Category: Back In The Day

Laguna Seca AHRMA Racing 3

By Joe Gresh

I’m in no rush to leave the tent this morning. The wind blew all night long and is still blowing hard. It’s cold and damp. Canvas pops and snaps, the tent inflates and deflates as if it is a breathing thing. I’ll have a second cup of coffee.

Having coffee in a hurricane.

The vintage motocross races at Laguna Seca are situated over the hill, towards the north. It’s a natural terrain course just like the tracks these vintage motorcycles ran on way back when. No manufactured hazards like triples or whoops. Any whoops on this track are made by churning knobbies. So of course I love it.

Laguna has more CZs in one place than I’ve ever seen. A bunch of Honda Elsinores and BSA 4-strokes populate the area. Less popular are Yamahas, Kawasakis and Suzukis.

The BSAs were out in force. One of the few 4-strokes that could compete with the 2-strokers…if you had Banks riding it.

Four Elsinore 125s put on a hell of a show. They were swapping the lead back and forth, passing three bikes in a corner only to be re-passed the next corner. It was good, handlebar banging action. I’m going back for more today.

The motocross crowd is a bit looser than the road racers. There is a yellow rope denoting the track that you are not supposed to cross. Nobody pays attention and spectators walk rigs up to the edge of the course to yell encouragement at their buddies.

Just a few of the motocross classes. Something for experts to beginners.

One guy had a train horn attached to a battery powered compressor and when the bikes were stuffed into the corner he would blast the horn inches from the rider’s ears. You don’t get that sort of fun on the pavement over the hill.

Unlike some of the road race bikes, the motocross bikes are historically accurate. These are the bikes that actually raced back then and except for razor sharp fresh knobbies they are in a slightly beat condition.

There are a few 100-point restorations racing but those guys take it easy around the track. The Sunday riders got the same encouragement and horn as the top racers.

Tidy Penton, these were the original KTMs and beautiful bikes. The cylinders were huge square things.

In the evening I hear live music drifting in on the soaking wind, a two stroke bike circles camp and people chatter, sounding like they are right next door. I have to remind myself not to be old. Sure, I want to got to bed at 8:00 p.m. but nobody else does.

Back to the road race side of things. AHRMA is always expanding the definition of historic and they even have classes for modern motorcycles. These classes are well stocked because the bikes are easy to get and keep running. I’d say more than half the field were riding new-ish motorcycles. Our old buddies Walt Fulton and Dave Roper put in another fine showing but I kind of lost them in the multi-class race they were in. So maybe they didn’t do fine.

I’m really enjoying how well Godzilla is running down at sea level. The bike has tons of grunt and runs so smooth with the oxygen levels. Probably the humidity helps also.

I’m off to watch some racing. It’s still windy but I can’t sit in the tent all day. The neighbors will start talking about the weird old man next door.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Laguna 2: More Hasty Conclusions From Laguna Seca

By Joe Gresh

Man I slept good last night. The combination of the new cot, air mattress and mummy bag worked to perfection. Add in the cool moist Monterey weather and the loudspeaker’s 8:15 call for a rider’s meeting was the first thing I heard.  I’ve really got this camping thing down. With the added capacity of the Toyota truck I was able to bring along a few luxury items. Like a chair and an ice chest.

These Can Ams had huge cylinder fins.
Can Ams also had a somewhat unusual disc valve with a long intake runner leading to a carb in the back of the engine next to your left foot.
A bike I never knew about, the AMMEX motocross bike.
A 1930s Husqvarna. Not much different than my 2008 version.

Unlike last year, there are no food trucks in the paddock, only the Bear and Shank which has some pretty good food at reasonable (for California) prices. The ice chest frees me of food anxiety, I’ve got plenty for the weekend.

My enduro riding buddy, Gilroy Larry, stopped by with his clean TY250 Yamaha trials bike. We rode over to the trials area but it was more secure than last year.  There’s also a sweet, old-style motocross track where a guy can race his old bike without spending 95% of his time in the air. (Note to Supercross: less hang time and more racing!)

I still have one of these in boxes. It’s a C110 Honda 50. 4-speed with hand clutch and a pushrod engine. When mine ran it did around 45 miles per hour.
Unusual rear wheel on a Mule flat track style bike.
I had one of these also. This is a one-owner, dad’s old bike.
Since we are apolitical here on ExNotes I know Berk will love this Suzuki 100.
A beautiful 500 Tiger for not much money.
It’s a good thing I don’t have $4500 laying around or i’d buy the Triumph.

There are entirely too damn many four-strokes out here. My era of motorcycle racing was dominated by two strokes both on the pavement and in the dirt. Flat track was the only place four-strokes were competitive and that was by favorable rules. To me, a buzzing stroker is the sound of speed.

Bikes are warming up on Laguna’s interior roads. You’ll see a full on road racer cruise by the camp if you wake up early.

The same dense air that’s makes it so easy to sleep has Godzilla running fabulously. The grunt is amazing and the smooth, steady beat makes me want to move here rather than tune for my 6000-foot elevation.

Yesterday we had no fog and the picnic table was soaking wet in the morning. This morning diaphanous clots of fog are blowing past like smoke from a fire and the picnic table is bone dry. Listen, I don’t like using diaphanous any more than you like reading it. I guess should have paid more attention in meteorology class.

There was a vintage bike show at the track.  The show had a pretty decent turnout.  Maybe 50 bikes showed up.  I owned several of the models represented.

Nice old flathead Beemer.
The evolution of Maico crankcases Part 1: 1970s.
The evolution of Maico crankcases Part 2: The 1980s.

It’s hard to beat looking at old CanAm motorcycles while out on the track vintage bikes are racing by at full song.

Sent from my iPhone

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Rainy-Day Japanese Atomic Monster Repair… Revisited

By Joe Gresh

Monsoon season has streamed into New Mexico’s upper atmosphere, hampering my concrete construction projects so I took the opportunity to settle some old scores with Godzilla, my 1971 Yamaha RT1-B Enduro. I’m getting the bike ready for a west coast trip and there were some annoying little faults I wanted to do up right before riding the California coast.

Godzilla has grown over the years. I’ve put a taller 21” front wheel on the bike and longer rear shocks. As a result the bike leans way over on the original-length kickstand. Parked in the shed I use a chunk of 2×4 to make the Yamaha sit more vertical but I’m not about to carry lumber all the way to California.

I measured the length needed, about 1-1/2-inch, and cut some tube off an old handlebar I keep around for just this purpose. I’ve been altering a lot of kickstands lately. I don’t know why I have to keep messing with kickstands but there it is. I used a piece of tube from an old floodlight frame to make a centering piece so that the three sections stay straight.

The tube from the floodlight was slotted and press fit into the extension piece.

Then all the pieces were assembled and welded together. After welding I touched up the stand with a bit of spot putty and gloss black paint.

The angle worked out great. Unfortunately the longer stand now hit the lower chain guard bolt when in the up position.

To solve this problem I added a blob of weld to the kickstand stop; this increased the clearance between the longer stand and the chain guard.

The next problem was the rear wheel sprocket carrier. This part has heavy wear as Godzilla spends most of its time in the dirt. The sprocket was alarmingly loose, not enough to throw the chain but not far from it.

There are two distinct areas of wear. The first is the hub boss that the sprocket carrier rides on. The second problem is the distance between the sprocket carrier retaining circlip and the carrier had become quite wide, meaning the clip didn’t hold the carrier tight to the hub. This allowed the carrier to wander in and out, causing even more wear on the hub boss.

To fill the gap between the hub boss and carrier I used a section of well-greased, steel measuring tape as a shim. I wound the tape around the boss and held it into position with a bit of string. To determine the thickness needed I started long and trial fit the carrier. I kept decreasing the tape length until the carrier would just slip over the shim.

For the circlip gap I was lucky and found a piece of aluminum pipe that fit nearly perfectly and trimmed off a baloney slice to use as a shim.

By trial and error I fit and re-fit the shim. I used the South Bend lathe to reduce the thickness of the shim bit by bit until the clip would fit without any back and forth play. Now the sprocket carrier is snug to the hub but still has a bit of rotational movement between the hub’s rubber cushions.

Godzilla seems to be in pretty good shape right now. It’s running a bit rough but that’s probably due to the old gas in the tank. I’ll dilute the crap gas with fresh and take the bike out for a nice long ride. See you in California!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Painless, Paintless Dent Repair

By Joe Gresh

I’ve ridden my Yamaha RT1B 360 Enduro for thousands and thousands of miles. The old two-stroke has been across country more than once and I rode it on the Trans America Trail east to west from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to Port Orford, Oregon. In all that time I never put a dent in the beast known as Godzilla.

It is a fairly easy job to load the light-ish Yamaha into a pickup truck…normally. This time was different. I lost my balance mid-ramp and the Yamaha started to topple over onto me. I was out of position to save the bike, my legs were getting tangled and in that split second I envisioned a broken arm or crushed ribcage. I let the bike go and jumped down to safety. The bike fell to the left; the gas tank smashed into the side of the truck bed and my somewhat pristine Godzilla had a huge dent.

You and I have both heard about the paintless dent repair kits.  Amazon had this one for pretty cheap and I thought I’d give it a try.

The kit comes with everything you need, except alcohol (to clean the tank, not drink). After the tank got a good scrubbing with the hooch, I used the included hot glue gun to attach the little puller tabs in places I thought needed to be pulled. The dent was pretty deep and had a crease running diagonally across the tank. I didn’t hold out much hope.

The flimsy plastic puller seemed like it would break at any moment but the thing held up. It was strong enough to yank the pull-tabs.

The kit came with a slide hammer but that tool broke the tabs. I believe the shock load was more than the plastic could handle. You’ll need weld on tabs to use the slide hammer.

Usually the tab would pull off the tank and since the paint on Godzilla is 53 years old the glue removed a bit of paint each time. The kit came with a little spray bottle that you fill with alcohol; the alcohol loosens up the hot glue to allow reuse of the tabs. It took several re-positionings but I managed to get the majority of the dent pulled out.

The creases in the tank are still visible and the tank is far from straight but it’s at least 80% better than it was. From 10 feet away you may not notice the thing is dented. I worked on another egg-shaped dent on the top of the tank that was there when I bought the bike. The paint in this spot was in bad shape so it was hard to get anything to stick.

I ended up sanding the egg-dent to get something firm to attach the pull tab and gave the spot a light dusting of gloss black spray paint. After the paint dried I feathered it in with 600-grit. Again, I got the dent about 80% removed.

I think for minor dents without sharp creases and with fairly new paint stuck firmly to the metal the kit would actually work pretty well. The Z1 has a ding that’s a prime candidate for the dent puller except the dent is right over a stripe decal. I’m sure the tab will lift the decal.

I call the paintless dent removal process a good one. The kit I bought was bottom of the barrel cheap so possibly a better kit would produce better results. I’m happy enough with Godzilla’s tank. After all, it’s a dirt bike and will probably take a few more hits before I shuffle off.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Texas Rangers Smith and Wessons

By Joe Berk

I think it would be difficult to be a firearms enthusiast and not be a student of history.  Firearms are history.  And some of that history revolves around the Texas Rangers, the oldest and perhaps most legendary law enforcement group in US history. I’ve always been fascinated with the Texas Rangers, starting with their use of the very first Colt Paterson revolvers in combat, the early Captain Samuel Walker days, and the emergence of the Colt Walker black powder revolver.

Texan Ranger Captain Samuel Walker.

When I was a kid, we had a steady diet of Westerns on TV and in the movies, and the Texas Rangers figured prominently in many of those shows.  I’m a Lonesome Dove fan, having read Larry McMurtry’s novels and watched the television series numerous times.  Go Gus and Woodrow (but especially Gus; he carried a Colt Walker).

Robert Duvall as Gus MacCrae in Lonesome Dove, and his Colt Walker.

You would think with the Texas Rangers’ historical and often romanticized use of Colt revolvers, Colt would be all over the Texas Ranger commemorative gun business.   They did so in the early 1970s with a very limited run of Single Action Army revolvers, but that was the only time.

Colt’s Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Commemorative. These guns don’t come up for sale often, and when they do, the price is stratospheric.  It’s the only Texas Rangers Commemorative Colt has ever done.

The Texas Rangers commemorative mantle has been picked up by Smith and Wesson, first in 1973 for the Texas Rangers’ 150th anniversary, and again in 2023 for the 200th anniversary.  These are beautiful firearms (they are art, in my opinion).

A Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Smith and Wesson Model 19.
Another view of the Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Smith and Wesson Model 19.

Jumping back to 1973, Smith and Wesson offered a cased commemorative Model 19 Smith and Wesson along with a Bowie knife.  A standard Model 19 cost about $150 back then (I had one); the Texas Rangers Model 19 with display case and matching Bowie knife was a whopping $250.  It seems an almost trivial amount today.  A standard Model 19 costs around a thousand bucks today, and the Model 19 of today is not the same gun it was in the 1970s.   The older ones, as is true with many things in life, are better.

The 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver.

Fast forward to 2023, and Smith and Wesson did it again, with a Texas Rangers 200th anniversary revolver.   This time it’s a highly polished N-frame, fixed sight version.  The N-frame is Smith’s big gun frame used on their original .357 Magnum, the Model 27, the .45 ACP revolvers, and the .44 Magnum revolvers.  You know, the Big Boy guns for us full-figured shooters.

A real beauty, these 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers Smith and Wessons are.

I’ve been perusing both of these Texas Ranger guns on the gun auction sites.  I can get the 1973 version (which was based on the Model 19) for about $1500, which isn’t a bad deal considering you get a more collectible gun, the knife, and the case for not too much more than what a new Model 19 cost today.  I’d shoot it, too, if I bought one.  And then there’s the current Texas Rangers 200th Anniversary revolver, built on the N-frame   Those are going for around $2500 or more.  That a bit pricey, but maybe in 50 years $2500 will be a trivial amount.  I’m a firm believer that you can’t pay too much for a gun; you just maybe bought it too early.

A lot of things are different today, and the price for either of the Smith and Wesson Texas Ranger commemoratives is just a starting point here in California.  Compounding the felony on both guns is our outrageous California 11% excise tax on firearms and ammo (that little bit of silliness and government overreach went into effect this month), which gets added onto:

      • Our outrageous California state sales tax
      • The federal government’s $40 background check and ATF Form 4473 (the one that Hunter Biden was convicted of falsifying when his sweetheart deal fell apart)
      • The FFL dealer’s $40 transfer fee
      • A $75 shipping fee to get the gun to me here in left wing Utopia (i.e., the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia)

It all adds up to roughly another $700.  And all that’s aggravated by the likelihood I couldn’t even get the 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers commemorative because our California Attorney General hasn’t seen fit to add it to our roster of approved handguns.  Even Gomer Pyle wouldn’t know how to react to all these added government fees, but I’m guessing his reaction would be a heartfelt Gosh, or a Golly, or maybe even a Shazam!  It’s almost as if California doesn’t agree with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

But that earlier Texas Rangers Smith and Wesson…the Model 19 150th Anniversary gun.  It’s now over 50 years old, and that makes it an antique in California’s all-seeing and all-knowing firearms book of state regs , and antiques are exempt from the Roster of Approved Handguns limitations.  I’d still have to pay all the fees described above.  But it’s doable, and I’m thinking about it.

You might wonder:  Are the Texas Rangers still around, and what sidearm do they carry?   The answer is yes; the Texas Rangers are part of the Texas Department of Public Safety.  Texas Rangers are issued a SIG 320 (a 9mm semi-auto), but they are allowed to carry their personal sidearms.  Many choose to carry the 1911.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Zongshen Acquires Loncin

By Joe Berk

Two of the largest motorcycle companies in China are Zongshen and Loncin.  I recently learned that Zongshen became the major shareholder of Loncin, turning Zongshen into the largest of the motorcycle companies in China.  I asked my contact at Zongshen if he could tell me more about this, and he did.

Hi Joe:

On July 3rd, Zonsen Power, a listed company under Zongshen Group, announced official news.  Here are the details:

Zonsen Power announced that its associate company intends to invest 3.35 billion yuan (CNY) to acquire a 24.55% stake in Loncin. Upon the completion of the transaction, Zonsen will become the largest shareholder and the actual controller of Loncin.

In fact, before this acquisition, Loncin Group had been trapped deeply a debt crisis due to heavy losses in its real estate business, leading to significant debts in 13 of its subsidiaries.

In previous years, Loncin had been trying hardly to resolve this issue, and some companies proposed acquiring shares in Loncin, but ultimately, none succeeded.

The Chongqing court ruled that Loncin Group must resolve this debt issue before August 2024, or the company will be auctioned. This acquisition of Loncin by Zonsen is likely the result of coordination by the Chongqing government.

As the previous acquisition of Lifan by Geely Automobile was not successful. Geely, a powerful automotive enterprise in China that is the largest shareholder of Daimler and once acquired 100% shares of Volvo, but had no intention of developing the motorcycle industry by acquiring Lifan. Instead, it aimed to obtain Lifan’s electric vehicle production license.  However, after the acquisition, Geely did not invest much in the motorcycle sector, causing Lifan to decline significantly, which greatly displeased the local government.

Although Loncin’s real estate business has suffered heavy losses, its motorcycle business is still operating well. Therefore, the local government is unwilling to let Loncin suffer the same fate as Lifan, so it coordinated with Zonsen to acquire a majority stake in Loncin, and state-owned assets also invested in Loncin.

Whether Zongshen and Loncin’s businesses will be merged is yet to be announced officially, but most people believe that Loncin will maintain its current structure and business, and there will still be competition between the two companies in the same industry.

Thanks!

These are interesting developments.   In case you were wondering, Zonsen is the name by which what we knew as Zongshen now wishes to be called.  Another bit of information:  3.35 billion Chinese Yuan is the equivalent of approximately 461 million US dollars.  I first visited Zongshen more than a decade ago, and the company impressed me greatly.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

AI Is Making Us Dumber

By Joe Berk

I’m all for intelligence (most folks would agree there’s too little of it), but I’m scared to death of artificial intelligence.

Turn the clock back 60 years.  I’m a kid working in a farm and garden center and the boss (John Bocchieri, who was a neighbor and a nice guy) put me on the cash register after I’d been there about a week.  The first time I rang up a sale the customer handed me a $5 bill and I had to make change.  Mr. Bocchieri saw my dilemma and he told me how to do it.  “You just take the amount, take money out of the drawer, and while doing so count up to what the customer gave you.  That will be the right amount.”  That little secret made life a lot easier for me.  It even worked if the customer gave you a little more in change (you know, so you could give them back only paper money).

Today, the electronic cash registers try to make it even easier, but all they did was just screw things up.  Kids will ring up a sale, the customer gives them, say, a $20 bill, the kid enters the $20, and the cash register tells them how much change to give back.  If that feature isn’t working, I’ve often had clerks mentally lock up when they have to determine how much they should return.  I first started seeing this during the Bush administration.  (Whenever it happens, the phrase “No Child Left Behind” pops into my mind.)  Relying on the cash register to determine how much change to return robbed clerks of their ability to think.  Give a clerk a little extra to get paper money back (you know, say the price is $11.79 so you give the cash register jockey $20 and 79 cents), and it really throws them into overload mode.

I ran into this same phenomenon of machines doing peoples’ thinking for them in my manufacturing days.  In the old days, production planning involved what the job title implied:  The ability to plan a production operation.  Production planners (or schedulers, as we sometimes called them) were people who knew the required manufacturing delivery dates, the manufacturing times, and the supplier component lead times.  With that information, they determined what we needed from suppliers and when we had to order it, and what had to happen (and when it had to happen) in the factory to deliver product on time.  We usually did just that: We delivered on time.  When things didn’t go as planned in one or more of the work centers (as often happens in the manufacturing world) or if a supplier was late (another common occurrence), the production planners could develop workarounds and our products still shipped on time.

Then an evil computer program called MRP (Manufacturing Requirements Planning) came on the scene.  It was software that required as inputs the info described above.  The idea was that it would simplify production planning.  But a funny thing happened.  Over the course of a few years, the skilled production planners who could actually plan workflows through a factory retired and they were replaced with folks who were essentially data entry clerks.  These folks were still called production planners, but they couldn’t plan a trip to the bathroom.  The really bad thing about MRP is that it assumed everything in the factory and our deliveries from suppliers happened on time (and as anyone knows who has ever worked in a factory, it never does).  When production hiccups occurred, MRP was useless and so were our so-called production planners.  I guess I shouldn’t complain.  I was a manufacturing consultant specializing in helping companies that couldn’t deliver on time.  I made a ton of money thanks to MRP’s inadequacies and the managers who thought it was the answer to all their problems.

Another form of this disease comes in the flavor of nav systems.  You know, the things driven by global positioning systems that ask for a destination and then tell you how to get there.

Don’t get me wrong:  I love these nav systems. But when I use them (which is nearly all the time anymore), I lose the sense of where I am, where I’m going, and how to get there.  I don’t have to think.  I just listen to what Waze (or whatever program I’m using) tells me to do and I do it.  I’ll tell you how bad it is:  I’ve almost driven through stop signs and red lights listening to my nav system.  And I secretly sort of know, deep down, that if I didn’t have the nav system, I would not know how to get to places I know that I know how to get to.   If that sentence gives you trouble, read it again; I wrote it and I know it’s tough to follow.  But it conveys what I’m trying to say.  Maybe AI would do a better job writing it, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask it to.  Writing is one of the few things I have left.

Ever been embarrassed by the autocorrect feature when you write something on your cell phone or your computer?  I find it highly annoying, and my experience is that it makes as many mistakes (by auto”correcting” to a word I didn’t want to use) as it fixes.  It’s a feature that’s teaching us it’s okay to not pay attention to our spelling.  Maybe some people need it.  Those people shouldn’t be posting comments.  We are already a nation bordering on illiteracy.  We don’t need help to speed us along.

Now the talk is all about artificial intelligence and where it can take us.  Self-driving cars.  Diagnostics software for medical doctors.  Social media algorithms.  Nuclear weapons control.  Chatbots.  Blog articles.  Think about what these programs will do.  They’ll degrade doctors’ ability to make diagnoses themselves.  They’ll eliminate the need for drivers to drive an automobile.  They’ll decide what violates “community standards” and take down posts (they are already doing this and no one likes it).  They’ll decide when to launch a nuclear attack.  Can you believe this is being seriously discussed?   What could go wrong?  Think about chatbots or the automated questions you get when trying to reach a human being on the phone.  Have you ever come away from one of these encounters thinking “gee, those folks really made it easy for me?” I don’t think so.

How about AI-generated writing?  I get three or four email inquiries a week from services that want to pay me to allow their blog content here on ExNotes.  When I asked to see what they could do (back before I realized what they were doing), the content was awful.  Thanks, but no thanks.

Nope, you can keep your AI.  What’s lacking in the world is not enough plain old real intelligence, and AI will only make that worse.  We need more intelligence.  The real kind, not the artificial kind.

Do you have a copy yet?

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Screwed

By Joe Gresh

I haven’t been riding the Yamaha RD350 lately and it’s not because I don’t want to. There is a lot of concrete that needs doing at the ranch and I get to do it.  Anyway, the RD350 has a loose screw in the tachometer and the screw dances around inside the gauge beating a tattoo onto the tachometer face. It drives me crazy to see that little screw eating away at the tachometer lettering so I parked the bike. A few days of rainy weather put a stop to my concrete-the-world efforts and I decided to take advantage of the down time and fix the tachometer.

These Yamaha instrument clusters were not really meant to be serviced. The Yamaha factory crimped the bezel onto the gauge body and back in the day it was cheap to buy another gauge. If you have infinite patience like my buddy Deet, it’s possible to unkink the crimp and reassemble the gauge so that it looks to all the world that its never been touched. I am not that patient.

I modified a harbor freight pick (free with purchase!) into a pry bar, which allowed me to get the crimp slightly lifted. Once you have the bezel edge up a bit you can get a more serious pry bar in there.

This bar is also a modified Harbor Freight tool. The rounded face allows you to work the crimp back to a more vertical position.

With the bezel mangled and pried back the lens will separate from the gauge body allowing access to that annoying screw.

Since I had the gauge this far apart I took the mechanism out of the gauge body and gave it a few drops of oil. This turned out to be a bad idea.

Putting the gauge back together is the reverse of the above description. Make sure the lens is perfectly clean or you’ll be looking at that speck of dust forever. To re-crimp I got the bend started with a screwdriver and the used a small hammer and punch to flatten out the waves. It doesn’t look factory but a rubber bumper covers the mess.

After assembly and testing the neutral indicator light looked odd. It was lit all the time and very dim. I assumed I must have screwed up the wiring and rechecked everything. Turns out the rubber bellows that shields the neutral light socket from the bulbs illuminating the gauge did not slip into position correctly. This caused the boot to fold over blocking the neural light photons and allowing random background photons to leak into the green lens area. I had to un-crimp the bezel again, disassemble the gauge and slip the boot on correctly. Perseverance will beat talent every time.

The speedometer screws were also loose, the face was jiggling around and it was only a matter of time before those screws fell out. I took that gauge apart and tightened the screws. Then I did the oil thing and also adjusted the needle 8 miles per hour slower to more closely reflect the speed I was going.

The sun is shining and I can start putting more miles on the Yamaha RD350 without staring at that stupid screw bouncing around inside the gauge. And I will just a soon as I finish up this driveway.

Do you have a copy yet?

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Coming Up: A Soprano Safari

Yep, that’s what I’m planning now.  Susie and I are flying to New Jersey for a class reunion, and I’m going to be the ultimate tourist.   What I have in mind is a series of visits to key spots that were featured in the HBO television series, The Sopranos.  If there’s something you think I’ve missed, let me know and it may just show up on the list.

Holsten’s Restaurant

Holsten’s is the restaurant where Tony was whacked.  It’s still open.  Never been there; I’ve been wanting to ever since The Sopranos hit the airwaves.

Bahr’s and the Sandy Hook Marina

Bahr’s is the outstanding seafood restaurant Tony and others mention frequently in the series, and the Sandy Hook Marina where Tony kept his boat (The Stugots) is just below it. I’ve been to both places many times, and I’m looking forward to going again.

Pizza Land

Pizza Land is the pizza place you see Tony drive by in the opening scene of every episode.   It was a low revenue pizza joint before it made it into the Sopranos.  It has since become a sensation.  Today, they ship frozen pizzas all over the world, and it all came about because of that brief glimpse in the opening scene.

Wilson’s Carpet Store

The giant carpet guy statue is another feature seen in the opening scene of every Soprano’s episode.  It’s in Jersey City, the same place that xxx gun store is located (there the guys that handle the FFL transfer for the MacManus Award 1911 every year).  I’ll got a shot of the carpet guy and the gun shop.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral 

This is one of two churches used in the series.  It’s the one Tony shows to AJ when he explains what things were like for the Italian immigrants who came to America.  Like Wilson’s Carpet Store, it’s in Jersey City.  My Mom grew up in Jersey City and my grandparents lived there for a while.  I want to see it again; I haven’t been there in more than 60 years.

Cleveland Auto Body

This is a body shop that was run by Big Pussy Bompensiero and was taken over by his wife, Angie Bompansiero, after Big Pussy was whacked for being a rat.  I understand it’s a real body shop.  I want to get a photo.

Tony and Carmela’s Mansion

Yep, it’s an actual house that a couple actually lived in when The Sopranos producers spotted.  They asked if they could rent the house and the rest is history.

The Rutgers Campus

Rutgers is mentioned many times in The Sopranos.  In the story, Tony attended a semester and a half at Seton Hall, but in real life, James Gandolfini attended and graduated from Rutgers.  So did I.  I want to visit the campus again, stop in to say hi to the ROTC detachment, and shoot a few pictures.

The Paterson Falls

There are a couple of scenes filmed at the falls in Paterson, New Jersey.  In one, Mikey Palmici throws a guy off a bridge.  In another, Hesh threatens to do the same.   I’ve never been there.  I’ll fix that on this trip.

The Skyway Diner

This diner appears in several scenes, most notably with Janice Melfi (Tony’s psychiatrist) and Christopher Multisanti.  We have a lot of diners in New Jersey.  I’ve never been in a bad one.  If it’s still in business, I’ll stop there for a cup of coffee.

Joe’s Bake Shop

This is bakery where Christopher Multisanti shoots a counter guy in the foot for slow service.  I don’t now if it’s real, but if it is, I want to stop and get a pastry.  I know it will be good; it’s where I grew up there are no bad bakeries in New Jersey.

Father Phil’s Church

Father Phil was a kind of a mealy-mouthed priest that Tony saw through right away.  There were a few scenes filmed in that church.  I’m going to stop in.

Satriale’s

Satriale’s was a fictional pork store used by Tony and his crew.  It’s since been demolished and today it’s a parking lot.  That’s the pork store used in the series.  What you may not know is one quarter of a mile away on the same street is a real pork store that was used by the DeCavalcante crime family, the real organized crime group.   If I can get a photo without getting in trouble, I’m going to.

The Bada Bing

There never was a real Bada Bing topless joint, and topless dancing is illegal in New Jersey.  But The Satin Dolls in Lodi (a similar bar with a similar theme, but again, not topless) that was used for the show was real and I will stop there.  I read somewhere that it had closed too, but you never know.  Anything for the ExNotes blog, guys.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

The Wayback Machine: The Springfield Mile

By Joe Berk

That photo above?  It’s the Springfield mile, with riders exiting Turn 4 at over 100 mph on their way up to 140 or so. These boys are really flying.  It is an incredible thing to see.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Two blogs back I wrote about the East Windsor half-mile dirt track, which has gone the way of the dodo bird.  The Springfield Mile is bigger and better and last I checked it’s still with us.  A dozen years ago I made the trek out to Illinois to watch the big boys (and a lady or two) mix it up and it was awesome.  I don’t know if this is accurate or if it’s more biker bullshit, but the guys claim the bikes hit 140 mph in the straights and maintain a cool 100 in the turns.  And “straights” is a relative term.  The track is basically a big oval, with the straights being less of a curve.  What’s nice about oval track racing, though, is you usually can see all the action all the time.  When you go to a grand prix type event, you get to see the bikes or the cars for just an instant when they scream past wherever you are.  Oval tracks are a better deal, I think.

We planned to ride to Springfield from So Cal, but just before it was wheels-in-the-wells time my good buddy Larry passed and I stayed for his funeral.  We flew instead and because that gave us a little bit more of our most precious commodity (time), we bopped around Springfield a bit more.  We visited Springfield’s Lincoln Museum and had a lot of fun getting there. I drove our rental car and we promptly got lost (it was in the pre-GPS era). We pulled alongside a police officer and he gave us directions. As soon as I pulled away, I asked my buds which way to go. “I don’t know,” they answered, “we weren’t listening…” Neither was I. We all had a good laugh over that one.

An interesting Norton in the fairgrounds parking lot.
Another shot of the Norton.

The Illinois State Fairgrounds has two tracks, one is a quarter-mile dirt oval and the other is the big mile track.  The quarter-mile races were awesome.  This racing, all by itself, would have been worth the trip out there.  I love watching the flat trackers.

These boys are kicking up some dirt coming out of Turn 4 on the Illinois State Fairgrounds quarter-mile track.
One of the riders lost it coming our of Turn 4 and he crashed hard directly in front of us.
I didn’t think he was going to get up, but he did.  The next day, this guy won a heat on the 1-mile track.  The announcer said he was “tougher than a $2 steak.” I believe it.

The next day, we went to the 1-mile track on the other side of the State Fairgrounds.

The field entering Turn 2 at over 100 mph on the Springfield 1-mile track. The noise is incredible and there’s nothing like it.  These guys are drifting sideways at 100 mph, just a few inches apart!
The same shot as above, but with the two fastest riders at the Springfield Mile identified.  The arrows point to Chris Carr (National No. 4 in the white and orange leathers) and Kenny Coolbeth (National No. 1 in the black leathers).  Coolbeth won on Sunday and Carr won on Monday.  This photo was just after the start.
One lap later: Coolbeth and Carr are riding as a closely-matched pair well ahead of the group.

I was really happy with these shots. I had my old Nikon D200 and a cheap lens (a 10-year old, mostly plastic, $139 Sigma 70-300). I zoomed out to 300 mm, set the ISO to 1000 for a very high shutter speed (even though it was a bright day), and the lens at f5.6 (the fastest the inexpensive Sigma would go at 300mm).  The camera’s autofocus wouldn’t keep up with the motorcycles at this speed, so I manually focused on Turn 2 and waited (but not for long) for the motorcycles to enter the viewfinder.  It was close enough for government work, freezing the 100-mph action for the photos you see above.

Kenny Coolbeth, after winning the Springfield Mile.
Nicole Cheza, a very fast rider. She won the “Dash for Cash” and the crowd loved it.
A Harley XR-750 rider having fun.

As you might expect, there were quite a few things happening off the track, too.  Johnsonville Brats had a huge tractor trailer onsite equipped with grills, and they were serving free grilled brat sandwiches.  It was a first for me, and it worked…I’ve been buying Johnsonville brats ever since.  There were hundreds of interesting motorcycles on display and a vintage World War II bomber orbiting the area.

An old B-17 flying above the track…it made several appearances that weekend.
An old Ariel Square Four. The owner started it and it sounded like two Triumph 650s.
An old two-stroke Bridgestone, a marque that never quite made it in the US. Imagine the marketing discussions in Japan: “Let’s logo it the BS…that will work!”

So there you have it, along with a bit of advice from yours truly:  If you ever have an opportunity to see the Springfield Mile, go for it.  I had a great time and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

More epic rides are here!

We want you!  Sign up here for a free subscription!