Job Hunting

If you know anybody hiring for a good M-F 8-5ish job in the Birmingham area, send it my way.

I have experience in management, claims processing, customer service, sales, etc. 

If you need my resume, e-mail me through the sticker link and I'll forward it to you.

BOLO Stolen Bike

A friend on a cross country trip had his FJR1300 stolen last night in Las Vegas. 

DO NOT approach as they also now have his pistol.

Everyone in the western US keep an eye out and if you know someone out there, share this post. 

Hot Sauce returns next week.

Shop Manuals, DIYs, ETC Wanted

Russ from MHT is putting together a shop manual website.
In his words, the site will allow end users to select manuals by type from a drop down list and open the digital copy of the file in a new window or tab. Basically it will just be a giant library.

 

He is looking for people to contribute content. These manuals can be for anything, from motorcycles, cars, aircraft, to dishwashers. Machine shop tips/instructions too. He would also like to include any DIY type stuff, like mods to any of the above.

If you know anyone who would like to donate content to this please pass the word.

If you know of websites that he can download stuff like this from, please share that too.

If you know anyone who has a blog or site and would like a banner directing end-users to their site, he'll put it in. Thank you for any help you can give! Send your links and info here.

The Bluelace Project

The Bluelace Project

OK...

Maybe the Sportster isn't a dirt bike. At this point I got off and it was able to stay upright without the kickstand. No, Don wasn't with me, I got into this mess all by myself.

Saturday continued...

So Brandon is back in town and came to claim one of his trio of bikes from the garage. He isn't wasting any time getting back on the road and the CB he is taking needed a little carb work. It was leaking before he left and stopping that was the goal. It didn't quite happen before leaving here but before the end of the night, it was drip free.

Nick and Nick discussing something Shovel related.

The CB also got a new battery, some electrical work, a new clutch lever and clean gas. My Sportster got a new rear tire but as all four of us had a hand (or foot) on the tire at some point, there are no pictures. All in all is was a good, full day in the garage and Brandon's bike left under its own power before sundown. Safe travels, little CB. Hope you enjoyed your stay. 

Funny...

how that happens. Talk about your Shovel trouble in front of some folks at a party and they will give you the stuff to fix it. One trip to the Dojo and I am two parts closer to having the bike back on the road.

Thanks Nick, truly apprecitated.

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.

Hugh's Handbuilt

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

Hitting the Wall

     The weekend started out pretty good. Nick made it to the house, the wife and kids were gone and we proceeded to down the beer and rum and put in some work on the bikes. Both the Shovels were in the house and it was time to get serious.
     We started by bleeding the rear brake on my Shovel. It felt great...for about 5 minutes. Basically, there is a little leak somewhere, probably in the line as you can see a couple sports that are clearly worn, and it will need to be replaced. It still works if you pump it and the front break works fine so...it can wait for a bit.

      The transmission leak and temperamental clutch were next on the list. I suspect the former is aggravating the later but just in case, while installing the Super Nut, I planned on installing a Clutch Tamer as well. We had a couple hiccups, mostly due to a lack of the right tools. The clutch hub was the real spoil sport.
      I inquired with a couple Shovel owners and previous owners that I knew and both said the same thing: run the nut back on, whack it a couple times and it should drop right off. Yeah...not so much. I tried damn near everything and came up with nothing.

     We all three (Nick, the bike and I) lived to fight another day and a clutch puller was on it's way before the next round of beers were consumed. I guess it is one of those things that it won't hurt to have. Begs the questions though...it doesn't have to be easy but does it always have to be hard?

L.B.

Click here.

Lee Bender

I've never met the guy but he is a friend of friends and that's good enough. Plus if you've been following his adventures, he seems like a solid guy with piss-poor luck. Don't let the bastards keep you down!

Quit being a tight-wad and drop some cash for a good cause here.