Where Oh Where Has My Little Blog Gone…

Wow, it’s been awhile. You might be wondering: What happened? Where have I been? Did I fall, bump my head, and forget my blogger.com password? Well, the truth is I have the attention span of a gnat. Plus I’ve been busy and when I had to choose between working in the garage and writing about working in the garage I chose the former.

Anyway…

I’ll hit the highlights…

The Daytona:
I signed up for another weekend of Jason Pridmore’s STAR school. Pahrump NV in November. The plan was to drive down there with my cousin Jason and meet Dave, a college buddy, who would come out from Austin. Despite Dave’s long-time relationship with his sportbike he’s never been on a track. Since he’s to blame for me buying the Daytona in the first place I figure it’s my duty to get him out there so he can see his bike can do.

Unfortunately both Jason and Dave backed out this week. So it looks like I’m going to go it alone. No problem, just means there won’t be anyone who can contradict my “And then, this one time, I was dragging a knee in a corner passing everyone while eating a cheeseburger” story.

The Green Machine:
Not a lot of activity here. I’ve take in out once or twice for no real reason. (What? You think I’m going to take a 33 year old British car to get groceries? Are you kidding? I could starve.) The brakes shriek like a banshee but that shouldn’t be hard to correct.

The Suzuki:
Unfortunately it’s leaking oil from under the valve cover. Not a lot but enough to make a mess and a nice blue cloud. To get to the problem the motor needs to be pulled (again) and I’m just not sure I have it in me anymore. I had some discussions with a local shop and I’m leaning towards letting them deal with it.

Call me a wimp, call me lazy, whatever. But I’ve pulled that motor at least three times and it’s just a pain. … Remember the opening scene of ‘Kung Fu’ with David Carradine where he picks up the pot of coals with his forearms and it brands him? That was probably created by a guy who had just pulled a Suzuki motor. It’s about 175 lbs and when you’re done you have cooling fins cut into your forearms. … I’m sure a shop has a faster better way.

The Triumph:
The new seat upholstery that I ordered in July just showed up yesterday. Wow it looks nice. It’s not as uniform in color as the original seats but it has a very rich brown and red mottling. And they look like prefect recreations of the originals. (The original is on the left, the replacement on the right.) Hopefully I won’t screw up the installation too much. This is almost certainly the next garage action.



I’ll try to be better about updating my blog.