A Tale of Two No. 1s

…and those two would be Ruger No. 1 single-shot rifles, arguably the classiest rifles on the planet. I smile when I hear folks talking about high-capacity magazines and black assault rifles. One shot, folks. That’s all it takes if you know what you’re doing. When you see someone hunting with a single-shot rifle, you know that rifleman knows how true sportsmen play the game.

My Ruger No. 1 in 7mm Remington Magnum. It has a period-correct Redfield Widefield 3×9 scope, and magnificent walnut.

Ruger introduced these rifles in the late 1960s, and they are still in production.  In 1976, like I mentioned in an earlier blog, Ruger stamped every firearm they manufactured with a “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” inscription.  I bought my first one back then, and I’ve had a soft spot for the Ruger single-shot rifles ever since.   Both of the rifles you see in this blog (mine and good buddy Greg’s) are 200th Year Rugers.

Several years ago, I found a clean, used No. 1 in 7mm Remington Magnum.  I had never owned a rifle in that caliber before, and I always wanted one.  I bought it and I kept it for several years without shooting it, and then good buddy Marty gave me a stash of new-old-stock 7mm Mag brass.   A few years before that, good buddy Jim had given me a set of 7mm RCBS dies.  With the addition of Marty’s brass, all of a sudden I was in the 7mm game.  I had the rifle, the dies, and the brass.

Yours truly, pursuing the secret sauce.

I loaded some 7mm ammo last summer and took the No. 1 to the range.  I was disappointed but not surprised that it did not group well with that first load.  It takes a while to find the right load, and the load I tried that day was only the first of many.  It’s okay.  These things take time.

Good buddy Greg’s No. 1, also in 7mm Remington Mag, and also a 200th Year Ruger. You just don’t see walnut like this on rifles today. The wood on Greg’s rifle is nicer than mine.

Good buddy Greg (I have a lot of good buddies) saw my No. 1 and he decided that his life would not be complete unless he owned one, too.   He found one with even nicer wood than mine, and it, too, was a 200th Year Ruger.  Yowwee, our load development time was cut in half!   Greg was chasing the proverbial secret sauce and so was I.

Greg, showing us how it’s done.

So about this load development business:  Every rifle is an entity unto itself.  I’m not certain what that phrase means, but I like the way it rolls off the keyboard.  I think it means every rifle is different, and if that’s the case, it sure is an accurate statement.   What you do when you reload ammo (what most of us do, anyway) is look for a load that delivers superior accuracy.  The gold standard is getting a rifle to consistently shoot three shots into an inch at 100 yards.   Most of the time, factory ammo won’t do that.  You’ve got to experiment with different combinations of bullet weight, bullet design, bullet manufacturer, bullet seating depth, crimp, powder type, powder charge, primer type, and brass case manufacturer, and if you get lucky, you might find that magic MOA load (minute of angle, or one inch at 100 yards) before you run out of money for reloading components.  It is amazing how much difference finding the right load can make.  It can take a rifle from 4-inch groups to the magic MOA.

In the case of my 7mm No .1, I’m getting pretty close.  I tested a load this past weekend that averaged 1.080 inches at 100 yards.  It shot one group into 0.656 inches…

Getting there…that old No. 1 sure likes this load!

I think I’m just about there.  This weekend I was using old brass with old primers, it had not been trimmed to assure consistent length, and I did not weigh each powder charge individually (I just let the powder dispenser add the same volume with each throw).  Those are all tricks we use to improve accuracy.  If I resize and trim the brass, use new primers, and individually weigh each charge, things should get even better.  That’s the next step.  Then I’ll start experimenting with bullet seating depths.  I’m thinking I might get this nearly-50-year-old rifle to shoot in a half-inch at 100 yards.  That would be cool.

Like I said, it took awhile to get here.  Here are the loads I tried before I shot that group above….

The best and most consistently accurate load is the second one from the bottom. The next steps will be to refine this load.

Want to see all of our gun stories?   Just click here!

Back in The Day: The Bell Star Helmet

Different versions of the Bell Star. As the design evolved, the window grew and the helmet added a flip-up visor. They were the ultimate in cool.

In the early 1970’s I worked at The Art Colony, an art supply and picture-framing store on Westward Drive. Back then I fancied myself a sort of artist and I got discounts on oil paints, brushes, and different sizes of the pre-stretched canvas we made on site. The place smelled great. They had clay and water color supplies but I never messed with that stuff because I felt those materials were inferior to oil painting. Oils were good enough for the Old Masters so they were good enough for me. Even at 15 years old I didn’t like anything new.

Motorcycle vandalism was a problem at our school. Any nice-looking bike would be attacked in the school’s parking area. You’d get your seat cut or a bunch of rocks in your gas tank if the vandals were in a good mood. If they were in a bad mood your chain might be welded solid (the motorcycle parking area was next to the metal shop, a tactical error on the school administration’s part) or sugar poured in your tank. At the time I was riding a sweet, red Honda SL70, fully street legal and had a learner’s permit to ride in the daylight hours. I never took the bike to school. I’d ride to Carlson’s house, leave the SL70 there and walk to school.

After school I’d ride to The Art Colony and work a few hours until they closed. I earned fifteen or eighteen dollars a week, which was plenty to keep the SL70 in gas and tires. At least until Wilson got a Bell Star helmet. Damn, that helmet was cool. The rest of us had open face, jet-style lids that either slid back on our head and tried to choke us or pushed down onto our nose blocking most of the road. It was probably a fitment issue but we used whatever helmet no one else wanted. Buying a helmet was an unknown concept.

Wilson’s Bell Star fit his head and had a flip down visor that was great for riding in the rain. It rained a lot in Florida. Naturally, everyone started getting Bell Star helmets and whoever bought one became instantly cool. I had to have one. Murray Auto, in Hialeah had the best price on Bell Helmets: Fifty-one dollars out the door. This was a huge sum of money back when you could buy a running Japanese motorcycle for thirty-five bucks. Regardless, I had to have one. I wanted to be cool, too.

I beavered away at The Art Colony making frames, stretching canvas and skimped on everything I could. It took about two months before I saved enough to buy a Bell. Since I was working and couldn’t get to Murray’s during business hours I handed the money to Wilson for the helmet (he had an XL70 which was nearly the same motorcycle as an SL70) and he went to Murray’s to get the lid.

He brought the helmet back to the Art shop and when we opened the box the thing positively glowed. The paint was flawless, the interior was made of an exotic brushed rayon material. It was so clean. It was like the Playboy Mansion inside. Sliding the Bell onto my head was like entering another world. The intimate view from the Star’s porthole framed a world that had changed. I felt invincible wearing that helmet. I could batter down doors, go into space or ride through the worst rainstorm safe and dry inside. If you didn’t count the rest of my body.

Bell Helmets as I knew them went out of business. I don’t know what happened. I heard lawsuits killed them off. Another company bought the name and started making all sorts of Bell-branded stuff. Mostly for bicycles. You can still buy Bell-branded helmets, they even have a cool Star Classic model.

As for me, I’m back to wearing hand me downs or freebie helmets. I got a good deal on a twenty-five dollar no-brand helmet at Pep Boys. I feel my head is worth less and less with each passing day. Back when I was 15 I had my whole life ahead of me, a quality helmet was a good investment. Now, even with inflation-adjusted money I’ll probably never spend what that old Bell Star cost on another helmet.

A quick update…

Wow, we sure are generating a lot of interest, a lot of hits, and a lot of comments here on the ExNotes website and blog.   We appreciate the comments, folks, so please keep them coming.

I need more form-generated junk emails like I need a summer cold, and I’m willing to bet you feel the same way.   That said, please consider adding your email address to the list of folks we auto-notify every time we post a new blog.   We try to post every day, and I know many of you probably just check in when it’s convenient.   Getting on our email list, though, will add one advantage you won’t otherwise get.   On a quarterly basis, provided we get at least another 200 folks sign up each quarter, we’ll give away a copy of either Moto Colombia, Riding China, or 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM to a name drawn at random from our email database.  The first winner will be announced sometime around Christmas this year.   Please encourage your friends to sign up, too.   If you’re already on the list, you’re eligible for the first drawing.   We don’t give or sell our email list to anyone, so your address is safe with us.

More news:  The next Long Beach Moto Show is just around the corner.  I’ll be there, and I’ll have lots of photos of Bold New Graphics from the Big 4, and interesting new models from everyone else.  And yeah, I’ll get a few photos of the young ladies in the Ducati, Harley, and Indian booths, too.

Make sure you check the newsstands for the latest offering from Motorcycle Classics magazine.  It’s titled Tales from the Road, and it’s a dynamite collection of great travel stories that MC, one of the greatest motorcycle magazines ever, has run in the past. Two of my stories are in there, and I know you’ll enjoy them.

We’re going to be adding a couple more index pages to the ExhaustNotes site, as we have already done for the Resurrections, Baja, Dream Bikes, YouTube, Tales of the Gun, and Books pages.   We’re thinking the next index pages will be on e-bikes, and another one for the CSC RX4.  Those areas are getting a lot of attention and a lot of hits on the blogs we’ve done, and the idea is to make it easy for you to find all of our blogs on a particular topic.  And speaking of resurrections, Joe Gresh tells me we may not be too far from hearing Zed, the star of the Resurrections page, fire up.   I’m excited about that.   Joe’s work on that barn-find Kawasaki Z1 sure is interesting.  And there’s more good stuff in the works…a feature on an old Ruger rifle in 7mm Remington Magnum for which I finally found the secret sauce (a load delivering less than 1-inch groups at 100 yards), and a special feature on something that weighs more and has less power than a full-dress potato-potato-potato cruiser (I know you didn’t think that was possible, but I have the photos to prove it).

It’s getting dark what with the time change being in effect, and my keepers are telling me I have to take my pills and get ready for bed.  Stay tuned; there’s more good stuff coming your way.

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RX3 to RX4 Comparisons: Part 3

The RX4 on the road. I wanted to get a shot at the truck scale, but conditions were not conducive to good photography.

The next two blogs (this one and the next) address more differences between the RX3 and the RX4, including the weight, the dash and instrumentation, the rear fender, tire sizes, the radiators, the radiator bottle fill port, the kickstand, the rear brake and gearshift levers, the rear wheel adjust mechanism, the swingarm, and the engine mounts.   This blog will focus on the bike’s weight and the two bikes’ highway performance.  I’ll sweep up the other differences mentioned above in the next blog.

Let’s talk about the 450-lb gorilla in the room first, and that’s the RX4’s weight.  The RX4 is a heavier bike than the RX3, and I guess the question is:  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?  It’s all a question of perspective and intended purpose.

For starters, I still don’t have an accurate, measured weight on either bike.   That’s a shame on me, although I will tell you that I tried.

My plan was to get the RX4 weighed first, and then return with my RX3 to do the same.  I took the RX4 to our local certified truck scale, but the bike was too light to register on the scale and a loudspeaker-borne voice basically told me to get out of Dodge.  It was a scary experience.  There’s a monstrous Petro truck stop on the I-10 freeway about 10 miles from where I live, and I thought it would be a simple matter to roll the RX4 onto the scales and come back with The Number.  That was my plan, anyway.

I entered the super-busy truck stop through an area teaming with idling 18-wheelers, engines barking and belching, crammed together weighting (or is that waiting?) to funnel onto the Petro parking lot scales.  On my RX4, I was acutely aware of three things:  The guys driving these monsters couldn’t see me, the engine noise and fumes were overwhelming, and the RX4’s fat rear end (those Tourfella bags are wider than the bike’s handlebars) made maneuvering through the 18-wheeler maze a dicey proposition.  The pucker factor was elevated, folks.  Big time.

I made it through, though, and I was finally on a scale with a platform as long as, well, an 18-wheeler.  There was this elevated control house sort of thing next to the platform.  It wasn’t clear to me what was supposed to happen next, as I couldn’t see anybody running the operation, and there was no digital or analog readout telling me the weight.  I stopped the bike and dismounted, and I walked toward the elevated control house when an  electronic voice from the Heavens boomed.  It was way louder then the idling diesel engines surrounding me and I could tell:  It was pissed.  At me.

“Can I help you?”  It didn’t come across as a request that implied an intent to be helpful.  It implied anger.  Seething anger.  Directed at me.  As a two-wheeler, I was but one-ninth the vehicle I was supposed to be.

Well, yeah, I want to weigh my bike.  I mean, why else would a normal person be here?

“You’re setting off my alarms.”

Sorry about that, dude.   What alarms?

“You’re too light and my alarms are going off!”

I want to weigh my bike (sometimes repetition helps, I thought).

“You need to get out!”  There it was.  No more implying or inferring.  It was out in the open now.  It was as if I was wearing a MAGA hat on the Harvard campus.  I was not welcome.

Okay, I can take a hint.  Hell, a weight is just a number anyway.

Which brings me to my next point.   What’s in a number?

Whatever the answer is to that question, I can tell you these three things: One, the RX4’s official number from Zongshen is 450 lbs.  As I said before, I don’t know if that is the right number, but I suspect it is not.  Two, the RX4 is substantially heavier than my RX3, and weigh heavier (or should that be way heavier?) than my TT250.  It feels it, and it feels to me like the weight rides higher.  Three, the RX4 is a substantially better road bike than the RX3, and the bike’s added heft and longer wheelbase (along with that marvelous 450cc motor) probably plays a role here.  Anyway, the bottom line here is this:   There’s no Joe Berk official weight yet (read that to mean a weight actually measured on a scale).

Like I said, I can feel the difference in heft between the RX3 and the RX4.  It’s enough to make me wonder:  Am I man enough to take this puppy off road?   I suppose I could be.  I know there are a few guys who actually take GS 1200 BMWs off road, and those things have seat heights and weights that require altimeters and maybe truck scales to measure.   But would I want to go off road?

The short answer, I think, is this:  If your main objective is off-road riding, there are other choices.   I’d go for my TT250 or something else.  If you are primarily a road rider, though, with the occasional off-road excursion, then the RX4 is a good choice.   In my opinion, the RX3 would be better off road, but that’s just what I said it was:  My opinion.  Your mileage may vary, as they say.  I was thinking about the stretch to the Sierra San Francisco cave paintings in Baja, and to me, I’m right at the limits of what I feel comfortable with on that gnarly stretch on my RX3.   It’s heavily rutted, there are big boulders, and it’s a challenge.  But then, I freely admit I’m not a dirt biker.  I know there are guys reading this who are thinking they would have no problem taking the RX4 off road.  If you’re one of them, you’re probably right.

If you are primarily a road rider, though, the RX4 is the better choice.  I put about 100 miles on the RX4 on freeways and surface streets here in So Cal, and I can tell you this:  The RX4 is clearly a more capable road machine than is the RX3, especially at freeway speeds.   I didn’t get a long enough stretch to measure the RX4’s top speed, but I can tell you there were spurts where I cranked it up to an indicated 99 mph and there was still more left.  That’s indicated (not actual) top speed, and the speedo is 10-12% optimistic.  Zongshen claims a top speed of 97.5 mph for the RX4, and that’s probably accurate.  The RX4 is a bike that can cruise comfortably at 80+ mph all day long; the RX3 has essentially run out of steam at that speed. The RX4 makes running with the big dogs seem easy.  It is rock steady at high speeds, and it’s comfortable.  It feels secure.

That magnificent 450cc motor…

In many ways, the RX4 reminded me more of my Triumph Tiger than it reminded me of my RX3.   The Triumph was essentially a touring machine/sports bike styled like an off-roader with saddlebags. The Triumph was heavy and I only took it off road once on purpose (and that was enough).  I rode the Triumph off road a few more times when I had to in Mexico, but it really was not an off-road bike.  I know there are guys who ride the big Tigers off road, but it’s not where the bike wants to be.   It wants to be headed to the next state, or maybe the next international border.  That’s what the RX4 wants, too.

My Triumph Tiger. In many ways, the RX4 is quite similar to the Tiger. It was a stellar long-distance touring machine; I think the RX4 is, too.

I’ll make a prediction:  Within the next two years, someone (perhaps several someones) will do the Iron Butt on the RX4.  I don’t mean a single 1000-mile Baby Butt day (good buddy Rob Morel has already done that on his RX3).  I’m talking the full-tilt boogie here:  The 11,000-mile, 11-day Iron Butt.  I think that’s going to happen.  And I think the RX4 is the bike that will do it.

I was talking to Steve Seidner about this a day or two ago, and he asked me to mention to you that CSC is taking deposits now on the RX4 (here’s a link to get to their page for placing your deposit).  CSC will sell a lot of RX4s.  The bike is that good.

Dream Bike: 1931 Excelsior-Henderson

Seriously?   A 1931 Excelsior-Henderson?   That’s my dream bike?  Well, sort of.   This was a bike that had its day well before I was born, and you might wonder:  How did it come to be my dream bike?

The story goes like this:  In April of 2006, my good buddy Marty and I rode to the Hansen Dam British Bike Meet here in southern California.   It’s a cool event that happens once of twice a year (the next one is this weekend, as a matter of fact).  The Hansen Dam meet is a photo op on steroids, as the classic British and other bikes that show up are incredibly beautiful.  I’ve been going for years and I have a lot of photos to show for it.

Anyway, the events run like this:   The bikes all gather (typically around 400 or so show up), and after everybody socializes and oogles the bikes for a couple of hours (that’s oogles, not Googles), most of the bikes leave for a big ride through the mountains.   On advice of counsel (that would be Marty), I never went on the ride.   To hear Marty explain it, these are old British bikes, and riding in that parade involves a lot of dodging and weaving to avoid oil spills and, you know, pieces of old British motorcycles. We always wait for the mass exodus to leave, and then Marty and I bail.

That’s what we had done on that April morning back in 2006.   Most of the older classics had left and Marty and I were just about to saddle up and go home when this really classy old bike rode in.  I was intrigued by the bike, it looked to be all original, and I snapped a quick photo when it rolled to a stop…

Most of the other classics had already left, and this old masterpiece arrived…it was magnificent!

I was totally focused on the bike and I was snapping away with my little Sony Mavica (those early digital cameras were awesome).  I hardly noticed the rider…even after he took his helmet off.  But then…wowee!

You know, you always think of the great things to say after the fact. I should have asked, “Can I have your autograph, Mr. Letterman?”

Yep, it was Jay Leno.   At first, I was the only guy there taking pictures.  I asked what the bike was and he told me:  A ’31 Henderson.   Where’d you find it, I asked.   “I just got it.  This 92-year-old guy called me from Vegas, said he was getting a divorce, and he needed cash fast…”

I thought old Jay was pulling my leg, and then I saw the video I’ve included below.  I guess that was a true story.  Go figure.

Jay was pretty pumped up about the bike.  I think it might have been the first time he had it out.  He told me the bike was running 70 mph on the way over, and he pointed out the speedo telltale to prove it (Mr. Leno talks about that in the YouTube below, too).

Hey, but that’s enough of my yapping and keyboard tapping…check out the photos!

A thing of beauty. Look at this inline four and its cooling fins.
What a cool dash! Look at the speedometer’s telltale.
The view from the left. Today’s faired motorcycles just don’t get it. You’re supposed to be able to see the motor on a motorcycle! Modern faired bikes look kind of like a washing machine when you take the fairings off. This is a motorcycle!
That’s not shaft drive, my friends. Those giant gears drive the speedo cable. That’s how they rolled in the early 1930s. And how about that rear brake!
The illustrated choke!
The horn, the headlight, and the front suspension. We don’t need no stinkin’ fork seals!
With a crowd watching, it took Jay two or three kicks to get the Henderson fired up. In the video below, he does it with a single kick. The badge on Jay’s jacket is from the California Highway Patrol. I’ll bet there’s a cool story behind that, too.

I sort of remembered Jay telling me the bike was a ’36, but I guess my memory is fuzzy.  I found a video online and it’s a 1931 model.   The video is cool, and I’m including it here for you to enjoy…

I’ve seen Jay Leno a half dozen times or so at motorcycle gatherings here in southern California.  He really is a nice guy.  There’s no pretentiousness or arrogance at all, and no security entourage.  It’s just Jay, a fellow gearhead.  I remember talking to this nice elderly woman at the Rock Store souvenir shop and she told me Jay was a nice guy.  She went on to tell me that most of the other celebs who show up at the Rock Store were (to use her words) “real assholes.”

When Jay arrives at an event, he is swamped with folks wanting photos and autographs as soon as he takes his helmet off, and he always goes along with the requests.  The pattern I’ve observed is that the attention lasts 15 or 20 minutes, folks get their photos and autographs, and then the King of Late Night Comedy is just another one of the guys wandering around checking out the other bikes.  I’ve got a few photos of Jay over the years, and it’s always a treat to see him.  I came home and told everybody I knew about seeing Jay Leno the first time it happened, and hey, maybe he went home and told everybody he knew about seeing me.  I’ve seen Jay Leno at the Rock Store, at Newcomb’s, and at the Hansen Dam events.  I even bumped into him once at Warner Brothers, but that’s a story for another time and another blog.

Want to see our other Dream Bikes?   Just click here and you will!

Baja, 150cc at a time: Part VI

As you’ll recall from our last installment of the CSC Mustang Baja saga, we left Ciudad Constitucion the next morning and we continued south.   We wanted to make Cabo San Lucas that evening.  That would be the turnaround point for our journey from southern California to the tip of the Baja peninsula, and we rode the entire distance on our little single-cylinder, 150cc, hardtail Mustang replicas.

Our intent was to bypass La Paz, as it is a large city and we didn’t want to get bogged down getting through it.   The map showed a bypass road, and that’s what we intended to grab.  But, our plans meant nothing. We missed the bypass road, and we found ourselves in downtown La Paz. Like I said, it’s a big town, and the temperature was over 100 degrees again.  We were getting goofy from the heat.  It’s almost hard to describe how oppressive the heat was.  We were literally in the tropics, having descended past the Tropic of Cancer.   High heat, high humidity, the hottest month of the year in Baja, fully suited in our riding gear…it was tough sledding.   Simon had the best idea…he started shedding the heavy riding gear.

Simon, with red suspenders flying…all the gear, all the time!
John and Arlene, suited up and sweating.

Simon wrote an entry on his blog that said it all…

La Paz is a hot sweaty city on the Sea of Cortez. We are hot and sweaty (other than J. who travels in air-conditioned splendour). We miss the bypass and are lost. I ask a lady for directions. She begins describing the route. I understand individual words, even entire sentences. The whole becomes a jumble. My eyes betray a fatalistic acceptance of inadequacy.
The woman halts her instructions. Her smile is familiar. It is the generous female’s smile of understanding when faced by male incompetence. Men are men. They have their uses. However, rational thought is not the male’s strong point (expect even vaguely mature thought and you will be disappointed). Humour them. Lead them by the hand. Such is the Latin way…

In brief, she stops giving directions and says, “It will be best if you follow me…”

A very patient woman and her daughter in La Paz, who guided us out of downtown…

Once we were out of La Paz, we were on the open road again and it was much better. Even when it’s hot, you can still stay cool on a motorcycle if you are moving.  When you stop, though, it gets warm and it does so immediately.  So, we kept moving. We were approaching the Pacific Ocean on the other side of Baja, and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees.

After La Paz on the eastern side of Baja, it was about 70 miles directly across the peninsula to Todos Santos on the Pacific side.  It was a nice ride.

We stopped in Todos Santos for lunch.  I grabbed this shot of my bike and I want you to notice the BajaBound.com decal.

Taking a lunch break in Todos Santos. BajaBound!

BajaBound was one of our sponsors on the CSC 150 run, and they are one of our advertisers now.  We were very grateful to Geoff and the good folks at BajaBound for their help on this adventure.

I wish I could remember the name of the place we had lunch in when we stopped in Todos Santos. It was great.

John and J enjoying lunch in Todos Santos.
Our Todos Santos waitress, Erica.

After lunch, we were on the road again…headed to our next stop and our destination for the evening, Cabo San Lucas!

Simon taking a break just north of Cabo San Lucas. He was 77 years old when I took that photo. I really admire him.
Curva Peligrosa means “dangerous curve.” I don’t know how you say “watch out for the goats.”
Just north of Cabo. This guy pulled out right in front of us…anybody who would do this has to be a real ass…

We encountered a lot of construction during our trip, which gave the CSC Mustangs a real workout. I would guess that we probably did about 50 miles or so on dirt roads where the main highway was under repair.

We didn’t intend to do any dirt riding on this trip, but we sure rolled through a lot of dirt. One of the things that surprised me was how well the little Mustangs handled in the dirt, and in particular, in soft sand. Soft sand has always scared me on a motorcycle.   At the time, I also owned a  KLR 650 and a monstrous 955cc Triumph Tiger.  With their narrow tires, these bikes would just sink into soft sand and do their best to toss me.  The Mustangs didn’t do that. They had wide tires (almost balloon tires) and they were very light. They handled the soft stuff just fine. I’m not advocating using a CSC 150 as a dirt bike, but if you find yourself on a dirt road with soft sand, these bikes handled it with grace.

And finally, the California Scooter contingent arrived in Cabo after 1100 tortuous, hot, and beautiful miles through Baja!   This was the perspective from our guest villa.

Cabo San Lucas! That’s the Sea of Cortez on the left, and the Pacific Ocean on the right.

Yep, some of the toughest riding in the world…and we did it!  We ran the entire length of the Baja peninsula!   I will tell you that I was absolutely beat when we finally made it to Cabo.  The heat was bothering all of us, my leg was giving me a lot of grief from a prior injury, and we were all feeling the burn of a long ride.  But we made it.

More good Baja trips on all different kinds of motorcycles…check out the ExhaustNotes Baja page!

If you would like to get up to speed on the prior installments of our CSC 150 Mustang replica ride to Cabo San Lucas, you can do so at this link:  The CSC 150 Cabo Run

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Learn more about motorcycling through paradise in Moto Baja!

The Rimfire Series: A 200th Year Ruger .22

Purchased used in the early ’80s for $125, this super-clean 200th Year Ruger .22 semi-auto has sent a lot of lead downrange. A comparable Ruger today costs more than $400.

The story goes something like this: William Batterman Ruger (we all knew him as Bill) was a government engineer in the late 1940s who had a good idea for an inexpensive semi-automatic .22 handgun. Ruger’s design featured a grip frame constructed of two steel stampings (left and right sides) welded together, a tubular receiver, and a reciprocating bolt. Most folks think it looks like a Luger (the famed German semi-auto handgun of both world wars), and the name Ruger sounds a lot like Luger, but the new Ruger operation was nothing like the old P-08 Luger. Ruger’s new semi-auto was actually based on the World War II Japanese Nambu pistol. It’s where the idea of a simple back-and-forth bolt in a tubular receiver came from.

The profile is thought by most to be of the more widely-known German Luger, but the design is actually based on the Japanese Nambu.

Ruger left the government, hung out a shingle on a barn in Connecticut, and built 2500 of the things in 1949. They cost under $40 and they sold quickly. Ruger tweaked the design a bit and called the updated version the Mk I, and that version remained in production from 1950 to 1981 in both fixed-sight and adjustable-sight versions.  The new Ruger was wildly popular, and for good reason: It was accurate, it was well built, it was nicely finished, and it was inexpensive. In 1976, every gun Ruger produced had a cool roll stamp: Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty.  1976 was the year I came back from an overseas US Army stint, and I started collecting Rugers with the 200th year stamp. One is the Ruger you see here.

Every Ruger manufactured in 1976 carried a 200th Year of American Liberty roll mark. They’re kind of cool, I think.

I picked up the Ruger you see here in the early 1980s, used, for $125 from a small gun shop in Pomona, California.  The gun shop is no longer there, and it’s been so long I can’t even remember the name of the place now. You don’t see many small gun shops anywhere in the US anymore (the regulatory hurdles are just too burdensome for most small businesses) and these days, you don’t see too many gun shops of any size in California. Some think that’s a good thing. As you’ve no doubt guessed, I’m not one of those people.

This old Ruger is one of my all-time favorite guns, and I was out on the range with it yesterday. It’s fun to shoot. It was windy as hell out there (so much so, that ultimately the wind peeled the cardboard target board completely off the posts it was nailed to), but I managed to squirt through four boxes of ammo first (that’s 200 rounds). Even with winds gusting somewhere north of 50mph, this 40+ year old beauty (the handgun, not me)gave a good accounting of what a well-built American pistol can do.

Not too shabby for an old guy and an old gun on a windy day. That’s 50 rounds at 50 feet with up to 50 mph gusts. I think maybe I sneezed for that one lower left shot (the only one that didn’t break the 10-ring).

The Ruger 22 semi-auto is now in its fifth design iteration. There were the originals (the first 2500 referenced above). The Mark I followed. Then the Mark II in 1981.  The Mark II had the bolt stay open after firing the last round (on mine, it closes on an empty chamber, so you have to keep track of how many shots you’ve fired). The Mark III arrived in 2004, and it featured a magazine release on the side of the grip frame, unlike the prior models’ latch release on the grip bottom (the Mark III’s mag release was more like a 1911’s). Ruger introduced the Mark IV a couple of years ago, and its claim to fame was a tilt-up receiver that made disassembly and reassembly a lot easier. Disassembly has always been easy on these guns; it’s the reassembly part that some folks find challenging.

The Ruger grip frame, formed from two welded steel stampings. The magazine latch is at the bottom of the grip frame.

I love my Ruger. That said, I really wanted a Mark IV when I found out a limited number were available with Turnbull’s color case hardening (which is a beautiful thing to behold). But alas, the Ruger Mark IV is not on the California list of approved handguns. Like I’ve said many times before, we have our share of nutty gun laws here in the Peoples’ Republik, eclipsed only by our healthy dose of nutty politicians.

A Turnbull color case hardened Ruger Mk IV. This is a beautiful handgun. It’s not available in California, unfortunately, or I would own one.

There are some collectors who focus exclusively on Ruger’s extensive array of .22 auto handguns. Lord knows there’s been a bunch of them, from the original through the Mark IV, in blued steel and stainless steel, some with plastic frames, different barrel lengths, bull barrels and tapered barrels, fixed sights, adjustable sights, one with a 1911-style grip frame, and many more. My fixed-sight 200th Year Ruger, the one you see in this blog, is one of the simpler ones and it has served me well.  I’ve put a ton of .22 ammo through it in the last 40 years, and I aim to send another ton downrange over the next 40 years.

Good old .22 ammo. Check out the price on this box!

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My Other Ride: The Bomber

I saw the advertisement for The Bomber in our local Holloman Bookoo website. Holloman Bookoo is like Craigslist but more local. There may be other BooKoo sites but I haven’t searched for them because the stuff for sale is too far away. This story gets a bit complicated but I was searching for a drive train to scavenge for Brumby, my Jeep YJ.

The Bomber, a half-ton 1990 4X4 GMC Suburban, had 3:73 axles, a running throttle-body fuel-injected small-block engine and was the last year of the solid front axle Suburbans. 1989 and 1990 were odd years for Suburbans because the rest of GM’s truck line changed body styles in 1988. For some reason the Suburban didn’t make the cut and soldiered on with the classic Square Body until joining the rest of the gang in 1991. Except for logos, the Chevy and GMC versions are pretty much exactly alike.

The Bomber’s half-ton, six-lug front axle is GM’s take on a Dana 44. I watched a Dirt Every Day video that said 1989/1990 models received axle shaft upgrades and were maybe a bit better than the D44. All this was good news for Brumby because the transmission had lost a gear and the little YJ desperately needed more power.

The Bomber’s owner wanted $1800. I drove the big beast around and offered him $1500. It was too easy; did I leave money on the table? CT (my wife) was a little unsure about my plan to strip out the Bomber for a pie-in-the-sky plan to boost the Jeep’s power. The worst time to plan an engine-axle swap is when you have no place to work and are trying to find a house to live in so I put the ménage on the back burner and busied myself with the mundane tasks of life.

The old GMC ran well and I started using it to haul materials. The thing had crazy stiff springs on the rear axle: I could load 2 tons without the axle bottoming out. The 350 small-block, while no powerhouse, could pull the grade to my house without exploding into bits. The door sticker says “Built Flint Tough” and they mean it. The added advantage of a low-range transfer case and four-wheel drive meant I could haul a 10,00 pound, concrete mixer with a yard and a half of mud up Tinfiny’s steep, slippery driveway.

The Bomber came with a custom paint job that could not have been more out of place. It was shocking. CT recommended I cover over the Starsky & Hutch themed wagon if I ever wanted her to ride in the thing. It took less than a quart of BBQ black to roll over the offending stripes. Not that it looks good now, but at least people run away slower.

Shod with smallish but almost new 31” tires, the bomber looked a little cheesy in the tire division. Bigger, 33” tires that would fill the wheel wells were ordered from Wal-Mart. Just like that the Bomber’s value doubled. I put the 31” tires on Brumby the Jeep. Remember the Jeep? The reason I bought the Bomber?

The thing is, a Suburban is handy as hell to have around. I can load it up with bags of concrete or building materials and everything stays dry. We went camping in the beast; there’s over 8 feet of room for bedding if you fold the seats down. The body is dented but rust free. I use the ‘Burb for garbage dump runs and to scare people.

I’ve grown attached to the Bomber. You’ll hear no more talk of swapping drive trains. In fact a whole new list of projects has been created. I need to remove all the interior plastic and rugs from the passenger doors rearward because it’s too hard to keep clean. I want the cargo area bare metal so I can hose it out. The stupid wooden overhead console has to go because I keep hitting my head on the edge. Then the automatic transmission needs to be swapped out for a 4-speed manual. I can’t stand automatics. It’ll need a decent paint job at some point and a roof rack with one of those tents on top.

Worst of all I’m still on the lookout for a V-8 drive train to swap into the Jeep.

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Zed’s Not Dead: Part 7

 

I finally got Zeds’ carburetors reassembled onto the rack. I’ve synchronized the 4 carbs as close as I can. The Z1 repair book I have gives a down wind, throttle-slide gap to strive for and after I got that adjustment close I moved over to the upwind side and used a small drill bit as a standard to fine tune the gap. For me, it’s easier to work that side. I use a drag/feel type of measurement. You slide the bit back and forth to sense the tension between the slide and the lower carb venturi and then try to get them all the same. You’ve got it close when the next bit under is loose and the next bit over won’t go.


After trimming some rubber flashing where the brass manifold vacuum ports enter the new rubber manifolds I managed to get them installed without stripping any more 6mm screws. The manifold clamps are soaking in Evapo-rust as we type.

The Z1 uses a fancy-for-the-time crankcase vent system. Mounted on the rear of the top crankcase is a plenum to catch oil mist and condense it back into the engine. I took this apart because the hose leading from the vent to the air cleaner box was missing and I wanted to be sure some sort of oil loving spider did not take up residence inside. Luckily it was clean inside so I gave the can a quick polish and reassembled the thing.

Next I checked the valve adjustment because I’ll be starting the beast soon and I don’t want to fight the system if the valves are way out of adjustment. Before removing the valve cover I marked the front in case it matters.

The cams and valve shims look unworn. This bike shows 41,000 miles on the odometer! If this were a Honda the cam lobes would be galled. I know this because almost every Honda I’ve owned galled its cam lobes.

The valves are close enough to start the engine, two are on the tight side and two are on the loose side. Four valves are within spec. I’ll recheck everything after starting the engine in case a chunk of carbon or a mouse paw is affecting these readings.

Zed’s clutch cable is in bad shape so I removed the clutch actuator housing/sprocket cover for replacement and cleaning/lube/adjustment. Inside I found the neutral light indicator switch broken off. I don’t think a ton of oil would have spewed out as the hole is not pressurized but it most likely would have leaked.

Zed appears to be going backwards but trust me she’s making progress. With the front of the bike jacked up you couldn’t miss the loose steering head bearings. Rather than just tighten them I took the forks apart to re-grease them. Much like removing the sprocket cover it’s a good thing I did. The top bearing looks fine but the bottom is pretty rusty. I’ve cleaned this mess up and in a pinch the bottom bearing, while pitted, could be used again but I’ll order new bearings. I’m in no mood to take the front apart again.

Zed’s fork seals were leaking. Another stroke of luck as the oil kept the lower section of the fork tubes from rusting. Under the headlamp ears the rust is worse. I’ll clean it off and coat that section with grease when I reassemble the forks. You’ll never see it. I’ve started cleaning the fork legs in preparation for disassembly. You probably already know this but remember to loosen the big bolt on top of the fork tube before removing the tubes and loosen the allen-head bolt on the bottom of the fork sliders (under the axle boss) before removing that big top bolt.

My buddy Skip sent what we hope is the correct spark advancer unit so Zed should have everything it needs to start soon. I’m a little concerned that I can only find first gear and neutral in the transmission. Hopefully, once the engine starts and oil is slung around the gearbox will shift.

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RX3 to RX4 Comparisons: Part 2

This is a continuation of the preceding blog comparing the new CSC RX4 to the RX3 motorcycle.  I probably should have waited until I had taken all of the photos and organized the comparison into discrete areas (like wheels, tires, brakes, and so on), but you’re going to have to deal with the ramblings of a disorganized mind (and that would be mine).   With apologies in advance, my ramblings will ramble on in no particular order.

With that as a preface, let’s take a look at the fuel tanks.  First up is the RX4 tank, and the big news is that it holds 5.3 gallons instead of the RX3’s 4.2 gallons.  Here’s the RX4 tank…

The RX4 fuel tank. The colors are stunning. It holds 5.3 gallons.

You can’t help but notice the paint on this motorcycle.   CSC received three bikes for the U.S. certification effort…one in silver, one in red, and one in orange.   My bike has the metalflake orange color and it’s visually arresting (it will stop you in your tracks when you see it).  Here’s a close up…

Metalflake orange. It’s beautiful. It’s the new fastest color.

There are really three or four colors going on here.  One is the metalflake orange.  Another is the metallic silver on the tank’s side panels.   A third is the even darker metallic gray on yet another side panel (you’ll see that in another photo below).   And the fourth is the black of the frame and the molded plastic body bits.  It all comes together nicely.

You can compare that to the orange on my 2015 RX3…

My orange RX3. This is the 2015 model, which is little bit different than the later CSC orange on newer RX3 motorcycles.

I mentioned the RX4’s 5.3 gallon capacity.  Okay, let me explain a bit more.  I haven’t attempted to actually run the thing dry and put 5.3 gallons of gasolina in the tank.  5.3 gallons is the figure Zongshen provided.   The RX3’s spec is 4.2 gallons, but that’s not the right number.  The RX3’s tank would hold 4.2 gallons if there was nothing else in it, but the tank is also occupied by the float for the sending unit and the fuel pump, and they both take up space.   Gerry and I once took a bone dry RX3 tank with the fuel pump and sending unit in it to a gas station, and after really finessing the gas station pump, we were able to coax 3.9 gallons into the RX3 tank.   I don’t know if the same situation applies to the RX4 tank.   Maybe that 5.3 gallon statistic is really 5.o gallons.

The other thing going on in the RX3 is that the fuel gage and the fuel warning light indicate you are out of fuel when there’s still something close to a gallon left in the tank.  As it was explained to me by the guys in Chongqing, that’s to make sure the fuel pump is always surrounded by fuel (it’s how the fuel pump is cooled).  I don’t know if the same situation applies to the RX4 fuel tank.  I have to get more miles on the bike to let you know.

So, let me do what I have a bad habit of doing, and that’s go tangential for a bit to tell you a little bit more about the RX3 tank, and in particular, the tank on my RX3.   You’ll notice that my tank has a panel with a decal that says “Speed” on it.   That was the first year of the RX3, and I guess it was Zongshen’s idea of making the motorcycle convey a fast image.  The Internet weenies had a lot of fun with that.   When they cornered me on it, I told them that CSC originally asked that the bike’s name be “Methamphetamine,” but we would have had to make the font so small you couldn’t read it.  That got a laugh and the Speed teasing ended.  Mercifully, CSC changed the name to “Adventure” the following year.  There’s no such name label or decal on the RX4.  I think that’s a good thing.

You probably notice all of the other decals on my RX3’s fuel tank.  I like to think of them as campaign ribbons.  We put one on their for each of the Baja runs, the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Run, and the Destinations Deal tour.   I like them.

Moving right along, here’s a side view of the RX4 showing the engine and fuel tank, and then a similar photo of the RX3…

Right side engine and fuel tank view of the RX4. Note the four colors, the engine guards, the engine cylinder head casting, the crank position windows (on the cylinder head), and the oil accoutrements.
The RX3 fuel tank and engine viewed from the right side of the motorcycle.

There’s a lot to take in on those two right side views.   Here we go, folks.

I guess the first thing to notice are the engine guards.  In the old days, we used to call them crash guards, but these days it’s more correct to say engine guards.   Whatever.  Anyway, on the RX3, the engine guards extend all the way to the bottom of the engine.  On the RX4, they only cover the upper portion of the bike.  I don’t know why that is. It might be that if you drop the RX4 on its side, the upper portion is enough.  But I don’t know this, and I’m not going to drop both bikes on their sides to find out.

On the RX4, the crank position windows are on the right side of the engine.  You can see them just behind the spark plug on the cylinder on the right side.  On the RX3, those viewing ports are on the left side of the engine.

The crank position viewing windows. On the RX3, they are on the left side of the engine. One the RX4, they are on the right side of the engine.

The RX3 has an upswept exhaust pipe; on the RX4, the exhaust pipe heads south to run underneath the engine, and then heads north again to an upswept exhaust pipe (you can’t see that in the above photo).  While some might view the RX4 exhaust routing as less than desirable from an offroad perspective, I’m okay with it.  The RX4 has a steel engine skid plate, and the RX4’s exhaust routing makes getting to the oil fill port a lot easier (it’s just aft of the water pump).

You’ll notice that the cylinder, cylinder head, and upper engine mount castings are all much heftier than are those on the RX3.   If you look at the cylinder head casting just aft of the cylinder head, you’ll see a weird-looking ribbed triangular extension with a threaded hole in it.   It’s on both sides of the engine.

A fixturing attach point, or perhaps to mount the engine in another bike?

With that threaded hole, it looks like Zongshen left a part off the bike (there’s nothing there).   My guess is that this feature is either used to support the engine when it is moving down the assembly line, or that it is there for mounting the engine in another frame (perhaps one of the Dakar rally bikes).   I’d like to see Zongshen remove that part of the casting on the RX4 engine; it serves no purpose on the RX4 other than to add weight to a bike that doesn’t need to take on ballast.

The RX4 appears to have the same arrangement for the oil filter and the oil strainers as does the RX3.  One strainer is accessible via a threaded cover on both sides of the crankcase; the oil filter is located beneath a cover on the right side of the engine.

Clockwise from 10:00: Small oil filler access hole and large oil filler access hole (just like the RX3), oil strainer cap (just like the RX3; there’s another on the other side of the engine), oil filter cover (just like the RX3), and oil view port (just like the RX3).

That’s enough for today, my friends.  We’ll have another RX3 and RX4 micro-comparison posted tomorrow.  I’m going to take a break and get out and ride the RX4 for awhile…