Category: Gear

A Shift In Battery

By Joe Gresh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dos Ojos Cavern Dive – Mexico

By Mike Huber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Big Dig

By Joe Gresh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Green Bay’s National Rail Museum

By Joe Berk

That picture above?  It’s a Big Boy steam locomotive cockpit!  Look at all those valves!

Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Say that name, and most people think of Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers.  And why not?  It’s what the town is known for.  But I’ll let you in on a secret:  Green Bay has one of the best rail museums I’ve ever visited.  I like rail museums, and if there’s one anywhere near where I’m traveling, I’ll stop.  Susie and I wrapped up a trip to Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and the National Rail Museum made our list. It’s easy to find, and Green Bay is a fun little town.

The National Rail Museum has a bunch of small items on display after entering the first building (track maintenance hand tools and the like).  Then it’s on to a hall where the big stuff is kept.  One of the first trains is General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s European train, the one he used as the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II.  It’s big, it’s impressive, and it’s fit for a 5-star general.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower train. It’s dark green and it’s imposing.

The Eisenhower train was built by the British with a number of features to keep it low key (or so some of the signage said).  The name on the locomotive and the exotic paint theme indicated otherwise.

Not very subtle, I would say. General Eisenhower used this train for getting around the European Theatre of Operations.
The Eisenhower train was built by British Railways. That, my friends, is a cool logo.
A photo of General Eisenhower leaving his train.
A meeting room on the Eisenhower train.

The National Rail Museum has one of the very few surviving Big Boy locomotives.  I’ve seen three (well, actually two, but I saw one of them twice).   One was at the National Steam Locomotive Museum in Scranton, and another was parked at the Pomona Fairgrounds (it’s that one I saw twice).   The first time was when it went from Ogden, Utah, to Pomona under its own power.  It stopped in Pomona, and it was an amazing thing to see.

Big Boy No. 4017. I wish that Halloween decoration wasn’t there. I didn’t want to risk moving it.

It’s hard to put into words just how big a Big Boy is.  Photos don’t really do its size justice.

Signs at the museum told us the temperature in the engineer’s compartment was typically 93 degrees even with the windows open.
A peek into the coal tender. Big Boy locomotives consumed so much coal that a man couldn’t keep up with it, so instead of shoveling coal into the engine, the tender had a worm gear that drove it in.

A locomotive that caught my attention was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG-1 electric locomotive.  When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s main tracks were only a half mile from my home.  We loved watching those trains scream by, always pulled by a GG-1.  They are gorgeous locomotives.

A magnificent Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 locomotive. These are beautiful machines. The GG-1 was entirely electric. They drew power from high voltage overhead wires with their pantograph.

From the engineer’s position, the view forward is through one small window.  You really can’t see much of what’s ahead.  That would make me nervous.

By the 1950s, passenger rail travel was losing favor with the American public.  Airplanes were faster, and with the advent of the Interstate Highway System, most people drove.   The railroads wanted to turn that around.  One attempt involved General Motors designing an aerodynamic locomotive and less expensive rail cars.  GM designed the “Aerotrain” drawing on their styling talents, but the effort flopped.   I’d seen pictures of that locomotive (there were only ever two made), but I’d never seen one in person until this visit.

The General Motors Aerotrain locomotive. It was a beautiful design but a commercial flop.

The Aerotrain story is a fascinating one.  This video explains it.

There are plenty of great railroad stories and more than a few great movies.  You might remember the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor hit from the 1970s, Silver Streak.  It you ever wondered where the last car of that famed train came to rest, wonder no more.

If you haven’t seen the Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder movie of the same name, you need to. You can thank me later.

I’ve been to the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, Golden Spike National Historic Park (where the Transcontinental Railroad was completed), and now, the National Rail Museum in Green Bay.    All are great stops, and all have great storyies.  I once did a story on Big Boy 4014 when it was in Pomona, California.  Gresh has a couple of rail blogs, too, including the Nevada Northern and the Cumbres and Toltec lines.  Rail stuff is cool.

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ExNotes Product Review: Yonligonju Compression Tester

By Joe Gresh

If you’ve been keeping up with us here at ExhaustNotes you’ll know I had a lot of trouble getting Zed, my 1975 Kawasaki Z1 900, running correctly.

In between rebuilding the carbs and tinkering with most everything I could think of it dawned on me that maybe the engine was just tired. After all, it wouldn’t be unusual for a 50-year-old, air-cooled engine to wear out after 46,000 miles.

I used to have a nice compression tester that was at least 40 years old. In the big move west I can’t seem to find it. Maybe it got tossed after one of the many floods that inundated our house in the Florida Keys. I forget the brand but it had a flex hose and several adaptors for different size spark plugs.

I don’t need a pro-level compression tester as I’m not in the mechanical business anymore. This cheap, cheerful Yonligonju (say it three times fast!) Chinese kit on Amazon looked like the goods for less than 20 dollars.

The Yonligonju comes with a nice, blow molded plastic case that keeps all the little bits in order.

It amazes me how China can build such a nice kit for so little money. Including the quick release flex hose, this kit comes with adaptors to fit 5 different spark plug sizes.

In addition, the set came with two of the rubber bung type connectors. To use these, you just hold the compression tester tightly in the spark plug hole. It speeds things up on a multi cylinder engine. This works well enough if you’ve got enough hands for the job.

My Yonligonju worked well, showing 80-ish psi on all four Kawasaki cylinders. This isn’t great compression but the cylinder pressures were nearly even and Zed might have done better if the engine wasn’t cold. My Kawasaki manual claims 85 psi as the lower limit and Zed may get there warm. What do you want after 46,000 miles?

Besides compression, what you’re looking for with a compression tester is one cylinder being much lower than the others. This indicates a problem in the cylinder. The actual psi number is less important. Unless they are all really low…

Anyway, the Yonligonju gauge proved compression wasn’t the reason my Kawasaki was fouling plugs. See the latest Zed update for the full story.

The compression gauge held the reading without bleeding off for the few minutes it took me to look at it. There’s a pressure release valve on the side of the gauge that also worked as it should.

This isn’t a kit that will see a lot of usage.  If you’re like me, a home-shop tinkerer, the thing will do the job for not much money. Hell, just taking your bike to a motorcycle shop once to test the compression would cost five times what the tool cost.

I think people rebuild old motorcycle engines more than is needed. Two-strokes especially get the piston, ring and bore because it’s so easy to do. Most likely the bike would have run fine the way it was.

For classic bikes that don’t see everyday use it’s enough that the engine runs well. There’s no need for a ton of compression with today’s crappy fuel anyway. I’m guessing the Yonligonju will last a while sitting in my toolbox waiting for another engine to test.

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British Motorcycle Gear Exclusive Offers!

By Joe Berk

Good news!  Good buddy Andrew Capone, Isle Of Man empresario and British Motorcycle Gear baron is having an exclusive sale for ExNotes readers.  It’s a whopping 21% off any BMG brand jacket. When you enter your order on the British Motorcycle Gear site, just add the code BMGJOES21 at checkout.  British Motorcycle Gear also has great deals on Belstaff closeouts (as well as nice gifts in the $100 range) for under your Christmas tree.  Andrew tells us that the 21% BMG jacket discount is 1% more off the sale he’s currently running, and that’s because we ExNoters are his kind of 1%-ers.

You read about Andrew here on ExNotes before.  He’s the real deal and he’s a real rider.  The latest issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine (Jan-Feb 25) is about to hit the newsstands, and Andrew’s magnificent Norton P11 is featured in it.  It’s a great read about a great bike (I know because I wrote it).  Pick up a copy when you get a chance.  Or, if you have a subscription, you can read it online.

You’ve also read about BMG gear here on ExNotes.  Joe Gresh tested several of their items, he’s a crusty old fart, and he gave all the British Motorcycle Gear high marks.  You can read Gresh’s BMG reviews here.

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Zed’s Not Dead: We Get It Right The Tenth Time

By Joe Gresh

I like to think of myself as handy with a wrench. I try to fix most things even if I have no clue and oftentimes succeed. This Kawasaki 900 though, this Zed has been giving me fits. It almost makes me question my do-it-yourself mantra. Almost…

After initially getting Zed running a few years ago I enjoyed 4000 relatively trouble-ree miles. Zed had a slight hitch in its giddy-up right off idle but otherwise it ran fine.  Then the bike started fouling spark plugs and missing. Occasionally gasoline would pour out the carb overflow tubes and a sharp rap with a screwdriver handle was needed to stop the flow.

So my first line of attack was the float needles because they were original and came out of corroded carbs. I went online and bought some cheap carb kits that included needles and seats.

Setting float height on carbs using plastic hose screwed into float bowl drain.

On a 1975 Z1 Kawasaki the carbs sit up high off the engine block so you can do a lot of tinkering without removing the carb bank. I changed all the needles and set the float height using the clear tube tool that screws into the carb bowl drain.

New fuel tees @ $26 each!

This didn’t really cure anything.  Plugs were still fouling. I started to suspect an ignition problem. After messing with the points and several test runs I was getting nowhere so I purchased a new, aftermarket ignition system. They’re cheap, like $90 or so.

Carbs removed from Zed. A scene I got accustomed to. After the 4th round trip I decided to look elsewhere.

The new system came complete with new coils and wires. This was nice as the old coils were butchered by the previous owner. I installed the new ignition system and the bike still ran terrible and fouled plugs.

I rechecked the aftermarket floats and upon examination I found the needle seats miss-punched with what looked like lettering for the needle size. This caused a wrinkle in the exact spot the needle needed to seat.

.030 tool for setting baseline carb slide height.

Next, I bought new Mikuni needles and seats. I put the Mikuni stuff in and re-set the float levels. The bike ran like crap and foiled the plugs. At least I knew the ignition system was ok.

I was at my limit of understanding, my attention went back to the carburetors. I pulled the carbs, dismantled them and cleaned everything.

Zeds carbs sat like this for 2 years. I was befuddled, vexed, stressed right the “F” out.

I bought another, more expensive carb kit and new Mikuni enrichener plungers. The carbs were in a million pieces on my bench and I lost interest. Other things were happening, concrete need pouring and the carbs gathered dust for two years.

A few months ago I decided to get Zed running for the Motorado vintage motorcycle show up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Buckling down, I reassembled the carbs and using new rubber manifolds (the others had dry rotted in only a few years!) I slid the carbs back into Zed and the bike ran like crap, still fouling plugs.

I couldn’t get the bike running well enough to sync the carbs. A bad condenser was messing up two cylinders.

I took the carbs off the bike and went through them again making sure everything was spotless. And the bike ran like crap. Again, I took the carbs apart racking my brain over the flooding issue. And the bike ran like crap. I changed jets, I changed float heights, I swapped pilot air jets, I swapped emulsion tubes. The third time I took the carbs apart and triple checked everything the bike still ran terrible.

I was in the weeds bad-like and decided to think hard on the situation. I told myself that carbs aren’t all that complicated and that even if I didn’t get them perfect it should still run. And that the bike ran fine for 4000 miles with those carbs. That was when I decided to go back to the new ignition system.

One of the new points had a whitish coating. I thought maybe the bike sat so long the points corroded. Then inspiration hit me: the condensers! I checked the condensers with an ohm meter and found one of the two condensers bad.

Bad condenser from new kit.

I had started with one problem: fouling plugs and by using aftermarket needles I installed a worse set of needles. By removing the original ignition system I installed an entirely new problem with the bad condenser.

These two errors were compounded by my inability to believe that the new parts were bad out of the box so I kept rebuilding the carbs over and over.

The condensers on the old ignition system tested ok and I swapped them into the new plate. And the bike ran. Not perfectly because I had all the jets wrong in my attempts to make the bike run.

I walked the carbs back to their original settings. First the old slide needles and emulsion tubes went back in. Then the main jets, then the pilot jets until finally everything was back to where I started from two years ago.

Zed was running pretty good so I took a little 300 mile test loop. No fouled plugs. Stupid hurts and I was so damn stupid chasing gremlins that I was creating even as I was installing new gremlins.

Home built replica of the official Kawasaki carb sync tool.
The business end of the carb sync tool.

Next up is a good carb sync and since parts are so crappy now I will try an electronic ignition system just for fun because I haven’t screwed things up enough yet. Stay tuned.

New electronic ignition. Only $68 on Amazon. Cheaper than points! What could go wrong?

Want to follow the initial resurrection of Zed? It’s right here!

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ExNotes Review: Shinko Raven R009RR Tires

By Joe Gresh

There are many fast motorcycle riders/writers that would be better suited to the task of reviewing motorcycle tires. Unfortunately, none of them are available at the moment so you’ll have to go with my impression of these Shinko Raven tires.

I previously ran Continental Conti-Motion tires on the ZRX1100 mostly because they were cheap. I got a good deal on a set of front/rear tires with shipping included. The Conti-Motion set came with a 180/55-17 rear tire that was a little bigger than the original 170/60-17 called for on the ZRX. The wider, lower profile tire seemed ok at the time because I hadn’t ridden the motorcycle for 9 years. After I fitted the Shinko Ravens I could tell a difference.

The Harbor Freight tire machine along with the tubeless rims on the ZRX made swapping the tires a breeze. The new tires took only a few ounces of weight to balance so I assume the rubber is pretty evenly distributed around the tire.

I have around 4000 miles on the Shinko tires and it looks like the rear might go another 3000 miles or so. The front tire is wearing much slower and looks like it will go 10,000 miles. Like I said: there are faster riders that could eat these tires up in one day.

The Shinko Ravens are supposedly aramid belted radials with a speed rating of Z, or 149 mph plus. The ZRX1100 won’t do 149 falling out of an airplane so I should be good. Shinko claims the Raven is their longest wearing sport tire. Until they start making car tires, that is.

In a straight line the Contis and the Shinkos are about the same. However the Shinko tires feel much different than the Contis in corners. With the wide 180 series Continental rear tire it felt like the ass end of the bike raised as you laid the bike into a corner. Or maybe the front end dropped. Hitting a bump mid-corner made the rear of the bike want to twist outwards instead of absorb the bump. You had to counteract that wagging sensation with a firm grip on the bars.

No such problem with the Shinko Raven 170 series tire. The ZRX leans into a curve with the ride height feeling evenly matched front to back. No effort on the handle bars is required. Mid-corner bumps don’t have the twisting feel and the rear suspension articulates without drama.

These sensations are all relative and feelings are hard to quantify, maybe it’s just me, and on a race track there might not be any difference in lap times. But then what are you doing racing a heavy street bike on cheap street tires? Stop that.

I much prefer the handling characteristics of the Ravens even though I can’t find the word “Raven” anywhere on the tire. They are stable, go around corners nicely and are round and black.

I haven’t had many opportunities to try the Shinko tires in the wet. In the dry season it rains infrequently (hence “dry season”) and when it’s monsoon I tend to stay home. Still, it’s possible to get caught in the rain here in New Mexico. What little time I have in the wet with the Shinkos didn’t feel all that grippy. I took it easy as the oils accumulated during the dry season rose to the top of the asphalt. Cracking the throttle on the torquey 1100cc 4-cylinder can induce wheel spin on a wet road so don’t do that. In a wet corner you can get the big ZRX drifting easily. Don’t do that either.

In the dry I have yet to lean the bike over far enough to use all the available tread, also known as crashing. The mountain roads where I live are swept only by wind and rain. It’s not surprising to round a corner and find a steaming cow turd in the road. Or sand. Or a downed tree. Anyway, that’s my excuse.

The Shinko tires are a great match for the ZRX1100, I wouldn’t think a small thing such as tire size would have such an outsized effect on the overall feel of a motorcycle but there it is. I would buy another Raven if they go on sale but then I’m the worst guy to take tire advice from, as there are other, faster shills.

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ExNotes Review: UABRLA Tire Inflator

By Joe Gresh

There’s a reason we call this pump a tire inflator instead of an air compressor. The thing is pretty small to start with and half of that size is battery to power the thing. Don’t expect to run your 1/2″ air impact wrench with the UABRLA is what I’m trying to say in an original, thought-provoking manner.

I have a small, 12-volt Slime brand tire inflator that I carry on whichever bike I’m riding. It works well and is like 15 years old now. The main issue (I hate to say problem because it’s more of a design limitation) is that you have to connect it to the motorcycle’s battery. On the RD350 that’s not a big problem but on some bikes, like the ZRX1100, the battery is buried under a bunch of junk I store on the bike. You have to remove the dirty socks, chucks of broken concrete, a dried up Sharpie marker and last year’s Laguna Seca vintage racing schedule. That gains access to the battery door, then you have to slide the battery out to access the terminals.

For airing up bike tires in the shop I use a larger 12-volt compressor (it has some grunt) and a 12-volt car battery.

I bought the UABRLA because I sometimes forget on which bike the Slime pump is stored. I’ve ridden off to the hinterlands thinking I had flat tires covered yet the Slime was packed away on a different motorcycle.

You’re probably wondering if I’ll ever get to the UABRLA review.

The UABRLA was delivered from Amazon in only two days.  That’s pretty fast considering where I live. It came with a hose for connecting to tires, a charging cord, a 12-volt cigarette adaptor so you can keep filling tires even if the built-in battery is dead and a little collection of adapters for beach balls, inflatable mattresses and New England Patriots footballs. A handy tote bag is included. The unit also has a flashlight and a USB port for charging small electronics. The flashlight has three modes: on, on-strobe, on-SOS. Four modes if you count off.

The inflator has presets for car tires, motorcycle tires, bicycles and sports equipment. I can’t see the need as air is air but maybe if you were a complete novice it would help.

A nice touch is the auto-shutoff that kills the inflator when the tire reaches a preset pressure. The setting is pretty accurate being only a pound or two off when checked against a pencil-type gauge. Or maybe the pencil gauge is off. Regardless, I can’t tell a tire is low until the rim scrapes the ground.

The built in battery supposedly has 20,000 mah capacity but I can’t be bothered to test that. I filled up two bicycle tires and topped up 6 motorcycle tires with the little inflator and it was still showing 2 of 4 bars. I’m guessing you could fill one car tire with the built in battery. After that you’ll have to switch to the 12-volt cigarette adaptor.

Anyway, I wouldn’t use this machine for car tires. Maybe adding a few pounds would be ok. My experience with these little inflators is that they get hot if you run them too long so I’d let it cool a few times if you’re filling a 40-inch tall muddier tire.

One thing I would like different is a 90-degree air chuck instead of the straight chuck that comes with the UABRLA. It gets a little tight on some motorcycle wheels.

The UABRLA is a nice-looking bit of consumer glitter. I’ll be tossing this pump into my motorcycle travel kit and hopefully it will last more than one or two uses.

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ExNotes Long Term Test: Oxilam LED Headlight Bulb

By Joe Gresh

As you’ll recall from the Oxilam headlight review we published on ExhaustNotes a while back, I loved the thing. It gave a much brighter view at night and the light source was positioned in the correct spot for the reflector on the ZRX1100 Lawsonsaki. Low beam was wide and had a sharp cutoff so as to not blind oncoming drivers, and high beam lit up the dark New Mexico roads nicely.

Unfortunately. the bulb burned out on my bike after only 3000 miles. Considering the original halogen bulb lasted 35,000 miles, 24 years, and was still going strong, I was disappointed.

Taking the bulb apart revealed a neatly constructed circuit board, a cooling fan, heat transferring grease to the large aluminum heat sink, and broken solder connections at the main board/plug connector junction.

The board connections are tiny and I may try to re-solder the connections (there are four of them broken: two on either side of the circuit board) but I don’t hold out much hope.

The Oxilam kit came with two bulbs, and I’ll pop the other one in to see if my failure was just a fluke. I do like the quantity of light produced and riding with a plain old halogen seems dark now.

My new, revised rating on the Oxilam LED headlights is: Don’t buy them just yet. Wait until the second Oxilam has proved itself for 24 years. I’ll be sure to report back here if I’m still alive.

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