Back at it

With the end of the semester, things have started to calm down a bit. The mad rush of re-reading text, marking essays, and lesson planning have ceased for a while. But with that end comes new beginnings: substituting for high school, building a new house, preparing our current house for sale, and, of course, the motorcycles.

Last fall, the Norton wasn't running very well. You can see it running to the side here:

Turns out, we had the pistons in the wrong cylinders. Dad installed them without the cylinder-head and wasn't able to line up the valve grooves in the pistons. I'd opened an adjustment cover and noticed that one of the pushrods had come right off the tappet. What happened was, the bike ran fine until it heated up, causing the metal expanded and the valves to actually come into contact with the pistons. Not good.

Now that everything is sorted out, my latest problem is that running the single Mikuni carburetor, which you can see in the above video, doesn't allow enough room for an air filter. One cylinder is already scored from digested dirt. Seems there are two courses of action I can take:

First, I can fit the original Amal Monobloc carbs. The only problems with this are that I don't have the original airbox to fit them, which retails at about $125, and I also don't have the choke slides, which retail for about $20 each, for a total of $165.

Second, I can fit a central oil tank, which would allow for bigger carb. The problems here are that the price of these tanks range from $300-$600, and you can't run a battery.

The good news is that my local guru happens to have an old fiber-glass one in stock and has agreed to sell it to me on the cheap. The only problem is that it lacks mounting brackets, something I'll have to fabricate.

My Van

Here's a pic of my van. It's at the farm right now and no doubt covered in 6 ft of snow, but come spring, she'll be in my driveway.

Records are Made to be Broken

My record for latest motorcycle ride of the year is November 24th of 2009. Doesn't look like it will be broken any time soon:

Getting stoked for snowmobiling though, even if the snow isn't quite ready. Racing season begins late January, so I still have some time to get the 650 ready.

Winter. . .

I've been waiting for a reply from my parts dealer for a few days now. I recently ordered new center-stand bolts and a few other miscellaneous parts for the Norton, but they have yet to arrive. Then, after the head-bolt incident, I ordered a replacement, and while I was at it, and new nut for the fastening the head at the rear of the engine. This one is particularly nasty, as it lies in between the cylinders and is nearly impossible to loosen with a normal wrench. The only solution I could manage was to grind one to fit:

It worked well enough, but I noticed that tightening the nut was difficult as the wrench lost most of its integrity. But that's why God invented Red Loctite.

The snow is melting quite quickly around here, and I hope to take the Bonneville out for one last ride before the real snow comes. I vowed to start the Norton this year, so for now, it stays in the garage. The Bonneville, however, goes into storage.

I am getting excited for winter. We were finally able to track down a new crankshaft for the Arctic Cat EXT 650, or as my dad calls it "the six-and-a-half," which is rare as hen's teeth. The guy we got it from, whom my dad new from racing school in the 60s, actually makes them by pressing together two other shafts, and had two of them. So we bought them both.

The crank first broke before I was born and the guy who fixed it bodged the job and never got it quite right. A few years ago, during a race in the Vintage Snow-Drags, I could tell it was acting funny even before the race, but we decided to go with it regardless. I would hit the throttle, but the machine would take about a second and a half to actually move, but when it finally did, it seemed okay enough. So when it was my turn to race, I wanted to time my run by hitting the gas before the signal, but decided against it, just in case. So naturally, my opponent blew me off the line, but when I finally got out of the chute, I was catching up to him like he was standing still. Coming to the finish line, we were almost even when the crank broke at about 130 km/h. The track locked up and the back end began to slide out. I was now perpendicular to the track when the front ski caught on the snow and the machine rolled about three times. Luckily, the majority of the damage was limited to some dings in the expansion chamber, which pissed me off enough, and some cracks in the fiber-glass cowl.

But now we got the new crank, and the engine is almost ready to be put back in the sled except we need new piston rings and we can't buy them without a new set of pistons as well, which is more money than we're willing to spend right now. But we'll see. As snowmobiling season draws ever closer, I may relent and just buy .10 or .20 over pistons in anticipation of future re-builds.

Oh Snap!

Sometimes motorcycle work permeates into other facets of life. Robert Pirsig was, I think, one of the first to write about this phenomenon in a comprehensive way, or at least take the idea to a new level. The most recent book I've read about it is Matthew B. Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft. If you liked Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence, I suggest you give Crawford a try.

Recently, my attempts at starting the Norton for the first time have been thwarted by my lack of focus. First, after finally sorting the wiring, and mere minutes away from kicking the engine over, I stripped the sparkplug threads. Everything was in place for the big test, and, in my haste, I bodged one of the simplest things, which set me back two weeks.

Then, on Hallowe'en night, after buying a new torque wrench, I had the head back in place, and after dragging my dad over to help me line up the push-rods, I began to torque the head bolts. Two of them are partially blocked by the spindle covers, but are still accessable, so I went at it. I thought I felt the torque wrench give at 20 lbs, but couldn't be sure, so I kept going. This time, I felt nothing. So I kept going. Nothing. So I kept going. Then the bolt snapped.

I cooly set the wrench down, walked in the house, ate a miniature TOOTSIE-ROLL, pressed my thumb and index finger to the bridge of my noes and contemplated suicide.

Well, that may be stretching it just a tad, but my whole endeavor took on new meaning. When I stripped the spark-plug threads, I was infuriated with myself. This job really wasn't that difficult, and I couldn't understand why was I having so much trouble. Then the answer became clear: I lack focus. I have too many other things on my mind. My subconscious is constantly processing too many other things while I should be dedicated to my current task, whatever that may happen to be. This is the way of Zen, and this is the reason why I bought the Norton to begin with: it is an outlet where I can forget my daily obligations and focus on the bike, but it clearly doesn't seem to be working.

I should mention that I'm not a mechanic. I really don't know what I'm doing, and just when I think I do, I strip threads or break bolts. Most, if not all, of what I've learned is from my dad and from books. I have no real experience, hence my failures at applying my knowledge.

The broken bolt put my whole life into perspective. The bolt is everything; everything is the bolt. I need to focus, to listen to my instincts and slow down, otherwise I may snap, just like the bolt.

The worst part about both the stripped threads and the snapped bolt is that at some level, I knew that something was going wrong in both instances, but I was too distracted and didn't listen to those instincts and the result, both times, was disaster.

But this entire problem manifested from my constant haste. There is always something else I should be doing, something else that commands my attention, some future endeavour that I need to make time for. This is the mode of thinking that results in distraction and snapped bolts.

Now, this time, once I have the new parts I need, I will take the process slowly, methodically. Be one with the bike and forget everything else for those few hours in the garage.

Disaster!

Saturday was a high-speed race to prep the bike for Sunday's hare-scramble. There were two main things left to do: first was to sort out the shocks, second was to sort out the chain.  Now, these two things should have been a snap, but I'm slowly learning that finding suitable parts in this town is next to impossible.

Only one place sells metric nuts and bolts, and they're closed on Saturdays. Luckily I picked up some bits on Friday, namely some nuts and bolts that fit the shock mounting holes in the swing-arm. But to my surprise, the holes did not match the ones on the shocks themselves, which were 12mm rather than 10. Dad and I searched all over town to find some sort of insert to do the job, some sort of bushing or other small cylinder that had the proper outside diameter (then we could drill out the inside diameter to fit), but to no avail. Finally we hit the motorcycle salvage and managed some 10mm grommets off an old Suzuki in the yard, which the guy let me have for free! Note to self: next time go there first!

After that we searched for some chain. No motorcycle dealer in the city had 520 chain. Unreal. We were sent to John Deere by the Kawasaki dealer, but they didn't have any either, and the Suzuki dealer sold us a brand new, heavy-duty job for $150 that doesn't even fit. Finally we managed to find some links at Peavy Mart and splice together the chains from the '71 and the '74.

After some other bits and parts that needed sorting, I made an exhaust mount out of one of the grommets that we pressed out of the shocks, since the last owner had apparently lost the original and simply wrapped the bolt with what seemed like an entire roll of electrical tape.

 It was now 7:00: fifteen hours until the race. I got everything together, and loaded the bike in the truck and was off to the track for the first (and only) test run:

As you can see, the bike needs to be rev'ed quite high to take-off.

The chain broke soon after that and ate its way into the case. We were done.

I think it's time for a new dirtbike.

Good News and Bad News

The good news is that I was able to get the axel holes machined out (for another whopping bill--I'm beginning to think about switching shops next time), and yes, the axel nuts fit.

The bad news is that

1. The shock holes on the swing-arm are smaller than the holes on the shocks, which means I either have to drill out the holes on the swing arm or try to find new mounts for the shocks
2. Because the swing-arm is so thick, once the axel nuts are through and threaded, there won't be enough room for the adjusters (not that they fit anyway)
3. The brake cable seems like it may be... ahh who am I kidding, they are too short, but I'm hoping that once the wheel is on and the suspension takes up some weight and lowers the frame it will free up some of the cable.
4. Last time I ran the bike it wouldn't run for more than thirty seconds, but that may have been because I couldn't rev it high enough to ride it with any competency since I was in a residential neighborhood
5. I still don't know if the bloody wheel will even fit with the brake in place.
6. The race is on Sunday morning
7. The possibility that I may have to race the most dangerous motorbike ever built is quickly turning into a reality