Author: Joe Gresh

Motorcycle Camping: Level 1

The town of Weed is our last chance for gas or groceries. It’s a small place, population 20, and every Weed-ian citizen is packing heat. The chick working at the only store in town sports some kind of .45 auto that wobbles a crazy figure 8 on her hip as she totes pallets of soda pop from the storage shed into the store. The tall cowboy who delivers propane has a revolver on his hip also but that gun is not nearly as active.

Look there: a soccer mom wearing a white cowboy hat, plaid shirt, jeans and a 9mm pistol goes into the store for a gallon of milk. Mid-sized dogs hop out of a Polaris side-by-side, both dogs strapped with camouflaged vests that sport bandoliers of ammunition and pup-optimized night-vision goggles. Tactical mutts, man. A small child, not more than 2 months old waves about a menacing AR-15 while his head lolls in an elliptical orbit. Each complete cycle baby’s hard eyes lock onto mine and dare me to steal his candy before rotating on.

Okay, okay, I’m joking. The baby wasn’t carrying an AR-15. Needless to say, the crime rate is low in Weed. Either that or the woods are full of spongy ground and failed attempts. Mike and I fill our gas tanks at Weed not so much because we need fuel but because it’s more an offering to the forest gods before we leave civilization. Cover me while I pump the 87 octane.

Mike has a BMW 650 and I’m on my Husqvarna 510.  We leave Weed heading west and after the even smaller town of Sacramento, Aqua Chiquita Road rises into a dark green forest of pines and aspens. This is the Lincoln National Forest. National and state parks may be closed due to Covid but here in New Mexico rough camping in the forests is still allowed.

We originally planned on camping further west, on Thousand Mile Trail, but an interesting unmarked side road caught our attention so we wandered off to see where it went. You can do stuff like that when you have no destination.

The side road was bumpy and almost all rock. Not loose rock, but solid rock. We bounced along for a mile and the road dipped into a sandy mud hole. Off to the right was a wide, shallow valley covered in lush green grass and dotted with grazing cows. “What do you think?” asked Mike. “Lets go check it out.”

The valley was much smoother than the road. There were tangles of old barbed wire sprinkled among the cow patties. Each time we would stop at the perfect camping place another perfect camping place was just a little further ahead. We kept following the Valley Of Perfect Campsites until it split off into two directions. We made camp at the junction of the two valleys on a slight rise that gave a commanding view of the pastoral scene.

I mean camping doesn’t get any better than this: no people, no RV’s, the camp even had a pre-constructed fire-ring and enough firewood for a month. Setting up my new tent was easy. I’ve used pup-style tents for years and they are all the same simple sleeve with two poles. One modification I’ve learned over the years is to use bungee cords for tying off the end poles. In a hard wind the bungees stretch but don’t yank the tent pegs out of the ground.

The pup tent was easy enough to rig but my new air mattress made up for it. I bought a Soble brand mattress with a built-in pump. The deal is, you remove the cap and then the plug on the square pump area. Next you push down on the square pump to fill the mattress. And you pump. And you pump. I started grumbling, “This damn mattress pump isn’t doing anything!”

I pumped and pumped. Sweat started trickling down my sides and still I pumped. Then I tried inflating it by blowing into the fill hole. After 20 minutes of struggling I was light headed, feeling sick and getting nowhere. I gave up and tossed the completely flat mattress into the tent and my sleeping bag over that. At least we had soft grass under the tents.

We were drinking smoky coffee and cooking hot dogs on a stick over our roaring fire. It really was the perfect camp site. Mike asked me, “Tell me how your air mattress works.” I explained the cap and the plug and the little square built-in pump to him. Mike thought about it for a few minutes then asked me, “How do you deflate the mattress?” I was stunned. What a dumb-ass question: deflating the mattress was the last thing I wanted to do! Then Mike said, “There must be a way to let the air out.”

My world shattered. Dark, stumbling stupidity was illuminated by the light of one thousand suns. Of course! There had to be a second plug! I ran to the tent, all doubt erased. There, underneath the pillow on the opposite side from the pump was a 1-inch deflation valve and it was wide open. For 20 minutes I had been pushing air from the foot of the mattress out the valve on the other end. With the deflation valve plugged the Soble mattress took about 2 minutes to inflate into a firm, comfortable sleeping pad.

After the air mattress debacle I realized I should have brought some gin along. I’ll put that on my list of equipment along with more water. Making coffee, cleaning up and drinking used up most of our water supply. Mike had an emergency drinking straw, the king you put into any old water and it filters the muck. A stream runs alongside Aqua Chiquita road a few miles away so we weren’t going to die. Other things we brought but didn’t use were aerosol cans of bear spray and bear bells. The bells were CT’s idea. If a bear can’t hear me snoring then he’s a pretty old bear.

Speaking of snoring, I’ll need a new sleeping bag as the tiny mummy bag would not allow much movement. I finally un-zipped the thing so I could turn and parts of me fell out into the 50-degree night air. I woke up sore. But then I always wake up sore. That night air also soaked all our gear. The bikes were wet, our folding stools were wet, the inside of my tent was dripping with condensation and that’s with both sides open. Mike’s tent didn’t have a rain fly, the top is mesh and was still wet inside. I don’t know if this was just a function of the dew point or the tent material not breathing.

Hot coffee in the morning will pave over a lot of rough patches and by 11 a.m. we felt alert enough to head back down the mountain. We rode west on Aqua Chiquita until Scott Able Road and followed Scott Able back to the paved highway.

A brief discussion was held at the 1000 Mile Trail, our original destination but we were both kind of tired from our night on the hoof. Anyone who thinks homeless people are homeless by choice has never camped with me. I don’t like motorcycle camping and this trip has done nothing to alter my opinion. I guess it’s the new normal until things start re-opening and a treatment or vaccine for Covid 19 is created. I’m not going to complain too much. I’ve learned more on fine-tuning my camping gear, which was the goal on this ride. You know, waking up sore and damp beats not waking up at all.

4 Things You Need To Survive Motorcycle Touring With Covid-19

With the advent of a killer virus sweeping the nation, traveling long distance by motorcycle has become more complicated. We used to hop on our motorcycles, ride all day and then in the evening get a room at the cheapest motel we could find. Those days are over. Don’t get me wrong; motels are still an option, much like Russian roulette is a fun parlor game. Go ahead, pull back those sheets and crawl inside. Did the maid really disinfect the room? Was the last traveler teeming with the virus, coughing and spitting his way to sleep? What can you touch and what can’t you touch?

Nowadays to go anywhere far on a motorcycle you’ll need to be able to camp, and not at commercial campgrounds either. Campground bathhouses were never a sterile environment in the first place, now they seem like a damp Club Med for viruses. I’ll take my chances with the bears, you know? I’m talking rough camping: riding into a National Forest, finding an out of the way spot with nice soft grass and bedding down for the night.

The first thing you’ll need is a tent. In my younger days I spent many uncomfortable nights sleeping out in the open. I’d pull over, toss a plastic tarp on the ground and just lay down. That was the full extent of my camping preparation. I’ve since learned that biting bugs, rain and animals make having a tent the way to go. I bought this small, old school style pup tent because I’m done setting up the flex-pole igloo type tents. Small pup tents are smaller and lighter than igloos and there are too many stressed elements in an igloo. Every Igloo tent I’ve owned ended up tearing.

I’m going to assume you already own a sleeping bag (everyone should). In addition to the sleeping bag an air mattress will drastically improve your chances of falling asleep inside that claustrophobic pup tent. If you’re 20 years old you could probably forgo the air mattress. I’m using one with a built in pump instead of the self-inflating type for two reasons. Number one is an inflatable packs down much smaller than a self-inflating type. Number two is the self-inflating pads compress and after a few minutes you’re on the ground anyway. The need to keep the size and weight of your camping gear to a minimum will become apparent when you start loading your motorcycle.

Hard-core riders can get away without a camp stove but I’m not a hard-core rider. I need my coffee in the morning or a can of warm soup in the evening. Unfortunately, while the burner itself is tiny, carrying one of these small, gas-powered stoves requires a bunch of other gear. I have one pot to boil water or soup, extra water to clean up the mess and then there’s the gas bottle, which is like three times the size of the camp stove. Not to mention the stuff you are going to cook. It’s a space and weight commitment you may not want to make. Plain old water and candy bars will work fine if it’s only a one-night road trip.

Now we are getting into purely luxury items. When you rough camp in the forest there are never picnic tables, benches, fire rings or screaming children. This type of folding camp chair can really make a campsite feel like home. There are two basic styles of small camp chairs, the tripod type and the X type. I prefer the X-type because they are less prone to sink into soft ground…like the ground you find in a forest. The tripod type is much easier to fold up so you’ll have to make your choice based on terrain and patience level.

All the gear in this story can be purchased for less than one night’s stay at a motel so there’s the cost savings to be considered. I can pack everything in one medium-sized stuff bag and bungee the mess to my motorcycle. It’s not an easy way to travel for sure but with many national and state parks closed now it’s about the only way to travel. I’ve recently purchased all the camping gear you see above attempting to make my pack smaller and lighter. And I’ve succeeded: It’s easily half the size and weight of my old camping gear. I’ve yet to use it in anger but that will change soon. My riding buddy Mike and I are going on a several day ride and since we are old, lung impaired and clinging to life by a thread we both feel like rough camping is the safest option Covid-wise.

Catch up on our most recent blogs here!

Hasty Conclusions:  First Look at Viking Cycle’s Warlock Jacket

 Viking Cycle sent Joe Berk a new jacket to test and since I’m the loyal, half-witted sidekick, Berk made sure I got one, too. Viking Cycle was just in time with their products because the heat in New Mexico was getting a bit much for me. I was tempted to go bare on my motorcycle. The folks at Viking Cycle let me pick whichever jacket I wanted and I chose the Warlock, a mesh jacket that should flow plenty of air. I went with the high viz color because car drivers, along with Americans in general, are getting more careless in their comportment. And I look cool besides.

Viking Cycle’s prices are incredibly low. The Warlock mesh in several colors retails for just $54.99 and if you give Viking your email (or invent a new one) they will knock 15% off the already ridiculously low price. All the Viking gear is very economical (check out their website). If you’ve been paying attention to ExhaustNotes you know I’m a cheap bastard. The Warlock appeals to me in that place where my miser instinct festers.

The Warlock comes with a zip-in, vest-style liner, which I promptly removed and tossed into the growing pile of other inner liners. I don’t use them and on a mesh jacket it would defeat the purpose of the mesh. Instead I’ll toss a rain jacket over the Warlock if it gets too cool. Colder still and I’ll put a shirt on underneath the mesh. It’s all about the layers, man.

Kind of a neat feature that I’ve never seen before is the front-pocket lanyard. I guess you can clip your house keys or 9mm semi-automatic pistol to the lanyard and it will prevent them from falling onto the ground when you’re retrieving other items from the pocket. There are four front pockets and one inner pocket. The pockets are plastic so they should delay rainwater from getting inside but if it’s raining you will probably have the whole jacket covered anyway. The Warlock has back armor, elbow armor, and chest armor. The elbow armor slips into a hook-and-loop pouch and sometimes when I slide my arm into the sleeves my finger will catch on the pouch. Not a big deal but since I have not tested the jacket yet I have to come up with something.

The Warlock is made in Pakistan which should appeal to my anti-China friends (I’m talking to you, Keith). To tell you the truth I’m not sure if we are at war with Pakistan or not but it can’t hurt to outsource some of our manufacturing to a wide variety of countries just to keep the world’s economy humming.

I like the fit of my XL Warlock. The arms are slim so they shouldn’t flap around yet the middle is suitably sized for a well-fed Westerner like me. As far as quality goes, the Warlock looks like any other mesh motorcycle jacket. I mean, I’m not a seamstress, I don’t see any glaring problems. I will need to put a few thousand miles on the Warlock mesh jacket to see if anything goes pear-shaped. Unfortunately it’s been raining like mad here in New Mexico and I don’t want to get my motorcycle dirty. Keep watching this space for a full road test of the Warlock.

See more ExhaustNotes product reviews here!

South By South Bend: Part 2

 The South Bend lathe project has been waylaid by several factors, none of them your fault. I did manage to wire the 4-pole, two-position, center-off toggle switch into the Harbor Freight ½ horsepower motor. So now I have forward and reverse. I’ll probably never use reverse but it’s good to have it in case you want to cut from the backside.

I could have made the motor reverse with a three-pole switch but since the motor is wired high voltage (240vac) you want all hot legs disconnected when the switch is in the off position. And I had the switch. The switch connections started out simple enough but soon I had wire coming out my ears. I ended up having to double up the metal junction box to allow enough space for the spaghetti.

I normally don’t like complicated things but I couldn’t come up with a better way and it was like 115 degrees in the shed. Not a good temperature for thinking. I’ve included a shot of the Harbor Freight motor’s faceplate in case anyone can come up with a simpler way of reversing the motor.

After the motor was running I had to file the 3/4-inch to 5/8-inch shaft-sleeve as it was too tight from the factory. I also cut down the tall key that was included in the sleeve package. The new belt is narrower than the original, or maybe not. The old one was pretty rotten. As it is situated, the inner face of the belt contacts the center of the motor pulley. The V-sides are supposed to do the contacting around here. I forget if A is wider than B in belt-speak but I’ll have to do a little work on the belt and pulleys. The thing works like it is so that’s good enough for now.

I’ve been relearning the various levers and knobs on the South Bend, levers and knobs that I knew blindfolded 40 years ago. My first cuts were ragged, a combination of no end support on the work piece and a cutting tool that has been in the lathe for eternity. I’ve since quelled the shaking by using a live center. That one change improved the appearance of the machined surface by 42%. The tool is still not what I want as it is tearing material more than cutting. I might try some of these newfangled carbide tools, the ones with a three-sided cutting edge that you can swap as it gets dull.

I’ve machined my test piece to roughly 5/8” so my next trick will be to dig around the junk box and see if I can find a thread cutting tool. You need a V with the correct angle. Watch this space for the threaded rod or mangled mess. I’ll also go over the remaining tooling I have for the South Bend. I’ve lost a lot of stuff over the years but there are still toys like steady rests, faceplates, and lathe dogs to clean up and experiment with.

You can read the first part of South Bend story here.

Tools For a Motorcycle Trip Part 2: You’ll Need a Luggage Rack

ExhaustNotes.us contributor Mike Huber recently wrote a story about tools to carry on a motorcycle trip. The story threw me because I was expecting a list of actual tools. Instead, Huber wrote about high tech software and hardware to make a motorcycle trip safer and more enjoyable. He should know as he lives on a motorcycle.

I’m always scratching for something to write about. The Internet consumes content at an incredible pace so I figured I’d steal Huber’s idea and write about the tools I carry on a motorcycle. This tool set may seem like a lot but I bring it along on a 7-mile run to the post office or a cross-country ride. Much like a large, ugly tail rack I won’t leave home on a motorcycle without tools.

If your bike has a kick-starter these little jump starters are not a must-have but with a high-compression 500cc single cylinder and no kick starter the Husqvarna is a bear to push start with a dead battery. Luckily I haven’t needed to jump the Husky yet but I have used the jump starter to start cars, other motorcycles (see Royal Enfield Bullet) and just yesterday I used it to start the back-up generator when the power went out at Tinfiny Ranch.

My nephew, Anthony gave me this one and it’s a pricy unit but you can find them on Amazon for as low as $25. I have a cheapie in every car and they work well. Not only will the tiny, lightweight battery jumpstart a diesel tractor or large cruise ship, it will charge your cell phone many times over. The only flaw with them is that they hold a charge for so long you tend to forget about them. Remember to recharge the thing every 6 months or so.

If you have a 12-volt system, not a given with old motorcycles, a small electric air compressor will save you hours of pumping after fixing a flat tire. This one is Slime brand but any of them will work. For some reason I frequently get flat tires so this pump sees regular action.

Of course a pump is useless without a patch kit. Most of my motorcycles still run inner tubes, which are a PITA, compared to tubeless tires. If you can find access to the hole without further damaging the tube patching is easy and reliable. I also carry a spare tube in case a tube becomes irreparable from my ham-fisted repair attempts.

A Leatherman multi-tool pocketknife covers a lot of bases and takes up little space. There are other brands of multi-tool and they are ok but I still think the Leatherman is the best of the bunch. Leatherman also has a great warranty. If you break a blade just send it back and Leatherman will send you a new knife. I’ve done it twice and had no issues.

An assortment of basic tools will get you out of trouble most times. I carry vise grips, tire irons, a decent multi-tip screwdriver, a few wrenches and ¼-inch sockets with driver, and a little flashlight. Vise grips will most likely damage whatever you use them on but they will get the job done and you can replace the chewed up parts when you get back home. The small aluminum tin case seen in the cover photo contains a universal cable repair kit. This is a neat item with several different cable ends and a length of cable. The various ends screw on so you can make a temporary cable for damn near any motorcycle. I’ve never used this item but I will be well-chuffed (warning: Brit slang!) if I ever do need the thing.

I also carry a spare master link, electric tape for those melt downs, a bit of bailing wire, tie wraps and a length of measuring tape. The measuring tape is super for seal cleaning or shimming or even measuring.

In addition to the basic tool set I add a few motorcycle brand-specific bits as I swap the tool set from bike-to-bike. A tube of Seal All rides with me on the Kawasaki 900 because the gas tank was very rusty and might spring a leak at any time. The Yamaha 360 gets a flywheel puller, a jug of two-stroke oil and a 21-inch front tube that will fit both wheels if it has too. The Husqvarna gets a 17-inch tube to suit its odd-sized wheels.

The tool kit rolls up in a canvas bag along with a few paper towels. No two ways about it, this kit is heavy. I look at it this way: The extra weight of the tools is offset by the lightness of my soul knowing I have the ability to fix most any minor problem on the road.

Hey, check out our ExhaustNotes.us home page, where we now have a quick index to our most recent blogs!

The Nevada Northern: It’s Worth a Trip To Ely

I last time I was in Ely, Nevada I was riding motorcycles with my Dad. I had a Honda XL600 and he was on a Suzuki 450 twin street bike. This must have been in the mid-1980’s because my XL600 was a 1983 model and the bike wasn’t that old at the time. We were traveling east on The Loneliest Highway, Nevada’s Route 50, and made a turn south onto, if not The Loneliest, a damn lonely Highway 93. In doing this we skirted Ely having never seen the main part of town or even realized it existed. The impression that there was nothing at Ely except a gas station and a sandblasted alien curio shop stuck with me for the next 35 years. Until I recently turned east off of Highway 50 onto 93 heading north: There was a whole town with streets and a downtown area! So not nothing after all.

Ely, Nevada has a cool, working train museum just a few blocks off the highway. Look, I love trains. I like riding on them. I like sitting nearby when they rip down the tracks at speed. I like waiting at crossing guards, how the train takes precedence. I like how engineers will still blow the whistle when you ride alongside on your motorcycle making that whistle-blowing arm motion. I like the wheels of the train flattening the pennies I put on the tracks. (If they don’t shake off.) I like riding motorcycles on old railroad right-of-ways and rotting black ties full of termites. I mean, my bathroom towel holders are bent railroad spikes, man. The older the train the better; steam trains are at the top of the list. You get dirty just looking at a steam engine. I like a train that sets fire to the countryside and consumes coal and water like a Saturn Five consumes rocket fuel. I guess I just like a train, you know?

Inside the Nevada Northern Railway yard you can wander through the old workshops where huge machinery worn smooth by decades of human interaction await the call. And the stuff still works! Lifetimes have been spent spinning these wheels. The day I visited the action was kind of slow, even the shop cat was nowhere to be found but I did see new bronze axle bearings waiting to be finished.

The star of any train museum is the Steam Engine. For all the reasons mentioned above. Imagine cross-country travel cut from 3 months to 3 days. Telegraph lines ran alongside railroad tracks sending messages thousands of miles at the speed of light. (minus a few relay stations) For their time and impact on society, these smoking water-spewing monsters make the Internet’s capabilities look like two rusty baked bean cans and a length of string.

Things used to be a lot snowier in the west, miles-long snow sheds were built in the Rockies and where the sheds petered out giant snow blowers cleared the tracks. This one looks to be in pretty good condition. I can spend hours poking around this place daydreaming about being alive in that era. Maybe I could have been the one spinning those wheels or repairing leaking heat exchangers.

Check in with the Nevada Northern (https://www.nnry.com) and be sure to get a ride on the old trains. They still operate on a schedule, just not when I was there. There’s a gift shop full of cool train-a-phernalia and cold drinks. I walked for hours but I’ll be going back to Ely again. I want to ride!

Want more railroad stuff?  Hey, here’s a great railroad story about Old No. 463.  How about the Chattanooga Choo Choo? And another one about Golden Spike National Historic Site.  We’ve got two more train stories coming up real soon about the railroad museum in Sacramento and Big Boy (Ol’ No. 4014), too, so stay tuned!

Repairing Blinkers: KLR250 Refresh, Reflash and Rehash Part 2

Blinkers on a dirt bike are kind of silly but lately I’ve been running The Widowmaker, my 2005 KLR 250, on the street more than is right or just. The KLR250 spends most of its time in Florida and the automobile drivers in that state are legendarily bad. With Nearly-Deads behind the wheel and blind rage as their co-pilot any blinking light that may draw attention is a good thing.

The Widowmaker’s blinkers have had a rough go of it. They worked fine when I bought the bike but several thousand miles of the Trans America Trail managed to put a pronounced sag in the rubber stalks holding the lamp fixtures. The rubber soon cracked and the blinkers hung down swinging on their electrical wires.

At first I managed to keep the original stalks in the game using the KLR rider’s best friend, duct tape. Soon the tape was not enough and I progressed to beer can wraps, bailing wire and spit. The rubber stalks crystallized and began to crumble into small, hard black cubes. It was a metamorphosis: soft, pliable rubber became fragile like chalk. The lamps, now free from their moorings swung in a crazy amber half circle pointing towards the ground. As they filled up with water the light fixtures quit blinking and they became memories of directional indicators slapping the side of the motorcycle.

I couldn’t find replacement stalks online. The complete blinker is sold as a unit and when your motorcycle needs as much attention as mine you can’t blow a bunch of money on parts that will break off soon anyway. I dismantled the old blinkers and decided to try to fix them for two reasons: Because I’m cheap like that and KLR riders will always take the hardest path.

Two of the direction lamps weren’t rusty and came apart fairly easy. The rusty ones were more of a challenge. I had to soak them in penetrating oil and break the glass bulbs in order to remove the bulb base from the socket using pliers. After getting them apart I soaked the rusty bits in Evaporust for a few days and then painted the reflector and socket a fetching metallic silver.

Making new stalks was a conundrum: I needed something stiff enough to hold the lamp in position but flexible enough to bend during a crash, preventing destruction of the blinker lens and housing. I toyed with the idea of two thin strips of sheet metal to provide a malleable stem that could be bent back into position. I debated welding a thin tube between the threaded ends but didn’t have any tubing that would serve the purpose.

I settled on ½” Pex plastic plumbing tubing mainly because it comes in a red color than neatly matches The Widowmaker’s faded bodywork. The Pex copper crimp rings would make for a neat finished end to the Frankenstalks. The only problem was the threaded ends salvaged from the old rubber parts were a little too big for the Pex pipe.

I really could have used the South Bend lathe to turn down the ends but that project is not completed yet so I had to chuck the parts into a hand drill and grind them to size. Even cut down they were still too large for the Pex but I didn’t want to grind any more and lose the knurling. It’s amazing how a new tool opens up avenues of creativity. It frees your mind, man. My new tubing expander (bought for an air conditioning job) made short work of the Pex inside diameter and the threaded inserts fit perfectly.

Next I used the tubing expander to resize the copper Pex crimp rings to fit the expanded pipe. Things were going well. After crimping the copper rings with a hydraulic cable crimper the stalks looked like 100 bucks.

The grinding process put a divot in the threaded end so I had to run a 10mm die over the things to straighten out the divots. With 4 new blinker stalks it was only a matter of time before everything was reassembled and back on the motorcycle. I’ll need to put a battery in to see if the blinkers actually work (I’m using the same battery in the Z1, the Husky, and the KLR) but I remain confident they will work at least as good as they used to. Which is not at all.

A few questions remain. Will the crimped ends stay put on a rough trail? I assume they will rip out during a crash and that’s good. My new stalks cost about 67 cents apiece so I can replace them as often as I like. Will the plastic tube droop leaving me with a sad-eyed KLR250? Will the bike require a plumbing inspection now? I don’t know the answers but I’ll report back if these Frankenstalks actually work.

More “Bring ‘Em Back Alive” Gresh Resurrection stories are here!

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One: KLR250 Refresh, Reflash and Rehash Part 1

I’ve owned a KLR250 for a long time. I bought the thing on highway 40 between Ocala and Ormond Beach from a gator-meat seller named Street. When I bought it the KLR was nearly new and being a 2005 model it is the last in a long line of KLR250 Replicants that started in 1995. In 20 years of building the 250cc enduro-style bike all Kawasaki did was change the paint schemes and the seat colors.

My KLR, named “The Widowmaker” due to its extremely low power output, has done some long distance, cross country traveling but the last 7-8 years it has been stowed at The Love Shack for use in March during Daytona’s bike week. Long periods of inactivity broken up by a week of full throttle action has left The Widowmaker in a sad state so I brought her out to New Mexico for some tender loving care.

In no particular order The Widowmaker needs front brake work, blinker stalk replacement, a new front tire, valves adjusted, carb cleaned, air filter replaced, coolant and coolant hoses replaced (15 years!), back tire replaced, fork seals and a few other things I’m forgetting. It’s not that bad a list for the many years of neglect The Widowmaker has suffered under my care.

Last March The Widowmaker’s front disc brake was giving me trouble. It would not release and the disc got pretty hot from dragging. I could smell brake lining burning as I rode the bike. The Widow maker, never very fast to start with, was pushing the front forks down and struggling to make 40 miles per hour. Cracking open the bleeder on the caliper freed up the front wheel and I managed a few days of riding using only the rear drum brake.

Eventually I had to fix the brake as it was taxing my brain planning stops 300 feet in advance. I took the caliper off and the piston was firmly stuck inside with a crystalline white-ish gunk but I managed to extract the offending part without too much collateral damage. 2005 might as well be 500 years ago when you’re trying to find motorcycle parts. I went to a few brick and mortar motorcycle shops in Daytona but nobody had anything for a 15 year-old KLR. I didn’t have enough time to order online so I cleaned out the bore and stuck the caliper back together.

Bleeding the system was a challenge as the master cylinder seemed to move 2 pico-liters of fluid each stroke. The lever didn’t feel right but I pressed on. The Widowmaker’s brake was better but the caliper was still not releasing well and I determined the master cylinder was the culprit. All around me Florida was closing up due to Covid-19. I had no more time to work on the bike so I loaded The Widow maker into the truck and hauled it out west to New Mexico.

Looking online for a master cylinder rebuild kit I found new, complete, generic master cylinders with lever and all for $20! People complain about the global economy but $20 is $20. My Facebook post about the cheap master cylinder brought mixed reactions. Some said they are garbage and leak others said they use them all the time and that they work great. I went with the generic because I’m old now. If the brakes fail I haven’t lost much time.

When I say complete I mean even down to the brake light switch. I opened up the unbranded box and the new unbranded lever looked great cosmetically. I could see no flaws in the construction and a side-by-side comparison with the original Nissan master showed there was nothing visual to make the OEM seem better than the generic. A few minor differences: the generic has a larger reservoir and includes a threaded hole for a mirror. The mirror mount was an unexpected bonus because I had broken the left side mirror mount in a violent side-trip through some sagebrush out in Utah. I was trying to follow Hunter at the time. The extra mounting hole allowed me to transfer the old, right side, stand alone mirror mount to the left side where I had wanted a mirror ever since the sagebrush incident .

If you Safety Nazis are wondering where the handlebar kill switch is I can tell you that it broke off years ago in a less memorable crash. The key switch is only a foot away. The new master cylinder installed and bled out easily. The front brake has a firm lever, firmer than it ever was. The caliper releases nicely and all seems rosy. Time will tell if the replacement master cylinder lasts as long as the Nissan.

The left side of the handlebar has the (also broken) light/blinker/horn and all that works well. I had to thin down the mirror mount to fit between the clutch lever (not broken!) and the switch cluster.

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Realize it has taken many years to break all these parts. I’m not tossing the bike down the road everyday, you know? The Widowmaker’s features, like a boxer fighting past his prime, are becoming smoother and less distinct from the blows. If I don’t turn back the tide of destruction now The Widowmaker will look as bad as a 2021 Goldwing.

Want more of Gresh’s resurrection projects?  Just click here!

Freeze Warning

Summer has clawed its way up from the Tularosa valley and settled in here at 6000 feet. Tinfiny Ranch is hot. I have few real chores at Tinfiny except the ones I create for myself but keeping my wife cool is one of the prime directives. It’s hot enough to fire up the mini-split air conditioner, electric bill be dammed! I installed the mini-split 4 years ago; in fact I ordered it from China, in China, when me and Berk were out scrambling motorcycles in the Gobi desert. That was after we descended from high atop the Tibetan Plateau…for 40 days.

The mini-split installation was fairly easy: a Magic box that sits outside, a wall-mounted unit inside and a couple of copper pipes with a bit of wiring is all there is to the thing. The unit came pre-charged: all the gas was under pressure inside the magic box. I had to buy a vacuum pump to evacuate the line sets and then open the service valves. Presto! Nice cool air.

Unfortunately, sometime last winter the system sprung a leak: Tinfiny’s mini-split had lost its ability to keep my wife cool. If you’ve read ExhaustNotes.us before you’ll know that I have an aversion to calling in a repairman. Hiring someone who knows what they are doing clashes with the pioneer spirit here at Tinfiny. I googled the F3 error code and found the gas charge was low so I ordered an 11-pound container of 410A refrigerant. Pretty in pink and $80 with free shipping.

The tools required for the air conditioning trade used to be fairly expensive. A set of gauges and a vacuum pump might set you back $500 in the 1980s. A typical homeowner usually didn’t have that kind of equipment sitting next to the rake and that broken blue plastic kiddie pool. Thanks to the wonders of our modern global economy a middleclass pencil-pusher can set himself up in the air conditioning business for a couple hundred very devalued US dollars. Less if he doesn’t care to know what pressures his system runs.

Mini-split air conditioning systems are pretty simple at the mechanical-cooling level. A compressor squeezes the refrigerant gas into a liquid, increasing its heat. This hot, liquid refrigerant is then run through a condenser, which is nothing more than a radiator like the one in your car. The condenser cools the liquid refrigerant by transferring heat from the liquid to the outside air via the cooling fins of the condenser.

Next the cooled liquid refrigerant goes to the expansion valve. The expansion valve has a tiny hole that causes a pressure differential. The now low-pressure refrigerant travels to the evaporator which is another radiator located inside the room to be cooled. The room air temperature boils or expands the refrigerant, in the process drawing heat out of the room. After absorbing heat from the cooled space the refrigerant travels back to the compressor to start the cycle anew.

As this endless circle of suck, squeeze, condense, evaporate, return continues the room gets cooler and cooler until the thermostat shuts off the compressor or the room gets so cold the refrigerant won’t evaporate. Don’t hold your breath for the room to get that cold. While refrigeration theory is simple, all the extra components, controls and electronics involved with air-conditioning are not simple.

An interesting side note about mini-splits: The expansion valve is located inside the compressor/condenser unit that sits outside. This means that both refrigerant tubes going to the interior-mounted evaporator/fan unit are all part of the expansion cycle so both tubes get cold as opposed to one line hot, one line cold like in a traditional central air system.

Have all the fair-weather readers left the room? Good, because we’ve lost anyone with a functioning life and things are about to get even geekier. On my mini-split the only access for a pressure gauge is on the low-pressure side near the intake of the compressor. Gauge sets are usually the first thing a person buys when working on an air conditioner but to me they are the least important tool. My AC guru, Jerry, from The Florida Keys told me to feed the 410A in slowly until the evaporator gets uniformly cool and you’ve reached the right pressure. Who cares what the pressures are as long as the room gets cool, right?

I put the pressure gauge/manifold on the system anyway and fed a steady diet of 410A into the low-pressure side keeping things around 100-psi and it worked. For about 3 hours we had glorious cool air. My wife was happy. Was it me, or did each pass through the compressor seem like a little less cool air was blowing out? I had a leak. I kind of knew I had a leak before I started the filling process because it’s a sealed system: what else could cause low pressure?

Much like finding a leak on a flat tire, soapy water revealed that the reversing valve was leaking where the tubes were soldered into the spool valve body. A quick note on reversing valves: They do exactly what they say they do. They reverse the direction refrigerant flows in the system making the evaporator the condenser and the condenser the evaporator. In reverse cycle, the unit tries to cool the outdoors and the interior unit warms the house. It makes a fairly efficient heat source as there are no heat strips or high wattage elements to suck up huge quantities of electricity.

The operative word in mini-split land is “mini.” Everything is crammed together inside a small space making the valve swap more difficult than it needed to be. There are three short pipes almost touching each other and then one more off to the side. To remove the valve gracefully you’d need to heat all 4 joints at once. I don’t have 4 torches or 4 hands so I cut the old valve out. I then tried to de-solder the left over stubs but whatever the manufacturer used to solder their joints had a higher melting point than the copper pipe! The job was turning bad, man. The copper pipe would turn rubbery and that damn solder still would not let go. The wiring and insulation were catching on fire. I had to take a break.

My new plan was to abandon the old joints and cut each tube, lowering the valve a bit but I couldn’t find my small tubing cutter. I had to bend each pipe out of the restricted space to cut them. Of course you know any time you move pipes that have sat in position for years the risk of creating another leak is pretty much 100%. Manhandling the copper pipes back into position was another chore and I began to mentally prepare myself for the cost of a new AC unit ($600).

If you’ve lost all the gas out of your mini-split system the best way to charge it is to weigh in the correct amount of refrigerant (32 ounces in this case, plus a few ounces for the tubing runs). I guess now would be a good time to discuss the merits of filling liquid vs gas. Depending on the orientation of the gas bottle you’ll get liquid refrigerant or gas refrigerant out of the bottle. From what I’ve read online liquid charging preserves the ratio of the blended crap they sell us now to close that Ozone hole and save mankind. Sure it worked, the hole closed and all but what about my rights? Gas charging ends up favoring the lighter elements of the blend so each fill alters the ratio of the remaining refrigerant. Worst case it will decrease cooling performance and leave behind a compromised bottle of AC juice. 410A is not as bad as some of the other exotic blends but I liquid charged anyway because I’m a cutting edge, risk taking sort of dude.

In actual fact as soon as the liquid hits a pressure differential it turns to a gas. Things like your pressure gauge manifold knobs turn into expansion valves. As long as you don’t dump the juice in too fast and lock up the compressor with a slug of liquid 410A. Keep the stuff coming out the bottle liquid and your ratios will remain correct.

32 ounces of 410A bought us another few hours of nice, cool air before the mini-split began blowing room temperature air into Tinfiny’s living room (if you can call it living). The thing was still leaking. I never let a crisis go by without using it as an excuse to buy more tools. I used my new halogen sniffer on the condensing unit and found the new expansion valve leaking at my solder joints.

In retrospect I was rushing the job, frustrated with the confined space, fires and tired of messing with the stupid thing. I guess I didn’t get the pipes cleaned off enough or there might have been traces of oil that the solder flux didn’t get clean or who knows. The new valve passed the vacuum test but vacuum is nothing compared to the 300+psi high side running pressure.

Luckily a cool spell blew through Tinfiny Ranch, which bought me some time to think. I asked myself what was the main obstacle to success on this job? The main obstacle was the confined area to work on the valve. Then I said to myself, “Why not get rid of the valve?” it was like the blinding light of Jesus struck me! Of course! Make it cool only and I’ll worry about heat next winter!

And so on the third day of working on the mini-split I bypassed the reversing valve. Using my new mini tubing cutter I made cuts in the pipe at different levels and wide apart, filling the gaps in the plumbing with new copper pipe. This also allowed me to use my new tubing expander on the jumper pipes. Anytime you can eliminate a solder joint it’s a good thing. The tubing expander gets rid of couplings and saves solder joints.

When I bought the pink, 11-pound bottle of 410A I figured it would last the rest of my life. After charging the system twice I was starting to worry I wouldn’t have enough gas to finish the job. I sanded the pipes with crocus cloth and wiped them down with paste flux. I might have gone a bit overboard with the solder as the stuff was running down the pipe. Usually when I solder copper pipe I let the solder wick into the joint then wipe the joints with a rag while the solder is still soft. It makes a clean looking joint. This time I didn’t touch anything for fear of causing a leak.

With the bypass pipes in place I charged the system yet again. 34 ounces of 410A put the low-side pressure near enough to 110 psi so I was in the ballpark charge-wise. Daytime temps have been in the mid-90’s and as I type this the mini-split has been cooling Tinfiny down to a crisp 70 degrees inside. And it’s been doing it for almost 5 days. If there’s a leak it’s a slow one.

Money-wise I may have to call it a wash. I bought a digital scale, a halogen sniffer, a mini tubing cutter, a bottle of 410A, a tubing expander and the rest of the tools I already owned. Maybe calling a pro would have been the way to go. I spent 3 days learning a lot about HVAC, cussing and thinking hard about the choices I make. And I would do the same thing again. It’s a good thing to peek inside the magic boxes of your life.

Product Test: BMG Adventure Pants

As any loyal reader of ExhaustNotes.us knows, I recently got all new riding gear from British Motorcycle Gear. In this blog we tackle BMG’s Adventure pants, a lighter weight alternative to BMG’s Pioneer pants. When I say lighter weight I don’t want to mislead you; the Adventure pants are still heavier than denim jeans.

The Adventures have two zippered vents on the front side that let in a lot of air when you stand up on the pegs like a real adventure rider is prone to doing whenever there is a camera around. Sitting down like a lazy chopper rider, the vent flow is less powerful but you can still feel it. There is a mesh liner that combined with the 500 denier shell gives a good compromise between protection and sweating.

One feature that stands out for me is the heat resistant, Nomex inner-calf panels. The high-mount, left-side Husqvarna exhaust system has burned a hole through several of my rain pants and street slacks. So far I haven’t been able to melt the Adventure pants.

Another feature I like on the Adventure pants are the three belt loops. I’d like to have a few more loops but three loops beat none because I wear a belt. You’d have to have a misshapen body like mine to appreciate the extra security a belt gives you in big-air situations. There’s nothing more embarrassing than getting pantsed by gravity.

On the sides of the Adventure pants are waist adjusters. These are handy for postprandial riding when your belly is bloated from too many carbohydrates. My odd combination of fat waist and short legs make finding motorcycle pants to fit a real challenge. I’ve been riding motorcycles for 50 years and the BMG Adventure pants come the closest to fitting in all those years. The 29-inch legs could be a 1/2 –inch shorter but as long as I have my belt it’s not a problem.

My Adventure pants came without armor, which is fine with me. I also have the much heavier-duty, armored BMG Pioneer pants to test but that will have to wait for cooler weather. The Adventures have long leg zippers but I didn’t need them to enter or egress the pant. If you are a weirdo who puts their boots on first, then your pants you will find the zippers handy. There is a short piece of zipper on the backside that can connect to BMG’s line of jackets. I never use those back zippers but I bet they stop drafts pretty well. The back zipper will also keep your jacket from riding up in a crash and possibly save a few square feet of road rash. Hmmm…maybe I should start using that zipper!

I’ve worn the Adventure pants down to 40 degrees with only a thin thermal underwear layer and was warm and comfortable. For my personal thermostat 40 to 80 degrees F was right in the Adventure pant wheelhouse. Above 90 and into the 100’s the Adventure pants are a bit too warm for my taste. Really, for motorcycle riding above 100 degrees shorts and flip-flops are the only way to go. Just kidding.

For New Mexico use the BMG Adventure pant is a great 3-season bit of riding kit. If you live where it rarely gets to 90 degrees or above then you can call them 4-season pants. I feel safer wearing them on a motorcycle than I do in plain old dungarees. The retail price of $199 is not out of this world when you consider the price of Levis jeans or cigarettes. Don’t forget to use the exhaustnotes.us discount code (BMGJOES) when you order from BMG to save a few bucks.  Run your order up to over $199 and you’ll get free shipping, too.

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