Motorcycle Repair

 

Motorcycle Tire signage soon to be flower planters

This is more than a Honda Rebel deserves, but I bought the parts so they might as well be on the bike New front brake pads, new rear brake shoes, new tires, new front tube, new fork seals. I will say that working at midnight with some disco music on my garage radio, drinking coffee, wrenching, drilling, all on my own bike on my own property...was bliss. A dream come true after 40 years of doing this kind of work in a library parking lot or illegally in a tow yard or on the side of the street with rain pouring in the window and Nicaraguan military police shouting orders.

Speaking of fork seals...this is the bolt that someone put locktite on and thus stripped out when I tried to extract it. I managed to fight with it and basically destroy it in the process, but it is a basic socket cap bolt. 8mm 1.25 pitch. 27mm long, but 25 mm also worked for $2.
The Part # 90116-383-721 is unnecessary to buy. Just go to the specialty bolt section at Ace or home depot and get a 8mm, 1.25 pitch in the 25 mm length. put some loctite on it and use it.

Really sucked getting the rear axle on. The smaller wheel spacer goes on the left side INSIDE the hub...the bigger spacer is on the right side, which is the side the axle is inserted into first. Then use a rubber mallet to push it through the wheel spacer...then through the wheel hub, out the other side through the smaller spacer and then through the swing arm. It took about 20 tries...

What a total pain it was to break the bead on the rear tire. I had to use a pry bar. Fortunately, the inner tube meant I did not have to battle with the bead when I put the new tire on.

One More Window

This latest window was not quite as terrible as the previous one because there is not a wire fence 6 inches from the wall that forced me to squeeze between the two and puncture my gallbladder with cactus thorns. This one merely required that I decide how deep I wanted to dig before rebuilding. Needless to say I wanted to dig superficially because the deeper I dig, the more damage I do. This window frame had elements that looked 90 years old and were definitely worn out, but in this climate I estimate they would last another 90 years. So, that puts it out of Oggy's lifetime. Someone put some work into building this raised stucco bump out so the trim boards are not proud of the wall. That was at least a good enough job for me, so I painted the old wood and put it back where I found it. Yes, a little rain would drift into the trim area but I can't say I'm concerned. The shudders are staying where they are and should deflect some rain. The rest will find a way down and over the wall. It's not a big deal. The important thing is the dust and rain will not penetrate the window.  

 

This isn't even the worst this window has looked. When I bought the house a rock had been thrown through the window during a rain storm so water poured inside...and the window was broken and boarded up. I tried to fix the window but of course the hardware guy measured the window too small so the pane of glass didn't fit and I needed to use tape to hold it in. 3 years later I finally replaced the whole aluminum frame and single pane glass.

Not a trainwreck, so I left it as I found it.

These Vinyl windows had nail fins that were way too big. I always have trouble with the 3 different dimensions....nail fin, window frame...window opening. And getting them to match. This required I cut off the side nailing fins, and then screw THROUGH the inside of the frame of the window. Since the fin was gone. And I also had to drill into the stucco and use concrete screws in multiple places.

A little paint and some new lime wash makes it look ok.

Gym

 This is my approach to a shade structure for my outdoor gym. We don't get a ton of rain, maybe 8 inches a year, but the sun will destroy anything other than steel in about 1 season so I needed shade and maybe some protection from mosquitoes...and a little privacy. The answer was a shed kit with these plastic connectors for 2"x2" lumber. I'm not in love with the small dimensions of the lumber and the connectors were mostly OK but the bottom of the truss doesn't do much. It's just a tiny bit of stability.

I hunted hard for a cheap approach but $1000 in materials is about the minimum this project can be done. That includes the 120 pavers, the pressure treated bottom frame...all the lumber...the metal roof and the shade cloth.

Pavers...$120

Metal roof ...$200

plastic connector kit...$200

Lumber....$300

Shade Cloth...$100

There is an argument that spending $1000 to protect $600 in gym equipment makes no sense but I must stress how hard it is to find this equipment as far out in the desert as I am. It'll cost another $100 to get electricity to it so I can ditch the extension cord.

totally inadequate open air gym that gets too much sun

Window to the World

This train wreck of a window was nagging me. I was almost certain the wall would collapse if I took anything apart because there is nothing supporting the window void except the window...which is an aluminum frame. But something had to be done so I tore into it.