Summer's Gone

 Well,like the title says ,summer is gone.It's the day after Labor Day and I'm thinking about finding things to do as the Fall approaches .  Got the nice little 1970 DS6C I sold back in the summer all prepped for shipping.It's all polished and tuned.I took the carbs off and put them on my own DS6C so I could get them all set up for the new owner.Usually it takes me some miles to do this and seeing that the bike is un insured and un registered I couldn't take it out on the road for testing .I took it around my neighborhood some to check that everything works as it should before I took off the carbs. Took it out again after setting them up on my bike and setting the timing.She runs great so I'm happy. Now that that project is behind me for the most part I'm starting to focus on what is ahead. 

 Back in the third week of August I went to the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Show And Swap Meet  in PA. Took my new 2000 Chevy S10 and brought some junk to sell.Did good and the trip was paid for by selling things I no longer need. Had a great time there with my old friends.Been going to this event for over 30 years so it's always a good time for me.It was good to see my friends after staying away for the last couple years because of that damn Covid garbage. While there my friend John bought a 1965 Yamaha Big Bear Scrambler to restore. It had a stuck motor and a rattle can paint job on the body work so he got it cheap.The thing only has 3000 or so miles on it . Once back at our swap space I determined it was a broken gear at the end of the kick start shaft .We were able to turn the motor over using the rear wheel with the transmission in gear and the motor has compression. After we determined this we got hold of a 6v battery and checked for spark. None at first but after a few minutes cleaning the points we had spark.I filled the carbs with some fuel and we bump started it for a brief 30 second run to see if the motor was good.It is ! so we pulled the motor out and it came home with me to rebuild over the winter while John goes over the rest of the bike at his home in Tenn. 

I also got to spend time with some other old friends who I've known for 30 years, Mark and Keith. At the old venue where this event was held for well over 25 years we shared a swap meet space and rode together .We also shared a space at Mid Ohio at AMA's Vintage Motorcycle Days for many years. It sure felt good to be hanging out with my good friends.We decided it was time for me to go down to North Carolina to ride in the mountains with them next June.I sure hope this comes to pass.

Also ran into other friends . Vintage motorcycling is a very close knit community and it's always good to go to one of these events and connect with it. 

The trip was too short but that's the way it always seems when you are having a good time. Got there Friday morning at 8:30 and was on my way home Sunday morning at 9:30. The trip home was good until I hit the approach to the Holland Tunnel where I ran into this hour and a half traffic jam to get thru the tunnel to NYC.It was over 90 degrees out and very stressful but I got thru it ,thru the city and out to Long Island where I live by 2:30. Two days later the truck took a crap .I must have toasted something sitting in that mess because it lost power and barely ran.I managed to limp 25 miles to home from where this happened and read the codes.I was getting a crank position sensor code and a cam shaft position sensor code . I replaced both parts and pulled out the spark plugs for a look.They were fine but it still ran terrible. I got out the genuine Chevy service manual I picked up at the car show back in the spring and started to do research.Looking at the wiring diagrams I noticed that the crank position sensor is wired thru the Ignition control module .I replaced this part back in the spring with a cheapo one I bought off Amazon for 79 dollars .I had a theory that it failed due to being over heated ,which it shouldn't have done, so I bit the bullet and bought a genuine GM one for 200 bucks and installed it .Problem solved ! Now I'm testing it for the next week or so and if there are no more check engine codes related to this I am going to drive it up to my camp 400 miles away for two weeks in the woods . So,there you have it , summer is over and I'm getting ready to head north to go kayaking into the back country of the Adirondacks as the leaves are changing.Last October I picked up a cheap used wet suit so if I end up in the water I don't freeze to death .Sure hope I can go on this trip, I need it bad !