Category: Joe Gresh

How Many Motorcycles Are Too Many Motorcycles?

Here at ExhaustNotes.us we’ve been discussing the possibility that we may have more motorcycles than anyone actually needs. Personally, I have more motorcycles than I can afford to insure. I can’t ride them legally so the bikes sit in my shed gathering dust. Berk, who has a much smaller shed, is taking aggressive action on the issue by selling off some unused bikes. It’s inspired me to do the same. But which bikes? How many motorcycles do I need? I don’t want to end up one of those hoarders who die leaving Meacham’s auction house to pawn my junk off to the other hoarders.

For the sake of argument lets say X equals the number of motorcycles that your ability and status in life can keep maintained and running. Besides remorseless economics and mechanical talent there are the bikes that have a sentimental meaning to you that goes beyond reason and harsh reality. We’ll call that value Y. For example, you may never get that Norton put back together but if the fact that it exists in your shed brings you happiness why am I judging?

If all we had to deal with was X and Y we could plot the number of owned motorcycles on a simple two-dimensional graph but life is not lived in two dimensions. Reality demands that we consider Z, with Z being the amount of space you have to store the motorcycles. If the value of Z, Y and X were infinite you could collect all the motorcycles. I mean all of them. No one else could own one because you would have the entire world’s output of motorcycles. The problem is X, Y and Z are never infinite; even if they were and you owned them all who would you ride with? Nobody.You’d be a lonely, bitter soul. By simple logic we have determined an upper limit on motorcycle ownership: all of them minus one for your riding buddy.

Since this is a motorcycle blog I will assume the readers like motorcycles. Hence, pandering to the mob dictates that one motorcycle is the lower limit on motorcycle ownership because a story on motorcycle ownership that didn’t involve motorcycle ownership cannot exist in the intellectual vacuum of the Internet.

There are a vast number of motorcycles between one and all of the motorcycles minus one. We can narrow the field a bit by eliminating BMW motorcycles as no one likes them anyway but that still leaves a lot of bikes. I think it’s better to start from the other end, the end that starts with one.

If you can only have one motorcycle (X, Y and Z= jack-all) then that one motorcycle better be an enduro-type. A combination dirt/street motorcycle is the one to have if you only have one. As X, Y and Z grow larger a street-specific motorcycle is handy for highway rides. That makes two bikes and I really feel two is the minimum number of motorcycles regardless of your situation. You’ll just have to put your nose to the grindstone and increase your X/Y/Z, Bubba.

If we break down street bikes into touring, sport, and vintage categories and dirt bikes into enduro, motocross and vintage you could make the argument that six motorcycles are the minimum amount required. You’ll also need a mini bike for bopping around your ranch and a lightweight moped for running down to the post office. This brings the total to eight motorcycles and I feel that eight motorcycles show a good level of commitment to the motorcycle pastime.

With eight motorcycles on site visitors to your home will rightly expect you to loan them a motorcycle and take them on a little tour of your surroundings. Don’t do it. Your bikes are your bikes and if your visitor crashes one it will poison the friendship. Better to own a loaner bike, one you don’t care about for those pesky hanger-onners. An extra copy of your loaner motorcycle will make visitor rides more fun as neither rider has the upper hand in equipment. So you’ll need ten motorcycles to adequately maintain friendships. A small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

Once you’ve got ten motorcycles you may as well go ahead and get a couple nostalgic trinkets from your youth. Maybe a nice example of the first bike you ever owned or the motorcycle your ex-spouse made you get rid of because you had kids. Maybe it’s the bike your dear old dad owned or the model of motorcycle that decapitated a school chum. There are all manner of excellent reasons to own up to sixteen motorcycles.

Moving far from town and building a large shed to house all your motorcycles is a tell tale sign that you may be overdoing things a bit. Living on canned soup, scouring the Internet for motorcycles to buy is not the healthiest lifestyle but it’s not the food choices that get you in the end. Once you start building multilevel lofts to store motorcycles in inaccessible places you are one small earth tremor away from being buried alive by motorcycles.

There’s something about walking in a shed without having to turn sideways that appeals to me. Our economy is built on over consumption. I’m at eight, maybe nine motorcycles now and I’m feeling like I should get rid of a few. So how many motorcycles are too many?  What is your comfort level?

Giblets 1

With only two full-time writers here at ExhaustNotes.us, it’s a real challenge to churn out the quantity of content a website demands. Luckily we have Joe Berk on staff. One Berk equals like seven normal writers. Coming up with topics is easy but some of the ideas don’t rise to the level of an actual ExhaustNotes.us story. I’ve swept the floor at the luxurious ExhaustNotes.us office plaza and tossed all the bits into this blog post.

Reaching in through the bottom of the chicken we find that the 1975 Kawasaki Zed has been having a few problems as of late. The far right-side carburetor was spewing gasoline sporadically so I purchased 4, generic carb repair kits online. I really only needed the float needle and seat but at $14 a kit it was cheaper to buy the whole shebang rather than just the seats.

The carburetors sit relatively high off the crankcase on a Kawasaki Z1 so most carb circuits can be accessed from the bottom or top without removing the whole bank of 4 carbs. You can get to the idle jet, the main jet, the needle and seat and even the slide needle and emulsion tube if you’re willing to struggle a bit. When I say access theses parts I don’t mean to imply that it’s easy to do. I have the cuts on my hands to show for it.

After 3000 miles of running I was surprised by the lack of debris in the Kawasaki’s float bowls. If you followed Zed’s resurrection you’ll know how rusty Zed’s tank was. I expected the main-jet sump to be full of fine red dust. Installing the new needles and seats was a fiddly job but I managed to get them in and replaced the pilot jets just because I had them. I left the original main jets in place.

Before turning on the fuel I checked the fuel filter on the petcock and found it clean. I bought new inline filters but seeing how clean everything was I left the old inline filters alone. Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken is a good motto to live by with aging motorcycles.

As soon as I turned the petcock on fuel started pouring out of Carb Number 3 (from the ignition side). Of course this is the hardest one to work on. I pulled the float bowl back off and removed the float and the needle. Everything looked ok. Figuring a piece of dirt must be in there I blew carb cleaner into the seat and reassembled the carb. Back together with the petcock on, the fuel leaked as bad as it ever did.

I took the float bowl back off and removed the float. Holding the needle in place with my finger I turned on the petcock and gas poured down my hand, onto my wrist and up the sleeve of my shirt. This led me to believe there was a problem with Number 3’s new needle/seat.

Upon further examination I found some unexplainable marking on the inside of the seat where the needle valve would normally seal. I’m not sure what is going on. Are the stampings some kind of size identifier? Did the punch that marks the seat miss and stamp the inside of the seat?

It became obvious to me that this particular needle/seat combination was never going to seal so I picked the best looking needle/seat from the old parts and installed them into Carb Number 3. No more leaking.

For the real mechanics: I know I should reset the floats but the bowl drain screws are very tight; removing them may break something I don’t want broken. My rationale is that the replacement needles/seats are the same overall length so the float levels wouldn’t have changed much, if at all. One day I’ll get the drain screws out and set the float levels using the clear tube system.

The upshot is that Zed is running much better. I took a quick, 140-mile, 60-degree-January-day jaunt and stopped several times leaving the fuel petcock on: no leaks. Spinning 5000-5500 RPM in top gear the Zed returned 41 miles per gallon not including the amount of fuel that I spilled while working on the carbs. In addition, I had to turn the airscrews in almost one whole turn after installing the new needles/seats and pilot jets.

Moving on from the carburetor woes, there are a few disappointing rubber-issues with some parts on Zed. The rubber fork wipers have split in just a little over a year. I really expected them to last a bit longer than that. The rubber vacuum plugs that cover the ports used for balancing the carbs have also rotted and split. These were new about the same time as the fork wipers. Not only are the vacuum plugs rotted, but one of the brass nozzles cast into the new rubber intake manifolds came adrift when I tried to push the vacuum plug into position. Luckily it didn’t go all the way into the intake port and I managed to pull it out and get the plug onto the thing.

When I was resurrecting Zed I sourced parts from all over. I’m going to try and dig around to see if I have any receipts that will tell me where I got the various rubber bits. If they are EBay sellers I won’t bother but I’m sure the more reputable companies will work on making it right. One factor that may have caused the rubber failure is the fact that Tinfiny’s shed gets very hot in the summertime. With the doors closed it’s not unusual to hit 130 degrees inside. 130 degrees isn’t that hot for an air-cooled motorcycle engine but New Mexico’s dry air combined with long term exposure might affect the rubber. None of my other bikes stored in the same conditions have had rubber failures.

Well, what do you know, I had more ground to cover but this carb story ended up running on for so long it’ll make a standalone ExhaustNotes.us blog! I’ll post up Giblets 2 soon.

Read all about Zed’s resurrection here!

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Hasty Conclusions: Garmin Zumo XT GPS

Hunter usually does the navigating for us. I don’t tax my little brain over it. We’ve ridden motorcycles thousands of miles on unmarked dirt roads never failing to arrive at the correct spot in the end. Every now and then I’ll ask hunter where the hell we are and he’ll point to his GPS screen and say, “Right there, on the trail.” I didn’t want to appear damaged, it gets rough on the trail once they know you’re compromised so I’d nod my head and mumble something about waypoints, acting like I saw something on Hunter’s GPS other than a featureless grey screen. Thing is, you can’t always have Hunter with you all the time or even most times.

I’ve bought several GPS navigators over the years and all of them suffer from the same deficiencies: they are too small and the monochromatic, grey-on-grey screens are too difficult for my terrible eyes to see. This Christmas CT bought me a Garmin Zumo XT. The XT is a motorcycle-specific GPS that is supposed to be rain tight and the touch screen will work using a gloved finger, they say. It’s not a cheap unit but if you added up all the useless, invisible GPS receivers I’ve bought over the years I coulda bought two of them.

The XT has a ton of features. It will Bluetooth to your phone and give you traffic and road conditions. I guess you can get spoken directions over your intercom thingy. None of that is important to me or is the main thing the XT does best. This Zumo is bright. Garmin’s TFT screen has fantastic contrast and color. I can see the thing in direct sunlight at 80% brightness setting. It’s brighter than my iPhone 11 by several hundred lumens. (Note: I made that up. I didn’t actually measure the lumen output.)

The Garmin Zumo came with a nice handle bar mounting bracket, the kind with the two ball joints and the center tensioning cups. While a good system for street bikes, I had issues mounting the XT to my 2008 Husqvarna. The Husky has ¾-inch to 1-inch tapered handlebars and on the 1-inch diameter section the supplied U-bolt was not quite long enough for the provided lock nuts to actually screw on far enough to lock. Not a big problem as I hacksawed a thin baloney-slice off of the ball mount part and while still not right at least the plastic locking part got a few threads on the U-bolt.

Once I had the bracket mounted on the right side I decided I didn’t like the GPS sticking out in the breeze waiting for a hole to be busted in the housing by one of the many loose rocks Hunter kicks up into my shins, headlight, face shield and fingers. I would pass him if I knew where I was going.

I moved the Zumo to the left side of the handle bar and tucked it behind an accessory LED headlight I installed earlier. Turns out the new position used a narrower section of the handlebar so I didn’t need to hacksaw the bracket after all. Those of you who turn wrenches for a living or sport will be able to predict what happened next.

I was snugging the U-bolt down a little each side-to-side when the bracket broke in two. Rats. With the bracket now useless I had to dig deep into my long history of crappy motorcycle repair. I ended up sawing off the rest of the busted bracket leaving only the ball joint and a chunk of pot metal to serve as a base. Then I through-drilled the ball joint remnant with a ¼-inch drill bit. Once I had the thing weakened beyond all hope I through-bolted the ball Joint to an existing angle aluminum piece. The squared off base contacts the top handlebar clamp, I’m hoping this stops the whole GPS from rotating on the ¼-inch bolt.

It seems to be fairly secure but I’m going to add a small cable with a quick release clip to help keep the Garmin Zumo XT attached to the bike in case something comes loose on the trail. I don’t have a lot of faith in Garmin’s snap-in mounting plate. A couple small tabs of plastic are all that hold the XT to the handlebar bracket.

The wiring is easy on the Garmin Zumo XT, a positive and a negative to 12VDC. I incorporated a power switch so that I can turn the Garmin on or off without using the ignition key. I like to stop and study the screen once and a while and it’s nice to be able to do that with the rest of the bike off. I’ll have to remember to shut the thing down though, hopefully the big red indicator light on the switch will remind me. Another note: If you want to move the Garmin from bike to bike or to your car you’ll need to buy more installation kits. It’s too much trouble to disconnect all the wiring and broken bits of mounting hardware.

It all made for fairly clean installation and I can’t wait to try out that super bright screen on the trail. I’ll do a follow up story on actually using the Garmin Zumo later. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to find where Hunter stashes his used tires.

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The Five Best Motorcycle Books: An Alternative Take

Recently Berk wrote a story on his five best motorcycle books. I figure I’ll copy him since nothing else moto-related is going on. Berk’s choices were all good choices but naturally not the ones I would have picked. Berk and I differ on a lot of topics (ok, most) but we don’t let that stop us from getting along well. Maybe it’s my deep-seated conviction that I am always right or maybe it’s because I actually am always right that smooths troubled waters. It’s hard to tell, really. Whatever it is it works so I’m not going to over-analyze the thing.

The thing is, I don’t read many motorcycle books, and five will be a stretch. Sure, I’ve read Berk’s travel books but only the ones with me in them. I have nothing against travel/adventure books but as a rule, it’s a topic that I would rather do than read about. I’m going to take a stab at the five-list anyway.

My top pick for all-time best motorcycle book is Floyd Clymer’s A Treasury of Motorcycles of the World. This huge hardcover was my bible growing up. I read and re-read the thing so many times I knew it by heart. The Treasury came out just slightly before the age of Japanese superbikes and reading it you get no sense of the dramatic changes that were about to sweep over motorcycling. The Treasury covered practically every brand that you could find in the USA: Harleys, Triumphs, Hondas and the rest. The more obscure brands were covered also. What seems obvious to us now was at that time still up in the air. The Japanese were making inroads but one look at the outsized 4-cylinder Munch and you suspected car-engined motorcycles were the future. In such a fast moving business, who knew which marques would be successful?

The Treasury covered more than just motorcycles. Included were descriptions of motorcycle culture and motorcycle events. A debate between Triumph and Suzuki on the merits of two-stroke vs. four-stroke stands out in my mind. I sided with Suzuki. If you were completely new to motorcycling this one book would bring you up to speed on the whole shebang.

Maybe I’m remembering the Treasury with rose-tinted neurons. I lost the book somewhere over the 53 years since I read it last and I can’t be bothered to buy another copy of The Best Motorcycle Book Ever. I’d rather keep the knowledge I gained from the book: the excitement and wonder from its pages and a life long infatuation with two-wheeled travel. I’ll not risk my entire life history to a few mis-firing neurons.

Next on my list of all-time greats is a book I’ve never read. Learn To Wheelie by Jack B. Watson was advertised in the back ads of the many, many motorcycle magazines I devoured as a youth. The book must have sold by the thousands because the ads ran at least 20 years. That alone should tell you how good Learn To Wheelie is. I wanted to buy a copy for all those 20 years but money was scarce and I ended up learning to wheelie by trial and error.

Trial and error was how most of us learned to wheelie and it was a hard won skill. One time I flipped over backwards on my Honda SL70 doing around 45 miles per hour. I landed on my back and the asphalt wore through at each of my vertebra leaving little, quarter-sized cherries to mark out each one in a zipper-like fashion.

The SL70 continued on for few yards longer and when the front wheel came down the bike started cartwheeling in the middle of the road. It bent the swing arm, the frame, the handlebars and broke any sticky-outtie parts clean off. It was like the SL70 had spent a few hours in a cement mixer. Things would have gone a whole lot different had I read Learn To Wheelie. A whole lot different.

If you asked me, and you didn’t, I’d say the book that had the most influence on my feverish teenaged brain was Cycletoons. Not that Cycletoons is exactly a book.  It’s a comic book and that has the word “book” in it so in my book it qualifies. Cycletoons came out once a month for a few years and in that short time did permanent damage to my personality. The artwork and stories were fantastic, running from hardcore nuts and bolts stuff to fantasy pieces that mimicked drug induced psychosis.

Unlike Clymer’s Treasury, Cycletoons came out in the early 1970s right when motorcycling in the USA was coming on the pipe. Up to date in every way with cultural references ripped from the headlines, Cycletoons put all the traditional, stodgy motorcycle magazines on the trailer. Some of the humor (and it was all humor) was pretty lame but when it was good it was the best. The artists and writers of Cycletoons were mostly young guys that knew what was happening and they used the language of the day to tell their stories. Something you rarely saw back then.

Webley-Vickers, The Ol’ Poop, Cycle Chicks, the lonely hearts mail page, Pillow Trot and Elbow Juice, I loved all of it and haunted the local 7-11 store eating Lemon Heads and waiting for the next issue to come out. Cycletoons magazines are fairly expensive now. They go for 30 to 50 bucks a copy on Amazon so I won’t be buying them. I think I still have one issue saved. It’s the one with the cover art of all the Cycletoons characters along with Skip Van Leeuwen, Nixon, Romero and a few other famous racers powering into turn one on everything from a broken down chopper to a Vespa scooter. If you find a stack of Cycletoons at a garage sale snap them up. I guarantee you’ll love them.

If you are into old clunkers like I am Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is the one book you’ll need for whatever crappy old motorcycle lands in your garage. The thing is massive, weighing over 6 pounds, and covers in detail most 1950-ish to pre-1973 motorcycles. This book has saved me so many times I refuse to count that high. While not the same as a one-make-and-model shop manual Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual gives you enough information to fix most any old bike out there.

Beyond it’s practical applications, Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is enjoyable as pure entertainment. Looking over the repair procedures for a bike I will never own is a guilty pleasure. The book covers Z1s and H2s and has helped me make decisions about bikes on my wish list.

Structurally, Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is pretty flimsy. The hard covers are there to protect the super thin, magazine quality paper inside. I guess that was the only way fit in all the information and keep the beast to 6 pounds. Turn the pages carefully, my brothers. Oddly a used Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is not that expensive to buy. $35 is a cheap price to pay for the joyful information contained within.

Last but not least is another book I haven’t read but I do have it on order from Amazon. One Man Caravan by Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. One Man Caravan deserves it’s lofty spot simply because it’s The Mother of All Adventure Books. Nowadays everyone and their mother are riding motorcycles around the world and publishing a book about it. We’ve become complacent. Bored with the same old stories. Fulton did it way back, between the first horror of WW1 that was supposed to end all wars and the second, more complete horror of WW2. Fulton did it before it was a thing and he rode a (Douglas?) which makes him much, much cooler than anyone else. All the reviews I’ve read about the book are rave so I look forward to reading the thing when it shows up.

It’s a sad thing when your list of five best motorcycle books has two books you haven’t read but there is nothing I can do about it now. Let me know if I’ve missed any!

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Day Tripping: Three Rivers

At Tinfiny Ranch it’s been kind of cool this winter. I haven’t been riding motorcycles much at all lately. Zed, the Z1 Kawasaki, needs its float needles changed as it has developed an intermittent incontinence on the far right carburetor. I have to keep turning off the fuel petcock because I don’t trust the carbs to reliably do their carb thing.

The Husky is way overdue for a valve adjustment but I have too many other projects apart and going on to hobble my Italian/Swedish mish-mash motorcycle at the moment. The Husky still runs fine so when Mike, my Eastern Assassin riding buddy texted me photos of his new KTM 390 Adventure bike and said, “The hell with this cold, lets do a little ride and you can check out my new bike,” I was all over it.

Mike rides more dirt than anyone I know. I’ve done thousands of miles of gravel roads with him and I’ve only seen a quarter of the trails he has. His normal trail bike was a 650 BMW single but that bike turned out not so great on rough trails. It’s a heavy, low-slung bike and it tended to fall over a lot. Mike, a reformed street rider, had a Harley Davidson Fat Boy that was gathering dust in his garage so he sold it off and used the proceeds to buy a new KTM 390 Adventure. I’m guessing not many people go from a Fat Boy to a KTM 390. The 390 weighs about 100 pounds less than the 650 BMW and straight-line performance is nearly the same although naturally the 390 spins faster to get the job done.

We met up for coffee and potato chips at a little tourist trap on the corner of Three Rivers and Highway 54. The 390 looks great. It’s very light feeling off the kickstand. The bike came with street tires similar to the crappy tires I run on the Husqvarna. The KTM is a bit high in the saddle but its wide seat is actually lower than the Husky seat. My short legs reach the ground about the same on both bikes.

We rode towards the Sacramento Mountains ending up at the little Santa Nino de Atocha church. While not a religious man, I like earnest churches and old graveyards. Last time I was here my Kawasaki gas tank sprung a leak and I had to hurry home before I ran out of gas. I didn’t have time to check things out properly.

The graves at Santa Nino de Atocha are fairly well maintained. It’s a lonely spot but I believe the church still draws a few congregants from the huge ranches situated all the way to the mountains.

Poor little Sofia never had much of a chance. As I grow older I realize everyday is a gift.

Fancy glass-enclosed Mary (I think, I don’t know my saints)

Raiders fan for all eternity.

Laser-cut steel cross. Very nice metal work.

It gets a little nippy in New Mexico’s winter but the brilliant blue sky warms your soul.

Somebody left the sprinkler on and created an ice fantasy over by the church’s RV camping area.

Mike and I shot the breeze for a while and made grand plans for the rides we will take his new motorcycle on until the temperature started dropping along with the sun. I don’t want to do much night riding anymore so we bundled up and headed back to our little towns on opposite ends of Highway 54 (La Luz and Carrizozo).

It was only a 100-mile ride but I felt recharged when I got home. Mike has managed to put a thousand miles on the KTM in only a few cold weeks. If I don’t hurry and get back to motorcycles he’ll have the thing worn out before I ride again.

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A Slice of Life: ExhaustNotes Injury Review

Here at ExhaustNotes we don’t limit ourselves to giant, 10-bike comparison tests and feature stories describing the joys of motorcycle riding. ExhaustNotes is much more hands-on than those other guys. In this case we were a little too hands-on.

Loyal readers will know this but for you newbies I’ll say it again: I’ve been building stuff around the house and letting the moto-journo aspect of my career flounder. Normally that’s not a problem as I lie about most of the things I write about anyway.

This story starts with a pre-hung door installation on the Sun Porch behind Tinfiny’s Carriage House. Yes, everything at Tinfiny Ranch has a proper name. The door is all glass except for a metal/wood surround to hold the glass and make space for the doorknobs, hinges and bolt.

Being double pane and all glass the door is sort of heavy and as I was lifting it into position I let the door slide slowly down to the floor. I felt warmth on my left wrist but chalked it up to the early stages of Covid infection. Unfortunately I was not as lucky as that. Blood was dripping from a deep cut over my wrist and could see tendons and what I thought was bone. I started freaking out; it was like the scene in Terminator where Arnie peels back his skin to reveal the mechanical parts of his arm. I couldn’t figure out what happened and since I usually faint at the sight of blood I knew I was on borrowed time. I quickly clamped the door to the existing studs and went to the bathroom to throw up.

As it turns out there was a razor sharp piece of metal screwed into the frame of the door, I imagine reinforcing the lock area. This piece of metal was standing proud of the door by about ¼-inch. That’s the bit that cut me.

My new weight loss diet consists of Lemon Heads, a candy that is around 98% pure sugar. I call it The Ferrara diet. What with the sugar rush I wasn’t feeling all that hot before I sliced my arm open. The wound made me even queasier. CT was running around trying to find a bandage to stanch the flow of blood as I sank down onto the bathroom floor in a cold sweat. CT found some paper towels and tape and eventually I felt good enough to walk out to the car.

The ride to the hospital took about ½ hour during which I kept yelling “Yi-Yi-Yi-Yi!”, “Michigan!” and “Whoa Daddy!” to keep my mind off the injury. Our local hospital is undergoing expansion so the emergency room has been relocated between two employee parking lots and miles of temporary fence.

CT pulled up to the front and told me to wait in the car while she got a wheel chair. “Oh hell no!” I said, “I don’t need a wheelchair, this is embarrassing.” We had a brief, ultimately futile argument for me, and out came a hospital guy with a wheelchair.

The hospital guy wheeled me to wait in a hallway where a lady was coughing up Covid viruses the size of Lemon Heads. She answered yes to every Covid-question the nurse asked her. It was like her body was a perfect storm of Covid. The hospital guy wheeled me into another room. “Here’s the guy that cut his wrist,” he told the admitting clerks. What the hell? Now I’m a suicide risk?  I said, “Look, let me be clear. I did not try to kill myself, I cut my wrist on a door.” It sounded phony as hell.

Back out in the hallway the old lady was gone but the corona virus cloud was still so dense I could actually see the little bastards tugging at my facemask trying to gain access to my respiratory system.

Enough time had elapsed from the initial injury that I was feeling somewhat cocky. Like maybe I had lain on the bathroom floor just to elevate the injury. Yeah, that’s it. I was even thinking about how good a Lemon Head would taste right about now. I was wheeled into Room 9 and the nurse told me to take off my shirt and put on a hospital gown. I had on mismatched socks.

Dr. Wells came in to examine me. I told him about the door but of course I would say something like that if I were trying to conceal a suicide attempt. He said that it was a nice clean cut and that he would be back later to stitch it up. I took a nap as things seemed under control.

True to his word, Dr. Wells came back and asked me all kinds of questions about my job and boats during which he shot some numbing agent into my wrist area. After a short burning sensation I couldn’t feel a thing. As he sewed me up, it felt like someone tugging on my sleeve. Drugs and a good bedside manner really help.

By this time I felt the crisis was past and I could look at my injured wrist without any nausea. I guess it’s true what they say, time does heal all wounds. CT took me home and my wrist seems ok. Luckily I didn’t cut any tendons or veins. After taking a day off I finished installing the door with CT helping to lift the thing.

On a side note: that piece of sharp metal is gone. I don’t care if it weakens the locking system. Kick the door down for all I care. I’ll have to be more observant with my home projects, turns out it’s safer to ride motorcycles than install doors.

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Product Review: A-iPower, APW2700C Pressure Washer

With all the home projects I’ve been doing lately I haven’t had much time for motorcycle hijinks. Poor Berk is having to carry the blog’s content-load all by himself. While I may not have moto-content I do have a few new toys to review, one of them being the APW2700C pressure washer.

Normally I like electric power for infrequently used power tools and I have a Harbor Freight electric pressure washer that does everything I need it to do with only one hitch. That hitch being the amperage the washer draws is so great it doesn’t like running on a long extension cord. That’s a problem at the Love Shack where the (unpowered) carport is 100 feet from the shack. Pressure washing out there is impossible unless you have a fairly good-sized generator to run the washer.

Another place the electric washer won’t work is on Christine, the MGB GT project as it is a fair distance from the shed at Tinfiny Ranch. I could move the car closer but there is so much rat guano inside I’d rather field clean it where she sits. In anticipation of your next question, ”Why not move one of the 35,000 generators you seem to have stacked at Tinfiny Ranch?” I say that kind of attitude will get you no new tools.

I bought the APW2700C pressure washer because it was cheap, had good reviews and it’s a horizontal crankshaft engine. The vertical crank pressure washers are ok, I guess, but if the high-pressure pump quits the engine is pretty much useless. The horizontal crank prime mover can be repurposed into any number of mini bikes, go-carts or log splitters.

I got mine on sale for around $200 and that’s really cheap compared to the average $350 price tag for a gas-powered washer. Shipping was free also! The quality looks really good with jewel like bits and pieces scattered all over. The unit even came with a quart of oil.

The APW2700C pressure washer is delivered broken down in a smaller box so there are a few parts to assemble. The handle snaps into the frame of the washer and a wand holder bolts on the side. Other than that, connect up the hose, wand and choose a tip and the unit is ready to go.

When the time came to blast the rat poo out of the MGB GT’s engine room the pressure washer started up second pull and ran perfectly. There are three different tips to alter the spray pattern but I’ve only used the wide pattern. The high pressure hose seems plenty long and the machine came with a soap dispenser bottle should you decide to mix detergent with the spray.

I’m happy with the APW2700C pressure washer, and I’m amazed at how good this pressure washer looks for only 200 bucks but since most of my possessions are junk I may have a skewed idea of what good means. The 2700 in the product name refers to the amount of pressure the unit supposedly makes. I have no way of measuring the output pressure but it’s plenty strong. It blew the paint off the MGB’s valve cover but didn’t remove the body color paint on the sides of the engine room.

I’ve got a few more pressure washing jobs for the APW2700C pressure washer and then I’ll drain the fuel until I need it again. I have no idea how long the washer will last but with my home-shop duty cycle it might be years before I find out.

More ExNotes product reviews are here!

Product Review: Evapo-Rust Rust Remover

I’ve used many different types of rust removers in my somewhat futile effort to keep old clunkers on the road. Ospho is okay on metal but not so good on aluminum, cider vinegar is great but very slow working and is acidic but the best one I’ve found is Evapo-Rust.

This fairly large container of Evapo-Rust can be bought online for less per ounce than the local big-box stores. If the stuff weren’t so expensive I’d use it to clean the inside of rusty gas tanks. As it is I can buy a new gas tank for about twice the cost of enough Evapo-Rust to fill the old, rusty tank

I’ve soaked zinc carburetor bodies in Evapo-Rust for a week without eating the soft base material. Rubber parts seem unaffected after a bath in Evapo-Rust. I don’t think it will eat carburetors ever but I haven’t tried it as long as ever. Evapo-Rust cleans the gooey carb residue along with the powdery zinc corrosion equally well. The brass carb parts come out looking like new. I haven’t found any metal the Evapo-Rust won’t clean. I’m sold on the stuff for carbs.

Evapo-Rust is great for chrome or zinc plated nuts and bolts and all the little doo-dads that need de-rusting during a motorcycle restoration. One example is the chrome headlight fork ears on the old Kawasaki 900. They were lightly rusted between the folded parts of the ears and there was no way to get down in there to clean them. A few days soaking in Evapo-Rust saw them nice and clean. After washing the parts with water I give them a shot of oil and they haven’t re-rusted. (Note: I live in New Mexico so rust is not much of a problem out here.)

Like most things in life there are a couple catches: You want to avoid leaving parts in an uncovered container of Evapo-Rust for a month like I did. The Evapo-Rust evaporates down into a thick, dark, almost plastic mass that glues itself to your part and the container. It’s a real chore to pull the part out of the container. The freebased Evapo-Rust is the consistency of really strong taffy candy. That gunk is harder to get off than the original rust! Check your parts every week or so and seal the lid if you can.

Evapo-Rust does not work as well on parts too large to submerge. I tried it on some rusty corrugated roof panels. Following Evapo-Rust instructions I soaked rags with the product and laid the wet rags on the rusty spots. Then I covered the rags with a large sheet of plastic to keep the area moist. After a couple days the rags were stuck to the roofing. I used water and elbow grease to pull the rags off. The rust was somewhat cleaned up but I think regular Ospho works better on large surfaces.

ExhaustNotes.us product reviews are here!

The Destinations Deal Ride: One of the best ever!

When I wrote the blog for CSC Motorcycles, we organized several multi-day rides (trips through Baja, the western US, China, Colombia, and more).   One of my favorite rides was the Destinations Deal tour.  It started out as an idea by the real marketing whiz in the CSC organization (who likes her anonymity, so I won’t mention her name), with directions to include some of the best destinations in the southwestern US.  As I organized the ride, I realized all the spots I selected were featured in stories I wrote for Motorcycle Classics magazine.  CSC wanted to offer a discount on any new bike purchased for the event, the Motorcycle Classics columns were all titled Destinations, and the ride quickly became known as the Destinations Deal Tour. 

The ride was awesome:  Topock, Laughlin, Oatman, the Grand Canyon, Route 66, Zion, the Extraterrestrial Highway, Tonopah, Death Valley, Shoshone, Baker, and then home.  Just over 1500 miles in 6 days on 250cc motorcycles…it would be exactly what the doctor ordered.

The Destinations Deal was one of the best rides I ever did.  Old friends and new friends, great weather, great stops, great roads, and great stories combined for an awesome week.  The roads, the riders, the restaurants, the camaraderie…it all clicked on this one.  But don’t take my word for it.   Take a look at the photos.

Leighton and a killer hot dog in Topock on the Colorado River just as we crossed into Arizona. You get a discount coupon for the local coronary care unit when you order this meal.
A few of the boys and their RX3s in Oatman. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard stayed in this hotel back in the day.
Wild jackasses roam the streets in Oatman.   I could have a lot of fun captioning this photo.
On our first night, we stayed in the Colorado Belle, a riverboat hotel on the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada.  It was our first day and we rode through three states already.  Gresh and I closed the bar that first evening. They had a live group doing ’60s Motown hits and the music was fantastic. Or maybe we just had a few too many cervezas. Or maybe it was both. The trip was off to a great start.
Day 2 on the way to the Grand Canyon. The weather was perfect for the entire ride.
Velma and Orlando, who rode two-up on a brand-new blue RX3. Orlando taught me Spanish on this ride: El naranja es el color más rápido.
Another shot of the most photogenic couple you’ll ever see on an adventure ride, this time using a super-wide-angle lens on my Nikon.  You can actually see the curvature of the earth in this photo.
Good buddy Rob, with who I’ve ridden several times in the US and Mexico, buys a drink for a new friend at the Grand Canyon.
On the road to Zion along Arizona’s Highway 89A after visiting the Grand Canyon. This was a glorious ride.
Marble Canyon in Arizona as we re-crossed the mighty Colorado River.
Zion, the Crown Jewel of our National Parks. This was shaping up to be one of the best trips ever.  From left to right, it’s Dan The Man, Orlando and Velma, Gary in the back, Leighton, Willie, and Rob.  Add Gresh and yours truly, mix well, and you have the makings of a grand adventure.
My buds in the rear view, as we waited for a group of big horn sheep to cross the road. You could say the delay was baa-aa-aa-ad, but it was worth it to see those magnificent big horns.
The next day it was on to Nevada for the long trek to Tonopah. We took the world-famous ExtraTerrestrial Highway. Here’s a shot of shot ET after he phoned home.
Selfies in Rachel, Nevada, where Joe Gresh made friends with an elderly waitress. She schooled Uncle Joe on the finer points of place settings, ketchup assignments, and more. You had to be there to fully appreciate the training session.  It was funny as hell.
On the ET Highway, headed toward Tonopah. The riding was incredible; the camaraderie even better.  We set a sedate pace to conserve fuel.  Everyone did over 70 mpg (even Orlando and Velma, riding two up).  Folks commented that they liked the slower pace.  I did, too.
After a night in Tonopah, it was on to Death Valley (entering from the northeast) the next morning. It was awesome. That’s Willie, Dan, and Gary.
The entire valley, as seen from Dante’s Peak. Death Valley is an exceptional destination.  If you’ve never been to Death Valley, you need to go.
The crew (from left to right) included Gary, Willie, Orlando, Rob, Velma, Dan, Leighton and me (I was on the other side of the camera).  Gresh was there, but he spun off to see Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley that afternoon.  He had his reasons.
We stayed in Shoshone our last night. The Shoshone Inn had a fun firepit outside. Gresh bought the beer. It had been a grand ride and it would end the next day.  I think we doubled the population the night we were in Shoshone.
Dinner in Shoshone. Like every meal on the road, it was awesome.
Back through Baker after a freezing early morning ride, breakfast at the Mad Greek (another great meal and a popular motorcycle stop), and then home. What a week!

We did a lot of grand trips at CSC, and it did a lot to help publicize the RX3.  Baja, the Western America Adventure Ride, the China ride, the Colombia ride, and more.  I did a similar ride for Janus Motorcycles (Janus makes another great 250cc motorcycle) through northern Baja with a couple of their execs and it, too, was awesome (you can read about that one here).  There’s a lot to getting these rides organized and there are always things that can go wrong (personalities, bike issues, etc.), but I’ve been lucky.  Every one has been a hoot!

This is a good time to buy a CSC or Janus motorcycle.  Both companies are running awesome Thanksgiving sales.   Check out both motorcycles; you’ll be glad you did!

Resurrections: 1974 MGB-GT Part 3 “Christine”

In between pouring slabs of concrete inside the shed I managed to get started on the MGB rat poo clean up. Several more doses of bleach were splashed around the interior of the car and wearing gloves and a N100 mask I started hauling junk out into New Mexico’s bright, November Sunshine. I’m hoping the Sun’s radiation will partially sterilize the hanta-contaminated bits.

And what a collection of bits! A cylinder head with the valves installed upside down along with a complete rocker assembly is the big score. I haven’t found any valve springs to go with the head but I’m guessing you can still buy those parts.

I wonder if my GT had the head replaced at some point and these are the old pieces or maybe the engine is shot and these were planned replacements? We will have to find out later because the owner died before he could finish the GT project. If you’ve ever read Steven King’s Christine you’ll have a good idea of the eerie vibe that comes from linking together the abandoned logic chain of a dead man’s life.

A real oddity is the front engine plate. These never go bad so why would an extra plate be under 6-inches of rat guano? I also dug out a tiny clutch and pressure plate that I assume fits the GT. I found several pulleys that look like they belong on a water pump and a harmonic balancer.

Two more wheels were inside, giving me 6 total. The extra wheels will come in handy as some of the tires are dry rotted and won’t hold air. I like the pressed metal Rostyle wheels, they look very mid-1970’s and are both strong and simple. Having been stored inside the car the extras are less rotted and should inflate enough to move the car from its sunken grave.

Included in the haul of parts are two carburetor heat shields, an intake manifold and a rocker cover. There’s a piece to the transmission that the shifter connects to and another shifter stick. I’ll have to get under the car to see if the transmission is all there. Then there’s the crankcase breather that bolts onto the side of the engine.

Under the back floor is a well to hold the spare tire. These tire changing chocks and emergency reflectors were nestled next to the spare. I wonder if they are original equipment?

A snazzy 1-into-2 tail pipe with muffler was inside the car also. The car was full of junk but the front seat area is relatively clear, if you don’t mind sitting in rat poo.

Christine’s original owner included three straight, non-rusted wheel trim rings with his Devil’s deal. I’m totally set for wheels now.

The funny part about all this junk is that the engine in Christine looks to be all there. Maybe the thing was rebuilt and the junk is leftovers. I can’t say, but it looks like I have plenty of parts. I have another plastic box of GT stuff still to look through. I saw a Weber carb in there and some other items of interest that we will get to later on in this resurrection.

Check out the earlier installments of the MGB GT resurrection!