Monday, August 1, 2011

Specialty Tools

The Dragon - Day 1 - Part 2

CCRider and I unpacked what little we had brought and hung out for awhile waiting for some more guys to show up. We hung out outside in the hot sun and watched Jewbacca work on his carburetors and tail light wiring. [Side Note] For the uninitiated, when ever you are dealing with a group of vintage motorcycles, without fail, every time you stop, someone will have to work on their bike. It's an unwritten law. You will see this unfold as the story goes on. [/Side Note].



I got tired of waiting around and rode down the road for about 10 miles where I finally got cell phone reception and made some calls to let people know I was still alive. When I got back, ChimeraMW and his brother Jason had shown up. After BSing for awhile, we decided to take a ride back across The Dragon.  We made it up to the scenic overlook and stopped to take a break.

 We soon realized Jason and Ryan were not with us.  We waited around for awhile in case they had been pulled over by the cops or something.

 This is when I noticed a puddle forming under my bike.  Yeah, it was gas. I figured I was probably going to need that gas so I tried to figure out the problem.  The left carburetor bowl was leaking.  So, there at the overlook I took the bowl and gasket off and tried to clean them as best I could and assemble everything tightly.  It didn't work and it kept leaking.  ChimeraMW was getting concerned about his brother since they still hadn't shown up, so they all headed back down the mountain.  I cleaned the gas off my bike as best I could and took off back to the campground.  Turns out Jason had some electrical problems and kept blowing fuses.  Plastic rode back with me and he took his truck to get Jason's bike.  I decided I would just shut off the fuel valve from the tank every time I stopped so the gas wouldn't leak out of the carburetor.  I had to do this for the REST OF THE WEEKEND.

When we got back to the campsite, DJElliot, Shane and POCPhil had shown up.  I decided to ride with Plastic and Jason back to his house (which was about 15 minutes away) to drop off his bike.  We ended up sitting over there for a couple of hours trying to help him diagnose his electrical problems.  We didn't figure it out.  So Plastic and I headed back to camp.  We spent the rest of the night hanging out, drinking beer and telling stories (some more believable than others).

3 comments:

Chimera said...

Just wanted to say thanks again to Plastic and Flug for sticking around and helping out on trying to diagnose the problem. Ended up being a failed/grounding kill/start control. Nothing was physically damaged, but after tracing multiple things, we switched over a gs550 collar, and all fuse problems were resolved, and we got it back on the road. Too bad we missed out on a good chunk of the gtg.

Fix said...

I'm loving the recap. I noticed you got me in those pics, but not my ugly bike. Good work. :)

netbikes said...

you said: For the uninitiated, when ever you are dealing with a group of vintage motorcycles, without fail, every time you stop, someone will have to work on their bike. It's an unwritten law.

I say: this is a good thing, you stay fit, no time for that extra coffee and cream donut:-) Chris