Too soon, Ihad to blast back to the house and do a bit of cleaning, as Michigan Paul and Betina were in town and were coming over. When they arrived, we kicked around the idea of having a fire outside, but opted instead to hang inside where it was warmer (and closer to the fridge). We shared many a laugh and knocked back a beer or four. It was good to see them and Ill be looking forward to seeing them again this summer down in KY. (It’s only 500 miles from their house and they can do that kind of mileage in one morning!).
Sunday found me up early and working on the Fatboy. Being short on money and long on bills, I realized the time has come where I need to get her running and listed for sale. The first order of business; rewrapping those pipes!
Starting out; man, those wraps are dirty and beat up. The bottom one is tattered and hanging on in pieces. Oy, someone has been mistreating their wraps!
It took a little finagling, but the pipes came off without too much trouble. With the basement still in chaos, I couldn’t find my duct tape, so painter’s tape would have to do this time.
Here are the pipes, stripped down and naked. That’s a pretty poor looking pile of old wrappings. Anyone looking to make a Mummy costume? Gimme a call…
Ahhh, here’s some good looking tape, all nice and new and tightly wound. A bucket of warm water for soaking, and we’re good to go (more on that in a bit…).
The last time I wrapped these pipes, I had Brother Bill lend a hand and between the two of us, we rolled the pipe, all while keeping tension on the wrap and wetting down the wrap as we went along. It was a slow and tedious process.
I’d read that another option was to tie one end of the wrap to a post and use that to apply tension to the pipe as you wrapped, so I figured I’d give that method a try this time around.
Also, instead of using a spray bottle (like last time), Greg had told me he’d just soaked the whole wrap in a bucket of water ahead of time and then; wrapped away. What the hell, I figured I’d give that a try, too.
I knew I’d need roughly 20’ of wrap per pipe, and the roll that I had was 50’ in length, so to make things easier to work with, I cut it in half. (Length-wise, not width-wise. That would have taken me forever, and really wouldn’t have resulted in any benefit.)
Setting one section aside, I submerged the other into the water just long enough for it to get soaked (about a minute), then pulled it out with one hand, running it through the fingers of my other hand to squeegee out the excess water. I tied one end to lally column and off I went.
Wow, what a difference! Between using the post, and soaking the wrap all at once, I must have cut the whole process in half, time-wise. Two quick wraps at the bottom, secure that with a hose clamp, then just start winding, all while keeping tension on the wrap.
Note the gloves and long sleeves – I remembered how the insulation felt on my delicate skin the last time I wrapped these pipes. (No comments are necessary regarding my overall fashion style, thank you.)
And here we see two nicely wrapped pipes!
The weather was warm and breezy so I set these into the porch to air dry (out of direct sunlight so they wouldn’t dry too quickly).
And here they are, back onto the bike. I made sure to only do one wrap at the tops of the pipes this time and it made a world of difference in terms of getting the nuts to fit onto the exhaust flange bolts.
Oh yeah; the last time I wrapped these pipes, I’d read that a potential downside was that rusting of the pipes could be accelerated, as they’d be kept wetter, longer, anytime it rained. I have to say that I didn’t notice any increased rusting of the pipes, and that aside from heat discoloration and dirt, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with them at all.
I’ll have to do some touch-up with the high heat black paint on the back ends of the pipes, but overall, the re-wrap project was smooth sailing.
Once the wrapping was done, I went out and got a new battery, got it home and set up to charge overnight so I’ll slap that in tonight and see how well she fires up. I put stabilizer into the tank last year so I’m hoping the gas is still good, but we’ll see.
As long as she fires up then I’ll give her some serious cleaning and then list her for sale. At this point, I’m not going to convert her back to a hand-clutch, opting instead to see if I get any interest in her as she is. If there’s no interest, then I’ll convert it back and see what happens.
‘Course, all this will have to wait for a bit as I’m going in for shoulder surgery, first thing tomorrow morning…
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