Category: Joe Gresh

Acid Reflux: Yamaha RD350 Battery Box

I’ve been putting miles on the 1974 RD350 in the last few months, almost doubling the 4100 miles that showed on the bike’s odometer when I first got it. As my confidence in the bike increases so do the miles racked up in a single ride. This increase in running time has led to a problem with the battery that was installed in the RD350.

The battery seemed to work okay; it held a charge and didn’t use too much electrolyte but the fill plugs located on top were seeping a bit of acid. The caps felt snug and the battery vent was not clogged yet after a long ride the acid-damp lay heavy on the battery and even started dripping down the sides. I sort of let it slide for a while. Riding the RD is too much fun and stopping the bike for maintenance seemed like a waste of good weather.

Now that it’s a bit cooler I tackled the battery situation. The acid had dripped down onto the swing arm and corroded the battery box along with the small coil spring that keeps the oil tank vent from kinking. My laziness always comes back to haunt me.

I took the battery box, along with the attached rectifier and voltage regulator out of the frame and washed everything down with a mix of baking soda and water. The affected paint fell off in large chunks. I dismantled the electrical components and soaked the battery box in Evap-Rust then wire brushed any loose paint.

It was a nippy week at The Ranch so painting the box in 50-degree weather was a challenge. I heated the rattle can and the battery box to within 2.8 degrees of each other (measured via a recently calibrated fingertip) then shot the box with primer and two coats of Krylon satin black. I used a brush to apply paint to the bare spots on the swing arm.

It all came out good enough and anyway, I’m riding this bike, not showing it.  The electrical bits, being directly under the battery did not suffer any acid corrosion. I cleaned them up and reassembled the mess into the motorcycle.

Many older motorcycles do not regulate their voltage as precisely as you would like and my Yamaha RD350 is one of the many. With the headlights on and engine revving I measured 14/14.1 volts at the battery. This is ideal. With the headlights off 15 volts were going into the battery. 15 volts is a little too high for comfort but I decided that since I leave the headlights on all the time the original regulator would be okay.

My good buddy Deet told me about using sealed, AGM type, alarm-system/UPS batteries in old bikes. I have had one of them in Godzilla, the 1971 RT1-B for a couple years and it has been working great. These type batteries hold a charge much longer than flooded lead acid batteries. The new one I bought on Amazon has a high tolerance for high voltage; it can handle up to 15-volts charging. These AGM standby batteries can withstand constant trickle charging and long periods of inactivity, which describes vintage motorcycle riding to a tee. The small spade terminals on these batteries are not made for large current loads like an electric starter or lighting up the strip in Las Vegas but they can handle motorcycle lighting and ignition circuits without complaint.

At 4AH the new battery has a bit less capacity than the leaky old 5.5AH unit I took out but I think it will work okay. Close enough counts in hand grenades, horseshoes and motorcycle batteries.

The new battery is a skosh smaller than the old battery so I used some closed-cell packing foam to keep the thing from rattling around inside the battery box. The RD350 is once again ready to rumble. From my experience with the RT1-B, I’m not anticipating any problems with the RD350 but I’ll be sure to let ExhaustNotes readers know if I have any issues with the new AGM set up.

Do a friend a favor or ten:  Click on those popup ads!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Water Security

As mentioned in a previous ExhaustNotes story titled “Guilt Trip,” our water well at the ranch has become unreliable. In order to quickly bring some stability to the situation we decided to install a storage tank and re-shuffle the way water is delivered to our shack.

After pouring a slab to support the new, 3000-gallon water tank we had the local Tank Guy deliver Big ‘Mo to the ranch. Big ‘Mo cost $2800 delivered to our door and that’s a bit expensive but it seems like everything costs more since the Covid crisis eased up. Home Depot has a 2500-gallon tank that is slightly lighter construction for $2300 plus $80 delivery plus tax so the per gallon price is comparable. Buying local means the Tank Guy will spend his money locally. Anyway, I don’t like the way our local Home Depot stores their tank inventory. They put the tanks on their sides instead of the bottom. This makes it easier to move the tanks with a forklift but I suspect it does the tank no good having all the weight where it’s not designed to go.

The Tank Guy stores his tanks upright, just north of Tularosa in a big field across from the railroad overpass. Our tank showed up securely strapped to a trailer…on its side. But only for the time it took to arrive at the ranch. These tanks look huge but they are rotocast plastic and are not that heavy. The 3000-gallon tank weighs 500 pounds. It took the Tank Guy, the Tank Guy’s wife and me to slide the tank up a ramp I handily screwed together earlier for pouring the tank slab.

I installed two ball valves in the bottom of the tank, one ¾-inch for the output and one ½-inch to fill the tank. Tank filling can be done three ways: by water delivery truck, gravity fed from the upper level shed storage tank, or by pumping well water into the tank. A jumble of shut-off valves can be juggled to pressure feed the house from the well, from Big ‘Mo via a centrifugal pump or by gravity from the upper level storage. I’m into redundancy when it comes to water.

If you live in areas that freeze you’ll want to add a pipe heater and insulate any exposed pipe. The black tank helps keep the water from freezing and when the sun comes out we rarely get days under 40 degrees so water freezing in the tank has not been an issue so far.

I took this re-plumbing opportunity to eliminate the water softener and reduce the size of the very old well pump expansion tank. The water softener periodically runs a flush cycle and being on a fixed water supply we can’t waste water like that. The bladder inside the big expansion tank became porous over the years and water had migrated to the dry side causing rust. Plus it was too damn big. I’m thinking it will make a great stand alone fireplace or smoker.

From Big ‘Mo water is piped through a mesh screen filter, a one-way check valve and into a centrifugal pump that provides 40psi of pressure to a large 5-micron filter and on to the house plumbing. The pump has its own small expansion tank that seems to keep a fairly steady flow of water to the fixtures. You can see the flow increase a bit when the pump cycles but nothing a rough, tough, couple of pioneers like CT and I can’t handle.

Since we’ve moved from hot, humid Florida to a colder climate I’ve learned that PVC plumbing is not ideal in freezing conditions. Going forward I’m trying to use PEX plumbing in all my projects and I’ve been happy with the results so far. PEX uses a more flexible pipe that is crimped onto brass PEX fittings with brass/copper-ish crimp rings. You’ll need a special PEX crimp tool to compress the rings onto the PEX fittings. Once crimped, you can spin PEX pipe on its brass fitting (within reason) without causing a leak. I haven’t had one PEX-related leak yet, even when tight working conditions result in a less than optimal crimp. I wish I could say the same for the PEX-to-threaded-pipe connections. One thing to keep in mind is that PEX pipe is not UV resistant so cover any pipes that will see sunlight.

Like most plumbing systems PEX has to be cut and pipes replaced if you need to change anything. You’ll need a PEX removal tool if you want to reuse the brass PEX fittings and why wouldn’t you want to reuse them? The ability to reuse PEX fittings is a big deal. When is the last time you were able to reuse a glued PVC fitting or soldered copper fitting? The removal tool cuts the crimp ring without cutting into the PEX barb. Once the ring is out of the way you can crimp V-shaped depressions around the bit of PEX stuck on the barb. Crimping the Vee’s causes the PEX pipe circumference to expand and the pipe will slide right of the barb without causing undue stress.

It’s a bad feeling when your well runs dry. All of a sudden your shack becomes unlivable. But by building in a little extra infrastructure we have water security even if it means buying water from our local water delivery service. And I have plans on the table for catching much more rain during the next monsoon season that will nearly eliminate our reliance on bought water.

Do us a solid and click on the popup ads!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

New Mexico Museum of Space History

Alamogordo is a cool town, and on a recent visit there Joe Gresh, Susie,and I took in three of its attractions:  The White Sands Missile Range, White Sands National Park, and the New Mexico Museum of Space History.  This blog is on the New Mexico Museum of Space History, a five-story tall structure that is arranged in a spiral (kind of like the Guggenheim in New York City).   Joe, as the Ambassador of Alamogordo, suggested riding the elevator to the top and then walking down the spiraling hallways to take it all in, which is what we did.

As museums go, this is a good one.  There were a lot of cool things to see, including a mockup of the space shuttle control panel (that’s Joe piloting the Shuttle in the photo above).  Some of the other cool things are shown in the photos below.

Sputnik, the Russian satellite that initiated the space race.
The Ham capsule. Ham was the first chimp launhed into space. He’s buried on the Museum grounds.
Paying homage to perhaps one of the greated sci-fi series ever, Star Trek.
An exterior view of the Museum.
There’s a small missile park outside the Museum building. The vehicle in the foreground is a rocket sled, used in early development efforts.

If you ever find yourself in Alamogordo, the New Mexico Museum of Space History is worth a visit.

You know what to do…help us out and click on those popup ads!

White Sands National Park

Gresh has New Mexico pretty well scoped out.   I was worried that after visiting with him at Tinfiny Ranch there wouldn’t be much left to do in the area, but boy, did I have that wrong.

“White Sands,” Joe said.  “We can do the missile museum and the National Park.  It’s really not sand, you know…it’s gypsum.”  I didn’t know that, but I do now.  I first visited White Sands 50 years ago, and on that visit, we took in the missile museum and the National Park on the same day, too.  It’s doable; they are not far apart.  White Sands National Park is about 15 miles south of Alamagordo on US Highway 70, and the missile museum is a few miles south of that.

I shot this photo of Joe Gresh on an RX3 in 2016 as we rode through the Gobi Desert. We were both rolling along at 70 mph; I was about 10 feet to his left on another RX3. The Gobi looks a lot like the Mojave.

White Sands National Park looks about like what I would imagine the Sahara Desert to be, although having never been in the Sahara Desert, I could be wrong.  I always thought the Gobi Desert would look like the Sahara, too, but when Gresh and I rode through the Gobi a few years ago on our ride across China, it looked like the Mojave here in California.  But not White Sands.  Nope, it looks like, well, white sand, even though (as Gresh said) it’s really gypsum.

The photo ops really are amazing in White Sands National Park. You can get by with a cell phone, but to me it would be a crime against nature to visit any US National Park without a good camera and a circular polarizer. I use a Nikon and it usually wears a 24-120 lens.
The sky, the clouds, the white sands…it’s all very impressive.
Folks walking the dunes in White Sands National Park. Many people bring sleds (of the circular pan variety) to slide down the dunes. You can rent them in White Sands National Park, too.

The ticket in is $25 per vehicle, but I have the lifetime senior citizen pass.  I was looking forward to using that pass, but when we went the entrance gate was unmanned (or unwomanned, or perhaps unpersoned, or whatever passes for politically correct these days) and we just rolled in.  It’s funny, I guess.  That’s what happened when Gresh and I led the CSC Motorcycles Western America Adventure Ride when we entered Yellowstone National  Park.  Gresh must be the national park admission fee good luck charm.

Gresh was really showing us a good time in the Alamogordo area, and we hit both the White Sands Missile Range Museum and the White Sands National Park on the same day.  From there, he took us to his favorite Italian restaurant in Alamogordo, but the day didn’t end there.  Our next stop was the New Mexico Space Museum.   Both WSMR and the New Mexico Space Museum are coming up in future blogs.  Stay tuned.

Like what you see here on ExNotes?  Hey, do two things to thank us.   Sign up for a free subscription here…

…and keep clicking on those popup ads!

Grind Me A Pound Of Reverse: Part 4

Putting a motorcycle engine back together is much harder than taking it apart. Staring at the boxes of gears and cams the other day I found my memory beginning to fade, where did this spring go? I figured I better get on with the reassembly because if I waited any longer I wouldn’t remember who left their Husqvarna motorcycle in my shed. The nerve! Reluctantly, I set aside my ongoing concrete projects for a few days and began work on the Husky SMR510.

The crankcases and all internal parts were washed with mineral spirits turning the skin on my hands a nice shade of chalky white. After the mineral spirits a liberal application of Gunk engine degreaser was sprayed into all the nooks and crannies. Then a blast of good, Sunoco rainwater (filtered to 5 microns!) from the garden hose hopefully flushed out any stray bits of metal from the broken transmission. My little 18-volt Ryobi grass blower did a fair job of drying the pieces and laying the stuff out in the warm New Mexican sunshine finished the cleaning process.

Since the old transmission was the part that felled the Husqvarna and I was using a second-hand transmission, I dry fit the transmission and crankcase halves together. Once the gear shafts and shift forks were in their proper positions I spun the shift drum and is seemed like all 6 speeds were selectable.

I think I mentioned in a previous episode of Grind Me A Pound Of Reverse that I didn’t like the gear spacing on the second-hand transmission. The gears didn’t quite line up right. They were offset a couple thousandths of an inch to my eye. Anyway, I went ahead and gooped up the cases with Yamabond4 and with the crankshaft, balancer shaft and gearbox in place, slid the two cases together. They went together easily. Of course nothing is ever really easy, now is it?

I tried to spin the clutch shaft and the transmission was bound up tighter than a (sexual innuendo of your choice). Quickly, before the Yamabond4 had a chance to set I took the cases back apart and cleaned all the goop off the sealing surfaces. This situation needed more study, more than I was willing to give at the time so I gave up and went outside to dig a hole.

The next day I took a look at photos I had made during disassembly. I saw a spacer under the clutch basket and knew this same spacer was now inside the transmission. Turns out I had this spacer on the wrong side of the clutch shaft. This was also why the gears didn’t line up quite right. After relocating the spacer to outboard of the cases and reassembling the transmission, shift forks and then re-gooping the cases and tightening up the mess everything spun freely. This is what I mean by memory fading.

While its transmission might be fragile the Husqvarna has a well-engineered engine. Everything that spins rides on ball bearings; even the shift lever rides on needle bearings. This engine could run without oil for longer than you’d think. At 20,000 miles the valve train showed little wear, the cams were unmarred and the cam chain tensioners were in like-new condition. The whole layout is fairly simple and logical.

The big piston slips into a sleeveless aluminum cylinder bore coated with some sort of magic stuff that still showed hone marks. One area of concern is the base gasket. The gasket set I bought had a paper base gasket and the original was metal. From my experience the SMR510 engine has a lot of crankcase pressure. Hopefully the paper gasket works.

Installing the cylinder head was uneventful; the kit gasket looked like the same metal-sandwich material as the factory gasket. While I had the engine on the bench I checked the valve clearances. They wanted a bit of adjustment and in an amazing stroke of luck swapping the exhaust shims to the intake valves and the intake valve shims to the exhaust brought everything into spec. The fact that both left and right exhaust shims and both left and right intake shims were the same thickness speaks to even wear, careful machining and accurate valve installed-height during factory assembly.

There are a million bits to strapping the engine back into the frame. I put mostly new water hoses on because the kit I bought was missing a few. Since the swing arm was off I dismantled the rising-rate suspension linkage and greased the needle bearings. The forks on the Husky don’t turn sharp at all. To get a bit more steering angle I shortened the fork stops in an attempt to get an inch or two less turning radius. The fork tubes just kiss the plastic gas tank now so I’m maxed out. All in, it took the better part of a day to finish the engine install.

Starting the bike produced a few pops and farts until the fuel injection bled itself out and then the bike fired up! I leaned the Husky onto the side stand, lifting the rear wheel off the ground and ran through the transmission. All 6 gears were present and accounted for.

A quick test ride confirmed that even a stopped clock is right twice a day: I managed to get it back together and the bike runs just like before. Almost. The valve cover gasket is leaking so I’ll have to take a look at that. Total cost for the repair was around $400. My time, of course, was free. That’s $5600 less than a new Suzuki DR650, which was my Plan A when the Husky spit up its guts.

I think the reason for the Husqvarna transmission failing in the first place goes back to the SMR’s roots of being a dirt bike converted to street use. In the conversion process Husky’s engineers failed to put any kind of cushion in the drive train. You don’t really need cushion in the dirt because dirt is never all that grippy.

The crankshaft has a straight-cut gear to the clutch basket, the solid clutch basket has no cushioning springs, and then it’s direct to the transmission gears, to the countershaft sprocket and on to the rear wheel where there are no rubber cushions. The sprocket bolts solidly to the rear hub. Think about that big 500cc piston pounding the gearbox while the bike is on asphalt. The only give in the entire system is the rubber of the rear tire.

Maybe Berk is right: Maybe I just don’t know how to ride a 500cc single. (Note from Berk:  I said that?)  Seeing how the Husqvarna is built will change my riding style. I’ll let the engine rev a bit more and not lug the thing down to rattle on the gears. I’ll also try to stay on dirt roads whenever possible. Or, maybe it was a fluke. Only time and miles will tell.

Please keep hitting the popup ads!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

More Resurrections!

Joe Gresh’s Tinfiny Toys

A recent road trip took us to New Mexico, and that meant a stop at Joe Gresh’s Tinfiny Ranch.   The word “ranch” has a nice ring to it, but Joe’s ranch is more of a cool toys repository than a place where cattle range freely (the toys more than make up for the missing cattle…the stories they hold are better than any Bonanza episode).

When walking up the hill from Joe’s home to his shop, you can’t miss his powder blue MGB GT.  The MG came with the property.  At one point Joe was going to get it running again and he started a resurrection blog series on it.  He’s now thinking he may sell it.  I’d like to see him finish this one for a lot of reasons, mostly centered around my belief that any British motor vehicle is inherently cool and there would be interesting blog content accompanying the effort.  Time will tell.   And so will we.

As you can see from the above photo, it was raining a bit when we visited.  The rain gave the MGB a nice look, a hint of what it would be if it was running again with the original paint buffed out.  The MG would be a cool resurrection project.  If you agree, leave a comment here on the blog.  I’m trying to start a “Keep the MG” movement.

Joe has a  bunch of equipment in his Tinfiny Ranch shop, including a sandblast cabinet, a drill press, all manner of hand and power tools, and a lathe.  “You can make anything with a lathe…you can even make another lathe,” Joe once said.   You can read more about that here.

The photo at the top of this blog is Zed, Joe’s original 900cc Kawasaki, and it is the first resurrection story Joe wrote for ExNotes.  In my opinion, this is the coolest bike on the planet.  I especially like the original paint.  The patina is priceless.

Joe had Zed’s carbs off the bike when we visited.  Zed needs Joe, and I think Joe needs Zed.  He’s talked about selling it; I hope he doesn’t.  If you agree, leave a comment here on the blog.  You know the drill.

Joe’s well worn Zed shop manual.

One of Joe’s more famous vintage bikes is Godzilla, a Yamaha 360 he rode on the Trans America Trail.   It’s a delightfully original machine with a lot of stories, a few of which have appeared here on ExNotes.

I wish Yamaha still made these bikes. I always wanted one, but I’ve never ridden one. Someday.

Joe is one of two guys I know with a Kawasaki KLR 250 (the other guy is also named Joe, but it’s not me).   Joe has a few stories about the KLR 250 here on ExNotes.

When I first met Joe on our CSC Motorcycles 5000-mile ride through the American Southwest (with our friends from China and Colombia), Joe told me he would really love to install the 250cc RX3 engine in his KLR 250.   Joe is thinking about selling his KLR.  I get it; I sold my KLR a few years ago.  But I regretted it.   KLRs are great bikes.

I have one of these decals on my motorcycle, too.

Incidentally, if you want to know more about the RX3 and our ride with the Chinese on it through the American Southwest, you might consider picking up a copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM.

Here’s Joe’s mini-bike.   He’s owned this one a long time.

Joe’s famous Husky…with the engine out.  Joe is rebuilding the transmission on this motorcycle.  He’s blogged about it; watch ExNotes for future updates.  I know Joe will have it on the road again.

Joe’s Kawi 1100 hasn’t been started in a decade or two.  He’s thinking about getting it on the road again.  That will make for a bunch of great blogs.

Joe’s most recent acquisition is this stellar Yamaha RD 350.  Joe’s written about it here on ExNotes.

Joe explaining the RD’s merits to Susie.

Joe started the RD 350 for us.  It sounded great.

It was a good visit.  There’s a lot going on at Tinfiny Ranch (living off the grid stuff, concrete stories, tractors, implements, the water wars, vintage motorcycles, and more), and you can read about it here on ExNotes.  Stay tuned, my friends.

Keep us going!  Here’s why you should click on those popup ads!

Become a paid ExNotes writer!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Nobody Puts Baby In A Box: Tractor Supply Box Blade Review

Most people think of New Mexico as a barren, desert state. Much of it consists of broad expanses of high, scrabbly bush land. But that’s not nearly all there is here. New Mexico has two mountain ranges running north to south dividing the land into separate areas each with their own style of terrain, east of the Pecos River you’ll find the flat, oil-rich Permian Basin. This area is New Mexico’s Golden Goose that never seems to run out of eggs. The Permian Basin pays a huge amount of taxes to the state coffers. The odor of salt water mixed with oil is everywhere. It makes me a little homesick for the bilges of boats I used to build and repair in Florida.

Moving west from the Pecos River you come to my mountains, the Sacramento Mountains. Tinfiny Ranch lies on the western foothills of the Sacramento Mountains looking out over the Tularosa Valley. At 6000 feet Tinfiny Ranch is both wetter and cooler than the small towns down in the flat lands of the valley 1500 feet below.

Tinfiny Ranch has small trees, maybe 20 feet high and all of the plant life is larger and happier than the small shrubs you find at lower elevations. Within Tinfiny Ranch there are two different ecosystems: the relatively damper lower arroyo area where some idiot decided to put the shack we live in and the higher, just slightly more arid upper area where the off-grid trophy shed sits. The elevation change is only 50 feet but the trees are noticeably larger and the undergrowth denser down by the Arroyo. There’s even a little grassy lawn struggling to survive in the lower reaches.

The upper and lower areas are connected by a steep dirt road that is always in need of repair. Whenever it rains the water cuts deep ruts across and parallel to the road. Monsoon season makes the road 4-wheel drive only. UPS and FedX stop delivering when the road gets too bad. They leave packages by the entrance gate instead of at our door.

Tractor Supply’s County Line Box Blade is just the ticket for grading and smoothing out the ruts in our driveway. Five feet wide, the box blade connects to the 3-point hitch on the back of standard tractors and comes mostly assembled except for a few thick bars of steel that make up the top mount. It’s a heavy chunk of steel and I can only lift one side at a time to move it.

Five depth-adjustable scarifying teeth mounted ahead of the leveling blade allow the box blade to break up hard ground. These teeth will catch roots and rocks and rip them out of the ground making it easier for the following blade to level the area. If you didn’t have the scarifying teeth the blade would just bounce over some obstacles leaving behind an uneven grade.

Tinfiny Ranch has a lot of big rocks from softball size to larger than a shopping cart. Running over one of these big boys will kick the box blade into the air with a loud crash. Some rocks you’ll want to dig out of the ground with a pick and pry bar instead of beating up the box blade.

With the box blade it took just a few hours to straighten out the road leading to the upper level. I’ll need to do some more work on it to fill in some low spots and cut down some high spots but it’s still raining so I don’t get too excited about making it perfect. At some point we will either asphalt the road or pave it with concrete. I’m leaning towards asphalt since I won’t have to do it.

I give the Tractor Supply box blade high marks for its low-ish $1000 price tag and high quality. That seems like a lot of money but try to find a used one. If you manage to it will be a wreck and cost $500. This County Line unit is a well built, heavy tool that will last your lifetime and maybe more. Once you get a box blade you’ll start finding all sort of areas that need leveling. Soon there won’t be a plant standing and your yard will be a broad, featureless plain, like some areas of New Mexico.

Keep us in implements:  Please click on the popup ads…we get paid every time you do!

Whoa….a free subscription to ExNotes!

Be a Professional Writer For ExhaustNotes!

Berk and I were discussing the challenges of taking on additional writers here at ExhaustNotes. We print new stories about every two days and while we appreciate our loyal readers it wouldn’t hurt to drag a bunch more subscribers into the fold. We’d like ExhaustNotes’ popularity to reflect the quality of the content and to increase ad revenue to match our prodigious output. Plus, younger, less jaded motorcyclists who actually like all the electronic junk manufacturers strap onto motorcycles would be kind of cool.

So we’ve decided to try a thing: Berk says the best way to increase Internet hits and ad revenue is to publish interesting stories from insightful and entertaining writers on a regular basis. To do that, ExhaustNotes will need more than just two guys typing in their spare time. We may need three.  Or four.  Or more.

I don’t know about you but I’m ready for some fresh new perspectives on motorcycling and with Berk pushing 72 and me pushing a crusty 65 we tend to give fresh new perspectives a bit of the old stinkeye. You’ll notice we type a lot of dream bike segments and none of them are modern bikes. Do not stand on our lawns.

Perspectives don’t have to be young to be fresh, just different. Let’s hear how you love the way your motorcycle makes all the power and braking decisions for the rider. Hey, you still get to steer… for now. Tell us about the biker lifestyle and how it differs from the cosplay actors at comic-com. Exactly how do you use a 200 horsepower, full-race motorcycle on the street and stay alive? Tell us in an interesting way and you’ll get paid for doing it!

How much will you make?

Glad you asked: ExhaustNotes uses a simple formula to calculate how much we earn. We take the total site income from advertisers and Google ads and subtract the expense of running the site. That gives us a pool of money to pay the writers. You won’t get paid by the word. For example, if revenue after expenses is $100 and we publish 100 stories then each story is worth $1. Now, say Berk writes 70 stories and I write 30 stories then Berk makes $70 and I make $30. This is the part where you new writers will come in: If we publish 5 stories from you then the split will reflect your contribution.  Berk divvies the money up twice a year, assuming there’s revenue.

On the surface this seems self-defeating, since you’ll be making the same amount per story as me and Berk then we must be losing money. Maybe not. The idea is to increase revenue, build the reader base and create a bigger pie. If it works we’ll all get filthy rich and go live with the prostitutes. Okay, maybe I can’t go live with the prostitutes but one of you guys might be able to.

We understand the unfairness of a 3000-word story earning the same as a 700-word story but life is full of unfair situations.  Writing for ExhaustNotes is just one more. Try to picture this whole ExhaustNotes website thing as a grand experiment that we are opening up to a wider pool of participants. Who knows what will happen?

If you’ve already been a guest columnist for ExhaustNotes you won’t get any money from your past stories. That ship has sailed. This new deal is going forward from today. Mike Huber’s Romanian travel story is the very first one of our new system.

A few other things you should know:  Berk is going to be the editor-in-chief and his word is final, meaning submitting is not the same as getting published.  Punctuation and grammar matter.  If Berk has to re-write your story to make it intelligible he probably won’t use it. ExhaustNotes only pays if we publish your story and we pay poorly at that. You retain all rights to your work and can do whatever you want with it. Remember: You are not going to make a ton of money doing this. If you feel our accounting methods are not strenuous enough don’t submit a story.

Having the proper mindset is critical.  Berk and I write ExhaustNotes for the fun of it. If you factor in our time, we lose money doing it and I see no good reason why you shouldn’t lose money writing for us, too. Any beer money that happens to come our way is gravy that we use to buy mini bikes and reloading components.  Topics are mostly motorcycle related with guns and construction materials thrown in, but any topic that is interesting will be considered. Everyone has to start somewhere; I started my writing career with a simple letter to the editor of The Key West Citizen. Let’s see what starts your writing career.

If you have a story you’d like to propose on motorcycles, guns, Baja, reloading, great rides, great roads, or any other topic you think would be of interest to our readers, email us with your story idea at info@exhaustnotes.us.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us help you:   Please click on those pop-up ads!

A Sneak Preview…

Wowee, do we ever have some good stuff coming up right here on the ExNotes blog.  Guns, motorcycles, adventure touring in Transylvania, and the results of a content safari through Arizona all the way to Albuquerque.  Here’s an inkling of just a few of the topics coming your way.

What’s the real difference between a $1500 Colt Python and a $650 Ruger Blackhawk?   Watch for our side-by-side, target-by-target comparo.  It’s coming up.

Into resurrections?   Hey, how about CSC’s replica of the original Mustang motorcycle!  You read our recent story about the Al Simmons Mustang motorcycle collection and the origins of the Mustang.   CSC’s Steve Seidner went a step further, and we’ll tell you all about it.

Ever have your well dry?  I mean literally, not figuratively.   Uncle Joe Gresh has, and he’ll tell you all about it.  Gresh is a guy who makes MacGuyver look like an amateur.   You’ll love this story.

We’re going to bring in a new writer or two (or maybe more).  We have a blog loaded and ready to publish from good buddy Airborne Mike on a motorcycle ride through (get this!) Transylvania!  I kid you not.  Transylvania and the Transfagarasan Highway!

On that topic of new writers…Joe Gresh will tell you all about what you need to do to be considered for the ExNotes editorial staff.  Watch for a blog on this topic in the near future.

The Pima Air Museum in Tucson is another treasure.  Wow, that was a fun visit.  There’s so much there we couldn’t take it all in during a single visit, and it’s a place that screams for more than a single blog.  I need to return.  The photo ops were incredible.

More good Joe Gresh stuff straight from Tinfiny Ranch, including the Gresh moto stable and the world famous Gresh project bank.  Motorcycles, the MGB-GT, and more!

How about the Franklin Automobile Museum in Tucson, Arizona?  Never heard of it?  We hadn’t, either, but (trust me on this) it’s Tucson’s best kept secret!

White Sands Missile Range?  Yep, that, too.  Everything from a Nazi V-2 to current US weaponry, and we’ll have the story right here.

How about White Sands National Park?   Think Sahara Desert, and you’ll have a good idea about what these rolling snow white gypsum hills look like.  It was awesome!

The New Mexico Museum of Space History, with a guided tour by none other than Joe Gresh?  That was a really fun visit with lots of cool exhibits.  It’s coming your way.

How about sacred Native American ruins in New Mexico?  We saw several and they were impressive, including the Kuaua Native American site along the Rio Grande River.

Albuquerque is quite a town, and Old Town Albuquerque is quite the place.  We had a lot of fun wandering around and taking photos.  It’s in the mix for a future blog.

And the Albuquerque 50th Anniversary Balloon Fiesta…wow, was that ever spectacular.  The excitement and wonder of that event is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever experienced.

Stay tuned, folks.   It’s quite an adventure, and it’s onging!

Click on those popup ads…we get paid everytime you do!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

ExNotes Mentors: Slow Is Not The Same As Stupid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep us in clover:  Hit those popup ads, please!

Never miss an ExNotes blog: