Au revior! Arrivederci! Auf wiedersehen!

Well, things at Casa de Fixer have gotten hectic enough where something's gotta give. With the house construction (which I'm doing myself), dad-in-law Fixer needing adult supervision, namely moving him in here by Thanksgiving and getting his house ready sell, and just the normal craziness, I gotta say goodbye to the boys at the shop for the foreseeable future. My last day will be 29 August.

I'm gonna miss the place, not working on cars.

Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death

This is a lighthearted counterpoint to Bustedknuckles' excellent post below.

Daytona Racing Timeline

1903

[...] Barney Oldfield, driving Ford’s “999” (named after a famous New York Central train) was the first American to run over a mile a minute on June 20 at the Indiana Fairgrounds…59.6 seconds. Oldfield hyped… “You have the sensation of being hurtled through space. The machine is throbbing under you with its cylinders beating a drummer’s tattoo, and the air tears past you in a gale. I tell you, gentlemen, no man can drive faster and live.” [...]

A slight contrast with the thought of running out of dry lake bed at 793 per...

Aluminum Wheels, Giant Brass Balls And A Land Speed Record

Almost eleven years ago, a Hurculean effort of unheard of proportions culminated with a Land Speed Record at the Bonneville Salt Flats .



This "vehicle" broke the sound barrier, without ever leaving the ground, doing 763.035 MPH .
A feat that has yet to be repeated.

I am going to link to the site I got these images from because I want you to go read the incredible story behind this accomplishment, such as the little known fact that it is one of the first success stories where the internet helped to spread the word about an incredible project where it not only helped to find a driver for it but had school children donating money to pay for the fuel to test it, estimated at 250,000 gallons.



That aluminum wheel was designed to withstand 35 G's!
Also developed with a computer.



that is an image from a Cray computer that was used with Aviation programs to help design the ThrustSSC.

The whole, incredible story can be found here, one of my favorite parts was what the criteria was for being considered to drive this monster;

A competitive selection process took place to see who would drive the fastest car ever built. But rather than advertise for people to apply, he simply allowed the message to spread, thereby providing the applicants with their first test — their own initiative.

Thirty people applied. All of them were either drag racers or pilots. At the Center of Human Sciences in Farnborough, Professor Roger Green provided help with the project:

"What we had to do was decide how to whittle this down further. The most obvious thing to do was to give them all a sanity test and take the ones who failed. But one Richard Noble is obviously quite enough already."

Crazy with a death wish, no one knew what an effect a sonic boom would have on a car mere inches off the ground traveling at over 700 miles an hour!

It is a fascinating read and I highly recommend taking a bit of time to read it!

Cannibal Cruise

Just got back from the 18th Annual Cannibal Cruise held at Truckee Regional Park about three blocks from home. Here's some photos and an observation or two. Click photos to emhugen.

A very nice Z28, but no matter how innocently folks do stuff, sometimes it can't help but make me feel older than dirt:



Mrs. G gets all nostalgic next to a '55 Chevy 2-door sedan. Her first car was one of these:



A '54 Hudson Hornet with Twin H-Power dual one-barrel setup. The things they'd do to get more power out of a flathead 6! Beautiful. Those things won a lot of races against larger displacement cars.



A funny display. The dummy was missing a shoe. A gal put the shoe back on it and said, "This is like takin' care of a drunk." Just then the dummy fell over and the four or five folks standing around just nodded. Heh.



Nice '64 single-carb Triumph 40-incher. My only thought was I wondered how much of what kind of goop did he use to fill in the sidewall cracks on those ancient Dunlop K70 tires. Amazingly, they still make them for vintage applications.



A '54 Marketeer. An idea whose time has come again. This is how I'd fix mine up! Check out the 'apes'. Heh. Probably won't go fast enough for the streamers to beat yer elbows to death. Notice it's still on its original tires.



I can't leave out the Blue Oval boys who populate this joint, so I saved the best for last. Very pretty '51 Ford convertible. Notice the standard Ford feature - the hood's up...



Me'n Mrs. G rode the Royal Enfield down to the show. I had to use extra throttle to get it to move with her on the back. She noticed it and cracked up because I didn't dare say anything...

Old VS. New, Motorized Bicycles

Chances are, if you are over Forty, you will vaguely remember seeing something like this and snickering;



That one is brand new, for $600.00.

Courtesy of WildFire Motors.



Say hello to the latest upgrade.



Pretty wild design.

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The first picture I found courtesy of Mother Earth News, after doing some browsing from an article on a little three wheeled truck that gets 72 MPG.

I guess my point here is, I am trying to kick myself in the butt and find a low cost, fairly simple mode of hauling groceries.


I will be the first one to admit that even for being so skinny, I am over weight and WAY out of shape. I am not into pedaling, but I could be if I hooked up a motorized bike and a little trailer like that.

I am extremely fortunate to live, virtually, in walking distance of THREE small shopping malls, complete with a Dollar store, two laundry mats, two banks, a car wash, a McDonalds and a Taco Bell, a DMV and three cocktail lounges.
If they put in a liquor store in one of those malls, I am good to go.
I am not into walking though.
I walked miles and miles and miles when I was younger. Yeah right, uphill both ways.
Seriously, I did and I am getting old and crippled up. I had my lower back fused twenty five years ago and now I am having hip and knee trouble, on top of my back killing me all the time, the fusion wasn't all that successful and I have lived in misery ever since.
Something like that set up, I waste more gas getting in the truck and getting to the street than one of those little critters would use on a round trip to the farthest point out of that circle!
I don't know yet.
I don't have the money to plop down for a motorized bike, yet. I can have the little trailer built for virtually nothing, just some parts scrounging and maybe a 20 dollar stick of tubing.
We'll see,I keep thinking about it, it would be a perfect setup for some one like me who has so many conveniences close by, at five bucks a gallon for gas.
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention I am five blocks from the Columbia River, it would be perfect for a part time fisherman.

Ancient Secrets Revealed At Last!

Moto Tux did a good post on the trials and tribulations of the extraction of broken bolts and the installation of replacement threads. I mentioned that I have a technique to install spark plug Heli-coil thread inserts without removing the cylinder head. Me an' my big mouth, like what's new?

Anyway, he labelled it my 'secret technique' and asked two questions, 1) How do you accomplish such a miracle, O Wizard?, and 2) Why won't it work with Timeserts?

Since this ain't exactly a Knights Templar hand-me-down to the Masons, I'm happy to oblige. I learned it in the course of a two-year program at the taxpayer-and-industry funded L.A. College O' Motersickle Knowledge. Good thing too, as I have successfully evaded learning very much since the bike makers took the cams from down around yer ankles where they belong and stuck 'em up under the gas tank.

Hereinafter followeth the lesson.

But first (there's always a "but first"), since five minutes of prevention is worth an hour of cure, a few things that may keep you from having to do any of this. I'm talkin' about spark plugs here, but the following generally apply to all threaded fasteners.

Check the threads. A spark plug should screw all the way in with your fingers. You cannot strip threads with your fingers (If you can, call me, I got some work in D.C. for you involving unscrewing several examples of a different kind of poorly functioning 'heads').

If you encounter resistance, STOP. Figure it out and fix it. Sometimes there's carbon or a burr on the internal threads or they're starting to strip. Run a greased spark plug tap through it. Gently.

Some spark plugs have plating on the threads or a burr that will cause them to stick. Ease them with a thread file.

Never, ever, start a spark plug into its hole with anything other than your fingers. If access is a problem, use whatever tools you need, just make sure the motive power is your fingers only. I usually use a rubber plug cap. Starting a plug with a 3/4" air wrench is a sure-fire way to find out if this instructional works.

Use a little anti-seize on the plug threads, especially with aluminum heads, and torque them to 11-18lbsft, or for you godless commies, 14.9-24.4 Nm/Kgm, or as those of us with Royal Enfield manuals know, tighten plug very nice sufficiently to prevent gas passage. I think Mrs. G tried that on me once when I was asleep...

OK, here we go. These steps apply only to aluminum cylinder heads. If you have stripped threads in an iron head, yer screwed. I suggest a quarter-stick of dynamite and an 18mm tractor/flathead H-D plug, wedged into the hole with an anvil, screw jack, or some such fastener.

The only prerequisites for this procedure are physical access and an unobstructed straight shot to the plug hole.

First step is to thoroughly internally lubricate the object you wish to ram insert your tool into with alcohol. Ooops...wrong kinda 'screw'. My bad (flips page).

1) Position the piston far enough down the cylinder that the tap won't run into it, with the exhaust valve open and the inlet valve closed. Remember, the sequence is 'exhaust valve closes, inlet valve opens' so run the piston up 'til overlap starts and back it off a little. That should also ensure the exhaust valve is not open far enough for the tap to hit and bend it.

2) Cram a wad of tiss-yoo paper down through the plug hole so it rests on the piston. Stick yer oil can into the hole and oil the crap out of it (applies to new as well as used tiss-yoo). This is so any chips that escape the next step will be captured.

3) Grease the flutes of the tap. Use a LOT of grease. The chips from the cutting operation will be trapped in the grease.

4) Tap the new oversize threads. Since you should back off a tap every thread-and-a-half or so anyway, use this step to clean the chips off and re-grease the tap.

5) Clean the new threads. Make sure no chips or grease remain.

6) Install the Heli-coil. Make sure the last thread on the insert goes all the way under the lip of the outermost thread in the head or it may pull out later when you least need it. Use a drop of Loctite if you wish.

7) Use needle-nose pliers to break off the installation tang. Grip them tightly and work the tang up and down. If it falls into the engine, you better hope it lands on the tiss-yoo since it's non-magnetic and maybe too heavy to blow out in the next step. Put grease on the flat tip of a magnet anyway and fish for it. Get it out.

8) Remove the tiss-yoo (those medical-type roach clips work good for this) and blow compressed air into the plug hole. This will blow any chips that escaped the safeguards out the exhaust valve and into the drywall in line with the exhaust pipe, where they may be examined at leisure.

9) Install the spark plug and all the other stuff you had to take off to get at it and go riding.

A note to you pros: be sure to charge the customer for 'R&R Cylinder Head' in addition to the insert job. I'm kidding, of course, but it's been done.

I think a word is in order about removing Heli-coils. Why would you want to do that?, you may well ask. Many reasons, but just as an example, you followed all the above steps and are congratulating yourself on the fine job you did and all the time you saved when you notice you just installed a 3/4"-reach insert in a 1/2"-reach hole. If you don't notice this right away, fear not, you will, either when the piston slams into it and makes the big-end bearings go away, or when the piston gets a hole burned through it from pre-ignition caused by 1/4" of red-hot metal in the combustion chamber. Your otherwise lovely shoes will not look so good when you peer into a spark plug hole and see them underneath the vehicle.

You can probably wiggle enough of it loose to grab it with pliers and give it a yank, but you might undo all the good you have just done by yanking the cylinder head threads out with it. Go ahead and try it. I'm kidding about the yanking. It works if you're the least bit cautious and sort of unwind it, and most likely you'll just end up with a six-foot-long insert you can dazzle yer friends with.

If that doesn't work, use a small triangular file to cut a notch down either side of the insert, stick something suitable in the notches and simply unscrew it. This works good on case screw holes as well. Duck soup, he says from the safety of his keyboard.

Now for Timeserts. You can probably do the same thing, but the more solid construction of the Timesert requires the removal of a lot more metal out of the plug hole. There are a lot more chips, and that's the drawback to me.

On the theory that it's always best to start in the cheap seats, the Heli-coil is the first repair attempt to use on stripped spark plug holes. The Timesert is called for when the hole is too wambled-out for the Heli-coil to accomplish a gas-tight seal.

Thus endeth the lesson. I hope it helps. No extra charge for the hyperbole or attempts at humor.

Proudness ...

After a year and a half with us, Sam will be moving on. She landed herself a job in the local Chrysler dealership (all on her own with no help from us), allowing her to stop working two jobs (at the shop with us in the morning and the grocery store in the afternoon). We're all proud as can be that she learned something more than being a wise ass from us. She's a sharp kid and will go a long way in the business and we wish her all the best. We have her until 1 August so you can believe we're gonna torment the shit out of her until then. Heh ...

How to diagnose an electrical problem by adjusting the clutch, Part 2

First, of course, you must read Part 1. Or just scroll down a little. Or start by selecting May 2004 in the left sidebar and be dazzled until you get here.

So there I was (well, it is sort of a war story, after all) tootling happily along on my way to the Post Office. I had just crossed the four sets of railroad tracks that bisect our town, call it bumpity-bumpity4, when the bike quit. No warning, no sputtering, no nuthin', just instant flameout. Being a champion multitasker I simultaneously thought 'uh-oh', whipped in the clutch, and veered into a (very) handy gas station/convenience store.

I sat there for a second wonderin' WTF and letting it all sink in. Then I noticed that the key was still turned on but there were no dash lights. Normally, all the little lights in the speedo are lit up like a Christmas tree until the engine starts.

Total lack of system power. I turned the key a coupla times, and since I'm a professional motorcycle mechanic, flipped all the switches and pushed all the buttons. Nuttin', honey. I pushed the thing out behind the station, lit the one cigarette I had in my pocket, and started looking for the problem, which, since I had no tools with me, consisted of pulling all the fuses out of the fuse block and holding them up to the light, and looking for any wires that might have fallen off. All OK visually.

This was not exactly the first time in my life & career that a motorcycle, even a brand new one, had broken down under me, so I knew what to do. I went into the food mart and bought a pack of Camels and a bottle of water and headed for the pay phone.

An observation: Being all legal with a new driver's license saved my ass. Up until a coupla weeks ago, I wouldn'ta bothered sticking my wallet in my pocket just to go a mile to the P.O. I had money on me as a result. Whew!

Called AAA. Even with gravel trucks going by to the right of me and a freight train going by to the left of me, I managed to discern that my $130-a-year 100-mile-towing membership wouldn't tow a motorcycle. Thank you very much, California State Automobile Association, you pricks. Next time my bike breaks, it's going to magically morph into a '92 Dakota. Once the tow truck driver gets there, I'll at least get the chance to try and talk him into it. I used to know them all, but they're all new guys now. They used to be pretty good about giving locals a break and maybe that still holds. Live and learn. Honesty isn't always the best policy when dealing with bureaucracies.

I had to get the bike home somehow. I've pushed motorcycles before, but there was no way I was going to push it from here. A mile, yes, 200 or so vertical feet at my age, well, maybe if I had to but I didn't have to yet, so hell no. It was just about the time Mrs. G would be getting home from work, so I called her. Not home yet.

While waiting, I smoked Camels and drank water and thought a little. I suspected an open circuit as opposed to a short because even though there was plenty of smoke in the air that day (last Tuesday), none of it was coming from under the seat. A very few possible places - the battery I knew to be OK unless it had instantaneously self-destructed and somehow taken out the power from the charging system. Not likely. Main circuit breaker, not too likely either. Ignition switch? More likely, but not much. Associated wiring, connectors, etc? Most likely. The thought occurred to me that I somehow caused the problem myself during the clutch adjustment process, but I couldn't see how. Gotta get 'er home and find out.

Finally got ahold of Mrs. G. Our pickups both have caps on 'em, so I directed her to go two doors down, see if my pal Jeff was home, ask him to pick up my ramp and tiedowns and please go bail numbnuts' ass out with his open bed Mitsubishi. Luck held and fifteen minutes later me'n the bike were home safe and sound.

Of course Jeff, a rider himself, had to yank my chain a little. When he pulled up to me at the gas station, this exchange:

J: "I thought you wuz a motorcycle mechanic."

G: "I can fix 'em just fine. If I could keep 'em from breakin' in the first place, I'd be so rich ya think I'd be livin' on our block?"

J (shit eatin' grin): "No shit!"

Total time elapsed from breakdown to home, a little over an hour. Total cost, $6.90. $5.35 for smokes (goddam, them things have gotten expensive!), a 20¢ bottle of water for $1.05, and 50¢ for a phone call. No real harm done.

I have two final thoughts on this phase of the adventure. First, the Buell Motor Co. should thank its lucky stars that this happened to me instead of a customer in their target demographic, an inseam-challenged beginner woman rider with no knowledge of motorcycles other than she thinks they're fun. It would have been considerably more expensive and inconvenient for someone like that than it was for me.

Second, I thank my lucky stars that it happened to me instead of to Mrs. G.! Say 'no shit!'.

I'm tired of typing now, but I will give you a hint: this turned out to be a warranteeable manufacturing defect, aka a 'factory fuck-up' that was installed on the assembly line by perhaps as many as three people with their heads solidly up their asses and involved the absolutely smallest, least expensive part on the whole motorcycle. It was going to happen. Period. I hope this was the only bike it happened to and it very well may be.

Your armchair diagnoses (that's where I figured it out) and wild ass guesses are most welcome in 'comments'. A prize to him/her that comes up with the correct answer.

Stay tuned.

Sunday Ride

I'm workin' up to Part 2 of G's Amazing Tales of Service Work Derring-do (Part 1 here), but I ain't all the way awake yet. Might not even get to it today. Just so you know both our bikes are fine, here's a shot, taken yesterday by our friend Bev the fiddle player, of me'n Mrs. G ready to leave Squaw Valley after listening to some Celtic music and stuffing face.

Note the smoke in the air. There's 800-1000 fires burning in California from Big Sur to Crescent City, hundreds of miles from us, but the smoke and ash take I-80 to go east through the Sierra like everyone else. It's been this way for a week, and yesterday was not the worst by far. Compared to earlier in the week, it's just about cleared up.

Click to embiggen

Moto Tux

Our bud Badtux, The Wrenchin' Penguin, has branched out. He's started Moto Tux to separate his political and mechanical sides. To his everlasting credit, he'll tell us when things go wrong with the same panache as when things go right.

All you gearheads go check him out, if for no other reason than to keep from making the same mistakes yerselves.

After that crack I must go now and sandbag my roof as I expect a shower of Acme medium-range missiles from his direction presently...

How to diagnose an electrical problem by adjusting the clutch

The other day, Mrs. G told me that her Blast, which she has named "Buellah", heh, was making a pretty loud clunk when she'd put it in first gear while stopped. I tried it. It was loud all right, made my nutsack ascend vertically at high Δ acceleration until it banged into the stops at the thought of what was going on in the cog closet that if left uncorrected would make a lot of expensive work for me later on. I decided to adjust the clutch and see if that helped, so I set the sled up on the service stand I bought just for this bike and turned to. There's no flat surface on the bottom of the bike, so setting it on a milk crate is out of the question.The stand is absolutely essential to work on this thing and is turning out to be worth its weight in gold.

Just a note about the saddlebags. These are model-specific. There's really no place to attach brackets, so these are 'throw-overs', held in place by the seat and an array of nylon straps. The designer was either pretty clever or got the idea at a leather bar.

Click to emHUGEn

The clutch adjuster cover plate is behind the front part of the Y-shaped footpeg bracket, so that's the first part that has to come off. No way around it. Let the games begin...

I said in the post linked to above that there are two fasteners holding this thing on. There are three. After pulling off the seat and battery and moving a plethora of wires and hoses out of the way, the first two locknuts came off pretty easy after a little monkey-motion figuring out what combination of tools to use. The third one was a bitch. I think I had every ratchet, u-joint, extension, wobbler, end wrench, pitchfork, whatever was in my toolbox that I thought might work, laid out before I hit on the answer, which of course was the most time-consuming and inconvenient one of all and the one I was trying to avoid.



A breaker bar and a 12-point socket. Sigh. I like to use six-point sockets because there isn't as much chance of damaging the nut, but the breaker bar didn't have enough travel. It was turn the handle a little, reposition the socket on the nut, turn the handle a little, and so on and so on. Notice all the crap I had to move out of the way to get what little wrench clearance I got. Notice the drilled-off pop rivet that held the system relay on. I pop riveted it back on this time, but next time a nutsert is going in. There are wires and hoses down in the hole as well that had to be manipulated each time I repositioned the socket.

It was a mite tedious but eventually I got the bracket off.

I know all you wrenches are snortin' "Dummy! Why dintcha use an air ratchet?" I tried. My 3/8-drive air ratchet lacked 1/32nd of an inch in every direction of fitting in there. Grrr. A 1/4" air ratchet from the Cheap Chinese Tool Co. is heading towards me on The Big Brown Truck as we speak.

After a coupla hours of screwing around, which included smoke and cold drink breaks and plenty of throwing tennis balls for my pup Tami, this is where I was at:



A few minutes of scratchin' my head tryin' to remember why I took this piece off...

The clutch adjustment took about five minutes.

Reassembly of the footpeg bracket was the reverse of the above, but it went a lot quicker because I had the procedure figured out. Buttoned the sled up and tried the first gear shift. The adjustment had worked, just a nice 'snack' sound, pretty normal for a new bike.

Total cost for the job was about a long gone 50¢ for cable ties and a pop rivet which I always have in stock. I didn't replace the clutch adjuster cover gasket because it was in good shape and I'm saving my new one for the first regular service. I know what me'n Gascacinch can get away with.

All in all, not too bad for my very first time working on this bike. I topped out the learning curve for this procedure, which has to be done fairly often just in the general course of maintenance. It's just like racin' - first you learn the track, then you go for lap time.

Time to go for a test ride.

But wait, you say, what electrical problem did you diagnose?

Well, before you can diagnose an electrical problem, there has to be one.

I decided to go to the post office, a mile away, and pick up the mail. I didn't make it.

Later.

A New Meaning For Hot Foot

Steam powered cars were fairly popular at the beginning of the last century and were very fast for their day, the Land Speed record for a steam powered car still stands from 1906!
128 miles an hour.
Fantastically fast for the day.
That record could soon come crashing down if a certain British team has their way.
They are set to try and top 200 MPH in August.






More info at the Times Online. There is a slide show link for more pictures too.

Originally found at Fark.com


Pretty cool.

Limey Day ...

Every so often, we get 'days'. Last week we had a 'Pickup Day'. Mostly everything in the lot were full size pickups. Today was 'Limey Day'; nothing but British cars. I had a couple Jags, a Mini, and to cap it off, Nunzio brings up this '71 Triumph TR-4 for a safety inspection.

Nunzio (l) and Harry (r)

Click pics to embiggen. Cell phone pics; sorry about the quality.

Hey OPEC, Seen This Yet?

Custom Made Oil.

Made with genetically altered microbes;


LS9 DesignerBiofuels™ products are a family of fuels produced by specially-engineered microbes created via industrial synthetic biology. Starting from raw, natural sources of sugar such as sugar cane and cellulosic biomass, these renewable fuels will fundamentally change the biofuels landscape and set the stage for widespread product adoption and petroleum displacement. LS9 hydrocarbon biofuels have higher energetic content than ethanol or butanol and have fuel properties that are essentially indistinguishable from those of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

It's a reality.
It is nowhere near ready to be produced in the astronomical amounts the world uses every day, but it is real and it is coming.
It may help with peak oil, but we still need to get it together and find alternative ways to power our insatiable use of energy.

I am still amazed.

"Untainted by Technology"

I haven't put up much about my new bike. I been too busy ridin' the sonofabitch. My choices are to:

A) Piss Fixer off by using all his bandwidth
B) Post everything I want to on this sled, or my favorite
C) All of the above

It might be down for a day or so pretty soon as I intend to install the right side shift conversion at the 500 mile service. In the meantime, us old farts with Royal Enfields are pretty much interchangeable, so enjoy this video. His bike is newer than mine and has quite a few detail differences, but it's pretty close.

The gent makes one little mistake - he says the rear wheel is turning because the clutch is dragging. It's turning because the rear wheel is off the ground with the clutch engaged. This is entirely normal and just means that the rotation of the crankshaft is passing through the gearbox to the rear wheel without much resistance. That's a good thing. The rear wheel will stop turning without any change in engine note once he rolls it off the center stand.

I think from his license plate that he's in New Jersey, but I could be wrong about that.



Thank you, glssgrg.

Escape clause ...

So, I've had my Escape a year now and put a little over 12K on it. In my book, and the Mrs' (she got hers - the black one - in November) they're great little cars. They hold enough crap, are extremely comfortable, and get decent mileage (20 - 23 mpg with the 3.0L V-6, the four cylinder and hybrid get better, so do the 2WD models). One of the great things is the 'fold-flat' seats. Shayna loves them because she has a flat, level floor to walk around on when we take her places.

Another good thing is the SIRIUS satellite radio that Ford throws in for the first year. I've already renewed the subscription for 2 more years and it will be a must in the next car as well.

Power from the 4-valve V-6 is more than ample (200 hp) and getting up to highway speed is easy. I don't miss the V-8 Explorer in that regard nor do I miss parking the bigger car. The Escape fits anywhere a car would.





They are also very sure-footed. I've taken mine on road calls in axle-deep snow and mud and door-deep flooding and it ran like a champ. Mrs. F was also impressed how well it fares in inclement weather. In my book, no car is worth what they're asking for them but by today's standards, the Escape is a good value for the money.

Update:

And just to add, the Mrs. has the leather interior in hers while I have the cloth (easier to clean) in mine. Both have held up well and the leather is easier to clean than I thought.

Out Of The Crate 200 cc Enduro, $1500

Hard to believe but here it is, brand spankin' new,






I did get a chuckle right off the getgo, they call 'em "Dual Purpose" now.
My Dad raced a Yamaha 250 back in the seventies and after he sold it twenty five years later, found one just like it and fixed it so it looked brand new.
I'll be damned if they didn't call 'em Enduro's back in the day.

Anyway,There it is, Made In China, of course, but shipped to your door for fifteen hundred bucks, some assembly required.
Not much, the handle bars and controls, front wheel and fender, a few other little things.
They say you can be riding it in a little over an hour.
Comes with a warranty no less and a piece of paper with enough digits to let you get a title and license it.
75 miles to the gallon, disc brakes on both ends.
It ain't a bad looking little critter.
As long as ya didn't go out and thrash on it like I would, it sounds like a hell of a deal. Parts may be a bit of a problem getting to in a hurry though.

Here is the link,The Roketa 200.


H/T to Possum Living for the homework on this.

Boingcycle

Mrs. G wants me to get one of these. She says I'll stay home more, get in less trouble, and live longer. Only things I wanta know are does it go 'vroomvroom' or do I have to do it like usual, and where d'ya put the quarters in? The swing set is starting to get boring.



She lets me ride this one while she's shopping:

Where I work* ...

It was hotrod day at the shop. My Escape looks way out of place next to Indian's '23 T and a customer's '67 Chevelle convertible.



And Sam's got a new pup! His name is Chuck.

Click pics to embiggen. Again, sorry about the quality but I took 'em with my cell.

*Part of an ongoing, semi-regular series.

Lonnie

I'm just back from rescuing collecting my new Royal Enfield from Burbank. More about the bike in a few days. During its inexorable progress from Larry to my garage, it was stashed at my old friend Lonnie Martin's house. It was a real treat for me'n Mrs. G to get an altogether too brief visit with him and Larry as we haven't seen either one of them in person for probably 20+ years, so I decided to tell you a little about Lonnie.

I met Lonnie at a TT Scrambles/Flattrack race at Adelanto CA in about 1973. It didn't take long to find out we lived less than a mile apart in Burbank and we became friends. He sponsored me for membership in a dirt riding club, which will remain nameless until I get permission from them to out them, and we spent years going racing together, often in the same truck. We were friends, but once on the track, all bets are off, as in "Try ta put a wheel inside me, willya m*****f*****? Watch this!" (sound of door slamming). We rode clean, but we rode as hard as we could. Lonnie just about always beat me. Who cares? It's fun!

There's also the wee possibility that we partied a little as well. Some stories are best left untold...

The Martins are one of Southern California's first families of motorcycling and Lonnie has been a motorcyclist since the day he was born. His first words were probably 'vroom-vroom!'. His late Dad was the Triumph and Vincent dealer in Burbank for many years and Lonnie grew up in the shop. He thought an oil can was a squirt gun, and ended up nailed into a motorcycle crate all day once because of it.

His Dad was also the inventor of the Martin Swinging Arm for rigid-framed Triumphs long before swingarms came stock, the Martin Roadrunner (scroll down) Whizzer-based bike, and the high-quality Martin Motorcycle Lift, an in-floor air-over-oil device. They haven't been built for probably thirty years, but I'll bet there's a lot of them still in service. They were in use in several motorcycle shops I've worked in and I own one personally.

Oh, now I remember...the Martins participated in Land Speed Racing dry lakes speed trials a little too:

Click photos to emhugen

Burbank, California, Triumph dealer Bill Martin and sons Dale and Lonnie (L to R) with their record-setting Tiger Cub streamliner. The Cub ran 139mph at Bonneville in 1956. Shell is a modified P-38 fighter plane belly tank.

Photo from Lonnie's collection. Caption from Triumph Motorcycles In America by Lindsay Brooke and David Gaylin.

Lonnie says his biggest contribution to that effort was he got to help push-start it. Hey, that's what kids are for, ain't it?

Lonnie started racing at an early age, back when there weren't classes for kids. He raced against the big guys. Beat 'em a lot, too. The first time I visited his digs, I never saw so many trophies in one place! Sadly, most of them were destroyed a few years back in a fire in his storage shed.

This next photo was taken in the mid-'70s. Now, he gave me my choice of photos from his extensive collection and was a little puzzled why I wanted this particular one. He has photos of himself way more crossed up and exciting than this one. Here's why: anybody can get full-lock sideways turning left because that's the way oval track races are run. This photo was taken during a TT Scrambles race which has both small right and large left turns, and shows him turning right, steering with the throttle and rear wheel at speed with his feet up. You can't see the smoke comin' out of his ears because of the helmet, but his body language shows the concentration and determination that makes him a winner. The only way this pic could have been better is if it was in color, 'cuz that was the prettiest racing 500 Triumph there ever was. This is motorcycle art, folks.



His racing success did not come painlessly. He told me a funny (now, not then, heh.) story about reporting for jury duty a little while back. He couldn't get through the metal detector because of all the screws holding his arm together, and ended up surrounded by the rent-a-cops that man those things at the L.A. courthouse. It didn't quite happen, but I get this funny visual of him standin' there nekkid, going "but...but...but...".

The next one was taken this past weekend. Lonnie doesn't like his picture taken unless he's at speed on two wheels, and he didn't want to pose for me. About the only person who can get him to do anything is Mrs. G as they are great friends as well. He is either looking at her as if to ask, "Am I doin' OK? Huh? Huh?", or using his lightning reflexes to fuck up my shot just as he saw my finger move on the button, the prick. (Clever way to blame him instead of myself for not watching what I was doing, no?)

The bike is an early KTM 500 single, almost thirty years old, and runs and looks like it just came off the showroom floor. He takes good care of his shit.



These days, Lonnie is involved in the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), which is the Sanctioning Body for Land Speed Racing speed trials at El Mirage and Muroc dry lakes in the Mojave Desert near Edwards AFB, and the Bonneville Nationals. He is the El Mirage Liaison with the BLM. Once a racer, always a racer, in whatever capacity.

That's about it for now. One thing our visit taught me is that we're not going to go this long between visits again.