Category: Joe Gresh

Mentors: Virgil B. Patterson

Once upon a time I wanted to be a boat mechanic. When I met Virgil B. Patterson I got the chance. Everyone called him Virgil B. The Patterson part rarely came up. I met him at Admiralty Marine down on Shelter Island in San Diego where I had been hired to install bonding systems in boats.

Bonding entails electrically connecting all the underwater metal components of a boat. Stuff like rudders, props and shafts, thru-hull fittings for water intakes or transducers for electronics. These components may be bronze, stainless steel or any amalgam of metals the manufacturer used when they built the part but they are never pure anything. Bonding connects these blended combinations of atoms to a zinc or magnesium sacrificial anode. If you dip the whole mess into salt water you have a nice .75-volt battery. The zinc, being a less noble metal would slowly lose mass as a slight electrical current passed between the zinc and all the rest of the metals. By sacrificing itself the zinc protected any more-noble metals in the circuit .

There’s a lot more to bonding but the rest of it was just as boring as that last paragraph. At first I liked the job. I crawled around boats connecting things with one long, continuous piece of #10 gauge solid copper wire. We used one piece of wire to eliminate the possibility of a bad connection at one fitting causing a disconnect down the line. The wire looped back to the beginning, forming a circle so that if the bonding was cut once everything was still protected. The last thing you want is a bunch of dissimilar metals electrically connected without a chunk of zinc in the circuit. It would be better to leave the boat un-bonded and let each part corrode at its own metallurgical pace.

My initial enthusiasm waned. Bonding became a tedious and thankless task. I could work on a boat for 60 hours and it would look exactly the same as when I started. Nothing on the boat worked better or, for that matter, worse. Unless something goes very wrong electrolysis is a slow process. It took months or even years to see if you actually accomplished anything electrolysis-wise. The worst of it was that it always seemed like the customer didn’t really know why you were there.

When I wasn’t bonding boats Virgil B. would take me along on engine or transmission jobs. Virgil B. was a Marine and tough as nails but he was getting on in years and he needed a young back to help with the heavy stuff. My job was to lift the heavy stuff, carry his toolbox down the docks, run to get parts and drive him home at night after we got hammered on Mickey’s Big Mouth malt liquor. Mickey’s were unique in that they came in little green-glass hand grenades. We loved the things.

Getting hammered on Mickey’s Big Mouth malt liquor was our way of winding down after a hard day’s work. We put in a lot of time at Admiralty Marine. It was a busy shop. 60-hour weeks were normal. One week I clocked 90 hours. I was making $3.25 an hour so I needed all the time I could get. It was 6 or 7 pm when we quit and drove to the store for some Mickey’s. Virgil B. drove a 1973 Ford Ranchero Squire. The one with wood trim. At that time it was a fairly new car.

Some nights, and I never figured out why, Virgil B. wanted me to drive his car home and drop him off, then I would go to my house to sleep and pick him up in the morning. He was no more hammered than I but who knows? I tell you what, that Ranchero hood looked about 70 feet long after 4 malt liquors.

Virgil B. taught me to be the end of the line. The buck stopped with us: If we couldn’t fix the problem then we damn sure figured out how to fix it. There was no quit in Virgil B. and we never failed. The man was relentless. Lowering a 200-pound Paragon transmission (with a reduction gear!) deep into the bowels of a sail boat while Virgil B. held my legs to keep me from sliding into the hole gave me the confidence to complete any task. I was taught that there is no one else coming along and that the job was all on me, on us.

I got real busy with bonding systems so Admiralty Marine hired a full-time helper for Virgil B. He was a young Marine fresh out of the military. I’ll call him Eric because he resembled Eric Estrada. The son-of-a-bitch looked like a movie star. Virgil B. picked Eric from the other applicants because he was big, strong, a Marine and he was beautiful.

Virgil glowed with the pride of ownership. Standing Eric next to me was comical: Eric towered 6-feet 3-inches, I was 5-foot 7-inches. It was like Pee Wee Herman next to Charles Atlas. Eric was well into the lower 200-pound range. I had long, scraggly hair and weighed about 130 pounds.

But the pride of ownership soon faded. Eric and Virgil B. were sent out on jobs and kept coming back with problems. This wouldn’t come loose or that was heavy. Even simple things stalled Eric. He was just lazy, was the problem. Virgil B. took me aside one day and said “I don’t know what happened to the Marine Corps but Eric wouldn’t have been a Marine in my day.”

The final straw was a diesel Ford Lehman cylinder head Eric was to bring in for a valve job. The Lehman is a mid-sized diesel and the head is one big ass chunk of iron covering 6 cylinders. Eric came back to the shop empty handed and told Virgil B. that it was stuck. The frustration welled up and in disgust Virgil B. turned to me and said, “Joe, go get that god-damn cylinder head.”

There was no way in hell I was going to let Virgil B. down. I would have died if that’s what it took. The buck stopped with me. I broke ratchets and sockets. In the cramped engine room I strained lifting the cylinder head off the block and carrying it up from the engine room, down the docks and into the truck. It really should have been a two-man job but I brought Virgil B. that Lehman cylinder head. At the shop I dropped the pickup’s tailgate revealing the cylinder head. The look Virgil B. gave Eric was worth every single BTU of energy I had expended. If couldn’t be pretty or tall at least I could be relentless like Virgil B.

Eric was fired. I overheard Virgil B. telling Admiralty’s owner “He just doesn’t have it.” After the Eric debacle, Virgil B. took me along for all the hard jobs. The jobs that nobody wanted to do. We drank malt liquor and worked late. We rebuilt Perkins and Chevys, Toroflows and Atomic-4s. It was a wonderful time in my life and the methodical trouble-shooting lessons I learned from Virgil B. have served me well. But the most important lessons Virgil B. taught me were that if I never quit I can never fail and that the buck stops here.

Tie Back Action!

Tinfiny Ranch is a steep and rutted place. Located in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains we get a lot of runoff. When it rains water flows through the joint with alarming speed carrying off soil as fast as I can put it back. After living here only 4 years we lost 18 inches of dirt and the house’s foundation was laid bare. The solution to handling intermittent, mass quantities of water is terracing and concrete. I built a long retaining wall and back filled it with dirt but I wanted a bit more tip resistance than just the extended foundation and concrete slab top would provide. The new grade is much gentler slowing the speed of the water and directing it away from the house.

Enter the tieback. The tieback is a belt and suspenders type of thing. In my case I bent a loop on pieces of 5/8” rebar, ground the ends as round as I could by free hand (If I only had a lathe!) and threaded the bar for 5/8 coupling nuts.

The nuts spin on to the threaded rebar until tight, but seeing as how the threads were kind of ragged on the rebar I decided to give them a lick of weld to ensure the bar won’t pull out of the nut. I used an Oxy-Acetylene welder because it’s the only type of welding I can still see.

After welding the tieback I dug a T-shaped hole for concrete. In this setup the concrete is mostly there to protect the rebar from rusting. Any tipping force on the wall tries to stretch the rebar and pull the cross piece through the dirt.

The rebar connects to a 5/8” threaded rod cast into the poured concrete columns. These poured columns tie each 8-foot section of wall together and have a L-shaped foot protruding on the fill side. The L-foot column is yet another tool to prevent tipping.

Once poured, the tie back is buried and the dirt compacted. About 6-feet long with a 24-inch cross bar, one of these tiebacks anchors each 8-foot section. The idea being the wall would have to move a lot of compacted, dry dirt to fall over.

The wall has 3/8” rebar every few cells of the block sections. This rebar is poured into the foundation of the wall and all the block cells are filled with concrete. The 3/8” rebar stands proud of the final slab elevation.

Capping all this monkey-motion, the protruding 3/8” rebar is bent over below the finished grade of the slab and tied to more steel. Another rebar runs parallel along the wall to emulate a cap. Then the slab is poured making a nice beer drinking or steak grilling patio.

Obviously if you’ve read this far you’ll realize I’m not an engineer so all this may be excessive or futile but to tip the retaining wall you’ll have to lever the foundation L-feet, pull the tie backs through the dirt and drag a 30-foot long by 10-feet wide patio across the ground. It’s not impossible given enough ground saturation but the wall is only 4-feet tall at its highest and I’m hoping the slab keeps the dirt beneath dry.

If this wall fails I’ll just leave it for fill and start another wall a few feet away from the wreckage. It’s been a fun project and I plan to extend the retaining wall another 30 feet after this year’s monsoon season is over.

Zed: Miles of Smiles

During this Covid-19 lockdown I’ve been racking up the miles of Zed. I fill the tank before I leave home and gas up once mid-ride making sure to rinse my hands with gasoline to kill any virus remnants left on the bowser keypad or handle. For those of you who are concerned about my crashing the bike and adding to the overwhelmed medical staff, fear not: I am riding easy like Easy Rider. Also Southern New Mexico is at the very beginning of the infection curve so the hospitals have plenty of room.

Since the last oil leak was stopped Zed has done 650 miles and she’s dry as a bone. I checked the oil level and it has not dropped. I feel confident that zed’s engine will take me anywhere. It feels like the bike is running a wee bit too rich but my riding area goes from 4500 feet elevation to 9000 feet. The jetting is stock in Zed’s carbs so if I chose to ride only in New Mexico I’d re-jet the thing. As it is I get a fairly steady 40 miles per gallon, mostly highway miles @ 70 to 80 miles per hour.

But I’m not going to stay around here. Berk and me are going to ride down to Mexico when this thing is all over. We’re going all the way to the end of the road, man. We’ll pick up Big John on the way. We’ll drink Modelo beer in the evening and eat Mexican food until we burst. Berk has a new 650 Royal Enfield that will get enough miles per gallon for both of us. I’ll bring my syphon hose. Orlando has a Texas Hill Country ride planned and I’d like to get down there. I’ll be interested to see if Zed’s fuel mileage improves at lower levels. I tried the magic gas treatment on Zed but unlike the 10 MPG improvement I see on the fuel-injected Husqvarna the magic sauce doesn’t seem to do anything for the carbureted Z1. Maybe there are just too many carbs.

Riders today think all bikes handled badly before they came on the scene. The Z1 was reputed to be ill handling, not as bad as the two stroke triples but still deadly. I’m not feeling it. At sane speeds the bike is steady and it corners with a delightful, easy steering. The bike does not show its 500 pounds. Winding it up to 110 MPH reveals no wobbles. Hitting a bump mid-corner induces a tiny wiggle but it’s no worse than other bikes I’ve ridden and quite a lot better than some late-model heavy weights. Maybe modern bias-ply tires are better than they were in the early 1970’s.

The front brake squeals at slow speed. The aftermarket pucks did not have the threaded hole to screw the thin, anti-vibration shim to. I thought I could get away with leaving it out. Looks like I’ll have to try some of that disc pad backing goop.  Or, once all other options are exhausted, get the correct pads.

I’ve tried to social distance on my rides but in the Carrizozo Park my perimeter was compromised by a scraggly looking dude walking two scraggly dogs. “Nice day for a ride!’ he exhaled a dense stream of almost pure Covid 19 virus across the picnic table. I staggered to stay upright, it was a water main gusher. My to-go hamburger was glowing with a faint greenish light. Covid dripped through the expanded metal tabletop peeling the paint from the metal as it went. “Yep, It doesn’t get any better” I said scooting farther down the bench. “What ya riding? A 200?” the wind was at a better angle now, the covid pooled by the dog with one front paw in a sling, who sniffed at the greenish mass with nothing like enthusiasm.

“No, it’s a 900cc.” I said. Scraggly squinted at the bike. “That’s a small bike, 900 you say?” He didn’t believe me and I didn’t want to prove it with a tear down and bore inspection. “I’m a Vietnam vet!” He said. “I’m crazy but it’s not my fault.” He had one bad eye and used it to glare at me. “It’s the stuff they made me do, and now the VA won’t help me!” I said I thought the VA was supposed to be getting more money. He laughed; a chunk of grey, spongy lung flew out of his mouth. “That’s all a lie! That money is going in their pockets.” He stuck his right hand in his pocket for emphasis.

“This town sucks, there’s no prostitutes!” he shouted. I looked around and had to agree that this section of town did not have any working the street. “I hate it here. I’d like to go back to Vietnam and kill people!” I was beginning to suspect Scraggly might really be crazy. I quickly ate my burger and stood up. I told Scraggly, “Well, I’ve got to hit the road.”

“Okay, I’m leaving in 28 days, going to Georgia.” We shook hands; at that point I was already covered in Covid. Back at the bike, I stuck a paper towel inside Zed’s gas tank and used the cool gasoline to wash my hands and face. Then I cleaned my arms and then lit a match and set the whole shebang on fire.

The brakes on the Z1 are not awe-inspiring. It takes 4 fingers to get the front tire to break traction. The rear is pretty good but who uses rear brakes? The front suspension clatters as it tops out over bumps but after a few cycles they quiet down. The back shocks are original and I assume 45 years old but they keep the tire from hitting the fender and that’s all I can ask from shock absorbers.

Me and my riding buddy Mike took a long, 280 mile ride. The Z1 ran perfectly. Mike was on his Fatboy Harley. The Zed hits reserve kind of early. Like 100-110 miles. I still have a lot of gas so I may shorten the pick up tube a bit. I don’t like drawing from the bottom of the tank if I don’t have to. The 104 cubic-inch Harley gets 50 miles to a gallon! Zed is a thirsty beast.

Next up is an oil and filter change on Zed as soon as my oil arrives from Amazon. I’ll be checking the spooge closely for any odd bits of metal. That is, assuming I’m not on a ventilator by then.

Read the story of Zed’s resurrection here!

CSC’s new colors and some good adventure video…

I stopped by CSC Motorcycles last week to visit with my friend Steve and see the new TT250, San Gabriel, and RX3 colors.   I and my camera will try to do justice to the new CSC paint themes, and hey, while we here, we’ll share a few videos.

The TT250 line has an entirely new set of colors, and I like the new look.

There’s a cool decal on the TT250 side panel, too, which i like a lot.  It reminds me a bit of what new Triumphs had in the 1960s, when every one of their bikes had a “world’s fastest motorcycle” decal on the tank.

As you know, I have a TT250, and mine is from the very first shipment that came into CSC a few years ago.  Mine is black with bold TT lettering on the tank and side panels.  I like that bike, I’ve ridden it in Baja (the video below is taking it through the Rumarosa Grade in northern Baja), and I’m going to fire it up and ride it around a bit today.

Next up is a photo of the San Gabriels. The new colors on the SG250 work well, too.

You know, I did one of the very first San Gabriel videos when those bikes first came to America.  It, too, was a hoot.

And here are a few photos of the CSC RX3, a bike that has generated lots of smiles and lots of miles since its introduction to the United States in 2015.  The new colors are much more interesting and maybe a little more subtle than what we’ve seen on RX3 motorcycles in the past.  There’s a gray and turquoise theme, and a silver and red alternative.  They both look good.

I like the new RX3 paint themes, and I like the original ones, too.  I ride an RX3.  Mine’s a 2015 model and, like my TT250, it’s one from the very first shipment to the US.  My RX3 is orange (the fastest color, as good buddy Orlando knows), and it’s one of the early ones that faded to a kind of subdued yellow (that’s before Zongshen started adding color stabilizers to the paint).   I like that look and I’ve had a lot of great rides on RX3 motorcycles, starting with our initial CSC Baja run.  That ride was a hoot and a half.  Imagine that:  A brand new shipment of RX3 motorcycles (the first in the US), and yours truly and 15 other intrepid CSC riders did 1700 miles in Baja on these bikes.   Take a look:

Our next big RX3 ride was the Western America Adventure Ride…5000 miles across the Western US, from So Cal to Sturgis to Portland and then down the Pacific coast to home. I didn’t do a video on that ride, but good buddy Joe Gresh sure did!

We did several more CSC Baja rides, a bunch of rides in the US, and our absolutely amazing 6000-mile ride across the ancient kingdom on RX3 motorcycles:

Not enough?  Hey, how about a ride through magical Colombia on RS3 motorcycles?   The RS3 is the carbureted version of the RX3, and it, too, was an amazing adventure:

If you enjoy watching YouTube videos, we have quite a few more on our YouTubby page.   Grab a cup of coffee, click on the YouTubby link, and have fun.  I sure did.

Zed: Better Living Through Silicone

Every time I tinker with Zed it leaks a little less. This session I tackled the alternator wire oil leak. Zed’s alternator runs wet, a popular thing to do way back when motorcycles were made of steel and riders were flesh and blood. Where the wire harness exits the stator housing a rubber grommet is supposed to keep oil from seeping out. Someone had stuffed electrical tape down in there and Zed’s grommet wasn’t doing its job because the harness dripped oil.

The problem with replacing the grommet is that the stator harness plug needs to be dismantled to get the wire ends through the grommet. Dismantling the 45 year old stator plug is an iffy proposition. You’ll break the brittle plastic for sure. I guess you could eliminate the plug, cut the wire ends off and butt splice the mess back together. It would probably be better from an electrical standpoint.

The job also requires removing the stator housing to gain access to the grommet. That means a new cover gasket and more work. Instead, I took ExhaustNotes.us reader, Honda 919’s advice: After removing the tape and gunk in the grommet area I flushed the void with carb cleaner and mopped it out with a rag. Once I got the void nice and clean I packed in black, RTV silicone until it was flush with the stator housing. Then I let it dry over night. No more stator leak…at least for now.

The black rubber, half-circle cam end plugs were the next problem. Oil seeped out of these with the engine running and at high speeds the oil would blow back onto the plug wire and whatever pants you happened to be wearing that day. The plugs are more than just rubber though, they have an aluminum core to help hold their shape. Zed’s were dry and hard from years of service so I bought new ones.

The old cam plugs were glued in with silicone. I’m not sure it’s a factory process but I used a tiny bit of RTV black on the head semi-circle to help seal the plugs. All went well until I started tightening the valve cover and the rubber plugs started to squirt out the side of the head. Maybe the silicone was making the plugs slippery. I used a rubber mallet to tap the rubber plugs back into the head but when I did that the valve cover gasket pulled in towards the head.

I decided to let the silicone set up and walked away. The next day I loosened the valve cover, set the valve cover gasket back into position and buttoned the thing up. Hopefully for good.

Somewhere in all these road tests the high/low beam knob fell off leaving a broken bit of plastic stalk to control the lights. The parts to fix the high/low switch cost nearly as much as an entire new switch cluster! Having had about enough parts ordering I heated and curved a bit of black plastic, drilled a hole in the thing and RTV silicone glued it onto the protruding bit of the switch stalk. It looks horrible but at least it’s ugly.

I set an ambitious goal for Zed’s 4th test run: 200 miles across the Sacramento Mountains to eastern New Mexico and back. I was only 15 miles into the test run when I smelled oil. The damn valve cover was leaking. Still! The two forward cam ends had a light sheen of oil so I aborted the big ride and took a shorter route. After 36 miles of riding the oil leak seemed to be gone. After 60 miles of riding the cams were nice and dry and there was no oil smell. After 90 miles of riding, not a drop of oil anywhere: the engine was dry. Maybe the earlier oil leak was pre-existing oil blowing around the front of the engine? Back home I checked Zed and could not find any leaks.

I believe the test runs are over for Zed. It runs great and it doesn’t leak. There will be more repairs in Zed’s future but I feel pretty confident in the old motorcycle getting me where I need to go. That is, if the gas tank doesn’t leak.

More Zed’s Not Dead here!

Another Day, Another Leak

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. It sounds like I’m having lots of trouble getting Zed back on the road but it’s really more a function of my resurrection approach. I tried to spend the minimum amount required to get the 1975 Kawasaki Z1 operational because I didn’t know if the engine was shot or if the transmission slipped out of gear under load. Having done that, and proven to myself that this 900cc mill is a sweet one I can invest more money into some age-related issues.

On my first 30-mile road test I had a two copious oil leaks and I resolved those in a previous story. Zed was ready for a more ambitious undertaking. I laid out an 80-mile round trip to the Three Rivers, Santa Nino De Atocha church. The Santa Nino is off the beaten path but is still in use. Next door to the church is an interesting graveyard that I planned to commune with the spirits in while I sipped my thermos of Batdorf & Bronson® coffee. Hanging out with dead people is a great way to avoid catching the corona virus.

Zed ran strong and we made it out to church in fine tune. I parked the bike, pulled out my thermos and prepared for the séance. Then I noticed the gas leak. A panic set in: how long has it been leaking? Will I have enough fuel to get home? Won’t I look pretty stupid after hating on tank sealer for so long?

I took a big slug of coffee in case the situation spun out of control and I had no time later. Popping the seat I could see a thin stream of fuel shooting from the left rear seam directly into the air box inlet screen. It was strong, pretty thin and 3-inches long…Ahem…

I never go anywhere on a motorcycle without tools so I had vise grips in my bag (that was strapped to the much-hated luggage rack) and managed to crimp the seam slowing the pinhole leak. Fuel was still seeping but at least it wasn’t spraying out. I took one more slug of coffee for the road and reloaded the bike. Since the leak was using fuel faster than I was burning it I cruised back at a brisk 80 miles per hour. I had less than a gallon left when I got home, a 20-mpg average.

This next part will require so many disclaimers that the blog would crash under the weight of them. Listen, if you don’t know how or are even slightly worried about welding a fuel tank then don’t do it. If you choose to weld on a fuel tank don’t come crying to me pointing at bits of sheet metal stuck in your eye.

After draining the tank I blew it out with a grass blower to dry out any residue. Next I shot a heat gun into the filler neck to warm up the tank, hoping to evaporate any remaining fuel. Then I blew it out again and gave it the heat gun treatment again. This all took about ½ hour.

My finely calibrated nose told me that the fuel/air ratio inside the tank had dropped to safe levels. You can’t teach this skill; it’s like wine tasting. You have to blow up a few gas tanks to get the knack. I took the tank outside where there was plenty of room to explode and stuck a lighted propane torch nozzle inside the tank. The tank did not kill me. I was ready to weld.

I knew where the pinhole leak was but I brazed a wide area on either side in case other leaks were concealed by the main leak. I use brazing rod instead of welding the tank because the metal was so thin I would burn through trying to cover the amount of tank I wanted to cover. Once I thought that I had piled on enough material I reinstalled the fuel tap, filled the tank and waited to see if it would leak.

The tank stayed nice and dry. It was time for another test run, this one 140 miles in duration. Zed passed with flying colors. This bike runs smooth at 4800 RPM and 70-ish miles per hour. Hills and headwinds don’t bother the thing and I had plenty of both on the third test run. I averaged 40 miles per gallon running 70 most of the trip.

The half-circle cam-end rubbers leaked oil but I knew they were leaking and I have new ones on order. The alternator wire harness leaks a few drops where it exits the stator housing. That will require a new grommet. The speedometer is jumpy above 60 miles per hour. I’ll try a new cable but I suspect the grease has dried out inside the gauge. Low beam blew out in the headlight. That may be due to the 14.8-volt charge rate or the old bulb that came in the headlight was ready to go. I’ll install another bulb and if it blows I’ll knock down the voltage to the headlight. Otherwise nothing really bad happened.

Zed has proven to be an excellent runner so there are a few more things I want to do to the carburetors. New needles and seats, enrichener plunger seals, bowl gaskets and free up the stuck bowl drain screws. Kind of tighten up the carbs as it were.

Now we come to the elephant in the room: the fuel tank. Zed’s tank was very rusty before I cleaned it out. That rust has eaten deep into the seams of the gas tank. I don’t believe my patch job is a permanent fix. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday another thin spot on the seam will give way and start spewing gasoline. Zed’s patina is cool and all but I plan on taking some long, lonely motorcycle rides and that gas tank worries me. I know I could pour that devil’s brew tank liner crap inside and buy a few years of service. A new Z1 aftermarket tank in grey primer is $300. Or I could use Trump’s stimulus check on a whole new set of Z1 Enterprise’s red bodywork (tank, fender, side covers) beautifully painted in the original Kawasaki style for $1300.

I’m cheap but that Z1E bodywork would make old Zed look like a new motorcycle. I have no bias against a nice looking motorcycle. I don’t need to ride a ratty bike, you know? Any suggestions?

Check out the compleat Z1 resurrection here!

Product Test: British Motorcycle Gear Rapido Gloves

I have managed to use British Motorcycle Gear’s Rapido gloves in temperatures ranging from the low 40s to the mid-90s and they have worked well across that range. All in, I’ve done about 600 miles wearing these gloves. Despite the wide temperature variations the gloves were never uncomfortably hot on my rides around muggy, warm Daytona last month.

The Rapidos are fairly stiff when you first put them on. Normally stiff is an attribute men aspire to but getting the Rapidos on and off was a bit of a struggle the first day. By day 4 the gloves had loosened up quite a bit and I no longer thought about the process.

Another reason I had trouble getting in the Rapidos was because they come with triple hook and loop straps, two on the gauntlet and one on the wrist. I didn’t realize the wrist strap adjusted and so was forcing them on willy-nilly. Loosening all the straps made it easier.

One benefit to all those straps is security: once tightened down this glove is not going to fly off in a crash unless your hand is still inside it. More security is provided by the thick rubber finger guards on the leading edge of the glove. If you’ve done much off-roading with faster buddies you know how painful a rock tossed into your hand can be. I wish I had these on a few months ago when Mike kicked up a boulder into my finger. It felt like the thing was broken. Three of the finger guards have little vents built into them, kind of like little hood scoops. The vents don’t pass much air but if you hold your hand out fingers forward you can feel the air coming in.

Yet more security comes in the form of a carbon fiber looking knuckle plate attached to the glove. BMG calls it Carbon Leather, I think. I haven’t managed to test this bit because I don’t want to hurt myself but if your hand became pinned beneath the bike and the pavement (never let go of the bike!) I imagine it would buy a few hundred feet of abrasion before you started to lose any knuckle. Amazingly, all that armor does not restrict hand movement much and once the gloves are broken in you can make a fist easily.

The Rapidos have a fairly long gauntlet and with the straps disconnected the mouth opens wide to fit big jacket sleeves. There’s a decent range of adjustment on the gauntlet. I was able to snug them down while riding in just a T-shirt and a G-string. The Rapido’s palm area has a lot of activity going on what with extra pads and stitches but none of it seemed to cause blisters. The Rapidos are heavier duty gloves than I’m used to wearing. They feel like they might actually protect your hands in a wipeout. I usually wear long white opera gloves or Harbor freight Nitrile gloves when riding motorcycles.

My red Rapido glove’s appearance is not exactly conservative; in fact they’re downright flashy. When I put them on I get a strange urge to crash The Avengers from the Marvel movie series. If you’re an under-the-radar guy get the black Rapidos. At $79 list price the Rapidos are not cheap but my regular work gloves run 10 or 12 bucks a pair and they don’t have near as many nifty features as the Rapidos.

I’m going to use the Rapidos for the next few years and I’ll be sure to write an Exhaustnotes long term review if the world doesn’t end before the gloves do. Maybe we’ll get lucky and I’ll get to crash test the Rapidos.

The Leaky Wheel Gets The Seal

I’ve been watching Berk’s incredible ExhaustNotes content tsunami from afar. The man is amazing, filing stories at a pace that would take 10 or more standard journalists to match. I, on the other hand, have been sleeping until noon and never change out of my pajamas. I managed to avoid getting Covid-19 so far and for a lot of Americans that would be considered success. I’m not most Americans. I want it all so I tore into Zed hoping to stop a few nagging oil leaks that are messing up my nice new concrete floor.

The biggest leak on Zed was the tach drive. And on that part the hardened, dry O-ring was the major source of oil. I dismantled the thing anyway and replaced the shaft seal with a new one from an EBay seal kit. I went EBay for the seals even though my favorite store Z1 Enterprises was cheaper. It was the shipping. The EBay kit was only a $1 more but included free shipping, which made the seal, kit $10 less. Yes, I’m that cheap.

The O-ring had to be gently cut off and it broke into two pieces as the razor knife dug in. For the internal seal I inserted a small screwdriver at an angle and using a small pin punch, tapped the screwdriver until the seal popped out. It wasn’t that tight. Reassembly was a breeze.

While the leak from the tach drive was dependent on the engine running, a constant drip from the very bottom of the engine was not. It leaked all the time. I traced that leak to the shifter shaft seal. This seal is submerged in oil, hence the steady if unspectacular leak. This leak wasn’t the end of the world as a week’s worth added up to a dime-sized puddle. I figured I had the seal so why not change it?

To do the shifter seal right you really need to remove the countershaft sprocket and the shift ratchet housing. I’m way too lazy to mess with all that, Besides, I didn’t have a gasket for the shifter casting and I didn’t want to create more work. Instead, I used two thin strips of metal and bent short hooks on the ends. The hooks were small enough to fit between the shifter shaft and the outer metal ring of the seal. After jiggling them into place I clamped the ends together with vise grips and used a long paddle bit to lever the seal out of its housing.

It worked so well it caught me off guard. Oil poured out of the shift seal housing onto my nice, new concrete. I rushed around looking for something to catch the mess. Nothing was low enough to fit under Zed’s 4-into-1 headers. Ultimately I cut down an empty kitty litter jug and shoved the plastic tray under Zed. What a mess.

Oil was still dribbling out when I managed to get the seal somewhat started using a short piece of ½” CPVC pipe as a driver. The CPVC pipe wasn’t quite thick enough to make a good, flat push so I drilled a ½” galvanized nut to slip over the shifter shaft and then pounded the nut with the CPVC. That combination made a satisfying thunk when the seal quit moving and the new seal looks seated about the same as the old seal depth wise.

I lost a quart of oil in the shifter shaft mess so I topped up the Kawasaki and after cleaning the floor, ran the bike 5 minutes with out seeing any major leaks. This is good news. The seal changing kit has been taped together and labeled so that when I die anyone going through my tools will know what it’s for.

Time to take Zed out on a run to see what else leaks. I still don’t have a tag because the tag places are closed here in New Mexico. I should have insurance soon. I’m going to bring along the title in my name, proof of insurance and a line of BS for when I get stopped due to my tag being expired 17 years.

There are a few other seals that I’m going to change because they are old. They’re not leaking yet but I plan on taking Zed on some long rides. I figure 45 years is long enough for a seal to last.

A Joe Gresh burnout…

Joe Gresh recently returned from Daytona and while he was there he rode an Indian FTR 1200 Rally.    Joe created one of his outstanding videos and we’re sharing it here on the ExNotes blog.

Joe does a pretty mean burnout, as I learned one day in Port Orford, Oregon. That’s a story for another time, and no, I didn’t capture it on video. But it’s a hell of a story.  Maybe one for another time.

Social Distancing, Daytona style…

Our very own Joe Gresh was in Daytona last week, except the Daytona show did not go on.  The formal show, anyway.  What others do or don’t do would never put the binders on a Joe Gresh adventure, and he published the story of his visit and the mighty Indian FTR 1200 Rally on Motorcycle.com.  It’s typical Joe G, which is to say it’s great, and you can read it here:

Social Distancing with Indian’s New FTR1200 Rally

Nicely done, Joe!