Category: Gear

Grind Me A Pound Of Reverse: Part 2

In the first episode of Grind Me A Pound Of Reverse I contemplated buying a Suzuki DR650 and leaning the broken down Husqvarna SMR510 on the side of the shed to bleach in the harsh New Mexico sunlight. Suzuki DR650s are as stone axe simple as you can make a motorcycle today. They are air-cooled, carbureted, have zero electronic widgets (except for ignition) and cost around $6000 for a 2022 model. I’d have to sell a few of my clunkers to fund the DR but it’s the sensible thing to do.

The thing is, the Husky is such a fun bike to ride I thought I’d take a poke at fixing its transmission woes. The Husqvarna crankcase is a vertically split unit which is easier to manufacture but means the entire engine must be dismantled to access the gearbox. In my case this is not a big deal because when a gearbox explodes you have to clean out all the microscopic and not so microscopic bits of metal.

The SMR510 frame is wrapped tightly around its engine and a lot of stuff has to be dismantled to get the lump out into the open. With long-travel suspension causing wide variations in chain tension its best to keep the swing arm pivot as close to the countershaft sprocket as possible. On the SMR the pivot bolt goes through the back of the engine and that means the swing arm has to come off. In addition, the radiators, fuel injection body, EMS and other body parts must be removed also. It took me about 4 hours to finally free the Husky’s engine but I don’t work fast.

I have no shop manual for this bike so with the engine on the bench the first thing I did was rotate the engine to top dead center-compression stroke in order to find the cam timing marks. The Husky has a cam chain that spins an idler gear; the idler gear then spins the two overhead cams. Each cam has a small dot that lines up with the outside gasket surface of the head. The idler gear has three markings, the center mark is two dots and these dots line up with a mark on the cylinder head.

I also put an additional punch mark on the crankcase and alternator rotor to make finding top dead center less subjective. The Husky’s timing looks pretty easy to do so I’m sure I’ve got it all wrong and the valves will bend the first time I try to start the engine.

Next I removed the cam caps. The cam caps were secured by these allen-head bolts and they were so tight the heads rounded out on three of them. I had to use a flat chisel to knock the bolts loose so I’ll need to get replacements from the hardware store. The head bolts are 10mm allen-type and deeply recessed so once the cams were out of the way I had to cut a 10mm allen wrench to make a long reach socket. The head bolts didn’t round out.

One of the reasons the Husqvarna 510 engine doesn’t last long is the slipper piston. This type of piston is pretty much a racing piston and has so much cut away there is only a narrow skirt to take side loading and a limited surface area for an oil film. The valve train is state of the coil-spring art: long, skinny valves at a narrow angle to give an almost flat-top combustion chamber.

The Husky incorporates small finger-rocker followers to remove valve-stem side loading. The cam lobes swipe across the followers, not directly on the valves. This set up adds a bit of weight to the valve train but the Husky revs to 10,000 rpm without valve float so I’m not going to worry about weight. A nifty feature is the spring-metal separator clip that can be removed from the rocker arm shafts, which will allow the finger rocker to slide over giving access to the valve shims. This means you don’t have to remove the cams to adjust valve clearance.

Splitting the cases was a fairly straightforward operation except for the shift drum. I managed to get the thing apart but still haven’t figured out how the shift drum is held into the right crankcase half. I got pretty frustrated and gave it a few whacks but it didn’t budge. I’ll study the situation after I calm down.

This is what was causing the racket. A couple gears are missing teeth and who knows what other unseen damage to the cluster was done as the bits of hard metal flew around inside? The shift forks may be bent because the bike wouldn’t stay in neutral and kept going into gear when i pushed it around the shop. I decided to get a used gearbox and replace the entire transmission.

The 2008 Husky SMR510 is one of the last Husqvarna’s with a tangible connection to the original Swedish manufacturer. Employees from old Husqvarna operated the company that built my bike. They purchased the name and relocated manufacturing to Italy. Cold, icy Sweden or warm, sunny Italy, who wouldn’t move? Shortly after my bike was built Husqvarna was sold to BMW and the bikes became re-badged BMWs. This only lasted a few years until KTM bought Husqvarna from BMW and the bikes became re-badged KTMs.

So parts are sort of hard to find. I located this complete TE510 (the enduro version of my bike) transmission in England for $285. Shipping was expensive but it’s a long way to Old Blighty and probably one gear would cost $100 if I bought it new. Hopefully it will fit.

EBay also had a top end gasket set for fairly cheap so I have that kit on the way. The case halves are sealed with goop, no gasket needed. The side cover gasket and alternator gasket came away without tearing so being ever thrifty I can reuse those gaskets.

I’ll have to do a thorough job of cleaning out the transmission debris inside the engine and whenever this stuff arrives I’ll try to reassemble the mess. ExhaustNotes will have up to date information as this project moves forward. Even if the Husky manages to run again I still might buy that DR650.

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Grind Me A Pound Of Reverse

September is one of the finer months for motorcycle riding in New Mexico. The daily monsoon rains begin to ease off in September. The trails remain slightly damp so dust isn’t bad and the Carrizozo Mud Chuckers and I can run a tight formation on New Mexico’s many dirt roads. The hot summer temperatures have faded away with the peek-a-boo, pre-fall weather allowing for cool morning rides and warm daytime riding.

These perfect days and these perfect times call for a long dirt loop from White Oaks to Claunch then south to Highway380. My morning Husqvarna ride to Carrizozo was glorious, just cool enough to create a little chill in my mesh jacket but not cool enough to cause discomfort. You know that feeling when everything is all right?

After a short gab session with the Mud Chuckers we gassed up at the Allsups station and headed north towards White Oaks. We traveled a half-mile when something started making a racket in the rear wheel of the Husqvarna. It sounded like I had run over a length of barbed wire and the wire was wrapped around the wheel. This happens more often than you would think in New Mexico. I pulled over but couldn’t see anything in the wheel so I started out again.

The noise was worse, like maybe the chain was jumping teeth on the sprocket. I turned into a convenient historical marker parking area and gave the chain a good look. Nothing seemed out of order. The Mud Chuckers had turned around and pulled into the historical marker lay-by. Mike asked me, “What’s the problem?” I told them I didn’t know but it sounds bad.

We tipped the bike onto its side stand and started the engine. Running through the gears made a hell of a racket, at times the engine would bind up and almost stall. Eddie said that at least it made it further than last time (referring to a past event when the Husky blew out a rubber plug and pumped most all the hot engine oil onto my right pant leg).

When I bought the Husqvarna 14 years ago I remember reading in the Husky Café forums about how the 510 engine was only good for 20,000 miles. I figured those were racing miles and I would not be pounding on the bike like most motocross or Supermoto racers. Turns out those Husky Café estimates were not far off.

It was still a perfect day. I called CT and asked her to come get me in the pickup. She asked if this was the same bike that broke down last time. “Yes,” I said, “except a little past where you picked me up before.” The Mud Chuckers chatted with me for a while and I sent them on their way. No sense in everyone missing out on a perfect riding day.

When we got the bike home I removed the oil drain plug and large chunks of gear teeth were attached to the drain plug magnet. This was not good news. I asked CT to cancel the Husky’s insurance because it will be a while before I get around to fixing the thing.

The Husky, having a vertically split crankcase, will require a complete teardown to clean out the debris and replace the broken transmission gear/gears. That’s if I can even find the parts. My Husky is from Italy, two generations removed from KTM, the new owner of Husqvarna. The closest thing to my bike is a SWM 500. SWM bought all the tooling and production rights from the remains of the Italian crew and that bike uses the same engine as my Husky; hopefully, the gearbox is the same.

My other bikes are a mess. Sometimes I want to sell all this junk and buy a brand new Suzuki DR650. I’ve got to get the Z1 carbs put back on the bike. They are mostly together; I just need two new fuel tees. The ZRX1100 needs just about everything as it has been sitting for 8 years now. The KLR250 runs crappy and its carb needs cleaning, but I’m not going to take it apart until I get the Z1 carbs back together.

The funny part about all this is that the only bikes I have left running are two 50-year-old Yamaha two-strokes. “It’s a Better Machine” indeed. And you know what? That’s just fine by me because nothing can spoil these perfect days.

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An Electrifying Development: CSC’s RX1E Motorcycle

Imagine an electric motorcycle that doesn’t look dorky, one that looks like a an ADV bike, with a fit and finish rivaling anything in the world.  Before you go all “Ahm a real ‘Murican and yer not” on me, I’m here to tell you this:  You don’t have to imagine this motorcycle.  It’s real and I rode it.  It’s quick and it feels light, and the thing handles.  And yes, it’s from China.  If that gets your shorts in a knot, move along…there’s nothing for you here.

The bike is the new RX1E from CSC Motorcycles in Azusa, and it’s manufactured by Zongshen.  That’s Zongshen, as in million-motorcycles-annually Zongshen.  I’ve ridden Zongshen motorcycles all over Colombia, all over China, all over Baja, and all over America, and I’ve been in their factories many times.  You may know a guy who’s cousin worked for a guy who thinks Chinese bikes are no good; my knowledge is more of a first-hand-actual-experience sort of thing.

The RX1E looks a lot like an RX3.  It’s got the ADV style.  I think it is an exceptionally attractive motorcycle.  Some folks may wonder why the bike is styled like an ADV bike.  Hey, it has to be styled like something.  The ADV style has good ergos and good carrying capacity, so why not use that as the styling theme?   Just to check, I parked it in front of Starbuck’s, you know, like the big kids do with their BMWs, and it worked just fine.

The motorcycle has an 8 kilowatt motor (with 18.5 kilowatt at peak power), but the kilowatt thing for an electric motorcycle is misleading.  This motorcycle is quick.  I opened it up getting on the freeway and the bike blew through 70 mph before I realized it.  It had more left, but I ran out of space.  It’s silent, and you hit speeds you don’t mean to because there’s no noise to go with the acceleration.  Think of it as the opposite of a Harley:   No noise at all, and lots of acceleration.

It’s not going to be inexpensive, but it’s inexpensive compared to other electric motorcycles.  CSC is going to sell a lot of these.

The time for a full recharge, per the CSC folks, is 6 hours.  CSC opted for a more powerful charger to get the recharge time down.

It comes with a full set of luggage, crashbars, a windshield, and a cool dash.  You can fit a full face helmet in the tail pack.

The RX1E is water cooled.   Yep, you read that right.   The Zongshen wizards use water cooling with a radiator to keep motor temps down.

The dash is cool, and you can change the color theme.  I liked it.  It was a little difficult to read in sunlight, but CSC tells me that will be corrected by the time the bikes are released for sale in a few months (I rode the first one to arrive in America).

The bike has three modes:  Eco, Comfort, and Sport.  Eco saves energy, Comfort is kind of in the middle, and Sport gives snappier acceleration.  Think of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Switchology is superior, in my opinion.  Here’s a peek at the left and right sides.  Yep, there’s cruise control, reverse, mode setting, high beam and low beam, the horn, turn signals, a park position, and a kill switch.  It’s a logical, well thought out, and quality presentation.

The bike doesn’t have that squirt out from under you feeling that other electric bikes have off a dead stop.  CSC’s City Slicker had a little bit of that.  The Zero I rode a couple years ago had way too much of it…so much so I found the Zero difficult to ride.  The RX1E is much more rider friendly.

The bike has disk brakes front and back and ABS.  There are cast aluminum wheels.  The final drive is via belt.  There’s no messy chain, nothing to oil, and it’s quiet.  I like it.

The fit and finish are awesome.  It’s as good as anything I’ve seen on any motorcycle anwhere in the world.  The one I rode was red (it’s the one you see in the pictures here).  I saw a Harley chopper and stopped to ask the owner if I could shoot a photo of the the RX1E next to it.  He was good to go, and I grabbed the shot you see below.

The RX1E ergonomics felt perfect to me.   The seat is comfortable, the reach to the bars was perfect, and I could put both feet flat on the ground.

CSC shows the bike’s weight to be 469 pounds, but it felt way lighter to me.  That might be because the weight is down low on this bike.  Or maybe I’m just used to my Enfield, which feels way heavier.  Whatever it is, the bike feels light.  The RX1E has high flickability.

The lack of any noise takes some getting used to.   It was unnerving at intersections.  On an internal combustion engine motorcycle, the noise makes you at least think other people can hear you.   The silence of an electric motorcycle makes you wonder if they see you.  Maybe that’s a good thing; it made me even more of a defensive rider than I normally am.

There’s no shifting, and because of that there’s no clutch and no shift lever.  Oddly, the lack of any need to shift felt perfectly natural.  Not having a clutch lever on the left handlebar when coming to a stop takes a little getting used to.

The bike has a reverse.  It doesn’t need one.  It felt so light and the seat is so low that backing up the old-fashioned way is easy…you know, sitting on the bike and using your legs to back it up a hill.  Yep, I did it.

The turning radius is delightfully tight.  I don’t have a spec for this, but I can tell you that u-turns in one-lane alleys are easy.  I know because I did it.

CSC tells me the range is about 80 miles, although the spec below says 112 miles.  I haven’t tested the bike for range like I did on the City Slicker because I only played around in town for an hour or so.  Good Buddy TK, the sales dude at CSC (who may be the world’s only sales guy who never stretches the truth), has been commuting back and forth to work on the bike and he tells me the 80-mile range is real.

The RX1E impressed me greatly.  If reading this blog gives you the impresssion that I really like the RX1E, I’ve done my job as a writer.  CSC and Zongshen have hit a home run here.  Zongshen’s engineering talent and CSC’s ability to see what the US market wants is impressive.

Spoiler alert:  Knowing people in high places has its advantages. I used to be a consultant for CSC, and CSC advertises on the ExNotes site.  But that hasn’t influenced what you’re reading here.   My friendship with the CSC owners got me an early ride on the RX1E (a scoop, so to speak) and a chance to see the specs before anyone else, which we’re sharing here.  They’ll be on the CSC website today or tomorrow.

CSC RX1E Specifications

Motor:  Liquid-cooled permanent-magnet
Peak Power:  24 hp (18.5kW)
Torque:  61.2 lb-ft (83Nm)
Battery:  Lithium-ion 96-volt, 64Ah
Battery Capacity: 6.16kWh
Charger: 110-volt
Input Current: 15A
Range: 112 miles based on New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)
Frame: Tubular steel
Rake & Trail: 27°, 74mm
Wheelbase: 55.5 inches (1400mm)
Front Suspension: 37mm inverted telescopic fork, 4.7 inches travel, adjustable for rebound damping
Rear Suspension: Monoshock, 4.3 inches travel, adjustable spring preload and rebound damping
Front Brake: Two-piston caliper, 265mm disc
Rear Brake: Single-piston caliper, 240mm disc
Wheels: 17-inch aluminum
Tires: 100/80-17 front; 120/80-17 rear
Length: 82.2 inches (2090mm)
Width: 34.0 inches (865mm)
Height: 47.4 inches (1205mm)
Seat Height: 30.9 inches (780mm)
Ground Clearance: 6.0 inches (150mm)
Curb Weight: 436.5 pounds (198kg); 469 lb with luggage and crash bars
Max Load: 331 lb (150kg)
Top Speed: 75+ mph
Colors: Crimson Red Metallic, Honolulu Blue Metallic and Silver Moon Metallic
Price: $8,495 (plus $410 dealer prep, documentation, and road testing fees) and if you order the bike now, CSC is offering $500 off with delivery in Spring 2023

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A Colorado Jeep Story

On a recent secret mission to southeastern Colorado, the rental car agency at Denver International Airport was down to Nissans.  I hate Nissans, and I asked the rental car dude if anything else was available.  “Just a couple of Jeep Wranglers,” said dude responded.  Hmmm.  I always thought it might be cool to have a Jeep.  I could pretend I was Joe Gresh.

Yours truly, looking like Rambo (or maybe Joe Gresh) in the Denver International Airport rental car plaza.

“I’m in,” I said, and I was in in my very own Jeep Wrangler of the two-door turbocharged four persuasion.  Short.  Choppy.  Uncomfortable.  Gas guzzling.  But a lot of fun.  Gresh, I get it.  I want one.  Not enough to buy one, but enough to rent one again.

There’s a turbocharged 4-banger somewhere in there.

You can buy a Jeep with four engines this year:

      • The standard V-6 3.6 liter
      • The same V-6 with an electronic motor hybrid deal (it sounds on the Jeep site like it’s not an Al Gore eco thing, but more of an assist for rock crawling).
      • A turbocharged smaller four-banger (a price delete option, which is a nice way of saying it’s an option that lowers the price of the new Jeep).
      • A 392-cubic-inch hemi.  Just for grins I looked for a dealer online that had one of these $80K hemi Jeeps in stock, and I found one. It’s an $88K Jeep that gets 17 mpg on the highway and 13 in the city.   Here in the People’s Republik, gas is well over $6.00 per gallon.  Filling up my Subaru cost $95.12 yesterday.

My rental car had the turbo four banger and it still sucked fuel like a politician seeking campaign donations.  At first I thought it was not going to be so bad because the instrument info center said I was averaging over 20 miles per gallon, but when I got out on the freeway at 77 mph it said my instant fuel economy was in the “you’ve got to be kidding me” category. That little 4-banger was actually doing worse than what Jeep claimed the 392 Hemi would get.

My istantaneous fuel economy at the time I took this photo was 16 mpg. That was on cruise control at 77 mph. I never could get back to this screen.

I suppose I might as well get the negative stuff out of the way first.  For starters, fuel economy was atrocious.  But then, folks don’t buy Wranglers for their fuel economy.  And on that subject, I found that switching between screens to get the fuel economy info was tricky…tricky enough that I couldn’t find my way back to the instant fuel economy screen.  Maybe the Jeep genies thought I didn’t need to know.  Some things are better left unsaid, I suppose.

Another negative, which is maybe a positive, is that my Jeep felt gangly to me.  Not as in tattoos and gats, but as in unsteady on its feet and ready to tip over (think of me putting my pants on in the morning and you’ll get the picture).  Part of that was due to the Jeep’s height and its extremely tight turning radius (small steering wheel inputs made for huge course corrections, and on the freeway steering that barn door at nearly 80 mph it was all a bit unsettling).  On a dirt road, though, K turns become a thing of the past.  This thing can turn on a dime and give you nine cents change.  It can make a U-turn on a two lane road.

Monster fobs. Hard to lose. Easy to inadvertently activate.

The key fobs were huge, and I guess that’s okay, but I found I was unlocking the Wrangler or setting off the panic alarm damn near every time I put the key fobs in my pocket, or if I stuck my hand in my pocket to get my chapstick or anything else.

Cargo space?  As the Sopranos might say, fuhgeddaboutit.  The rental car dude folded the rear bench seat up, but it wouldn’t stay up, and even when it did, there really wasn’t any room for my gear.  You’re not going to be taking a lot of stuff with you in a two-door Wrangler.   That pretty much killed it for me as a rifle range car.  I wouldn’t be able to get all my shooting gear in there.

Wind noise is another issue.  Oddly, it didn’t bother me when I was driving, even at freeway speeds.  But no one could hear or understand me on a Bluetooth telephone conversation.  Two folks gave up altogether and just hung up.  Maybe that’s a good thing.

Seriously? This is the kind of fit and finish we get on an American legend, a descendent of the vehicle that helped us win World War II?

One last point…although the overall build quality seemed to be pretty good, Jeep lost me from a quality perspective with the fuel filler cap fit.  It looks like the production tolerances were either not met or they were assigned by an AutoCad jockey who went to the Doris Day school of mechanical design.

The good news?  Well, the good news is that there’s lots of good news.  I fell in love with my Jeep.  It was cool and I felt cool driving it.  And even though it was tall enough to make getting in and out difficult, I knew almost immediately I’d be renting one on my next secret mission.  I don’t need the Aston Martin and its machine guns, smoke dispensers, and ejection seat.  For my secret missions, I want a Jeep.

Man, that Jeep was fun.  Once I got over the difference in feel between it and  a regular car, I felt invincible.  Seriously.  I mean, I’m a 71-year-old Jewish kid from New Jersey with a different doctor for damn near every organ in my body, but I still felt invincible in my Wrangler.   I was driving directly into a Colorado hailstorm east of the Rocky Mountains at close to 80 mph, but I was in a Jeep.  Gresh, I get it.   It’s a power thing.

I am Rambo. Bring it on.

After the hail passed and I was back on the road, I found another plus:  The headlights actually lit up the road, even on low beam, and that’s something I had not experienced in any rental car in a while.

Imagine that: Headlights that actuallly work!

So I was out there in cow country and the center of an ag world, doing my secret mission thing and having fun like I always do.   Way off in the distance from the secret mission du jour there’s a couple of hills called Two Buttes (it’s actually one hill with two peaks).  I had always wanted to ride out to Two Buttes and see what it was all about.  I knew a Jeep wasn’t really essential, but the combination of longer days (more sunlight), the draw of a place unexplored, the dirt roads to get there, and my Jeep worked its magic.

Headed into the Two Buttes State Wildlife Area.

From the main road, Two Buttes looks like it would be easy to find and easy to find my way around.  Like elections, though, what you think you’re going to get and what you actually get aren’t often the same.   When I got closer to the Two Beauts, I found the area was a maze of dirt roads laid out in no particular order.  The guys I was working with on my secret mission told me about a hidden lake, and my objective was to find it and grab a few photos.  Waze was sketchy as hell out there in farmroadland, but I didn’t care.  I was in a Jeep.

Ah, success. The lake and the Jeep, as seen through my iPhone’s wide angle lens.
Another photo of the lake, or pond, or whatever it actually is called.
A beauty shot of the Jeep Wrangler.

I explored, I shot a bunch of iPhone photos, and I had a good time.  I want a Jeep.  I’m not going to get one.  But I want one.

My last photo of the day, leaving the Two Buttes State Wildlife Area.

Maybe it would be even more fun with the 392 Hemi.   I did a bit more research, and I learned that Jeep only introduced the 392 Hemi this year, in 2022.  It seems that the new Ford Bronco (you can read our mini-review of it here) will be offered with a V8 in their Bronco Raptor package and Chrysler felt compelled to counter.  Hey, whatever floats your boat.  I found this 392 Hemi Jeep review and I thought you might find it interesting.

A Jeep.  Who’da thought.  A Jeep.  Man, it was fun.

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Bill’s Old Bike Barn…a first peek

Stop what you’re doing.  Get off the Internet (and for sure, get off Facebook and the other moronic “social media” time wasters).  Start planning a trip to Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.  You need to see Bill’s Old Bike Barn. The riding is fabulous in rural Pennsylvania and with Bill’s as a destination, the ride is even better. You can thank me now or you can thank me later, but you will thank me.

Any motorcycle museum that includes in its directions “turn where you see the dinosaurs” should grab your attention.  In the case of Bill’s Old Bike Barn, your undivided attention is warranted.  To say I was blown away would be an understatement of immense proportions.  To cut to the chase, I’ve never seen anything like Bill’s, and I know for damn sure I’ve never met a man like Bill.  That’s Bill artistically framed by Milwaukee iron in the photo above, and yeah, I shot that picture.  I’m proud of it.  It hints at the dimensions of the man and what he’s created out there in Pennsylvania.

During our interview I asked Bill his last name and he told me:  Morris, just like the cigarettes.  I didn’t get it until later, and then I couldn’t stop laughing.  If you don’t get it immediately, you will.  Bill has that kind of slingshot wit.  I love the guy and his collection.  You will, too.

Above all else, Bill is two things: A collector, and a people person.  The extent if his collection…well, I can’t describe it.  You need to see it.  You’ll get just a hint here in the ExNotes series of blogs we’re doing.  When you visit the place, you’ll feel like you owe me.  When you meet Bill, you’ll know you’ve made a friend.  A most interesting friend.

Up above, that’s the building that houses Bill’s collection.  You can’t really see it from the highway.  You have to look for the dinosaurs (just like the directions say), turn, and then head uphill.  You’ll go by the bison, some other cool items, and more.  The building looks deceptively small from the outside.  Inside…you could spend weeks and not see all of what’s in there.

You can learn about Bill’s Old Bike Barn on his website, but we’re going to give you more here on ExNotes.  We’re going to do it over the span of several blogs over the next few weeks, and in an upcoming article in a major moto mag.  Ever watched and enjoyed American Pickers?  Trust me on this (and trust me on everything else, for that matter): Bill Morris puts American Pickers to shame.  You and I have never seen anything like what’s in Bill’s Old Bike Barn.

I’m excited about what I’ve seen and what I’m going to be sharing with you.  I’ll do my best to bring it to life in print and in the photos, but it won’t be enough.  You really need to visit Bill’s Old Bike Barn.

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Ho-Made Tools I Don’t Use

I’ve been cleaning out the shed on and off for about four years now. When we first moved here we stuffed everything into the shed. There was no time to sort through the junk. We had to return the Penske truck. After the junk sat there a few years the mice made a lot of decisions for us: if it was chewed up we tossed it.

I had tools at my work, tools at the house, tools at The Love Shack, three of everything. I just can’t bring myself to toss out tools. I have some home-built tools that no longer serve a purpose but I hang on to them. Because you never know when you’ll need to remove the centrifugal oil filter on a Honda 305.

This wrench was made from a cut down socket and a rear fender support from a Sportster. It fits the output flange nut on a boat V-drive. The output flange sits pretty low in the bilge and after a while the salt water splashing around in the bottom of the boat corrodes the seal. To remove the seal you have to separate the prop shaft from the V-drive. The problem is the prop shaft will only slide back a few inches before the prop-shaft flange hits the stuffing box. With this set up I could change a v-drive seal without pulling the engine. It was a stupid move on my part because at the time I was paid by the hour. The faster I went the less I earned. I still keep the wrench; maybe it will fit something else someday.

I mentioned the stuffing box and here’s the cut down pipe wrench I used to remove the packing nut and loosen the lock nut. Stuffing boxes are used where the prop shaft goes through the boat hull, a bronze casting called a shaft log. The stuffing box is a large nut that has several rows of flax packing, also called cat gut. These rows of packing are fitted into the packing nut or the shaft log depending on the design of the shaft log.

The flax packing seals the shaft log where the shaft enters so that water won’t leak into the boat…almost. In practice you want to leave a small drip, maybe a drop every 30 seconds, for a water supply to cool the stuffing box. If you crank down on the packing too much you can burn up the flax and the shaft log will leak. The pipe wrench is short because the stuffing box nut is large and it’s always hard to access between the stringers of the boat. You can buy a store bought stuffing box wrench but they are made like a flimsy adjustable wrench with a cheesy wing nut to lock the jaws into position. Trust me: the pipe wrench works better. A hammer also works but tends to damage the bronze stuffing box.

I didn’t make the dial indicator, just the Z-shaped bracket. This tool is used to set the timing on a 1971 360 Yamaha Enduro. The ’71 Enduro (and other years) has an angled sparkplug hole. The angled hole precludes measuring the piston stroke through the plug hole. With the cylinder head removed this tool bolts up and can measure the stroke. You have to know the piston position to accurately set the ignition timing. Once you’ve set the correct fire position there is a little tab inside the flywheel area that lines up with a flywheel mark. Bending the tab to line everything up will save you from measuring the piston stroke every time you want to adjust the points. It’s a use-it-once type of tool unless you disturb the timing marks. Godzilla runs so good I may never need it again.

This tool is made from Monel, a metal found around boat yards, which isn’t important to its function. There are a few other holes in the tool but I’ve forgotten what they do. The two holes marked by the red arrows will fit a Norton Lockheed front disc brake caliper. In operation you insert a couple drill bits into the tool; the bits line up with two holes drilled into the Lockheed caliper. The caliper plug this tool fits unscrews and allows removal of the caliper piston. You need this long lever because the plug gets pretty tight after 35 years. I’m hanging on to the tool because I may own another Norton one day.

At one time my dad and I owned BMW motorcycles. He had the 600cc and I had the 750. These were early 1970s models with the new, suitcase engine. In building the suitcase engine BMW relocated the cam below the crankshaft so the pushrod tubes were below the cylinder rather than above like on earlier engines. This was done to raise the cylinders higher in the bike allowing steeper lean angles in the corners. The problem was the pushrod tubes leaked oil where they contacted the crankcase. This tool slips over the pushrod tube and by tapping the base of the pushrod tube you could tighten up the seal area. It sounds crude but it was easier than pulling the heads to install new pushrod tube seals. I think you can buy a factory tool that looks much better than mine but does the same thing. I’m not adverse to owning the early GS 800cc, the ones that are clean and light and don’t have all the useless garbage BMW loads onto new motorcycles.

This tool is used to remove the nut from a Honda 305 centrifugal oil filter. I had two 305 Hondas. Those bikes had beautiful engines that were made extremely well. Early Hondas had a spinning cup type filter that oil circulated through. In the spinning motion heavy particles suspended in the oil were slung outward, clean oil flowed through the center. It was a good oil filter and if you wanted to take the engine apart like I did you needed this tool. After thousands of miles you would remove the right side cover to gain access to the filter. A wire clip held the o-ringed lid on the filter and I’d pull the thing off for cleaning. It wasn’t unusual to find 1/8-inch of compacted swarf stuck to the walls of the filter.

Back to boats. This tool is used to remove the macerator from Raritan Crown marine toilets. Working on boats isn’t the glamorous job that you see in the movies. Sometimes you had to fix toilets. The Crown was a very popular toilet back in the day. It used a large starter motor to spin a macerator and two rubber impeller pumps. One pump supplied seawater to the bowl then a macerator chewed up the poo and finally another impeller pumped the mash to a holding tank or overboard depending on how far offshore you were. After much use the seals would start leaking and the stuff leaking out wasn’t peppermint.

You had to disconnect hoses and the bowl then turn the motor (usually) to get to the end plate. Small straight slot screws held on the plastic end plate, removing the end plate allowed access to the macerator and the poo. The macerator had two pivoting chopper arms; removing these arms allowed you to screw the puller tool onto the macerator and a center bolt would pull the macerator. It was not a fun job. I wish I never made the puller tool. I could have told customers, “Sorry I don’t have the tools to fix your toilet.”

I have more homemade, or as we say in the south “ho-made” tools that I may write about on a day like today, a day when I’m sifting through the accumulated junk of my life.

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ExhaustNotes Road Test: Shoei RF SR Helmet

I finally managed to put some miles on my new Shoei RF SR helmet. I took the RD350 out for a loop of the mountains and Tularosa’s TulieFreeze Ice cream shop. I had a Sundae with hot fudge, nuts and whipped cream. TulieFreeze always puts a cherry on top.

Oh yeah…the helmet. The Shoei was quiet at highway speeds, none of my bikes have windshields so I get the air full blast and I like it that way. Turning my head side to side was comfortable and the wind didn’t over-rotate my head side on. All in all the Shoei RS cuts a pretty clean swath through the air. There was no shaking or turbulence.

The fit is perfect on the top parts of my head (your head may vary) but the cheeks are still too tight as the pads press in on my jowly visage more than is appropriate for two people who just met. Luckily the cheek pads are made to be easily removable in case you have crashed. Hopefully the EMT will know to remove the pads before trying to force the helmet off and severing your spinal cord.

I’ll probably wait a bit longer before shaving down the cheek pads. I still have hopes it will break in. I need to stop and remove my helmet to relieve the face-pressure after 50 miles. It gives me a chance to admire the RD’s metallic purple paint. The tight-ish flip shield has loosened up a bit, I gave it a squirt of Shoei oil and after 10-20 flips it’s ok.

Speaking of the shield I have Shoei’s auto-darkening face shield. That sucker cost more than any helmet I’ve ever bought. Since I now have had both cataracts removed from my eyes I can see much better at night. I’m planning to step up the after hours summer riding and the auto-tint works fabulously. From the outside it appears super dark but from inside the helmet it’s not so dark. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if it got darker. As it is I can ride in bright sunlight without squinting. It seems to keep the inside of the helmet cooler.

When the sun goes down it’s as clear as a clear shield. On thing that worries me is how resistant the coating is to gas station squeegees and bug guts. I’m going to put a heavy coat of paste wax on the shield and even that makes me nervous. What if the wax screws it up?

It was cool but not cold on my ride and I totally forgot to open the vents to see if they had any effect of the interior airflow. At 70 degrees with the vents closed it was comfortable. I’ll test the vents after the doctor gives my new eye the ok to thrash around on a motorcycle.

Another week or two and my eye should be back to full strength. That means I can lift concrete bags and ride around without a care. I’ve already planned a trip to Tina’s Mexican food in Carlsbad; they have reopened after Covid shut them down for a year. It’s good to see things returning to normal after such a trying two years.

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New Boot Day

Life is full of tiny, traumatic incidents. Each day we are met with hundreds of micro-decisions that demand little of our attention yet matter enough to require a few seconds of our time. New Boot Day is not one of these decisions.

I was going to the Harbor Freight in Alamogordo to pick up one of their welding carts that was on sale for $34. Or maybe was it a closeout? Inventory reduction? Anyway, I try not to leave the house in my bathrobe and slippers so I put on my day clothes and boots for the excursion. That’s when it hit me. My boots were looking pretty bad.

I’ve been wearing Rossi boots for about 8 years now. They are super comfortable right out of the box. Style-wise the Rossi boots are no great shakes but who wears boots for style? If the Rossi’s can be said to have a flaw that flaw is that they last forever. The damn things simply never wear out. Since they still work as boots you never know when to call them done.

Today though, the Rossi’s looked pretty tattered. The soles were still firmly attached and the uppers were all in one piece, it’s just that the overall boot looked like something you’d see worn by the unfortunate men in one of those grainy photos of a depression-era food line. I began to be self-conscious about my foot wear: will the clerk at Harbor Freight take a look at my beat up boots and decide to call security?

I’m hard on boots. My shuffling pace, the lazy-feet constantly tripping over rocks and thresholds and my need to crawl around on the ground to do the things I like to do all tend to shorten the life of boots qua Gresh. Popular, well-known brands of leather work-boots will last about 6 months on me.

Conversely, I hate to get rid of a pair of boots unless they are utterly destroyed. Part of it is my natural thriftiness and part of is my deep-seated feeling that I don’t really deserve a new pair of boots. What have I done to warrant new boots? There are many, many people who work much harder than me and these people do not get new boots…ever. I feel like such a fraud wearing new boots. Who do I think I’m fooling?

Then there’s the distress caused by having to witness my brand new boots get scuffed up. One time I had new boots on and the first day I tripped over a sharp piece of rebar, the rebar put a 1-inch long slice on the toe of my new boot. It nearly killed me. Not the trip: the slice. I find my movements inhibited with new boots on. I can’t do my thing and worry about the finish on my boots at the same time.

After much anxiety and teeth gnashing new boots become old boots and my world can settle down. Everything is in order, I can pull on my boots and go about my daily business, be it motorcycle riding or concrete placement, without a second thought. I’m free and loose with old boots.

But not today. Today I have on new boots and every step I take in them is a toxic cocktail of fear and self-loathing. I will step high, always watching for obstacles that could mar the beautiful ebony leather of my new boots. I will bend at the knees. I will stand soles down and I will wish I could leave my new boots safe in their shoebox forever.

Product Review: Casio GD400 G-Shock Watch

I own a bunch of watches.  They’re not rich man watches; they are the indulgence of a guy with practical tastes and a flair for useful and inexpensive tools.  My all-time favorite watch, hands down, is the Casio G-Shock GD400 series, with a personal preference for the olive green one.  I’ll get to that in a second (hahahaha…a time pun).

I first bought a similar Casio in turquoise and orange, almost as an impulse buy.  I had purchased a set of shoes from Nike or Adidas or somebody in turquoise and orange, and then (probably because I had searched for them online) I started seeing pop up ads for the Casio.

I know it’s weird.   I mean, what kind of a motorcycle guy buys a watch to match his shoes?  (You don’t need to answer that.) The watch arrived a few days later and I liked it.  I was in and out of CSC a lot when I bought the watch and the shoes (we were getting ready for a CSC Baja ride), and I caught a bit of flack for being a fashion plate.  That’s how it goes sometimes when you’re a famous and well-dressed blogger.

I liked the watch, and I loved its phenomenal accuracy.  I went to www.Time.gov (that’s the official US government time), and the Casio was running exactly even with the government website over the span of a month.  That’s really good.

The Casio has a bunch of features I never really use and some I use a lot.  It’s got a stopwatch, a timer, and an alarm.  It’s got a calendar and it shows the day of the week.  You can have it show regular time or military time. You can set it so that if you flick your wrist, the backlight comes on. And you can press the G button and the thing lights up.  I use the Casio as a flashlight three or four times every night…you older guys will know what that’s all about.  And by pressing the buttons mounted on the case side you can find the time in just about any time zone in the world.  That comes in handy on many of my overseas secret missions.

I wore the watch for several years, and then on another CSC Baja trip the battery went south on me.  The battery had the good manners to do this in Guerrero Negro, where there are a few stores.  I asked the guy who took us to see the whales on that trip which store would have a battery and he pointed one out on our way to the docks.   After seeing the whales and having a couple of fish tacos at Tony’s, I rode my RX3 to the place the guide had mentioned.  Nope, they didn’t sell watch batteries, but the farmacia two doors down did.  Okay, so I went to the farmacia two doors down.  Nope, they didn’t have watch batteries, but another farmacia two doors on the other side of the first store did.

Then things got interesting.   They had the battery, but the lady behind the counter told me I had to open the watch and change the battery myself.  The watch has these tiny little screws and I was wearing my contact lenses, which gives me great far field vision but lousy near field vision.   She gave me a little box of tiny screwdrivers, but I couldn’t see the screws very well and I tried to explain my predicament to the very nice lady, but she didn’t speak English.  So, I took my right contact out (they’re one-day disposables, so it wasn’t a big deal) and I basically did a roadside repair.

The watch lit up as soon as the battery went in, but the rear cover is orientation sensitive and I got it wrong.  The watch crystal fogged within an hour, and by the end of the day, the watch called time out (hahahaha …another time pun).  The time out, unfortunately, was permanent.  When I returned to So Cal, I took it to the guy who normally sells (and installs) watch batteries for me, but it was too late.  The watch was toast.

I missed having that watch on my wrist, and I tried to buy it again.   But it turns out that Casio changes the colors frequently on this particular model. Not only had the turquoise and orange version been discontinued, but now it was collectible.  I had paid $72 for mine, but by this time used ones were going for close to $400 on Ebay.

A week or two later, another secret mission, and I found myself killing time (wow, a third time pun!) in a mall in New Jersey, and I saw the OD green version of the GD400 Casio.  The sales guy and I went back and forth a little, and $92 later (tax included), the watch you see in the big photo at the top of this blog left with me.  Like I said, it’s just about the perfect watch and I wear it nearly all the time.

More good news?  I liked that turquoise and orange G-Shock watch, too, so I called Casio’s US importer and asked them if they could repair it.  I had to spend another $60, but that’s okay.  There’s only one thing that’s better than one Casio GD-400 G-Shock, and that’s two of them.  The GD400 model comes in a variety of other colors, too, and they typically go for around $100 on the Internet.   Trust me on this…if you want a good watch for every day bouncing around, you can’t go wrong with a G-Shock Casio.

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ExhaustNotes Hasty Conclusions: First look At Shoei’s RF-SR Helmet

My nephew Anthony has been bugging me for years to buy a new motorcycle helmet. He was in the business as manager at Cycle Gear in Albuquerque, so he knew his helmets. Even I had to admit my tattered lids were getting old. I have a HJC from New Zealand bought in 2014 and a Speed and Strength from The Helmet House that dates all the way back to Motorcyclist magazine’s paper era.

Most brand name helmets have gotten pretty expensive. Since I’m so cheap I don’t like to give up old helmets until they kill me, or ideally, give them up a week before they kill me. But from a fiscal standpoint who can say which day that will be? Over the years I’ve bobbed and weaved around the topic so much that Anthony offered to send me a new helmet, any helmet I wanted. I mean, the guy is tying to support a family; I can’t have him buying helmets for me. That’s what wives are for.

My A-number-one, favorite helmet of all time is the Speed and Strength. That helmet fit my head better than any other and it felt lightweight. The aerodynamics are great on the thing also: no buffeting in the wind and fairly quiet to boot. Naturally, the same model is no longer made. CT and Anthony got together and always keeping a weather eye on my thrifty nature, decided a Shoei RF-SR would be a quality helmet without costing much more than the motorcycles I habituate.

The Shoei RF-SR model must be on its way out because finding one was not an easy task. CT ordered one from Dennis Kirk and after a few weeks she checked on the order status. The helmet was out of stock and on back order. It would have been a polite thing for DK to mention this at the checkout page. As usual Amazon had the helmet but only in silly teen-age Moto GP colors, white or flat black. I chose flat black to make myself less conspicuous. Kind of a, if-they-can’t-see-you-they-can’t-hit-you, loud pipes save lives type of reasoning.

The Shoei came with a fat owner’s manual that consisted of page after page of responsibility disclaimers, warnings not to use anything but mild soap and water to clean the helmet and descriptions of all the ways the helmet could be made unsafe. I flipped through the manual and didn’t find much useful information but then I’m not a tort lawyer.

I was mostly concerned with fit, as the best helmet in the world won’t protect you if it is bouncing down the road without your head inside. Helmet brands are sized differently and with Internet purchases you can never be size-sure. Amazon’s easy return policy made the proposition a little less risky. My pea brain suits a medium helmet and the Shoei medium is a snug fit. Not painfully tight but you won’t forget you’re wearing a helmet. I think a large would be too loose.

I like a snug helmet. There’s nothing more annoying than a helmet wiggling around on your head causing double vision. I haven’t worn the helmet much but I think it will conform to my head shape after a few long rides. Or as they say on the British situation comedy Are You Being Served “It will ride up with wear.”

The Amazon shipping box felt very light and when I took the helmet out I commented how light it felt. I felt the urge to get all Cycle Magazine-y and put the thing on the scales. I was surprised to see the Shoei was heavier than both the HJC and my battered Speed And Strength.

The Shoei weighed 6 ounces more than the Speed And Strength, which seemed like a lot to me. The HJC, which always felt sort of heavy to me, split the difference. Oddly, the Shoei feels lighter when you pick it up and wear the thing. Maybe the hole it knocks in your wallet makes it seem lighter. This goes to show you I cannot be trusted when describing weights or measures.

There is a large, closeable front vent on the chin bar of the Shoei. I hit the opening with my Ryobi grass blower and the vent passed a decent quantity of air. The plastic latching bits seem fairly secure.

On the forehead area there are two small vents that also open and close. The Ryobi grass blower passed less air through these small vents but really the only way to see how all these holes work is to ride the bike.

Two back vents take advantage of a low-pressure area directly behind the helmet’s spoiler thingy to help draw cool air through the Shoei. These are fixed and cannot be closed but you really need some air exchange inside the lid to keep from falling asleep and crashing. Okay, I made that last part up. No one has fallen asleep from motorcycle helmet oxygen starvation. That I know of.

Also included inside the Shoei box was a nose guard and a chin cover. The nose guard helps direct your hot, steamy exhalations downward away from the face shield. This might help with fogging but I can’t say for sure as it rubs on my awesome beak so I leave it out. The chin cover fits along the front-bottom of the chin bar and seals that area off for cold weather riding. I don’t like the feel of the chin cover chafing against my waddle so I left that bit out also.

A pinlock anti-fog insert came in the Shoei box too, you get a lot of extras with a Shoei helmet. The pinlock fits inside your face shield creating a double pane window effect that is supposed to stop condensation and related fogging. It might do this but I’ll have to wait for conditions to worsen here in sunny, dry, New Mexico to test it out. Shoei included a couple of easily lost, pinlock posts in case your shield isn’t Pinlock ready. You’ll have to drill your shield and insert the little posts in the correct location. Right, that’s not gonna happen. Luckily for me the RF came with the posts already fitted.

Lastly, a helmet bag and a tiny jar of Shoei oil were included in the box. I’m guessing the oil is for the face shield ratchet mechanism. I should put a little oil on there because the shield is kind of hard to open. I’m hoping it will ride up with wear.

Construction projects at Tinfiny ranch have been keeping me busy so I haven’t had a chance to test the Shoei beyond wearing it to bed for a couple Star Wars nights: “I’m your father, Luke!” I’ll try to get out in the next day or so with an ExhaustNotes follow up report with an additional surprise helmet widget review.

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