Hot Sauce of the Week

Bayou Fireballs-If I were going to draft an open letter to Louisiana regarding "Louisiana-style" hot sauces, I would make sure that I spent a good part of the letter on this. See, I've tried quite a few of these sauces and if you are keeping score here, I find them to be all too similar. I was understandably skeptical when I saw the "Cajun Certified" logo on this one and was afraid I was in for another boring, formulaic sauce. Imagine my surprise when I found more heat than cayenne in the addition of habanero. The differences continued with a liberal helping of garlic. It wasn't thin like a typical Louisiana sauce, it was chunky and I could visibly make out the ingredients. Alone, the flavors are a bit much but put this monster on something and it is unbelievable. In less than a week I've almost finished the whole bottle. Its awesome. Good job Louisiana, my faith is restored.

Death Cart

     Nick got his hands on an old, beat up, inoperable Chinese scooter and stripped it down to nothing and brought it over to the garage so we could get it running again. It took a little more disassembly but we got it to run. It's a bit janky though...like turn the ignition with a screwdriver, bridge the solenoid, try not to kick the battery off the frame and no front or rear brakes janky. It also wanted to take right off without even the slightest touch of the throttle. It's actually a small miracle it didn't hit and domino the 6 bikes in the garage.
    Since it left Nick says he got a brake on it and got it to stay running for a bit and even rode it. I saw a video but I am pretty sure it was doctored with a little CGI. I'll believe it when that SOB is back here and I can wreck it in to something. Which needs to happen...soon.

Bath Time

     Gave the bike a little wash the other day. I didn't polish or anything like that but the words "wash me" that were written in the dirt on the swing arm was getting to me. That and the fact that I need to see if I have an oil leak or just some leftover goop from sloppy oil changing.
     I am about ready to start with the cosmetic overhaul but still have a few remaining parts that I need to grab. I'm also reasonably certain (read that as certain but kidding myself) that I am going to need a new rear tire before I get out on the road this summer. That will probably delay the cosmetics as the big remaining piece is, go figure, about the price of a new tire.
     Speaking of parts, I still need to get the pieces to get the Shovel back together. I sold some stock parts off this bike to get them but I am waiting to see what happens regarding the tire and possible oil leak. Serving two masters is difficult and I have to keep one or the other on the road.    

Hot Sauce of the Week

D.L. Jardine's Blazin' Saddle-hello beautiful, where have you been all my life? This is marked as a special edition and a "Texas Ranch Recipe". It is also a product of Belize so I'm not really sure how that works but anyways...this is a superior habanero sauce with additional vegetable and spice ingredients. It is hot and flavorful and awesome. Seek it out, it is pretty excellent.

Lost Photo

from the weekend Nick was over to work on the Shovels. Mixed Sixes, Sailor Jerry and bad biker movies.

Finished Distractions

   

 I made a couple sheaths. Thinking I might make a wallet (for real) next.

Hot Sauce of the Week

Bulliard's Louisiana Hot Sauce-how can one state support so many local hot sauces? It is kind of uncanny, the number of similar sauces Louisiana has to offer. This one is quite good. I'm not quite sure what makes it just a little better than the others, maybe its the fact that the peppers are aged a bit. There is a hint of smokey flavor and it really adds to the taste. I'm also a fan of any sauce that has it's own wing sauce recipe right on the label. 

Courtesy of Uncle Bill.

Last Saturday

Well lets just say this isn't how I wanted to spend it. Nick was in the house to help with a few other issues that needed attention and after, we were going to try and finish the reassembly on the Shovel clutch. I knew that I really needed to give the kicker cover some attention as I knew for certain that the mopar clip was missing from the clutch release lever allowing it to be pulled up out of the top. Again, not an expert but that ain't how its supposed to be.

Lets just say we put together the clutch with the new clutch tamer and...it didn't work. Yeah Wes, you called it: basically during the process of trying to remove the hub by tapping, we managed to knock the guts off the end of the clutch push rod. So...that attention that the kicker cover needed came sooner than I thought.

After draining the tranny and getting the cover off I found all the washers and clips which I will replace. I've got a new gasket already so at least that is easy. I also found out my oil slinger is no bueno and  the stop on my kicker gear was about to break off. This isn't what I wanted to find under the cover and definitely not when I wanted to do it but like I told Nick, much better to find this stuff out in the garage than on the road.  So...more parts are ordered and again we wait.

The Right Tools

It's pretty amazing, the things you can do with them. Clutch hub needed a little persuasion but came off in the end.

Got further and further down and finally to the mainshaft nut...and could twist it left and right with my fingers.
I'm not an expert but I know that's not right.

Another useful tool. Duo Seal Super Nut is on...and the saga continues.

Hot Sauce of the Week

La Anita Chile Habanero Hot Pepper Sauce-there is just something about Mexican sauces that look like alien blood that I just dig. The habanero heat is fo' real on this one but the overall flavor is a little lacking. I wish there was something more to accompany the punch. Don't get me wrong, its a good sauce and I've enjoyed it, as you can see from the half empty bottle, it just left me wanting for something more. 

Hugh's Handbuilt

Can't even imagine how much this would suck...do what you can to help.

Tank Art

While Nick's bike was here, I decided his plain old green tank needed a little love. 

We brainstormed for a bit before laying out the panels and then started trying to get all the bases covered. Here, you can see at the top we have the line squiggles and scales. 

Front left we did some freak, or as Nick likes to call them, polka dots. 

Added a desert landscape...

and a space scene.

For flair, we threw a little lettering on the top as well. 

Last but not least, we threw one of our new stickers on there so Nick can keep track of his progress. 

I'm not sure he was as excited about the art as I was. He said something about painting over it but I know he must be joking. 

If he did that, he would totally ruin his chances of selling it online 40 years from now for hundreds and hundreds of dollars...

American Motor Drome Co. Wall of Death Thrillshow

Yep, the Hot Sauce of the Week post has been preempted this week to let locals know that the American Motor Drome Co.Wall of Death Thrill Show is in Birmingham this weekend. I went and checked it out today and man, it was killer!

Seriously, I can't stress this enough, get out to Big#1 in Homewood and see this show...you will not be sorry.

http://www.americanwallofdeath.com/

http://www.bignumber1.com/

Rewiring The Wonder Shovel

     Idle hands do the Devil's work. Nick has had a little time to burn and to keep his head and hands busy, he's been trying to take the shovel where he wants it. In stripping things down, he realized there was a bunch of excess wiring, fuses and relays that needed gone. It was getting later in the afternoon so we moved from one shovel to the other.

   

    
 



After doing most of the reassembly on the top end, we proceeded on with several spools of colored wire and a couple pairs of snippers. I grabbed a simple wiring diagram from the excellent roadratroberts.com.If this site looks a bit dated by current standards, it is probably because it hasn't changed much since I first stumbled upon in in 2003. Anyhow, from B-movie reviews to killer old school photos to the rad drawn out photo wiring diagrams, this site is worth a look. The first time I saw wiring diagrams like this was here. 





   
      So we stripped off wires as we went and used the old pieces to judge the length we would need for the new pieces. One by one we made the new wires, added connectors as needed and put it all together. We tried to use some sort of consistency in the colors and Nick had done a good job of marking things when he did his initial tear-down. Cold beers in a hot garage on a Saturday night is a pretty great thing. It was getting late and somehow the idea of twisted yellow and blue wiring held together with green zip ties was too good to pass up. We're dumb and we laughed really hard about it.

     In the end, we hooked it up to the battery and an old switch I had lying around and held our breath. Low and behold, the headlight and tail light lit up and nothing caught on fire! The brake light even worked and everything. Nick was pretty excited as that hadn't been the case in quite some time. As the motor is still apart, we didn't get the satisfaction of hearing it run again but we made some solid advances in just half a day and barring other issues (fingers crossed) the bike should live again sooner than later.