The Corona Rollercoaster

Just when I think things are going to go my way and I'll have work and money in my pocket to travel with  this garbage comes along .The Human Race is a strange thing. We overpopulate the planet to the point where the climate is changing from our over use of everything that nature provided for us causing all sorts of problems here on Earth and now Mother Nature is fighting back. I'm wondering just how many of us will be left standing after this first round of disease that she's throwing at us  ends.There will be a 2nd round and a third & fourth too in this battle to bang back the population of Humans by Nature.What we need to understand is that Nature ALWAYS WINS ! No matter how smart and creative we think we are Nature created us and has way more abilities than we can even begin to imagine when it comes to solving problems in her experiments in evolution , just look back in time to see into the future ! Sure we are smart and will do everything in our power to fight this current problem we face but in the long run we are destined to fail. We kill each other over some imaginary guy in the clouds and look to him for guidance .That's just how simple we really are .So with all this in mind I'm putting new tires on two of my motorcycles today while it rains here in New York in hopes that I am dead wrong .You always need a " plan B " . My plan B is to get my bikes together and start getting ready to head west in August.If I can't head west I'll head north to my camp in the Adirondacks and hunker down out in the woods there for the summer rather than sit here stuck on this overpopulated  diseased piece of fly paper  known as the New York Metropolitan Area . I'm glad I'm old !

History Repeats Itself

In 2009 I wanted to go on a cross country motorcycle trip. All my work fell apart and I was unemployed so that never happened. What did happen is later on that summer I landed a big job doing a house and made enough to do it the next year in 2010. This is from a post I wrote back then in 2010 :

Getting Close To Travel Time !

Work and other assorted things : Things are moving along nicely.Tomorrow is my last day out there at the Vinyl Victorian ,well, at least until my return in October.I will have all the work finished that I promised him I'd do and they are happy with the outcome so in the end it all seemed to work out.Saturday while riding to work on the Long Island Expressway I got pulled over by the Sheriff. I'm thinking, what did I do? I was just going along slightly slower than the flow of traffic getting ready to exit when this happened.I pull over,park,take off my helmet and asked what I did.He just says nothing. Then he gets out and starts looking at my bike so I asked if he liked it.He said yes big time and a big smile came to his face as he started telling me all about how he loves Moto Guzzi's and also owns one! Then,for the next 45 minutes we stood there on the side of the high way talking Moto Guzzi.We exchanged emails and I gave him my phone number.It seems he wants me to help him find an older one like I have and fix it all up for him.Sometimes my life is so strange.I'm thinking I want to start working on bikes and get a little shop going at home and out of nowhere this just falls out of the sky and lands on me.Just like last year when I couldn't go on my cross country trip because I was broke and unemployed and this huge job at the VV fell on me.Fate and karma .Even the trip was influenced by fate and karma. You know, if I went last year the bike would have blown the clutch about 1000 miles into the trip and it would have been the end of that trip. Instead,I went broke,went off with some friends for a weekend to a bike show and upon my return there was a phone call and enough employment to fix up the bike, pay the bills for a year and go on a 3 month trip on my bike! Now I'm thinking,what the fuck am I going to do when I come home and I have these new options. Life is good ! I think these kinds of experiences are why I've always relied on myself for my own employment . It gets scary at times but when it works out,which it always does somehow, it is so fucking good. :

Fast forward to now ! Haven't really done anything in terms of money generating work since October ! I'm pretty broke but haven't really lost my savings so I'm ok. Been planning this trip out west just like last time for well over a year now.It was supposed to be for my 70th birthday but no work killed that.I did manage to get the new clutch in the Moto Guzzi, and now I'm ready to pull the cylinders off to replace all the gaskets and O rings.I also want to check the cylinders and pistons  so I can ride and not worry about things. I decided to take the Moto Guzzi rather than the BMW K 100 . The K100 is just too hi tech and if it craps out I'm fucked. The MG on the other hand is really low tech and can be fixed easily in the field so it's my bike of choice for this ride.
  The other night my friend Steve calls up and tells me he has decided to tear down two walls in his house and completely re do his kitchen. He wants me to do it ! We are starting in May ! I am leaving to head out west in August ! PERFECT TIMING ! So , history repeats itself for me a decade later. Life is good . Today I head out on a ride to the east.Taking the BMW . Tomorrow I take the Moto Guzzi out. Another friend  Paul is going to help me pull the MG apart and check everything  just like we did before the last big trip west,History repeats itself again ! So now I order parts and start to get down to business. Can't wait to be heading to the west again and wandering.There will be much to write about  in the coming weeks and months. See,you can never give up. The next day , week,month ,or even year  always brings new opportunity to those who hold on.

Phase Two

Now that the 1966 Yamaha is all back together with the spare motor installed and running right I have moved to phase two ,the fix of the original motor.Yesterday I put it on the bench and attacked it !

I started by looking closely at the transmission inspecting the gears .Everything looks good with it.There are no signs of fatigue in the gear teeth and it all works smoothly. I got out my service and parts manuals and read that these kick start gears broke so after serial number 20 thousand something they started using a heavier set of gears that will interchange with the earlier ones.Both my motors are early with numbers in the 11 and 16 thousand range so I looked some more in later model manuals and found they continued using these same gears thru the DS6 series bikes that were produced in 1970.I have lots of these ds6 motors so I have plenty of these gear and kick shaft units .The earlier ones were thinner with more teeth  closer together which made them weak.

As you can see here the one on the left is heavier duty. So,I dug out all I needed from my inventory and tore into the motor.

After removing the crankshaft assembly and transmission I discovered that the transmission bearings are marginal at best and one had a small amount of rust happening on it so decided that I will have to replace the bearings.Since I'm replacing all the transmission bearings I also decided I'd replace the two outer crank bearings .This will give me a really good motor when I'm all finished so that whoever buys this bike will get years of good service out of her.So now this project is stalled out while I sell off some auto parts to get some money to buy new bearings.Last night I listed an aftermarket slant six 4bbl intake manifold  for sale on this Chrysler site I'm on.It will bring $250. in to pay for any parts I need for this bike and probably get me started on the next one.

Well,now it's time to get out into the garage and dig up some more parts to sell off.  Gonna be nice out tomorrow and even nicer on Monday . You know where I'll be , RIDING !