knife despite all the admonitions from Mom and Dad (yes, I’m the guy who has to urinate on the electric fence…you know, just to see).  While writing this blog, I looked for the scar from my Cub Scout knife (I thought it might add context), but the years have obliterated it.

When looking for a replacement Cub Scout knife, I found that I could buy an original on Ebay, but they all looked pretty rough and they were all expensive.  Then I found there are a few companies out there still offering Scout knives.  The Marbles knife was the only one offering polished stainless steel (I like shiny things) and genuine jigged bone scales (instead of plastic), and it had the added advantages of a stunningly low price ($15 and change) and free shipping.  The decision was easy:  Add to cart, buy now, and it was on its way from Chicago (by way of China).  It arrived a few days later, and it’s beautiful.  I’m a happy camper.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

The Wayback Machine: Aging Out

By Joe Berk

A wise man once said there comes a time in every man’s life when he decides to hang it up…his riding days are over.  I guess the follow-on comment has to be:  Is that true?

I turned 71 a few months ago (note that this blog originally published three years ago; I’m 74 today and I’m still riding).  To a lot of folks, that’s old.  The funny part of it is, though, I don’t feel old.  A little earlier today I was putzing around in the garage and my Royal Enfield was making me feel guilty.  I hadn’t had the 650 twin out on the road in the last few weeks, a character deficiency I promptly corrected.  The old girl and I had a nice ride around the neighborhood, I got the oil circulating again (in the Enfield and in yours truly), and I snapped that great photo you see at the top of this blog.   That’s snow-covered San Gorgonio Mountain you see off in the distance, a destination I’ve visited many times on a motorcycle.

But to get back on topic:  At what age should we think about hanging up our riding gear?   Now that I’m a septuagenarian (I had to look it up, so you can, too) I’m wondering about things like that.   But then I think about the guys I’ve ridden with and maybe I’ll continue riding for another 20 years or so.  Take a look.

Simon Gandolfi, who just turned 90 and is arguably the most interesting man in the world, is a novelist and moto adventurer extraordinaire. He’s ridden around the world on small displacement bikes.
Colorado Dan, the man. He cuts a dashing figure and is a great traveling companion.  He’s a year or two older than me.
Another most interesting man in the world…good buddy Willie. He’s usually riding when he’s not pitching Dos Equis.
James, our Texas Ranger and a serious traveler, is in my cohort and he rode Baja with us.

You know, the funny thing is the tone of the conversations during and after a good ride hasn’t changed at all over the nearly six decades I’ve been riding.  The topics have changed a bit, but not really that much.  We still mostly talk bikes and good roads.  But instead of bragging how drunk we were the previous night and who we spent the night with (which was mostly bullshit, anyway) the topics today address different specs.   Instead of 0 to 60 times, quarter mile performance, and top ends, now it’s things like our A1C, PSA, and HDL numbers.  You fellow geezers know what I’m talking about.  But the discussions are just as lively, I think a little more interesting, and probably a bit more truthful.  We’ll touch on politics on occasion, but if the conversation gets too heated or goes too far in that direction, I can always get us back on track (and get a good laugh) when I weigh in with a single question:

You guys know what the problem is in politics today?   All the guys who really know how to run the country are out screwing around riding their motorcycles.

So, at what age should you hang it up?  I’m finding that’s hard to say and most guys my age and older seem to just keep on going.  I’ve ridden with guys well into their 70s, 80s, and sometimes even more.   Good buddy Dan is heading down to Baja next month to camp on the beach near Gonzaga Bay, and he’s a little older than me.  Sim0n Gandolfi, the British novelist and adventure travel writer, rode to Cabo San Lucas and back with us on 150cc CSC Mustangs about a dozen years ago, and he’s about to leave on another epic moto trip at age 90.   James from Texas bought a new motorcycle and rode one of the Baja trips with us.  He spun off somewhere about halfway down the length of the Baja peninsula to take the ferry across to mainland Mexico, and he was going to ride home to Texas through Mexico.  And Willie, another most interesting man in the world, rides every chance he gets when he’s not doing Dos Equis commercials.  Like me, all of these guys qualify for that 89-cent cup of coffee at McDonald’s.

Yeah, I think I’m going to stay at it for a while.  I think you should, too.

Never miss an ExNotes blog…sign up here for free!

The best riding in the world?   In my opinion, it’s unquestionably Baja.  Take a look!

A Shift In Battery

By Joe Gresh

I was going to do a bunch of stories on my solar power system that powers my shed. I may still do that but this is more of an update on the batteries I use to store the solar power.

Small footprint means more energy density and hotter, more localized fires…

With solar, unless you plan on only having power in the daytime, you’ll need a way to store energy. The traditional way to accomplish this is with lead-acid batteries. I’m a lead-acid fan boy because they are so much cheaper than lithium batteries or a molten salt battery.

I should say, were cheaper…as of late lithium batteries have been dropping in price so much you can now get a 12-volt 100ah lithium battery for the same price as the cheapest Walmart lead-acid, deep cycle battery.

My solar system has been online since 2018 and in those years I’ve had to replace three Walmart batteries. The others are getting a bit long in the tooth, you know? Six years is a good service life for a lead-acid battery. Walking by the battery bank a few days ago I smelled the telltale odor of sulphur. This meant another battery had given up the ghost. It’s usually easy to find the bad battery in a bank. It will be hot to the touch, or in this case the filler caps had blown off. Kind of obvious.

The lithium batteries seem fairly even voltage wise at 100-amp load.

Looking at the average age of my battery bank I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new lithium set up. Getting in just under the tariff wire, so to speak.

My new bank will be 12, 12-volt, 100ah lithiums. Wired in series/parallel to produce a 24-volt, 600 amp hour storage capacity. That’s theoretically 14,400 watts of storage if you could squeeze every bit of juice out of the batteries.

By contrast, the existing 12, 12-volt 100ah battery bank only has 7200 watts of usable storage capacity due to lead -acid batteries dropping voltage below 50% capacity. The same total amount of juice is in the lead-acids but it’s at a voltage too low to operate equipment.

I use an old, analogue battery load tester to establish baseline numbers for future troubleshooting.

In addition, the lithium batteries have a smaller footprint so I’ll be able to rig the new bank on a single shelf instead of two shelves like the set up is now. This will cut down in battery cable length and by extension, voltage drop. Less cable is always good with electricity.

All in, I’ll nearly double my solar storage capacity in less square footage for less money than the old style lead-acids. This seems like a win-win.

Lots of important information that I will ignore is printed on the battery.

Now for the downside. These generic lithium batteries claim a 10-year life span but since the Chinese manufacturer’s keep changing brand names like I change underwear the likelihood of the same battery company being around a decade is slim. And then there’s that small detail of the fires.

Lithium batteries don’t like cold weather so that could be an issue. We do get some 20-degree nights at the ranch. I run pipe heaters at night so maybe that bit of drain will keep the batteries snug and warm.

Ah well, it’s not like lead-acid batteries don’t catch fire or explode occasionally.

I’ve had good luck with my Walmart lead-acids, no complaints, and I’m hoping these lithium replacements hold up at least 6 years. 10 years will be great and if they last look for an exhaustnotes long term review in 2035.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Ray Price and the Legends of Harley Drag Racing Museum

By Joe Berk

What I knew about motorcycle drag racing up until a few weeks ago you could fit on the head of a pin and have room left over for the Gettysburg Address.  After a visit to Tobacco Road Harley-Davidson in Raleigh, North Carolina, I can’t say that anymore.  I’m still no expert, but I learned a little more about Ray Price and the motorcycle drag racing game.

A Top Fuel engine. They sort of look like a Harley engine, but there’s very little in the way of shared parts. These engines displace 170 cubic inches and produce about 1500 hp. They launch at about 4400 rpm and are hitting about 5500 rpm at the traps.

I was in Raleigh for a consulting gig, and while I was there Susie and I stopped by the Tobacco Road Harley dealership to visit their motorcycle drag racing museum.   Tobacco Road HD is one of the world’s largest Harley dealers, and Ray Price (the guy who started it all) was a world-renown Harley drag racer.

Looking over the Tobacco Road Harley-Davidson dealership. The floor was crammed with new bikes; like most dealers today, sales have been slow for the last several months. The Museum’s drag bike displays are directly across my vantage point at mezzanine-level. There are several Harley drag racing displays around the mezzanine’s periphery.

Tobacco Road Harley Davidson is home to the Legends of Harley Drag Racing Museum.  For me, it was an eye opener, with six drag bikes and a mezzanine full of drag racing memorabilia.  I met with Bruce Downs, one of the key guys who worked with Ray Price.  Bruce is the Museum’s curator.  He’s been with Tobacco Road Harley for more than 40 years.

A top fuel Harley. The disk brakes are supplemented by a parachute.
The funny bike. This motorcycle power wheelied for the entire quarter-mile run.

In the drag racing game, funny cars are essentially AA Fuel dragsters designed to look sort of like regular cars.  The same is true for funny bikes; if you don’t look too closely, they sort of look like a regular motorcycle.  There’s one funny bike in the Museum; it’s the one with the Sportster gas tank.   It’s the oldest of the Ray Price bikes on display.

A view of the Ray Price funny bike most competitors saw.

Top fuel and funny bikes are custom made, purpose-built machines from the ground up.   Although the top fuel bikes’ engines look like they came from Harley-Davidson, they use few Harley parts.  The engine and its components are mostly machined from billet (the funny bike has some Harley parts, but most of its parts are custom-machined, too).  The engines use solid roller lifters (not hydraulic lifters like a street-going big twin Harley).  There’s no oil circulating through the heads; the cylinder heads are lubricated with grease only.  The engines use a special 50W Lucas oil that absorbs nitromethane, and the engine oil is changed after every pass.  The engines have a 5-inch to 5 3/8-inch stroke.  They use about two gallons of nitromethane on each run, and fuel is pumped to the engine by a cam-driven pump (bikes like these can’t rely on gravity feed to get the fuel to the carburetors).  The engines are normally aspirated; there’s no supercharger.  The engines produce something in the neighborhood of 1500 horsepower.  (Note to self: Yikes!)  The drag team sometimes rebuilds the engine after every pass; a decision is made after each run based on a compression test.  The bikes are started with an external starter that has three car batteries wired in series.

Top fuel bikes don’t have a clutch lever (the left lever is the rear brake; the right lever is the front brake).  The bikes have a custom-built two-speed transmission and what is essentially a centrifugal clutch.  They launch at 4400 rpm and go through the traps at 5300 rpm.  Wow.  Think about that: There’s less than a thousand rpm increase in engine speed over the quarter mile.   Shifting is accomplished pneumatically by pressing a button.  Ray Price experimented with three-speed transmissions, but he decided the two-speed transmission was best.  More gears weren’t necessary.

The M&H rear tires on the bikes are M&H car slicks; they are not designed as motorcycle-specific tires.  The rear tire pressures can range from 4 psi up into the low teens.  The guys who race drag bikes adjust tire pressure to get the hookup they want depending on track conditions and weather.  The front tires are motorcycle-specific tires.  Ray Price ran with tires made by Goodyear and M&H.

Monster chains and wheelie bars.  The chains on a Harley drag bike are immense. They look like something you’d see on earth moving equipment.

Running the quarter mile on one of these machines must have been a very sporting proposition.  I thought about that and I wondered what it would be like.  I tried to see myself on it as the bike launched, accelerated, and then hit the traps.  I imagined the steps I’d have to execute as I went through the traps.  I asked Bruce what came first:  Shutting off the fuel?  Deploying the parachute?  Hitting the brakes?  Bruce told me that at the end of a run the drill is to roll off the throttle, deploy the parachute, apply the brakes, and shut the fuel off (all accomplished at something north of 200mph after six-seconds experiencing what an artillery round feels like during a cannon launch).

The funny bike and a top fuel bike.  Ray Price is credited with inventing the motorcycle wheelie bar.  All the bikes in the Museum have one.  Parachutes on drag bikes became prevalent around 2020.

Ray Price’s best elapsed times were set on the white bike in the center of the Museum’s display area.  It ran in the low 6.20s (once as low as 6.16), with speeds of 225 mph and sometimes 230 mph.

The Tobacco Road Museum’s funny bike, the one with the Sportster tank, is displayed with the front end off the ground.  I asked about that and Bruce told me that when it ran the quarter, the front end was in the air for the length of the quarter mile run (it ran a power wheelie the entire distance).  People would wait at the end of the track just to see it.

The funny bike and its quarter-mile-long wheelie had me thinking about steering. I asked Bruce about how Mr. Price did it.  Ray steered the bikes with his body and by pushing on the footpegs (note that a top fuel bike weighs between 850 and 1000 pounds). I could see Bruce fondly remembering Ray explaining it all.  “Ray said he had to be focused 1000 feet downrange, and that he was already correcting for direction the instant he launched,” Bruce said.  It was a cool moment in what was already a very cool interview, seeing Bruce remembering Ray like that.  My guess is there was a lot of respect and love there.  (If my words convey to you that I enjoyed the Tobacco Road visit, I’ve done my job.)

Bruce went on to explain that Ray ran the bikes himself until he a bad crash at the end of a Las Vegas run.  Ray landed hard on this shoulder, Bruce said, and he suffered a lot of nerve damage.  After the Las Vegas accident, Ray couldn’t run the bikes himself.  He hired riders.  Bruce told me the crash wasn’t because Ray lost control; he was simply going too fast and the engine overpowered the brakes.  Ray and the bike went through the first safety net together.  The second safety net stopped the bike, but not Ray.

The Harley drag racing fraternity is small.  There are about 20 Harley drag racers nationally and they all know each other.  I asked Bruce if Harley had an official drag team, and he told me they do not.  Several years, ago, you could buy a far less ferocious drag bike from any Harley dealer, complete with wheelie bar.  That was a model based on the V-Rod engine called the Destroyer.  It’s no longer available.

20+ years back, motorcycle top fuel quarter-mile times and speeds had already made it into the stratosphere.  Elapsed times were just over 6 seconds with trap speeds exceeding 220 miles per hour.  Today, motorcycle top fuel runs are typically done on a 1000-foot track instead of the earlier 1320-foot quarter mile (the times and trap speeds were just getting too wild).    Times for the shorter distance runs are in the low 5-second range, and speeds are approximately 300 mph.  The numbers are astounding.

A view from the left front of a top fuel Harley.

Tobacco Road Harley, the Legends of Harley Drag Racing Museum, and my visit with Bruce made for a quite a story and quite a visit.  Ray Price was one hell of a man.  I found a video about him on YouTube.  I’ll think you’ll enjoy it.

If you ever find yourself in the Raleigh area (and you should, as Raleigh is a great town), Tobacco Road Harley is a “must-see” destination.  And if you’re looking for a great dinner, Raleigh’s The Pit restaurant is the best barbeque I’ve ever had.  Both times I’ve been there I had the brisket meat loaf and it was beyond superb (I’m told everything on the menu is great).  In fact, I’d say a trip to Raleigh could be justified just to visit Tobacco Road Harley, see their Legends of Harley Drag Racing Museum, and have dinner at The Pit.  Trust me on this; you can thank me later.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Dos Ojos Cavern Dive – Mexico

By Mike Huber

Introductory Disclaimer:  So as I have been writing these blogs the last few years it’s quite enjoyable and therapeutic to literally vomit out the stories without having pressure to place any bullshit spin or embellishments (they really don’t need any embellishing). I take pride in highlighting my successes, but also annotating my shortcomings and owning them through my writings. Enjoy!

My main purpose of traveling to Mexico was tacos, but diving was a close runner up as a reason to visit this incredible country again.  Diving over the past six months has almost replaced my addiction to motorcycling, making it yet another bad decision as a hobby choice.  For those of you that have read my previous diving adventures will fully understand this.

I am currently on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and much of this land was created from a giant asteroid.  That would be THE giant asteroid that created the Ice Age and killed off the dinosaurs.  With this massive disruption in this area, the ocean floor was lifted in a strange way that created cenotes.  These essentially are old caves that are now flooded with fresh water.  There are about 5,000 of these cenotes throughout the Yucatan Peninsula and they are quite magical.  Having to mark my checklist off (I’m making this list up as I go, by the way, as a month ago I couldn’t tell you what a cenote was) scuba diving in one of these seemed like it would be incredible, and it was. Sorta.

In Thailand I had done a few swim throughs.  Not even caves or caverns, but about 20 meters.  It wasn’t something I ever enjoyed but it wasn’t the worst experience, either, so I wasn’t quite sure how I would feel during a 52-minute, ¼-mile dive through my first cenote.  Upon arriving and seeing the other divers in the crystal clear water with the sunlight mysteriously peering through the overgrowth of old forest above the cave, I instantly was put into a state of awe based on how beautiful it was.  After donning our scuba gear and jumping into the cenote, the cool water was quite refreshing from the heat and humidity in the jungle above us.  After a few minutes of joking around and performing a buoyancy test, the five of us were ready to begin exploring this cenote underwater.

It didn’t take long before the beautiful glowing natural light was absorbed by darkness.  We had nothing but our small flashlights and a string along the bottom to guide us for the next hour. As we swam along there were stalagmites and stalactites on either side of us.  Some were so old they had formed natural columns in the still crystal clear and dark water we were slowly navigating through.

We were about 30 minutes or so into the dive when I noticed my heart began beating quite rapidly.  It was beating at a rather uncomfortable rate.  I tried to shake it off as mentally I felt great, but it seemed to be getting worse.  With my heart now beating faster, my breathing also began to increase.  I knew I had plenty of air as I am religious on checking my oxygen levels (see my previous diving blogs) so I did what I could to dismiss it, but my mind wouldn’t allow me to shake it off.

With all this going on I began to float to the surface.  Normally this would just be frustrating and I would have to close my eyes, exhale and I would sink back to the level I wanted.  The issue now, though, is there was no surface.  There was only the cavern ceiling.  If I hit the cavern roof, I would probably hit my head and it would possibly be a “lights out” situation.  I did not want this. We were in a semi-single-file line (although I was a bit more elevated than the others, in several ways now that I think about it).  There really was nothing or no one I could reach out to for help.  What were they going to do? Give me a hug?  I was on my own here and as with previous situations, I had the rest of my life to determine how to resolve this mess and get my head (and more importantly, my body) under control.

It took a couple of minutes to do just that, and a short while later I was enjoying the cave, being super calm and relaxed.  It felt like coming out of an intense psychedelic trip and realizing that you are on the other side of it (and a stronger person for having undergone the experience).  Then, it happened again.  Not quite as intense but enough for me to mentally note that this sort of diving wasn’t for me, or at least it wasn’t for me at this particular time.

As we neared the entrance of the cavern where we started from the shimmering neon green light of the sun causing the water to glow and seeing the other divers floating gently above me was a beautiful sight.  My first cavern dive had been logged and as I surfaced I looked to me new friends around me and simply said “Well, that was quite a trip.”  I chose not to do the second cavern dive that day (for obvious reasons) but I am looking forward to my next dive in a few days.  That dive will include close encounters with bull sharks.  Until then I am long overdue for a couple of cold Tecates and some much-needed tacos.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

It’s Miller Time

By Joe Berk

On our recent visit to Milwaukee, we visited the Miller brewery.  It’s in the center of the city, right on West State Street, nestled in the town’s hills.  Those hills will become significant in a moment when I tell you about the caves.

Our tour guide was a very energized guy.  I can’t remember his name, but I can tell you he made the tour come alive for us.  It was fun.

One of the first things our tour guide covered was the girl.  She was present in several stained glass windows and a few other places.

Our guide, that interesting guy a few photos up, explained her history to us.  The story goes like this:  A.C. Paul, Miller’s advertising guy, got lost in the Wisconsin woods (as in good and lost, at night, in freezing temperatures).  He had a vision of the Miller High Life girl you see above, perched on a crescent moon, pointing the way back to civilization.  That vision (in various forms) has been in Miller’s advertising and branding pretty much ever since.  Is it true?  Hey, it’s a good story and it’s got something to do with beer, so who cares?

The Miller company goes back a long way, and in the old days, they used to store newly-made beer in the caves adjacent to the plant in the hills on West State Street.  The advent of refrigeration made that unnecessary, but Miller still owns the caves.  They’re part of the tour, and if you have an event (a wedding, a party, a Bar Mitzvah, whatever) they make a hell of a venue.

The photos you see here didn’t use any flash.  I bumped the ISO up to 800.  That, along with my 24-120’s vibration reduction capabilities and a bit of post processing in PhotoShop created the images you see here.

Miller has also has a cool party place (you can also rent this as a venue) in the main building.   You can see that in the photo below.

Those glasses you see above were samples provided to us during the tour.  The ones you see above were Miller’s Killian Red label.   Folks, there were a lot of beer samples on this tour, starting with the very beginning of the tour in the Miller Visitor Center (it’s where I snapped that photo of the custom chopper at the top of this blog).  The samples weren’t small, either.  If you weren’t watching what you consumed, I imagine you could get a pretty good buzz on this tour.  Me, I was watching what I drank, and I didn’t finish any of the samples.  They sure were good, though.  Miller beer is awesome.

After the stop above, we entered the actual beer factory.  Our guide explained that folks are usually amazed when they see this part of the operation.  There were hardly any people working in the plant.

I wasn’t surprised at the lack of people; in fact, I would have been surprised if there were people there.  Beer production is a process-based industry, and most process-based industries are automated.  The days of the LaVerne and Shirley show are long gone in the beer business (that show featured two women who worked in a Milwaukee beer factory).

Back in the LaVerne and Shirley days, they could have been employed by any of several beer companies in Milwaukee.  Automation and consolidation changed all that.  Today, pretty much all the Milwaukee beer companies are part of the Miller empire.  Miller has something like 11 breweries across the country.  There’s one not too far from me here in southern California.  The regions they cover are divided geographically.  Our tour guide told us that the plant we were in covers the Midwest.  It produces 10 million barrels of beer annually, and 40% of the beer manufactured in the Milwaukee plant goes to just one city (and that’s Chicago).  Those Chicago boys like their beer, I guess.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

The Big Dig

By Joe Gresh

One of the reasons we got such a good deal on The Ranch©️ in New Mexico is its location. Perched on the side of the Sacramento Mountains, the land is steep. Any flat areas are man-made so when you want to build a greenhouse, you’ve got to move some earth.

I’m filling the area beyond the wall. It was a steep rocky place and now you can walk around without stumbling like an old man…which I am.

Terracing is much easier than removing the mountain so that’s what we’ve been doing. The little cabin we live in is on a terraced spot down by the arroyo. The shed is higher up on another terraced spot.

There’s a great location for a greenhouse behind our shack and down closer to the arroyo. The spot gets plenty of winter sun and it’s protected in most directions from wind. It’s so low I suspect it may flood in heavy rains.

It’s a little hard to get to but the location will be better when the high winds kick up.

Unfortunately, the location is hard to get to. A while back I made a set of stairs to access the location but there’s no way to get the Kubota tractor down the stairs. I actually could get it in position via another route but it would require cutting a bunch of trees. I don’t want to cut trees.

That leaves hand digging. The ground is not too bad to dig. It’s much easier than the front of the house where I put a driveway. Down in the arroyo the ground is a combination of hard topsoil, mid-sized rocks and some whitish, proto-rock stuff that crumbles with a sharp blow from a 2-pound sledgehammer.

The land tapers from level. At the highest about three feet must be removed.

The process is: I break up the top layer with an electric, 35-pound jackhammer (powered by the Harbor Freight Tailgator generator), then I use a round point shovel to move the loosened soil into a wheel-buggy. A little work with a pick dislodges the larger rocks. Aside from a few tree roots, it’s the best digging I’ve encountered on the property.

Since the area is so steep I’m bulkheading off lower regions with some old roll-up garage doors and using the removed earth to level a larger pad. It’s like getting free land. I plan to fill about two feet deep of as large an area as I have dirt for.

This sounds like a lot of work and it is. I take it slow and steady. It’s really no worse than going to a gym to work out and you get the added benefit of a flat spot on your ranch.

The greenhouse is a cheap Vevor 10-foot x 20-foot hoop style. The hoops are 1-inch tubing that are assembled like tent posts. A through bolt holds the pieces together. The cover is a greenish plastic material reinforced with what looks like thread. I think the cover will last a couple years if we don’t get a hailstorm. It’s not a heavy-duty unit.

It’s a happy worksite. I take frequent breaks and enjoy the smell of freshly turned earth.

The foundation will be heavy duty. I’m building a two-block high pony wall to set the greenhouse on. The blocks are dry stacked, poured solid, and they sit on a 4-inch-thick footer. The footer has rebar to keep it together when it cracks. I’ve set some 1/2-inch j-bolts into the block cavities to secure the wood sill that I will screw the greenhouse tubing into.

The foundation is overkill because I’m assuming the Vevor won’t last long and I’ll be scratch building anothergreen house one day. In the meantime, I’ll practice my green thumb.

As the project progresses, I’ll post updates. There will be solar power and a water catchment system making the greenhouse off-grid. For those of you wanting to build your own greenhouse my advice is to start with level ground.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

The Wayback Machine: A Call to Alms

This is a rerun of a blog Gresh wrote a couple of years ago.  Yep, we’ve got our palms out.   Help if you can; we’d sure appreciate it!

By Joe Gresh

Sponsored content is a way for publications to earn money. How it works is companies pay cold hard cash for bloggers to write a story about the products they’re selling.  Most reputable websites and magazines print a notice letting you know the story is paid advertising. We’ll never have to worry about that because we don’t write sponsored content.

Not writing sponsored content is not the same as not having sponsors, though.  Sponsors pay money for advertising on our website but don’t have any say about what we write. Sponsors support the website because they feel the content will attract the sort of people who they want to reach. For ExhaustNotes those people will be motorcyclists, shooters, travelers (especially Baja travelers), and concrete finishers. I know, it’s an odd mix of topics, but Berk, me, Huber, and our other contributors write about what we know.

So here’s the pitch: If you have been reading ExhaustNotes and think the eclectic collection of stories we create might appeal to your customers, by all means become one of our sponsors.

Or, if you just like reading the website and want to help support us, become a site sponsor even if you have nothing to sell. Maybe we’ll make a wall of names for people who sponsor the site. We want sponsors to support ExhaustNotes.us because they think that the writing we are doing is worthwhile.

So dig down into those dusty advertising budgets and drop an email to us  (info@ExhaustNotes.us).   Let us know how we can help you spend your money.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!