Zig and Jack's Excellent Adventure, Part 3

Our guest blogger returns for another installment of Zig & Jack's Excellent Adventure. Thanks to Shannon for putting these pics & comments together and sending them up...

Hey! This Way.....food!

The grill masters....

Ahhhhh....come to me my little dahling.......

Mmmm......kielbasa....I love you.......smoochy....smoochy.....

I swear....it's this big!!! No really.....it is!

You may ask yourself...how can I make my own wall of shame? Here's some lessons on what to do....from the professional....

First...get a good wing man...or bunny....someone to help carry - or more importantly...BUY the beer.

Buy cans. Bottles just don't stack in the bags as well. Buy as much as you think you can carry....

Fold up the cardboard case and shim to cushion the beer from rattling against the sides.....

Whatever doesn't fit in the bags.....gets strapped to the top. Hmmm....are we just talking about beer??

Now to find some ice............whoops!...... too much ice creates a beer frosty. Is a beer frosty such a bad thing??

Remember the motto....

Drinking ensues...and the artsy photography appears....maybe we should have only bought one case of beer....

The morning after.....Jack-What is that coming out of the pants?! Is that the Tail of the Dragon?? What happened last night?

And now, back to some road adventures...

The dynamic duo starting out for another cruise around town....

Wow! Now that's a big Hog! Jack....let's go for a ride!

"No wait!" Jack says...the sign says we cant'....

Aww Jack...c'mon....let's go! Don't be a ..... (fill in the blank here.....) We can pick up chicks on this big Hog!

See....here they come now!

What's that? Did you say something??

Zig, Jack and the Angels out for a ride on the big Hog!

See Jack! Not playing by the rules is more fun!

Jack finds some reading material in the men's room at lunch....trying not to stare to his right....

Now he's feeling bad about his debauchery during the day (not to mention the previous night)........especially with all the reminders......

He needs time for contemplation....

Time away from the tubing, wet, t-shirt clad girls!

He needs to bring Ziggy back into the light. Oh! What a perfect solution!!

What does it say??

(Editor's note: if we're talking about Zig here, I think the sticker should read; "Penis", instead of Jesus.)

Hallelujah! He is saved!!

And there you have it; Part 3 of Zig and Jacks excellent adventure. Thanks again to Shannon!

From the latest intelligence reports I've received, Zig is now laying low, hoping to dodge the heat he created for himself down in NC. He's deeply entrenched within the Olean Underground and should be able to avoid detection....if only he remembers to not leave his trademark trail of empty beer cans behind him...

Until next time;

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Zig and Jack's Excellent Adventure, Part 2

Today we have a guest blogger. Zig sent up some more pics from his current TotD adventure and one of the ladies from their group sent me some narrations to go with the pics. I found these narrations to be rather humorous and figured it would save time to use them. Especially since my work load is pretty heavy today…er…not that I’m blogging from work. That would be an unacceptable use of company resources...

So without further ado, here are more pics, narrated by Shannon…

This is Bob. Bob did not drink all that beer..but he tried. He's the local celebrity around here....but has no tail. Poor Bob with no tail. No wonder he wants to drink all this beer.
Jack is back. He's such a great friend....drinking my beer....wait a minute...that's my beer....what a f'g bad, bad friend!!
John, Ziggy and Doc. All traded in the big bikes for a new ride!!
Where the hell is Ziggy NOW! Another pee break.
Very hot out today....needed a drink from the dragon at the smoky mountain harley davidson dealer...
My new home away from home!
Do i have to explain???
Portable beer pong table.
Jack & I were leaving Big Daddy's after a few rounds of beer pong. trying to escape with the table....we were chased by Tellico's finest.

On our way to a lineup and the big house!

Although now loving the sweet and creamy p-butter treatment, jack looks longinly towards freedom.

After a tricky exit thru the bars, we made our escape.
Great scenery....found some great falls off the cherohola highway.

Wow....those are big balls....i mean falls... (Editor's note; it's hard to make out in the pic, but those circles are highlighting people standing on either side. The falls are actually that big!)

Well another set of big balls....
Gotta tape those up with some duct tape
This is our own wall of shame....see the pants....wall of shame.....

And there you have it; today's installment of adventure pics from Zig and Jacks Excellent Adventure. Oh wait...there's a clip they sent up, too...it's of Ziggy, tapping his pants up. How he ever wound up with a tear in his pants is beyond my comprehension. Ok, it's not beyond my comprehension at all; you and I both know the tear happened because he just can't stop touching himself. Bad Zig, Bad! No touchy! (The management is not responsible for any damage sustained by your retinas in viewing the following clip.)

Here's hoping (for the sake of Zig's companions) his next pair of pants are made of kevlar. Although...he'd probably work his way through those, too.

We'll see if more pics get sent up. Until next time...

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Zig Trip 2009

For those that don’t know, Zig is currently down in NC, shredding the Tail of the Dragon. (For those that don’t know what that is, see this website; http://www.tailofthedragon.com/).

I’ve been busting on him to send me some pics so that I can blog about his adventure, but all I’ve been getting is text updates about how much he’s been abusing his liver. LOL Anyway, I got another text from him last night, telling me to check my email. Ok, I came in this morning and hey, lookie lookie; pics!

Zig met someone named Sandy, they’d really hit it off and she offered to let him ride her. He was all excited until she told him it was going to cost him 50 cents (he’s not accustomed to paying so much for his women). He gave it some thought and finally relented. Here you can see the vile act in progress…


Apparently that didn’t quite do it for him so he then moved on to sully the reputation of “Jack”, the mascot from the crew he was riding with.

Here’s a pic of one of the breakdowns. Zig blurbed something about running the bike down a blocked-off high speed lane while trying to jump-start it, only to realize the bike’s kill switch was still off. Or something like that. Hell, half the time I don’t understand what he’s saying in person - nevermind when he tries to mash out some complete sentences in email. LOL

Here we can see more debauchery in motion. These poor ladies obviously have no idea what kind of delinquent they’ve chosen to share libations with. And can you believe they’ve somehow been convinced to call themselves his Angels. (I don’t know the story either – maybe they’re considering themselves “angels” for putting up with him?)

From the left; Megan, Cindy, Colleen, Zig & Shannon…

Zig and his Angels, suited up and ready to roll. Actually, it looks more like a lineup. “#3, please take a step to your right, we can’t see your face. No, to your “right”. To your OTHER right!”

Ziggy has somehow achieved the nickname of “Skippy”. I don’t know the story behind this one either (nor do I think I want to know). Here you can see Zig with his alter-ego. Don’t deny your inner self, Zig. Embrace it. Embrace the smooth and creamy love.

This next photo caught me by surprise…Zig is checking out the Fontana dam. He’s not holding a beer, he’s not mooning anyone…all very nice and polite. You see what’s going on here, don’t you? He’s trying to put on a good show for the folks around him. Trying to make them think that he’s just a normal kind of guy. But inside, he’s probably thinking something like “If I were to toss an empty beer can off of this dam, I bet I could drink another one before the first one hit the ground…”

And while Zig was at the Dam, Jack had apparently packed his bike and was getting out of town while the coast was clear. He didn’t want to wake up to Zig’s peanut butter love again.

Ok, ok, enough picking on Zig. Here are some pics of him taming the Dragon!


I'm told that more pics are to follow. And, I’ve been assured that they all are indeed;

Riding Hard and Taking Chances.

2009 D.A.V. Unity Ride

The invite to this year’s Unity ride to benefit local DAV members had arrived by carrier text pigeon a couple of weeks ago. Those of us whose schedules allowed, showed up early at Danno’s house for a frosty libation and some donuts while we let the rising sun warm our faces and our seat pads.

A bit after 10~ish, we saddled up and rolled over to the rally point for registration and more healthy fare (cookies and danish, this time around). The aforementioned rally point was a public parking/beach location for a town pond. There was an old (but renovated) central building which housed a mini kitchen and take-out windows, bathrooms, change rooms, etc. I spotted this old relic on one corner of the building, sitting right next to some new technology. It was pretty huge!
That thing reminds me of the Blues Brother movie, when Jake and Elwood were riding around with one of these things tied to the top of their car.

The only unfortunate thing about today was that another run in the area had fallen on the same day (a run for the Moving Wall, which was a few towns over). As such, attendance was down, but I’d guesstimate there were still about 50 bikes there. And the weather was simply perfect, so all in all; things were shaping up nicely.

There was a flag-raising ceremony, followed by the singing of the National Anthem, followed by everyone mounting up and falling into line. I didn’t note the actual mileage, but I heard it was 35 miles in length – again; not bad at all for a local run.
We wound through maybe 7 or 8 different towns before ending up back at the starting point where there were hot burgers and dogs waiting, followed by a raffle. We chowed a bit, shared some laughs and then headed off in our own directions.

It was a great day for a run. We had a good time, and we got to pay respects to some folks we owe a great debt of gratitude to.

Don’t forget the guys that leave parts of themselves behind in far away lands, all while making us safer back here at home.

Ride Hard, Thank A Vet

Brakes!

I believe I owe you folks a follow-up regarding my brakes. The good news is that I was able to get them changed out without any difficulty. The one caveat is that you’ll need an 8mm Allen head wrench for the rear brakes – a size not found in most wrench sets.

The other thing that peeved me is the simple fact that the Allen sizes you’ll need for both the front and the back, are metric. But most of the non-caliper related Allen head bolts on the bike are American Standard sized. Why does Harley mix both types on the bike?? (Why does Harley do anything they do…) And yes, the argument can be made that whoever manufactures the calipers could be the drivers for the metric measurements being used, but Harley, being the customer, could always insist upon using the American Standard sizes on the entire bike. But for whatever reason, they choose not to. Bastards.

Enough digressing – let’s get to the brakes, shall we?

One nice thing about these brakes is that all three calipers use the same pads, front and back. I went to my local shop (Cook’s) and picked ‘em up. They’re getting a little pricier these days but hey, when you need to stop, money isn’t really that much of a concern is it? (Three sets of pads were $99.) Maybe you can find ‘em cheaper on-line, but I like to do my part to support the local wrench.

Oh yeah - the other nice thing is that you don't need to take the rear tire off the bike in order to replace the rear brakes. Nicey-nice!!

The ’08 Electra Glide has dual calipers on the front so I started with the easiest one; the right side. Cock the handle bars to the left and voila; a caliper just staring you in the face, asking for attention. I didn’t take pics of this side as I wanted to do a run-through of one side first, and get the process down nice and smoothly before moving on to the left side, where I would then take pics.

Sounds like a good plan, huh? Ok, the truth is that I got caught up in the simplicity of this task and completely forgot to take pics until I’d already finished that side. Really; things moved along that quickly.

So, moving on to the left side, complete with pics this time…

Here we have the left front caliper (please ignore the dirty fender). Just remove the two caliper mounting bolts (highlighted in yellow)…



…and the entire caliper comes loose for ya.


(A note; I don’t open the master cylinder for this next step, it has a diaphragm which allows for expansion and contraction of the fluid which in turn allows for compressing the caliper pistons without a need to open things up. This way, I don’t need to worry about bleeding anything when I’m done.)

Gently slide the caliper off the rotor. I then used a flat headed screwdriver to press against the pads, driving the pistons back into the caliper…


Nice and roomy in there now!!


The next step is to access the retaining pin and retaining bolt which hold the pads in place. Turning the caliper back over, the screened cover simply lifts out with a gentle pry of the flat headed screwdriver…


With that out of the way, the retaining clip is made short work of, with some needle nosed pliers…


Next is to pull the pad retaining bolt. Apparently I didn’t take a pic of this, dammit, so here’s a sneak peak at the same process on the back caliper…


Ok, back to the fronts; here you can see the retaining bolt has been removed and the pads are out. For illustration, I held the old pad up so you can see the tab that the retaining bolt goes through…


A new pad inserted – at the top of the pic you can see the caliper housing holds one end in place. The other end is held in place by the retaining bolt, which goes through the tab seen (at this angle) at the bottom right of the pad.

Look at all the meat on those new pads!!


Insert the 2nd new pad, replace the retaining bolt and the retaining clip, press the screened cover back on, carefully slide the caliper over the rotor and bolt the two caliper bolts back into place and ta-da! Front brakes are done!

BE SURE TO SQUEEZE THE FRONT BRAKE LEVER A FEW TIMES TO COMPRESS THE CALIPERS!! Don’t make the rookie mistake of hopping onto the bike and jamming down the road at high speeds, only to find that you have no brakes as you’re coming up hard on a sharp corner. Don’t do that. Because it scares the crapola out of you if you do do that. Trust me on this one. (That was many years ago!)

Ok, now on to the rear brakes. First is to remove the right saddle bag – a simple task, thanks to the twist pins.

And look; a rear caliper! Hmmmm…it doesn’t look like there’s much wiggle room in there. But trust me; it all works out just fine.

Remove the two caliper mounting bolts – here’s where you need the 8mm Allen head.


Once those are out, you can – gently – twist the caliper up and off the rotor…


Using the flat headed screwdriver, press against the pads to drive the pistons back into the caliper.

There was no screened cover on this caliper, so just flip it over, remove the retaining clip and bolt…

New pads in place…


Then just reassemble everything. Retaining bolt, bolted. Retaining clip, clipped. Caliper…calipered? No? Ok; bolted back onto swingarm.

A few steps on the rear brake pedal to tighten things back up and you’re good to go.

I did the front brakes on Saturday but didn’t get to the rear brakes until last night (I had to wait for a buddy of mine to dig up an 8mm Allen head for me). If you had all the tools readily available and in front of you when you started, I’d say you could have all three sets of brake pads replaced in under a half hour. 45 minutes, tops. Nice, huh?

New brakes? Cool, now I can REALLY…

Ride Hard, Take Chances!