Road Trip!

Yep; time for another mini-vacation!  Sadly though, this one will not be on the bike - which is probably a good thing for my back.  It's coming along and feeling somewhat better (and the doc says I didn't fracture anything), but it's still not up for riding just yet.

So what's up with the road trip then?  A few of us are heading down to SC tomorrow for Kanabroski's wedding on Friday.  It looks to be a great time, hanging out with a good crew.  We won't know most of the folks there...but they'll certainly know us after we've been there for a few hours!  There will be a few familiar faces though; the younger kids from the 'Vous will be there and I'm sure there will be some madness and mayem around and about.

Here's hoping everybody has a great weekend.  The weather looks like it will break in time for Saturday, so be sure to get out there and get some miles on!

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Getting Old

So the weather outside is awesome - sunny, warm, clear blue sky...and my bike is parked in the garage.  Why?  Because I've blown out my lower back out - again.  I'd hoped it would get better with a couple days of popping Advil like M&M's, but when I woke up this morning and could barely breathe, I knew it was time to hit the chiropractor - again.

Long story short; my left hip is compressed way in.  It's from doing leg workouts and trying to show the younger guys who's boss by outlifting them.  The doc even sent me to get x-rays to make sure I haven't fractured anything.  Needless to say; heavy leg workouts are off the table from now on.

The other thing that may wind up off the table is the new solo seat I put on the bike.  It really does have very little padding and despite the fact that my butt had gotten pretty used to it, the chiropractor says it needs to go.  And believe me, if it'll prevent me from getting hurt like this again, I will gladly swap it out back with the stock seat.

The good news is he did a couple of adjustments on my hips and they do seem to have helped.  I'll be back to see him again tomorrow, with the x-ray results, so hopefully he can get me fixed up so I can do some riding soon.

*shrug* I realize I haven't posted in a while so I figured I'd just let you know what was up.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

WTF Mother Nature?!?!

We had a fantastic dousing rain yesterday - heavy, heavy downpours that were sure to wash any residual salt and or sand off of the roadways, leaving us with nice and clean paths to enjoy on our two-wheeled vehicles.  Not that we've held back at all of late - we've been out ripping up the roadways quite a bit.  But, having freshly washed surfaces is a fantastic way to move things along toward the full-on motorycle season.

So imagine my dismay when I looked out my window this morning and saw that we had SNOW on the ground!!  SNOW!!!  It's halfway through April!!  Checking the temp...32 degrees.  Exactly the temperature needed to freeze the roadways!

Surely the towns and municipalities - the same ones who'd been clamoring about having run out of funds for their salt/sanding crews, not to mention having been whining about the great road-salt shortage of 2014 - surely these towns wouldn't bother to go out and salt/sand the roadways on a morning such as this, right?

Wrong.  There were DPW trucks out en masse.  And they weren't being stingy with their payloads, either!  Not only were they salting and sanding the roadways, it seemed as if they were trying to get rid of any excess surplus they had.  More than once, I found myself driving over mounds of the stuff.  Awesome - I'm sure we won't have any more good soaking rains until at least...oh....let's say May 17th.

Mother Nature can kiss my ball bag.

Hey, What's That Sound, Everybody Look What's Goin' Down

I'm still at work but looking to get rolling before the rain drops start falling, so this is going to be a real quick post.

The title of this post refers to the sound of my repaired radio!  Woo-Hoo!  I've got two-wheeled tunes again!!  I went all last year without them and now that I have them back, I can't fathom why it took me so long to get them back...

...oh right; money.  It took $350 bucks to get them back...

Anyway, having tunes again is the good news...

...the bad news is I'm pretty sure the misfiring issue has not been completely resolved.  I'm still trying to convince myself that it's all in my head, but I'm having a harder and harder time buying it.

Time will tell...

Surprise Package!

When I got in to work yesterday, I had an email from UPS saying that a package was being shipped to my house.  Well alright then - the only thing I'm expecting is the return of my radio, so that must be it.  Clicking on the tracking link I found that the expected delivery date was today; Friday.  Ok, not bad; I'll have tunes for the weekend.

Pulling into my driveway last night (after another long day at work), I saw there was a box by my back door.  Oh boy!  Could it be?

Yep!  The radio!!  Sweet!!
This was awesome news -  a day early and everything!  My bike's dash has looked like this for the past week and a half...

The poor thing looks like it's got a huge look of pained surprise on it's face.

As you can tell from the pic, there wasn't much daylight left.  I went back and forth a few times; do I have enough light to get this done, do I not have enough light....F it, there's enough light...no, better to do it in full daylight...but I want tunes NOW...it's late, get going on dinner and leave the radio for daylight...

The voice of reason won out, and I backed the bike into the garage.  I did open the box up and inspect the radio.  I wasn't sure if I'd get my same radio back or not - the repair place claims to have a 2-day turnaround which seems pretty quick.  Maybe they have repaired radios there that they just send out when a damaged one comes in?

Nope.  Well, not in my case anyway.  I'd put a discreet black marker mark on my radio and sure enough; there it was.  Ok, not a problem - and it probably makes more sense to send back the original radio.  That way, someone can't say they received a radio that wasn't there's, or had additional problems thant the one they sent in.

Anyway - it will get hooked up tomorrow morning.  Just in time for me and Matty's ride in to Quincy for a charity event.

And speaking of that; the weather had been forecasting rain for tomorrow.  But then 3 days ago, Matty said that he decided it wasn't going to rain.  Guess what?  The storm moved and now it's going to be sunny.  That guy is good!  So, I asked him to make sure I had good weather for my pig roast and he said absolutely - right after he lines up a winning lottery ticket and a supermodel girlfriend.  Selfish bastard.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

First Two-Wheeled Commute of 2014

Ahhh, it felt so good to bring the bike in to work this morning.  I was a bit worried about starting the bike @ 5am this morning (sorry neighbors!), but I kept the throttle in check and eased out of the driveway and down the road without causing too much ruckus.

The bike still seems to ride great, despite my head thinking there is still an occasional tiny hiccup in power. I think it's a combination of my overactive brain, combined with the new solo seat.  There really isn't much padding in that thing and every little bump gets transmitted right through my body, so every bump bounces me around somewhat, possibly causing my hand to twitch - even ever so slightly would be enough to cause an anomoly in the gas flow. 

The sun is out, the skies are clear, and the temps may even come close to 60 today.  It's going to be a great day!

Well...except for the fact that I'm at work...

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Upgrade Success?

It was Friday late-afternoon...I  had my new allen-head sockets in hand...I'd swung by Cook's and picked up the Stage 1 kit (and all fluids for a service change) from Jon...I was good to go.  Or was I?  Let's see how I made out...

The Harley engineers managed to thwart me again, despite having the proper tools this time.  See, the allen head socket wouldn't fit all the way into the bolt head.  The socket width widens out to fit the ratchet head, and that width was hitting a bump on the starter, keeping the socket from seating completely.  I tried one turn, just to see if it had enough bite to loosen the bolt, but of course it didn't.  It merely twisted out, rounding the edges ever so slightly, but more than enough for me to know that I wasn't getting the bolt out that way.

So, I had to improvise.  Behold; a regular Allen wrench, then a mid-sized locking pliers on that, and then (outside of the range of the picture); a large locking pliers clamped onto the mid-sized pair.

It took several tries, and not a little bit of cursing, but eventually I got the bolt, and the old rear-engine pipe bracket, removed.  Time to move on with the installation of the new pipes!

Ta-Da!!  The front engine pipe.  That thing looks sweet, and it doesn't even have the chromed heat shield on it yet...

The mufflers, and the heat shields - both chromed to perfection, got the white-glove treatment.  Ok, the gloves weren't white, but the did keep my fingers and hands from leaving any marks on the shine.

The front heat shield.  I had to thread the hose clamps through the welded tabs on the inside, but they slid in easily.  Just have to make sure you have the screw heads all facing the correct way so you can tighten them with ease, later.

Huh.  I see that I did not take a pic of the completed front engine pipe and cover.  Oh well, moving along to the next item which proved to be quite a bit of fun...

The rear enging pipe bracket assemptly.  I'd managed to install the part which bolts to the starter, without any problems.  The next step was to install a circular clamp with an "L" bracket, onto the engine pipe itself.  Doesn't sound hard, right?  The tricky thing is that they only give you a rough estimate of where this clamp and bracket need to go, and how it needs to be aligned so that the hole in the L bracket lines up with the hole on the bracket bolted to the starter.  Wheee, fun!  Let's see how many attempts it takes to line things up...

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Five...hey, I got it!  Oh by the way, each attempt involved marking the pipe with a permanent marker, removing the engine pipe from the exhaust port, loosening and realinging the circular clamp and L bracket, feeding the pipe back into the belly of this beast, mounting the flange onto the port bolts, and then finagline thie middle section to line up with the starter bracket.  Good times.

As you can see by that last pic, I was pretty much out of daylight.  I figured I'd wrap things up by installing the bolt that connects these two brackets but what I found was that two people are needed, as there is no way to fit your hands in there to hold both nut and bolt, to tighten them.  One person needs to be on one side, and one person needs to be on the other.  So that task has been tabled until I can get someone else to give me a hande.  And by now, I was completely out of daylight, as well as definitely out of patience, so I called it a night at this point.

The next morning found me reinstalling the right floorboard.  Ahh, but this requires spacers and longer bolts, because the pipe is thicker than the stock one.  Damn.  I hadn't been able to loosen the front mounting bolt so I'd cheated and had removed the floorboard itself (leaving the front mounting bracket still attached to the frame). Well, now I had to go ahead and get that damn bolt out.  I tried all kinds of positions but just couldn't get enough leverage on it, so I had to lay the bike down...

And get the socket onto it...

And then get a bit of leverage on the rachet...

It took a lot of muscle and a lot of praying that nothing would break, but finally the bolt began turning for me.  Once it was out, I swapped the new bolts and spacers into place, bolted things up, and stood the bike back up again.

From there, it was a matter of slipping the mufflers on and getting them lined up and bolted into place.  Then tightening the heat shields and things were looking good.

At this point, the rain had petered out so I figured I'd take a chance and roll it out into the driveway for more room.  No sooner had I done that, then the sun broke through.  Awesome!  Is this a sign of good things to come?

Nope, it soon started sprinkling again, but I said screw it and just put some cardboard down.  Next on the progress; the Screamin' Eagle Stage 1 kit.

This was a very simple process; just remove the old air cleaner assembly...

And bolt in the new setup.  One thing I found very cool was the backing plate mounting bolts had a little groove machined into the backs of their heads for the rubber gasket to seat.  This kept the gaskets right where you needed them to be while you were tightening them into place.  Nice!

Voila!  Stage 1 kit is done.

Lastly, I replaced the O2 sensors with bypasses.  Oh yeah; the new pipes had come with plugs for the O2 ports, so those were sealed off as well.

With my fingers crossed, I started her up...she sounded awesome!  But what was that slight popping sound coming from the front?  Peering closer at the front exhaust port, I could hear the exhaust was slipping past the pipe flange.  Damn - I must not have tighted those flange bolts all the way down.  No problem, a few twists with the sockets and...Damn!  I can't access the flange bolts with the heat shield on!  Ok, ok, I just gotta loosen these hose clamps and then...Damn!  I can't get the heat shield off without taking the right floorboard off!  Arrgghh!!!  Ok, the floorboard came off, the heat shield came off, the flange bolts were tightened...the heat shield went back on, the floorboard went back on....I think we're ready...

With mental fingers crossed, I hit the button again and checked the front port.  It was tight and quiet - well, as quiet as was possible with a set of new Rinehart pipes on!

But what about the skipping/hesitation problem I've been having?  That's the real impetus for this whole project!  Has the problem been cured?  Only one way to find out.  Road test time!

I grabbed some quarters and a towel and headed off to the town car wash.  The bike handled great, an amazing increase in power, and that deep throaty roar that comes right up to a loud bark when you blip the throttle.  Loving it!  It reminded me of the straights I used to run on the Shovelhead, as well as the VAnce & Hines I used to run on the Fatboy (these are definitely louder than those were, though).

I got to the car wash (it has an external station with a hose, which works great for the bike).  I hadn't noticed any skipping on the way to the car wash, but more riding was needed.  I washed the bike up, dried her off and headed back home.  I got the tools put away, called McCarthy to see how his day was going, and then hit the road.  This would be when I'd find out if the problem was fixed or not.

I took some side roads to the highway and then opened her up.  And I mean OPENED HER UP!  In no time I was in triple-digits and there was a lot of throttle still left.  Amazing power!!  This is fun!!!

Easing up as I (all too quickly) neared my exit, I still wasn't sure if the skipping problem was indeed gone.  The bike seemed smooth, but at the same time, I knew the problem had been an intermittent one - one of the reasons it was so hard to figure out.

Cruising down some more side streets, I thought I felt...wait...what was that?  Did the bike just jerk slightly?  Hmmm...no, it seems to be running....wait....what was that?  No..no...it's ok, that was just a bump in the road...the bike is doing ok, the bike is doing...wait....did it just do it then???  I think the problem is that since I've been dealing with this farkin' problem for the last 7 months, that it's just in my head at this point, and I just need to relax.

The rest of the day was spent with good friends - I got to finally see Nelly's new bike in person, and it's very cool.  It sits well - nice and low, and carries itself beautifully.  By that, I mean that when I stood it up, it didn't even feel like I was sitting on top of 700+ pounds.

After a little bit of work, we decided we were hungry so we headed off to Brigg's for some grub and pub.  It felt great to be out on the roadways on two wheels again!

The rest of the weekend was spent sharing laughter with good buds, and sharing miles of pavement.  (Sunday's riding included Matty and Zig.)  And the best part is the bike does honestly seem to be running smooth again.  Time will tell if it lasts - I sure hope it does because this last attempt, with the Stage 1, the Power Commander, and the pipes, sure wasn't easy.

But as soon as I hit that starter button and hear that sound, it sure was worth it!

Ride Hard, Take Chances

F'n Harley Davidson!!

When we last left our zero...er....hero, his bike was sans exhaust and seat;

In all honesty, that's not a bad look...lean, mean, and low.  However, the problems I would encounter with flames shooting out of the front and back of the engine would quickly outweigh any semblance of coolness.  So, moving on...

The first step toward installing the new pipes was to remove the old bracket which held the rear engine header on the old system.  Ha, and this is where today's post title comes from.  How the F am I supposed to get to that second bolt?  The one on the right side was hard enough, but I did manage to get it.  The one on the left (with the #1 above it) is blocked by the solenoid post (#2).  But once I removed that, I was still blocked by the solenoid end cap (#3).

It sure looks like a straight shot to the bolt, doesn't it?  But it sure as hell ain't.

So, I went to Sears today and picked up a set of allen head sockets, and a swivel, so hopefully they will allow me to get that bolt out.  (I know, I know; the right tool for the job.)

But since this was all taking place last night, and I didn't have the new tools yet, I had to move along to the power commander.

The battery compartment.  Harley finally got something right.  The battery weighs a frikkin' TON.  Thank god they put that strap in there, it makes it so nice and easy to lift the battery out.

Ta da! An empty battery compartment.

With the battery removed, I was able to check that the power commander would fit off to the side and that the terminals would all line up where I needed them to.  After plugging everything in to make sure, I found that I would indeed be able to fit it off to the side.  Excellent.  Disconnecting it and setting it off to the side again to make sure it wouldn't get damaged, I proceeded to put the battery back in and reconnect all the wires...

...and then realized that I needed the battery out in order to fit the terminals through the space between the battery compartment and the frame.  So, off came the wires and out came the battery again.  (Maybe I should change the title of this post to "F'n Magraw!!"?

Voila!  An installed power commander!  It comes with velcro which they tell you to use to tack it to the top of your existing ECM, but let's be honest - there ain't no way it's able to go there since one of the terminals is off to the side.

ANYWAY - it's tacked to the side of the battery box and that's just fine.  (Be sure to pop in the little rubber plugs they give you to close up the laptop & diagnostic connection ports!!)

A view from the right rear so you can see how much the terminal sticks out from the side.  I was pretty nervous fitting the side cover on, thinking there was no way it would clear that terminal, but sure enough; no problem at all.  The solo seat went back on without any issue as well.  Yay, one more thing done!

So that's where things stand now.

Some good news; I got the call from Cook's a little while ago that the rest of my parts are in so I will be bolting a little early from work to go pick those up and then get back to work on the bike.

The sky is of course clouding up quite nicely, thank you Mother Nature.  If I have to, I'll roll things into the garage and keep going, but I'm hoping the rain will hold off.  It's so much easier working in the driveway!  Whatever I can't finish tonight, I'll pick up again tomorrow morning.  My goal is to have this bitch back together and running by mid-day tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Upgrades Progress

The sun was beaming bright, the air was warm-ish, and the sound of bikes could be heard in the air.  Driving home, I passed a few guys going in the other direction; the legs wide astride their steel machines and their smiles even wider.  I cursed myself for dragging my feet on these upgrades, but there's nothing to be done now but forge ahead as best I can.

Arriving home, I tossed aside the work duds and settled in to a fashionable pair of dirty jeans and my grubby overshirt.  There was work to be done!

Opening up the Power Commander box, in inspected the contents and the instructions.  Seemed pretty staright forward and I was about to get started on that when it hit me; hey Dummy; the pipes will take much longer, so get moving on those.  The daylight ain't gonna last forever.

Ok, so opening up the other box - Rinehart Racing it says on it.  Oh, there's gonna be some racing when these things are installed!

Laying everyting out gently, I probably should have snapped a pic, but oh well.  You've seen pipes before.  The first thing to do was to remove the old set of pipes (no kidding, Dave).  It's amazing how quickly nuts and bolts can rust up and resist you!  I had this foolish exhaust off toward the end of last summer, when the pipe cracked, remember?  Man, it was still quite a struggle to get things loosened up - the one thing that kept me going was the thought "Well, I know these things loosen up because I JUST HAD THEM OFF a few months ago!"

When I had finally removed the last section of pipe, it was time to remove the O2 sensors.  Holy Crap - had I really tightened them that much?  WTF was I thinking?  But at last they were off, and I was able to set the pipes over on the lawn, well out of the way.

According to the instructions, I apparently have to resuse the old flanges and retaining rings.  The rings are difficult to get off if you don't have a pair of C-clip pliers.  Good thing I have a pair - they were off in no time. Once those come off, the flanges slide right off, too.  Here's a pic showing the old gasket, the retaining ring, and the flange.

Here, the retaining ring has been removed (I just hung it back on for the pic), and you can see that the flange will slide right off.

Here are the new pipes, flanges and retaining rings installed (make sure they are both facing the right way!), as well as the old gaskets next to the new ones.

As you can tell by the angle of the sunlight in those pics, the daylight was making it's getaway so I figured this was as good a time as any to pause.  I will continue tonight with putting the new pipes on.

There was just enough daylight left for me to attempt the Power Commander install.  Seemed pretty straight forward, remember?  Sure enough, the OEM stock wire harness comes out nice and easily, and swapping the PC in was a piece of cake.  Now to tuck everything away so I can get the seat back on...

Hmmm....ok, the instructions say to just tuck things into the space in front of the batter.  Maybe I need glasses, but I sure don't see any space in front of the battery.  I even removed that black plastic cover you see on the left side of the pic.  Nope, no space to be found under there.  What the hell?

The daylight was just about done so I cleaned up the tools, parts, and trash, and rolled the bike back into the garage.  I knew Zig has the same PC on his bike so I gave him a call and he said yeah; you have to remove the battery and tuck everything down beside it, into the compartment.  Ok, that sounds easy enough, I guess I'll find out soon enough.

That's where things stand now.  Oh yeah; I have to pick up some plugs for the O2 ports on the new pipes.  Although, I did see a post on a forum about being able to use sparkplugs....imagine hooking up a button and a live line to that, revving-then-dropping the throttle and hitting the button?  The flames out the pipes would be pretty cool, but blasting that kind of back draft into my cyclinders is probably a very bad idea.

More to come - the plan is to resume things tonight.  Still no call from Cook's, though.  Fingers are crossed that that call will come in soon...

Slight Adjustment To The Plans

I called Cook's last night to see what the schedule was on the parts I'm waiting on and Jon said I'd have them by the end of the week.  Sweet!  Unfortunately, Greg is away this weekend, so instead of doing the upgrades in a mint shop, I'll be doing them in my driveway.  Not a problem!  I've done bigger projects in the driveway before, and besides; it'll give my neighbors some entertainment as I repeatedly bang my knuckles and send curse words aloft.

I can start with the pipes and power commander ahead of time and then install the backing plate and air cleaner once those arrive.  Who knows - I may even be up and running by mid-day on Saturday!  Won't that be a mint thing!  (Too bad it looks like rain for part of Saturday...)

Being excited about this project coming together finally got me off my lazy ass and I yanked the radio last night to I can send it off to be repaired.  While I was in there, I installed the replacement speaker brackets as well.  Baby steps, but steps nonetheless.

More progress will be posted as it happens...