Well lets see, I guess this starts up in the Adirondacks on my August trip to my camp.It was a good trip ,went kayaking lots and did work on the place cleaning out my studio area so I can paint again while I'm there.Near the end of that trip I was working on the windows getting them preped to re-glaze the panes of glass and then painted. I wanted this done and ready so on my Fall trip I could actually glaze and prime .Got them scraped and clean when I decided to quit for the day and make dinner after a nice cold shower.Fired up the generator and soon discovered it wasn't making electricity . Spent the next hour and a half taking it apart to see if I could do an easy repair in the field.No luck ! At that point I decided I would head home the next morning and began to pack things up. Never did have a real dinner,just a grilled cheese sandwich .
Back in July I found a Moto Guzzi parts bike for a hundred bucks .I jumped on it and when I returned from this August trip began to strip it while I was figuring out what was wrong with my little generator. I ordered a bridge rectifier , new brushes went in ,still no power so I pulled the actual generator apart from the motor and yanked out the armature. I found a broken wire from the field to one of the two slip rings the brushes ride on. This is why she wasn't making electricity ! Fixed that put it all back together with the new parts I ordered and she worked like a charm. Then I got a kit to rebuild the leaking carburetor and fixed that so when I took it upstate I'd have reliable power.
Kept on striping the bike and doing the yard work over at my friends house until it was time to head north again in the last week of September.
I ordered a new clutch for my Moto Guzzi as well. It has been down with a bad clutch since spring and I missed my old friend. Decided I'd do the clutch job when I returned from my camp in October. The trip up to camp went well.My little 1965 Valiant station wagon did just fine as I expected it would. The weather was good at first but then the rain started in. I had my paints and my little studio area all set up so I started working on a painting
I had a good trip,It got cold near the end and I had to cut down three dead trees for firewood .I had the stove going pretty good for a few days .One night it got down to 22 degrees F but I was warm as toast with that wood stove burning that wood I cut.The ride home was pleasant ,no problems and I made good time.When I returned I dove into the Moto Guzzi clutch replacement job.It's never easy,it always expands,and it always is a battle that I win after a sometimes rather long fight. This job was no different.After a week of fooling with this it was finished and on Saturday I rode it out to the bike shop and had her inspected so she's legal. Had a couple bugs to get rid of not related to the clutch so Saturday night I did that . Sunday I took her out for a three hour test ride under all conditions. I went slow ,I hit the interstate and went fast ,I worked her and she never missed a beat !
Now I'm here on this rainy day back in Long Island fixing up a friends shed for him. Got rained out today so I'm writing this long overdue blog post. Things are good with me but I sure miss the woods and cooking my breakfast on the fire out back. It will be June before I get to have the pleasure of having my coffee while cooking pancakes on the camp fire again !
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