I Keep On Keepin' On...

I keep making progress on the bike... in between the wind storms. I can honestly say I don't care much for such work in the jaws of a Rocky Mountain Wind... and the folks that sited this garage, being farm folk; that's the sort that spend their lives... living on the land... I have to say WTF?

... You Should know better! You don't site your doors facing the prevailing wind! I don't care if you ARE behind a windbreak... it's just dumb... Man... You open that door and those gusts come a whooshin' in and send stuff flying everywhere...

Yeah sure, there's lights inside and I COULD close the door... Lil' 60 watt bulbs ten feet in the air and spaced about fifteen feet apart. It's like trying to light up a stadium with a bic lighter. ;)

 So anyway... I got to polishing on those Yamaha wheels.. Honestly, I thought I was pretty screwed...

They appeared to have gone through some sort of a warzone... and I never saw it... just saw the wheels after. No idea of where it happened.

They looked like gravel just got in there and rolled around for a few miles... 'cept... I was never in any when they got dinged up.



Figured it would take damn near grinding to bring 'em back to anything respectable...

Lucky for me, it was one more time I've been found to be wrong... As it turns out, Yamaha has 'em coated with some variety of clear coat.

I don't know what did the damage but the damage is only to that clear coat.

I found that wet sanding with a fine sponge sanding pad takes that finish off and leaves a nice clean undamaged wheel behind...

Cool...

It's not an especially quick process... I suppose it might be if I used a coarser sponge sanding pad? buuuuuut... My thinking is I can do a lot of damage a lot slower... with the fine pad. ;)

That allows me more time to catch my self doing something wrong so I can... STOP!

So... slowly I go.

 Got back to work on the saddlebags today... wind or no wind... and no wind could only be called a wish... When I made a run for a bit more sandpaper and some dust masks... it was pushing that truck around...which weighing maybe 8500 or so, takes some doing!

But... I got the "Bad" lid stripped down to and through the Gel Coat where needed...

The more finish I took off the more cracks were revealed... as well as significant areas of pinholes.

The circled areas are where the cracks are... the "dotted" areas are some of the pinholed areas revealed when I started sanding the primer layer.

The gel coat on this particular lid seems to be total junk...

As soon as the top finish was gone and I started into the primer... the pinholes appeared...

...and penetrated a ways into the gel coat.

Luckily that ALL seems to be confined to the gel coat... which is the lighter blue colored area.

Where the cracking was the worst I took the gel coat clean off down to the fiberglass... which eliminated all those cracks. There seems to be no failure of the basic fiberglass itself, only a bad gel coat.

Thing is... THAT would have been clearly visible when it left the glass shop at Tsukayu and went to the paint shop to be primer painted. Either somebody didn't do his job or... company policy is screwin' the pooch (and the customer) just a bit.

Anyway, I finished taking off ALL of that grey layer, which is the primer...

So now the damaged lid is ready to coat with a layer or two of resin to seal it up.

Then primer and repaint...

Along with repainting the other lid and two tubs.

And then get 'em all hung back on the bike.

Tsukayu warranty is only 6 months. So... a "Good" price is not so good... when you have a failure at about 18 months of age that they won't make right... Life in the west.

The scrubbing of the fins on the jugs is going slowly too... that west coast salt sea air might be good for your lungs... and a beautiful place to see... but it's hell on aluminum parts. :) That black oxidation on Aluminum is a piece of work to remove...

If I ever go back I'm going to have to find a way to coat or treat the exposed parts some way to resist that oxidation. Maybe a whole lot of carwashes and that "Protectant" spray. :)

All this work, has given my head the time required to turn itself inside out trying to conjure alternatives to what had been "the Plan"... I may just end up with a shined up scooter..

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

 

Saved By The Bell? ... Or ... Tormented By Time

Damn... You look at the way things lay and you make a decision. You make a choice... and then... time jumps up and stacks junk in your way.

The weather obstructs your work, dinero shortages to do a job slows things down... peeling one layer of a job reveals unexpected issues...

... and there you sit... with that damned thing between your ears now having the time to second guess every choice and conjure up all sorts of new difficulties to get you into.

Sonja, my Raider, still sits over in the garage in several pieces. Her seat is up on one shelf... her pipes lay on a big work table... the saddlebags sit on a work stand (work on them arrested waiting on a reply from Tsukayu) the covers off each side of the motor lay beside the pipes. Removed so I have better access to the jugs behind them to polish the tarnish off the edge of the fins.

The off side foot peg dangles where it had to be taken loose to get the pipes off...

Yesterday... I pulled the bent shift lever to see if it would straighten up without failing. I bent it when the bike fell in that lil' U-turn didoe on San Juan Island in Puget sound. Left it alone for all this time 'cuz I was fearful that cast aluminum wouldn't bend back again.

So... I figured now's the time... bend it or replace it...

As I was whacking the shift lever about half an inch back to where it should be, clamped in a vise, with a two pound ball peen, and the cast aluminum DIDN'T crack! :) the visions hit me like a brick...

... Climbing up over going to the sun up in Glacier, rolling around that island in Puget sound, ripping through the Arizona desert north of 120mph... running along the Clearwater River in Idaho... through Yosemite... along the PCH in California and Oregon... rumbling through the Yukon... twisting along Hwy 12 in Utah... through Arches and Canyonland NP's... The Black Hills... too many roads... too many memories.

I tried to see my world without two wheels in it... It's as bad as my world without Horses in it...

I have discovered that walking away from my Leather Shop... and from Horses... was a mistake. They added something I guess I didn't appreciate fully. Taken out of my life they turned out to not be trivial take-or-leave things. Their absence cut open a void that hasn't filled in.

Taking this bike now? I don't know... a weak quivery feeling ran through me... a little voice whispered; Are you effing nuts? How much of you are you going to abandon? for what? seeking approval that will never ever come? 

So... I don't know what I'm doing!! Ha ha... so what's new huh? I've been spinning like a friggin' top, dancing to other peoples fiddles since I was a broken twenty year old runt just coming home.

I look back at the times I've sold off tools, this or that... in attempts to buy my way around obstacles... and honestly? I don't know that it ever succeeded. I'm inclined to back up and sit down.... and just wait things out for a while... Let time do it's thing... and see what happens.

... maybe a magic elf will come 'long and screw my head on straight.

Grab Your Handles and Ride

The Hits Just Keep on Coming

Got deep into the saddlebags yesterday. A refinish of them was required due to cracking in the paint on the curb side bag lid...

I figured just sand off the cracked paint...

clean off the dust... primer if I went through into the gel coat...

... and then I'd just rattle can on a fresh new coat of black... and a new clear coat...

Good Plan...

Yeah... there I go planning again...

I hadn't but started sanding to remove the cracked paint...

... when I discovered that the cracks didn't originate in a failed paint coat...

... but in the underlying fiberglass...


I worked for a little while... searching out all the spots where the paint was cracked... I'd noticed the first little crack maybe a year ago.

Over time they multiplied... and sure enough...

Underlying each spot of cracked paint... the gel coat was spidered with a thin crack.

There was also no shortage of bad spots... at least it's only... as far as I can tell, the one single saddlebag lid.

So... work on the saddlebags is temporarily suspended... while I wait on some word from the manufacturer of the bags.

I'm not expecting any good news to be honest. My recent experience with companies and warranties has not been confidence building... but we'll see. I did at least get an automatic email response from the outfit.

It advised me they were "On Holiday" until the 22nd... so... I'll go do something else for a bit... maybe study up on Motorcycle Saddlebag Fiberglass repair.

At least my son-in-law who did the paint job can wipe his forehead and breathe easy... it wasn't His screwup. ;)

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

I've Ridden Many Saddles...

The first was a fifteen year old kid cowboyin' back on the Arizona Desert... on a bay horse named Joker...

 Chasin' genuine wild cows in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson...

...I grew up with memories of old hands and places that are gone now...

... buried under asphalt, concrete and rooftops.

I started ridin' bikes then too... rippin' through that same desert.

Horseback or standing on the pegs... that kid was free and wild as the wind.

There's many a day I miss the guts that kid had.

He ran off to do his duty... and got caught in the blender of life in a society that eats its young.

Like many he spun in circles trying to find his way... trying to be that person he was told he was "expected" to be... and most times failing.

... and always... looking on that person he was "Expected" to be... with disgust. All he could see in that image was a trained and beaten down monkey.

Along came a different sort of saddle to straddle... on that different sort of horse...

Cutting the wind on that he once again began to feel some of that freedom he'd known.

He could feel some of that wild wind again in his thinning (ok gone) hair...

But always... in his heart and his mind lived the memory of those horses on those sunny slopes of the west in his soul.

Now the mysteries of life have come full circle...

...I Never Sold My Saddle...

I rode that saddle through thundering hail storms and twenty below blizzards. I roasted in it and got mud bogged on it. That saddle has memories tattooed on my soul...

...Life never seems to give up. It works 24/7 to beat you into submission. 

Thing is... the only thing you get when you try to whup a Cowboy... is one hell of a fight.

I still have no real sliver of an idea where I'm goin' or how I'll get there...

I just keep on Saddlin' my Horses and ridin' my circles...

When I ride my last circle... I'll be where I'm goin'...

Grab Your Handles and Ride

Brian

The Cleanup Work Continues

Not being a "body man" ... is not an asset when you're trying to do "minor" jobs...

Sanding the "shine" off saddlebags to repaint shouldn't be that big a deal should it... Ha... only me could make it be. Turns out... Fiberglass ain't that level, so even a quarter sheet sander with really fine sandpaper finds all sorts of low spots... and taking the "shine" off to repaint turns out to be a lot more work than it would seem. ;)

ah well... she'll look good once I get the job done.

I've been stalling during a patch of iffy and windy weather... too cold to paint so why sand... right? ha ha... good excuse for procrastination... and giving the vagaries of life an opportunity to bail my ass out of having to sell her off? ... yeah well... that hasn't worked yet...

Got the pipes back from the powder coater... He's done several motorcycle and atv exhaust systems and one set of sprint car headers... with this high temp (1000 degree) material and says after a few months he's seen no failures... so I took the $145 chance.

Yeah... unlikely to get that back... but my thinking ran this way... with the pipes UGLY... it just might interfere with selling at all... so... a "had to" sort of thing...

*Custom Coatings in Berthoud Colorado - Refinished Motorcycle exhaust*

Big improvement over how they'd come to look. One thing I'll say... if I'm ever in the market for aftermarket pipes again... I will NEVER... buy Hard Chrome brand...

*Hard Chrome Big Straights finish Failure*

Maybe this failure of the finish IS just a weird freak that will never happen again... but that's not my problem... the Refusal of the Hard Chrome company to even communicate and address the issue is the deal... Their "Customer Service" in this instance SUCKED big time...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... Shame on me... They'll not get a second chance.

The weather seems to be breaking and I'm nearing completion of the Stitching Horse I'm working on to help with the restarting of my Leather Shop... So I should be able to bring myself to get back onto the bike polishing in the next day or so...

One issue I'm not sure what to do about are the wheels... Having been Not Shy about the roads we've wandered... those aluminum wheels have apparently gotten dinged pretty hard by gravel... 360 degrees...

Polishing by hand doesn't touch the gouges that can be felt... I can't decide whether to just leave it alone and accept it... or take a fine emery... and try to erase those marks... again... a lot of work... but the bike deserves it... just can't decide if I'm up for the task...

It would be another way to "Stall" the inevitable I guess...

Grab your handles and ride
Brian