Exhausted, the Sequel

The exhaust pieces had been handed off to Aaron, in the hopes that they'd be made whole again.  If all went well, he was going to drop the repaired piping off at my house later in the evening, yesterday.  Well, when I pulled into my driveway @ 5, there he was, with my welded exhaust in-hand.

Sweet!!  We hashed out the payment details - the agreed upon currency would be beer - and with that, he was off.

I didn't have a lot of time, as we were doing the pre-run of this weekend's route to check road conditions @ 6:30.  I figured I'd jump into things, get done what I could, then do the pre-run, then come back and finish up the project.  And that's about how the evening went.  I got the pipe loosely fitted into where it belonged, got a few of the clamps situated, and then it was time to bolt for the Post.

The route looked good, with only one section needing some consideration on Saturday (a bunch of construction barrels along the center section of a bridge that's being worked on).  After that, it was back to the hot and steamy garage to get things wrapped up.

The weld was good and solid, and even better; the brackets on the tail section lined up right where they belonged.  It was still quite a hassle doing the fitments of the various parts (the other half of the exhaust, not pictured, consists of multiple parts which fit under the seat - not much fun).  But after a bit of finagling, bolting, unbolting and re-finagling, then bolting again, things began to come together.  The superfluous parts which had had to be removed to gain access, began finding their places again, and the pile of miscellaneous parts began to dwindle.

And then...from the darkness...emerged a completed bike!

I rolled her out into the driveway to fire her up and check for leaks.  All was good, even after stifling the ends of each pipe!  She needs a bath, badly, though!  Despite the detailed cleaning she got down at the dealership in NC, there was still a lot of dirt and grime to be found.  And when using liquid silicone to help the pipes come together, that stuff turns any dirt into a slimy grease which only comes off with gas - which stings when trying to clean out the cut knuckles.  But we soldier on!

The tools are still strewn about and need to be cleaned and stored away, but that wasn't happening last night.  It was already late enough and I needed some sleep (after a solid shower).

So I'm back up and running and should be good to go for the run this weekend.  (I sure hope that weld holds for a while, because I'm in no rush to go through that nonsense again...)

Ride Hard, Take Chances