Back In The Day – Page 15 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

ExNotes Mentors: Slow Is Not The Same As Stupid

When I was in high school back in the early 1970s a new idea in educational teaching methods came about. This new method was called LAPS, for Learning Activity Package or maybe Learn At your own Pace. Whatever it stood for, LAPS was an attempt to uncouple individual students from a strict, class-wide learning schedule.

In the old style of everyone learns at once system if you were a smart kid you were held back by the slowest learners in your class. By the same token if you were a stupid kid you always felt pressured to learn as fast as the rest of the class. LAPS was a system designed to make learning either less boring or less stressful for the student, depending on which end of the intelligence spectrum you found yourself.

LAPS consisted of 20-page LAP printouts. A light blue cover sheet would be titled Algebra LAP-1 and inside were smelly, mimeographed pages of the 1st algebra lesson. This naming convention continued until Algebra LAP-20. After a student felt that they had mastered a particular LAP there was a final test. If you passed the final you went on to the next LAP. This process continued until you had successfully completed the Algebra course.

There was no set time to complete a LAPS course. A student didn’t have to complete all 20 LAPS to pass the course. They just had to do the best they could. Everyone received LAP-1 on the first day of school but from then on students progressed at their own pace. The teacher didn’t address or teach the class as a group. How it worked was you read LAP-1 and as you came to things you didn’t understand you went to the teacher’s desk and she would give you the personal, one-on-one help you needed to grasp the mathematical concept at hand. The program rapidly became known as “Laps for saps.” Failing a LAPS course was pretty hard to do because you were always right on the pace you needed to be.

For me school was misery. I hated sitting in class and watching the minute hand slowly rotate until the bell rang and you changed classes only to start the clock watching all over again. When school was over I could not sprint out of the damn place fast enough.

Another thing I hated was to ask for help. I still don’t like to ask for help. (See concrete.) A scrum of students was always at the teacher’s desk bugging her for information on how to do this or calculate that. No way was I going to wait around at her desk like a paparazzi hoping for a compromising shot.

I stared at the LAP-1 lessons and none of it made sense to me. It was like looking at Egyptian hieroglyphics: Look, there’s a scarab beetle. Over here is a bird with a human body with the number 7 hovering over its beak. I never approached the teacher for assistance because I was sure algebra was total BS and anyway I couldn’t fail the class. I will say this about the LAPS learning program: At least no one bothered me. I’m sure by now loyal ExhaustNotes readers can take a guess at how well the LAPS program worked.

The autumn months dragged by, the daydreaming days grew shorter and when Christmas season rolled around I was still on LAP-1, the only kid in class still on LAP-1. Apparently my most comfortable learning pace was a dead stop. Most kids were up around LAP-8 or LAP-10. Those kids were the jerks sucking up to the teacher.

Somehow the school notified my mom that I was an exceptional student in that I might be the only student to ever fail a LAPS class. I guess you had to do one LAP minimum to pass. Mom went ballistic. She was astounded that I had accomplished absolutely nothing in 4 months of schooling. Mom told my older sister Marlin to help me out (that’s not a typo, I’ve spelled my sister Marilyn’s name that same way since I could spell and I see no need to change it now).

So began my crash course in algebra. Marlin would sit with me at the dinner table for a couple hours a night and explain what the scarab beetles and the birdmen meant. It was pretty easy, even fun, when she showed me the ropes. We spent more time laughing than learning. I passed Lap 1 the very first week.

The pace quickened. Marlin had places to go and people to see so she rammed that algebra into my brain as fast as it would accept it. We were doing one, sometimes two LAPS a week. The teacher grew suspicious and thought I might be cheating so she actually sat with me to watch me take a couple of the LAP final tests.

By March I had caught and passed some of the smart kids and by mid-April my sister and I had completed all 20 LAPS of algebra. My brain was so jacked up it glowed in the dark. I had to wear a towel over my head to get any sleep at night. Unfortunately, I have since forgotten much of what I learned but I still use the concept of information that is missing to help figure things out.

Then came something the LAPS system didn’t plan for: What to do with kids that finished early? They couldn’t let us roam the halls so they put me with two brainiacs in a classroom and called it current events. In other words, we sat and watched TV. The TV club slowly grew as other students finished their LAPS. I watched TV or slept in that class for 2 months and learned nothing except that I didn’t like any of the kids I was with. It was a bizarre end to a bizarre way of teaching.

The following school year the LAPS program was discontinued, for me anyway. I went back to learning the old fashioned way without very impressive results. I muddled along, skipping school to ride motorcycles and flunking out my senior year from too many days playing hooky. Who knew there were a minimum number of days you had to attend to graduate? I finally managed to get a high school diploma but there was no pomp and ceremony to the thing. I simply went to the administration building after completing summer school and picked up the diploma from some clerk in an office I had never seen or been in before. It was like a janitor’s closet or a mechanical equipment room.

Those few months of intense learning with my sister were so much fun. I loved blowing past the smart kids with my secret weapon, Marlin. It was like having the fastest motorcycle on the block. What an advantage I had! Marlin taught me that learning stuff wasn’t such a bad thing and she taught me more than algebra: She taught me that while I may be slow, I’m not stupid.

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Dreambikes: ’97 Suzuki TL1000S

The year was 1997 and the Ducati V-twins had been dominating magazine covers for years. Not to be outdone, two Japanese manufacturers produced similarly-configured V-twins (actually, L-twins). Honda had the SuperHawk, and Suzuki the TL1000S. I’ve always liked Suzuki better, so I went with the TL1000s. Suzuki offered the TL in two colors….a forest green with red accents; and bright red with yellow accents. For me, it had to be red.

My ’97 TL1000S, somewhere in northern Baja.

I bought my TL at Bert’s in Azusa. If I recall correctly, I negotiated the guys down to $8700 out the door, and part of that was a Yamaha 650 twin I traded in. I had bought the Yamaha used from a guy in a course I taught at McDonnell Douglas, thinking the Yamaha would be like my old Triumph Bonnevilles but reliable. The Yamaha was a bust. It was too heavy, it had cheap fasteners, the Hopper/Fonda riding stance was awful, it didn’t handle, and it lacked the low-end grunt of my earlier Triumphs.

I remember riding the TL home from Bert’s. The riding was awkward with the bike’s low bars and high footpegs, but I got used to it and I made it less punishing with a set of Heli-Bars. The Heli-Bars were slighly taller and wider (you got about an inch more in each dimension, which made a difference).

A stop for fuel in Catavina. The guys sell gasolina from bottles along Mexico Highway 1.

The TL was the fastest and hardest accelerating motorcycle I ever owned. It would wheelie in third gear if you weren’t paying attention, and it went from zero to 100 in a heartbeat. The bottom end torque was ferocious. Fuel economy was atrocious, and it had a tendency to stall at low rpm. But wow, did it ever look good. Did I mention it was fast?

My friend Marty had an Aprilia V-twin (a Mille, I think, or something like that), another bit of Italian exotica, that cost even more than the Ducati. Marty’s spaghetti-bender was more than twice what I paid for my TL. We swapped bikes once on a day ride and I came away unimpressed. My TL was faster.

Baja a few years ago. Younger, thinner, and hair that hadn’t turned gray yet. That motorcycle made me look good.

I wanted the look of a sport bike, but I’m not a canyon racer and the exotic look didn’t do anything for me once I had ridden the TL a few times. Then something funny happened. My Harley died on a Baja ride. I nursed my Harley home, parked it, and took the TL. Surprisingly, it did a good job as a touring platform. And I could ride at speeds the Harley couldn’t dream about. In those days, if there were speed limits in Baja, I didn’t know about them.

That first big trip on the TL instead of the Harley cinched it for me. I bought sportsbike soft luggage and used the TL on many rides after that. 700-mile days in Baja became the norm (I could make Mulegé in a day; the TL wouldn’t break a sweat). The only downside was the abominable fuel economy (the fuel light would come on after 105 miles), but a one-gallon red plastic fuel container and a bungie cord fixed that. It was Beverly hillbillies, but it worked. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly (somebody’s got to shoot those road signs).

TL1000S touring. The bike was a surprisingly good touring machine.

Even with the TL’s mid-30-mpg fuel economy, I only ran out of fuel twice. Once was on the Bodfish-Caliente Road (one of California’s best kept secrets). I didn’t have my gas can with me; Marty rode ahead and returned with a gasoline-filled water bottle he hoped wouldn’t dissolve (it didn’t). The other time was on Baja’s long stretch headed south to Guerrero Negro. That road runs straight as an arrow, and I ran the TL at a surprisingly comfortable 145 mph (still well below the TL’s top speed). The TL was fuel injected and when it ran dry it was like someone shut the ignition. I poured my extra gallon in and made it to the next Pemex station. The guys I rode with were still far behind.

I had fun with the TL, but I dropped it a lot more than any other bike I had ever owned. All the drops were my fault. The low-mounted sport bars restricted steering, and once when pulling into my driveway, there wasn’t enough to keep the bike upright. Before I realized it, the bike and I were both on the ground (my first thought was to wonder if anyone had seen me). The next time the bike was in my driveway, facing slightly downhill. I started it to let it warm up, and the bike rolled off the sidestand. Again, my first thought was if anyone had seen me. The third time was more dramatic. The TL had a slipper clutch; you could downshift with reckless abandon. The clutch would slip and not skid the rear tire. It was cool, until I used it diving hard into a corner. The curb was coming up quickly and I wasn’t slowing fast enough. The slipper clutch was doing its thing, but when I touched the front brake, that was enough to unload the rear wheel. It broke loose and I fishtailed into the curb. I went over the bars, executed a very clean somersault, and came to rest in the sitting position looking straight ahead. I had been watching the Oympics on TV the day before and I remember thinking (as I completed my dismount) I could be a competitor. A woman in a station wagon saw the whole thing. She rolled down her window and I half expected to see a sign with a 10 on it (like they do at the Olympics). “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered. “I’m a gymnast and I’m practicing.” The window went up and she disappeared.

I loved the looks of the TL. Yeah, the carbon fiber was faux, but I didn’t care. In those days I was running a factory that made carbon fiber aircraft stuff and I never understood the attraction. Even with fake carbon fiber, the TL was a motorcycle that looked fast. And it was.

Suzuki only made the TL for a few years. Some guy in the UK killed himself in a speed wobble, the bike got an Internet rep as a tank slapper, and that killed sales worldwide. Suzuki had a recall to add a steering damper, but the damage had been done. Bert’s installed the damper on my TL, I couldn’t feel any difference , and my bike never went into a wobble (either before or after the recall). My hypothesis is that the UK guy rolled on too much throttle exiting a corner, lifting the front wheel with the bike leaned over. That will induce a wobble, you know. There was another recall to fix the low speed stalling issue. I guess it worked; my bike never had a low speed stall after that.

Suzuki offered a more radical fully-faired version called the TL1000R (I didn’t like its looks), but the TL-R didn’t survive, either. The engine, however, proved to be a winner. Today, 25 years later, a detuned version is still soldiering on in the ADV-styled V-Strom. I never owned a V-Strom, but I should have. Everybody I ever talked to who owned one loved the V-Strom. Me, I loved my TL.

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Indiana’s Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg Museum

The Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg Museum is somewhat misleadingly named. Yes, they have a stunning and visually arresting collection of Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs (one of the best I’ve ever seen), but the collection of more than 120 vintage automobiles includes more than just these three marques. There’s even a vintage BSA motorcycle (I’ll get to that in a bit).

The Museum is housed in what used to be the Auburn factory. It’s in Auburn, Indiana, where they used to make Auburn automobiles. Auburn is north of Indianapolis (the quick way in is on Interstate 69); we stopped there on our way to Goshen to visit the Janus factory. Janus was fun and I grabbed a ton of awesome photos there, too. Grab the September/October issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine and you’ll see it. But that’s not what this blog is about. Let’s get back to Auburn and the Museum.

The Museum is magnificent and the automobiles are stunning. The Duesenbergs are beyond stunning but don’t take my word for it. You might consider seeing this magnificent collection yourself. I took enough photos to fill a book and I had a hard time picking just a few to show here. I probably went a little overboard, but the cars are so nice it was hard not to.

Here’s a 1931 Duesenberg Model J. The body was built by the Murphy company of Pasadena, who made more Duesenberg bodies than any other company. The car has a straight 8 engine.

This is a V-16 Cadillac, another truly magnificent automobile.

Next up is a supercharged 1935 Auburn. It is an 851 Speedster, with a Lycoming straight 8 engine. It cost $2,245 when it was new (less than a used Sportster, if you’re using that as a benchmark). The lines on this car are beautiful, and the colors work, too.

This next car is a 1929 Ruxton, a car I had never heard of before visting the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum. It’s a front-wheel-drive car, a competitor to the Cord in its day. According to what I found online, the Ruxton was lower, lighter, and handled better than the Cord. The looks and the colors work for me.

Check out the Ruxton’s headlights. These are Woodlite headlights, which are very art deco. They look like helmets.

Here are two 1937 Cord 812 automobiles: A convertible and a coupe. The colors and the style are impressive. When I was a kid, I built a Monogram plastic model of a Cord that I think was based on the convertible I saw in Indiana.

Here’s a 1948 Lincoln Continental Coupe with a V-12 engine. 1948 was the last year any US automobile manufacturer made a V-12. This one had 305 cubic inches and it produced 130 horsepower. The car you see here cost $4,145 in 1948.

This 1933 250cc single-cylinder BSA is the lone motorcycle in the Cord Auburn Duesenberg Museum. This one was E.L. Cord’s personal motorcycle, which he kept on his yacht and at his Nevada ranch.

Another magnificent Duesenberg. This one is a 1931 Beverly sedan, with a 420 cubic inch, straight 8, 265-horsepower engine It went for $16,500 when it was new.

This is an XK 120 Jaguar. I think this is one of the most beautiful cars ever made. It’s my dream car, in exactly these colors.

Here’s a first-year-of-production, 1953 Corvette. Chevy introduced the Corvette in the middle of the 1953 model year, so there were only a few made. The 1954 Corvette was essentially the same car.

Chevy was going to discontinue the Corvette due to its low sales, but the dealers convinced them otherwise. The dealers didn’t sell a lot of Corvettes, but they sold a lot of other Chevys to people who visited the showrooms to see the Corvette.

Another view of the first year Corvette. Note the mesh headlight protectors.

Ford’s answer to the Corvette…the two-seat Thunderbird. The little T-Bird never matched the Corvette’s performance. After three years of production (1955 to 1957), Ford redesigned the Thunderbird as a larger four-seater.

The Thunderbird soldiered on as a four-seater for years, then it was discontinued, then it briefly emerged again as a two-seater in 2002 (that’s the car you see below). The new Thunderbird only lasted through 2005, and like the classic ’55/’56/’57 two-seat T-Birds, Ford dropped this one, too. My buddy Paul drives one that looks exactly like this.

Auburn is a cool little town. Its population is about 14,000 and the town is about 145 miles north of Indianapolis (it’s a straight shot up on Interstate 69). The town is rooted in automotive history, and other history as well. In 1933, John Dillinger and his gang raided the local police station and they stole several firearms and ammunition. But it’s the automobiles and their history that make this town a worthy destination. Auburn, Indiana, loves its automobiles and automotive history. We saw several vintage cars being used as daily drivers. The murals were cool, too.

You can easily spend three or four hours in the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum, and spending the entire day there wouldn’t be out of the question. One of Auburn’s best kept dining secrets is Sandra D’s, a reasonably-priced Italian restaurant with an exquisite menu. Try the eggplant parmesan; you won’t be disappointed.

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Catching Up

Here’s a quick update on things we’ve posted about recently.

Someone else won the auction for Hank Williams .357 Ruger Blackhawk, and like I said I would, I ordered a New Model Ruger Blackhawk instead. To my astonishment, the Hank Williams gun sold for a whopping $4,993.37 (when new in 1972, it was a scosh over $100). My New Model .357 Blackhawk is at the local dealer, and I’m in the Peoples Republik 10-day cooling off period. I snagged it for $659 on Gunbroker, a reasonable price in today’s economy. I’ve got a bunch of ammo in a variety of flavors reloaded and ready to test, but I think I know what works in a Blackhawk. We’ll see.

I took Poppy’s watch to the repair shop and it was enlightening. My guy opened the watch up, which confirmed it is 14-carat white gold and revealed the serial number. The watch tech looked it up, and I learned that Poppy’s watch dates to 1884. It’s 138 years old and it’s still ticking. It’s the oldest and coolest thing I own.

Gresh’s blog on a proposed vintage bike gathering in New Mexico garnered a lot of comments and it was picked up by Motorcycle.com. I think this event it is going to happen. A few guys have posted it on other forums (we appreciate that). We’ll keep you updated right here on the ExNotes blog.

The Harley that flew off the Oakland Bay Bridge? It’s still under water (dive crews can’t find it). I wouldn’t have thought it worth the effort (you know, you can buy a brand new Chinese motorcycle from CSC for less than what a used Harley costs). I would think the divers could just look for the oil spots and work back, but hey, what do I know?

I found the piece Gresh did on the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club particularly appealing and I joined the VJMC, too. Like Joe, I recently received my first print magazine, and Gresh was right….there is a special excitement in getting an actual printed magazine in the mail.

The Gresh Husky saga soldiers on. Joe is already deep into the guts of his Husky’s transmission, and his engineering talents and Ebay prowess are moving things in the right direction (you’ll get an update on that in the very next ExNotes blog). Good buddy Terry pointed out that Gresh could have bought a used Sportster for what he’ll have into his Swedish meatball (it seems that Harleys are the benchmark for all things motorcycle). With Gresh’s considerable skills and Harley’s rumored reliability, maybe the best approach would be to wedge a Milwaukee transmission into the Husky (a Husky-Davidson?). Like you, I’m looking forward reading about how this adventure progresses.

And finally, one last comment, this one on Mosin-Nagant rifles. We’ve done Mosin stories (see the Tales of the Gun page). It’s no secret I’m a big fan, and it looks like that interest could pay dividends if I was interested in selling my Mosins (I’m not). Rock Island Auctions recently published an article on Mosin-Nagant price trends, and it shows they are sharply up. That’s good.

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A 110-grain Python Load

I’ve owned three Colt Pythons. Back in the ‘70s I had a blue 6-inch Colt Python and another 6-inch nickel-plated one (they were only about $250 back then, and I could buy them for even less through the Post Exchange). Both those Pythons went down the road, and yeah, I’m sorry I sold them. Who wouldn’t be?

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These days, I have a 6-inch bright stainless Colt Python, the new model, and I love it. It’s the one you see in the photo above. I’ve been to the Colt factory to see how they are made, and both the Python’s design and its production are impressive. I’ll let you in on a secret: The new Pythons are better guns. I shoot my Python a lot. In the last few months I’ve been hitting the range with it at least a couple of times every week. I’m old school, I guess: I prefer a revolver to a semi-auto, and I prefer .38 Special and .357 Magnum over 9mm. Your mileage may vary. I know what I like.

Winchster 110-grain jacketed hollow point bullets waiting to be seated and crimped.

I remembered that back in the day I found a 110-gr jacketed hollow point bullet with 10.0 grains of Unique (the max load in the Hornady manual in the 1970s) and it was extremely accurate in my blue steel Python. I mean, like one-hole accurate. Accurate enough to keep that load in my memory for five decades.

Fast forward 50 years and you’ll find me scrounging for reloading components on a fairly regular basis. On one of those scrounging expeditions Rick Phillips (of Phillips Wholesale) had Accurate No. 5 propellant in stock. It’s a handgun powder, and Rick told me that Accurate No. 5 has a burn rate about like Unique. Hmmm. Unique, huh? That stuck in my mind, mostly because I had some 110-grain .357 pistol bullets in my components stash: I had Winchester jacketed hollow points, and Hornady jacketed hollow points. I bought a bunch of the Winchester bullets during the Obama years when everything was scarce, and I was down to one unopened bag of 100. I had an unopened box of the Hornady 110-grain bullets, too.

Winchester, if you’re paying attention, this bag was 15 bullets light.

I loaded the last of the Winchester bullets recently using some junk 357 brass. I have Unique, but I wanted to see if I could get good results with Accurate No. 5. Rick’s comment about Accurate No. 5 being about like Unique stuck in my mind. The max load on the Accurate site for 110 grain bullets is 11 grains, so I loaded some at 10.1 grains and some at 10.5 grains, both with magnum CCI primers.

Winchester shorted me on that last bag of 100 grain bullets. The last bag I had was unopened, but it had only 85 bullets in it. I wrote to Winchester customer support, and they responded with an answer that was left blank. I wrote to Winchester again after receiving the above non-answer for an answer, but I’m not holding my breath.

The results with both the Hornady and Winchester bullets were great. Here’s a 5-shot group at 50 feet with 10.1 grains of Accurate No. 5 and the Winchester bullets. This was the best group this morning, but they were all good.

That’s how we like to do it. I know the brass is dirty. This was a quick and dirty test. The laod was 10.1 grains of Accurate No. 5, a CCI 550 primer, and Winchester’s 110-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullet. The distance was 50 feet.

The 10.1 and the 10.5 grains of Accurate No. 5 loads shot about the same from an accuracy perspective, but the 10.5 grain loads made the primers flatter, so I’ll load the 10.1 grain load the next time I reload this ammo. No sense burning up more powder and stressing the gun and the brass if there’s no accuracy improvement. It’s already excellent at 10.1 grains.

Rugged, reliable, regal, and rewarding: Today’s Colt Python.

The Winchester bullets looked cruder than the Hornady bullets but I think they maybe had a slight accuracy edge. I went online to buy more, but I learned Winchester discontinued them. One of my buddies had two bags and he gave them to me, but the odds of me ever getting any more are slim. Hornady, Speer, and Sierra all make JHP 110-grain bullets, but nobody has any in stock. I have 85 left of the Hornady bullets (I used 15 of the Hornady bullets to make up for the ones Winchester shorted me) and now, an additional 200 Winchester bullets. You still owe me 15 bullets, Oliver.

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Poppy’s Watch

You probably didn’t know I was almost Italian. I’ll get to that in a second, and a little further along in this blog, I’ll get to that over-100-year-old beautiful Waltham pocket watch you see above.

Samuel Berkowitz, my father’s father, came to the United States through Ellis Island around 1911. Over two-thirds of the people in the US can trace their origins to an ancestor who entered the US through Ellis Island. That’s going to change at some point in the near future, I think, as the number of folks who come here across our southern border continues to grow, and that’s okay in my book. I’m a staunch conservative and I lean right, but I go against the grain of my Fox News compadres on immigration. I’m all for immigration and welcoming more people into the US (that’s a topic for another time). The message in this paragraph is Poppy (and I’ll get to that name in a second) processed in through Ellis Island. If you’ve never visited Ellis Island, you need to. It is a national treasure. The Ellis Island tour is something I will never forget.

Ellis Island. Two thirds of the US population can trace their ancestry to this one patch of real estate.

When Poppy came to the US, the person who processed him into America was a recent Italian immigrant. They did that at Ellis…they couldn’t find enough people to do all the work that needed doing (sound familiar?) and they used immigrants to fill the gaps. Grandpa Berk came from Rumania to escape the pogroms there and for the opportunity here. The Italian-now-American administrator asked his name and Grandpa told him: Samuel Berkowitz. “Berkowitz?” the man said. “I don’t know from Berkowitz…from now on, you Bercovici. Sam Bercovici.” And that’s how his name was entered into the logbook as he entered America. I know. I’ve seen it. Like I said, I was almost an Italian.

Bercovici, Berkowitz…it was all too confusing and it was all too European. Poppy changed it, probably informally, to just plain old Sam Berk. And that’s how we became Berks. People sometimes ask me what Berk is short for. I always tell them, “Berque…my grandfather changed it because he didn’t want people thinking we were French.”

Now, about the “Poppy” business. My Dad always called his father Pop. When we were little kids, for us he was Poppy. Grandma was always Grandma, but Grandpa was always Poppy. At least until I was 6. That’s when Poppy died. I was a wee one then, but I remember Poppy well. He was a good guy.

Last week, I was back in New Jersey on a secret mission, and while I was there I visited with my sister. We were chatting it up at her place and I was expounding on wristwatch accuracy when she suddenly asked: “Would you like Grandpa’s watch?”

The question caught me off guard. I didn’t even know Poppy had a watch. I for sure didn’t know he had one and it somehow ended up in my sister’s possession. But I didn’t need to think about it. “Yes,” I said. I was shocked when I saw it. It’s beautiful, it’s engraved, and it has my grandfather’s initials on the back. I think it’s white gold (if it was silver, it would be tarnished). I wound it just a little and it started right up. Tik tik tik tik tik tik tik…it was cool. I listened to the same ticking Poppy heard a hundred years ago.

Poppy’s initials (SB) on the flip side of this centenarian Waltham.

Looking at the dial and its patina, my first thought was that the little black erratic lines I saw on it were mold. I had a polarizer go south on me on the motorcycle ride across China and the marks on it were eerily similar; the camera store guy told me the lines on that polarizer were mold. But in researching who to send the watch to for servicing, I found the place I am going to use up in Portland. It is WatchRepair.cc. The man there is Terry Nelson, who responded quickly when I sent an email and a photo (and this was on a Sunday). I asked if I was dealing with a mold problem, and Terry’s prompt reply was:

Its dial shows normal blemishing from a century of use and exposure to the environment and ultra-violet light. It was originally painted with a mixture of paint and finely powered silver and then coated with an early “clear coat.” The clear coat has slowly flaked away in certain areas allowing the underlying silver to tarnish, which may appear like mold. My in-house dial cleaning will assist in making the dial more uniform yet – be ready for only a moderate improvement.

I was impressed and pleased. No mold, a quick response from a craftsman who obviously knows his business, and no extravagant claims. Terry told me if I wanted a full restoration he could bring the dial back to its original condition, but I don’t. I want a little patina. Maybe I’ve been watching American Pickers too long. Like Mike Wolf always says, it’s only going to be original once. My watch is headed to Portland for Terry to work his magic next month, and it will be back the following month. I can’t wait.

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The Janus Halcyon 450 and Motorcycle Classics Magazine

Joe Gresh’s recent blog on the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club and their magazine is, like all of Gresh’s writing, outstanding. So much so that, as he suggested, I became a VJMC magazine subscriber.

I’d like to suggest another magazine, and as you have no doubt guessed from the title of this blog, it’s Motorcycle Classics. I think it’s one of the best motorcycle magazines in existence. Part of that is due to MC‘s quality…glossy paper, a great page count, great photos, and great writing. And part of it is I get to see my work in MC‘s pages on a regular basis. Most recently, it’s my story on the new Janus Halcyon 450. Sue and I had a great time visiting with the Janus team in Goshen, Indiana, and the Halcyon 450 motorcycle is a winner. Pick up a copy of Motorcycle Classics magazine and read the Halcyon 450 article. Better yet, subscribe to Motorcycle Classics.

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Want to read more about Janus motorcycles in action? Check out the Baja ride we did with Janus!

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RD350 Yamaha Update

The 1974 RD350 has been faultlessly buzzing around south-central New Mexico these last few months without any attention. The old girl was dribbling oil and banging around on her front suspension and the tires that came on the bike were old and cracked. In addition, the rear 4.00×18 tire was too large and rubbed the fender over bumps. The bike kind of bobbed in turns and I didn’t want to take a long ride on those rotten tires. I needed to give the old bike some love.

What held me back was the Harbor Freight tire changer. I was in the middle of modifying the tire machine and I just lost interest. The monsoon rains have precluded any concrete work so I decided to finish the tire machine.

One of the issues with the HF tire machine is that the center shaft is too big for older motorcycles. The center shaft is a pivot point for your duck bar or tire levers. Most new bikes come with big axles and the stock part will work fine on those. I cut a piece of ½” rod 12-inches long and turned out a spacer to go between the factory center bar and the new ½-inch piece. My welding is atrocious but you have to cut me some slack as I can’t see the puddle and weld by sound. Now I can center-post smaller diameter axles without anyone crying about it.

The HF tire machine has three rim-grabber things. Two of the grabbers are pinned into place and one is screw driven. When it works right it really locks the wheel in place, essentially giving you a second set of hands. The grabbers were a sloppy fit on their square-tube arms and it’s hard enough getting all the fingers lined up at one time without stuff moving around. Shimming the grabbers with thin aluminum tightened up the machine and made fitting the rim to the grabbers easier.

While not required for the skinny RD350 tires, I made a duck-bar to assist with bead removal. The duck is a plastic piece that fits over the rim. You use a lever to pull the bead up over the duck’s head and then slide the duck along the rim with the duck bar. The plastic helps prevent scarring your nice chrome or aluminum rims. Needless to say, use lots of tire lube as the first ¼-way around the rim is a hard pull. The duck is actually a part from commercial tire changing machines and it works great on wider rims like you’d find on a sport bike or cars.

I made a steel piece to fit the bolt holes of the duck and welded a 4-foot long, 1” square tube to the duck mount. It’s also an ugly weld but thanks to the miracle of grinders and thick paint it doesn’t look so bad. I messed up by welding the bar to the duck foot square, or at 90 degrees to the bolt axis if that makes any sense to you. This meant that it didn’t sit flush to the curve of the rim when using the center pivot. The pivot point was right where the bar wanted to be.

A quick bending session tweaked the duck-bar enough to be functional. I’ll get it right next time. The duck-bar worked well on the back wheel of the RD350 but the front rim was too skinny. There wasn’t enough room for the duck so I did it the old fashioned way with tire levers.

I bought two Shinko SR712P tires for the RD350, a 3.00×18 for the front and a 3.50×18 for the rear. These are the stock sizes and they don’t rub the fender. The rear looks pretty skinny, I’d like to get a 3.75×18 but I can’t find one. I’ll need new brake shoes for the rear drum but that will have to wait for another maintenance session.

The fork seal replacement was pretty straightforward and so I managed to screw it up. The RD350 has a chrome cover over the brake hose manifold. This cover makes loosening the lower triple clamp pinch bolts impossible unless you remove the top triple clamp and the headlight fork ears. Then the chrome cover can slide up allowing access to the pinch bolts. That was way too much work for me so I decided to pull the sliders off and leave the rest of the fork on the motorcycle.

The RD350 fork slider has a very thin seal retaining area and when I gave the seal a gentle exploratory pry a tiny piece of the damn fork tube cracked by the snap ring groove. I was so upset I didn’t take a photo. Anyway, I worked the cracked piece off and filed the area smooth to make it look like it was made that way. I was temped to do the other side to make them match.

I ended up clamping a big, galvanized carriage bolt into the vice; the head fit behind the seal nicely. Then I cut a piece of PVC pipe that fit over the thin area and contacted the solid part of the fork tube where the dust cover stops. After that a rubber hammer knocked the seal out. It was clear sailing from then on; I reassembled the fork sliders onto the tubes and dumped 5 ounces of 10/30 synthetic motor oil into each fork leg.

For the little amount of work I did the difference was amazing. The RD350 falls into turns with the greatest of ease and holds the line like a supermarket customer getting cash back from a personal check. It feels like power steering. The bounciness is gone and the bike feels much calmer. Now that I can push the bike a little harder those cheap, aftermarket rear shocks are showing a lack of damping. I didn’t notice it before because the front was bouncing so much. The tires are skinny but feel like they grip well. I don’t road race on the street but if I did I could hustle the purple RD350 through the mountains pretty fast.

There’s more to do on the RD350 but I like riding the bike so much I don’t want to disable the thing. I have to fix a leaking oil tank sight glass, re-grease the steering head bearings, replace the rear brake shoes, clean the carbs, and on and on. All that can wait because the sun is out (in the morning before the monsoon rains) and I’ve got to ride this bike.

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ExNotes Product Review: The VJMC Magazine

The 1970s were the golden years of motorcycling. New and exciting motorcycles poured out of Japan at dizzying speed, so many new models that it was all the moto-magazines of the era could do to review them all. The surge of new motorcycles changed the focus and content of motorcycle magazines for decades to come. It was all motorcycle reviews all the time. Multi-bike shootouts became necessary as there weren’t enough pages or time to give each new bike a thorough review.

Expanding on the motorcycle-review theme, the magazine industry began to review more and more motorcycle accessories and motorcycle related products. You’d get a new moto-mag issue in the mailbox and the entire thing seemed like one big sales pitch: You must buy this! The hard sell made sense for an advertising-based income stream. Besides, who didn’t like reading about the latest and greatest motorcycles? I sure liked it.

We review a lot of junk here on ExhaustNotes; it’s an easy way to fill empty space with empty words that don’t require much creativity. The Internet has taken over written and video reviews for all topics, motorcycle or not. Those old style, review-heavy magazines failed and became unreadable Internet product shilling sites. It’s telling that two of the largest remaining paper motorcycle magazines, RoadRunner and Rider, focus more of their content mix on the experience of riding and owning a motorcycle.

Testing and reviewing motorcycle stuff is still a worthwhile occupation but as Revzilla-type, retail/editorial web sites become the new normal you have to wonder how unbiased a review can be when the publisher makes the lion’s share of their income from selling you the item they are reviewing. In a lesser way, ExhaustNotes makes a few pennies when you buy a reviewed product from that Amazon link we include in a story. Now, a few pennies won’t make us biased but what if it was thousands of dollars?

Which brings us to the VJMC magazine. The VJMC is a really well done club magazine that harkens back to moto-mags from the 1940s. Editorially, the VJMC mag sells nothing. The content mix is vintage event reports, how-to articles and nostalgic look-backs into those heady, Japanese motorcycle invasion years. In other words exactly the stuff I like.

The VJMC magazine uses premium glossy paper that is thick enough for gasket making. How-to stories are extremely detailed and if you’re not into that sort of stuff you may find them tedious and boring. I’m into that sort of stuff. Event stories have plenty of photos and lists of winners (typical club magazine stuff).

A big surprise for me was how many vintage Japanese motorcycle parts and service providers advertise in the magazine. Most of them were news to me and I spend a lot of time looking for parts. I’ll have to try out some of these guys that I’ve never heard of before.

Let’s face it, you don’t buy motorcycle magazines looking to read Hemingway and you’re not going to get Hemingway in the VJMC mag. You will get workmanlike prose that conveys the intention of the author. I’m guessing VJMC mag doesn’t pay their authors much, if anything. It’s more a labor of love. Still, the magazine works.

It’s been years since I’ve had a motorcycle magazine show up in my mailbox. It was quite a thrill when I opened the box and saw the VJMC mag inside. Kind of like the old days when Motorcyclist or Cycle Guide would show up. The paper motorcycle magazine is all a part of the vintage motorcycle experience and really sets the tone for a quick spin on the RD350 or RT1-B. To get the VJMC magazine you have to join the VJMC motorcycle (club? gGroup?) and you’ll get 6 issues a year for your $35 entry fee. It’s worth it to me, so you must buy it!

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A Colt Visit

The city of Hartford in Connecticut is Mecca if you are a Colt fan (as in Colt firearms), and I sure am a Colt fan. I grew up seeing Colt .45 sixguns in western movies when I was a kid and I got my first Colt (a .45 ACP 1911 Government Model) when I finished college (and I’ve never not owned at least one Colt since then). I have no tattoos, but if I were going to get one it would be the Colt logo.

My Colt 1911 has been sending lead downrange for 50 years.

I made a friend in the Colt company when reviving the MacManus award. I had to be in Hartford recently for a symposium and I told my Colt buddy I’d buy him a beer. He suggested a tour of the Colt factory. That was an opportunity I could not let pass.

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The original Colt plant (the one built by Sam Colt) is a National Historic Site. Time did not permit visiting it, but I could see the blue dome above the old plant from my hotel window.

The original Colt manufacturing facility on the banks of the Connecticut River. I didn’t get to it, but the next time I’m in Hartford I will.

The modern Colt factory is a few miles from downtown Hartford. It’s what you see in the big photo up top, and it’s where I had the plant tour described in this blog. The bad news is that photography is prohibited inside the plant (as a manufacturer of military rifles for the US and other countries, Colt can’t have photos of their production processes finding their way to the bad guys). The good news is that I entered the inner sanctum. I saw how the M4s, the M16s , the 1911s, the Single Action Armys, the Pythons, and all the other cool stuff are made. As a manufacturing guy and gun guy with a defense industry background, it was one of the best days of my life.

More good news is that I could take pictures inside the famed Colt Custom Shop. The Custom Shop is a small group of world class artists who assemble what are arguably the most desirable guns in the world. Think engraved, gold inlaid, extremely expensive works of the gunmaker’s art. Guns that are delivered to US presidents, wealthy collectors, and…well, you get the idea. There’s a two-year waiting list for a Custom Shop Colt firearm, and when delivered, the ticket can exceed the cost of a new car. On the secondary market, some have been known to exceed the cost of a new home.

Colt Custom Shop handguns, the stuff of dreams.

You can still purchase a brand new Colt 1903 through the Custom Shop. This one is exquisite. I owned one in the 1970s I bought it for $75 and sold for $200 a few months later, thinking I had done well. Ah, the mistakes we make.

A Custom Shop Anaconda with an inlaid gold bear and extensive engraving.

A closeup of the above Anaconda’s engraving and gold inlay. It’s all done by hand with small hammers and tiny chisels.

An exquisite Single Action Army. The grips are giraffe bone.

Colt’s Custom Shop is producing a series of Single Action Army revolvers for the legendary Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers are the oldest law enforcement organization in America.

Colt has a process for making a new gun look aged. It’s been applied to this Custom Shop Single Action Army.

This was my second visit to Hartford. When I wrote The Gatling Gun nearly 30 years ago, I contacted Colt to ask if I could visit their archives (the original Gatling guns were built by Colt). Colt referred me to the Connecticut State Library and Museum. I went there and I was met by a Connecticut State Trooper who asked me a few questions, took my fingerprints, and ran a background check. Satisfied I wasn’t a terrorist or a KGB agent, he issued a laminated permit designating me an official Connecticut state historian. That gave me access to the archives in a secure area of the Museum. Poking around in there made for a fun day, and I used materials from those archives when I wrote The Gatling Gun.

My visit to the Colt archives three decades ago was impressive. I handled hand-written documents signed by Dr. Gatling and Samuel Colt. It was a great day and a lifelong memory. My recent visit to Colt factory and the Custom Shop (as described in this blog) made for an even better day. A Colt tattoo….maybe that’s not a bad idea.

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