To Richfield, with love.

Aside from a few hiccups the Antelope island trip went well I felt. One of the rather nasty hiccups had to do with my speedometer. For some reason my bike enjoys eating speedometers. On the way home from the island I noticed the top part of the speedometer gauge face was cracked... concerning but not critical yet. However the needle had developed a VERY bad bounce, it would bounce about a 30mph spread, so it was very hard to know how fast I was traveling. With enough cars on the road it's not an unmanageable issue, I just match speeds with the other traffic. To an extent I can also tell how fast I'm going by knowing what gear I'm in and what my engines RPM's are.

I tend to be a bit of a pessimist, and a perfectionist. As such I wanted my speedometer to be in top condition, and since it wasn't, I wasn't happy about it. I contemplated my options, and consulted the all knowing SOHC4 forum, and found what I felt was a reasonable solution. Someone had stated that their speedometer bounced really bad as well and they had poured Denatured Alcohol into it and poured it out. The running theory as I understand it, is some grease had gotten between the magnet and the housing and was causing it to read erratically, and the alcohol helped to clean it up. Well that sounded like a simple fix for the erratic bounce, so I tried it.... err the results were a little less than spectacular.



As I posted this image I decided that maybe the results were just more spectacular than I had hoped for. As you can see, the gauge face paint started to run, and was exacerbated by me using compressed air in a vain attempt to get the alcohol to evaporate before it did any more damage. Oh well, the gauge face was cracked anyhow so it's not like I destroyed a pristine part. I could still use it for the most part, AND the alcohol did seem to get rid of the annoying bounce.

Saturday my friend and his family came over for a barbecue as a thank you for his help in rebuilding my moms deck a few years back. Yeah, the thanks was a bit late, but life sometimes gets in the way. After the barbecue he needed to go out to another friends place and pick up his laptop, so I figured I'd take the opportunity to load my bike up with the sissy bar bag my brother in law is letting me borrow (Thanks Isaiah, it's working awesome!) and a few other bits and see how she would handle before I left for the trip. With the new windshield installed and the gear packed down she handled really well, we hit 70mph with little problem. On the way there the crack that had been forming on the faceplate finally finished and the gauge face broke. Since the top piece flipped upside down and lodged itself in the bottom of the speedometer, it's not a big deal. I can still read the trip and odometer, and heck I couldn't read the gauge face anyhow so whatever.



For anyone looking at the above picture and trying to figure out what's wrong with it, notice the 30 is upside down and on the right hand side of the gauge.

Since the odometer works, and as I said the speedometer sort of works (even the "working" ones aren't THAT accurate, they are known the show you going up to 10% faster than you really are) and I'd been looking forward to this trip for a while now, I decided just to go with it. Heck, I can always match speeds with traffic right?

Fast forward to today, Monday, I had scheduled to leave work early so we could get down to Richfield with plenty of time. When I filled up on Sunday I calculated my MPG with the windshield at approx 28mpg... I was not thrilled at all with this, but since it's what I had to work with I figured I'd just go with it. I decided I'd better fill up before I hit 70miles on the odometer, or risk running out. After about 42 miles my back end was feeling a bit numb and we were coming to the last town for a stretch so I pulled off the freeway and into a Chevron station. I filled her up and was VERY surprised to only put a gallon in. The more I thought about it the more it sort of made sense though. I had been doing 75mph in 5th gear with my rpms at 6k. I'm guessing at that speed the windshield was making an air bubble big enough to keep most of it off me, thus improving the aerodynamics. I also think that since I was holding her to such a high rpm the entire time, the non-stock carbs I had installed were working more efficiently at the higher range. I figured I'd try testing my hypothesis. After filling up we got back on the freeway and continued heading south at about 75mph. After another 26 or so miles we pulled into another Chevron and filled up. Estimated mpg is 38, so from this I'm thinking that 6k rpms is about where I want to hold the bike at if I can, as it seems to give the best gas mileage. I apologize to anyone who isn't into motorcycles for the above paragraph, it's just my musings on why my modifications are functioning the way they are. The main story is I'm just thrilled to death to be getting better than 28mpg!

Going back just a we bit, as we were heading in to Nephi (the last stop I mentioned above) I looked up in time to see what appeared at first glance to be a long 4x4 piece of wood in the road. For a split second I was VERY concerned. At 75mph on my motorcycle, hitting something that big would not have ended with me still upright. I very quickly checked my left hand mirror and looked back and then changed lanes right as I realized it wasn't a piece of timber, but the blown tread off of an 18wheeler. It has always annoyed me that semi's would run their tires till they blew apart, but when riding a motorcycle, this debris takes on a whole new dimension. I am not sure what hitting it would have done to my bike, whether I would have wrecked or not, but I'm sure grateful I didn't. Not more than a few miles after the rubber booby trap I saw flashing lights. It seems someone else had already had a VERY bad day. As I flew past I could see 2 firetrucks and a highway patrol car parked next to a vehicle on it's side in the brush next to the road. I have no idea the condition of the passengers in said car, but I sure hope they were all right.

After we left Nephi, we pulled back on to I-15 south bound. As I was gaining on another semi truck I noticed the wind was getting really rough. I figured it was the draft from the big rig, so I accelerated to pass it. As I was passing the turbulence lessened a little bit, but once I pulled ahead it got worse. It took me a few minutes to realize it but I was dealing with a cross wind. It's not too bad dealing with something that is constant, but this cross wind would come and go. As I was contemplating this I noticed two vehicles pulled to the side of the road, and a third one, a truck pulling a road construction sign pull quickly too the right shoulder and stop. While I took the next few minutest to contemplate what was going on, I noticed another construction truck coming the wrong direction on the left hand shoulder. At this point I dismissed all 4 vehicles as being part of a road crew and continued to ride along my merry way.

Shortly after this the speed limit bumped up to 80mph, so I gave her a bit more throttle and enjoyed the thrill. Again, she handled it very well for about 15 miles or so, and then it came time to pull off in Scipio. I had started to notice some lightning flashes on the horizon we were headed toward and decided I'd better put the rain cover on the sissy bar bag. I pulled in to another Chevron (I'm biased, I like Chevron gas, and I'm willing to pay a bit more or drive a bit further to get it.) I filled the bike up and was a little saddened to see the mpg had dropped to 35, but still not too bad and I had been having some fun on the throttle, so that may have explained it. I pulled off my laptop bag since I didn't have a rain cover for it, and gave it to my mom who was following me in her car (it's always nice to have backup :) ) We discussed the odd happenings with the trucks on the freeway and she told me that we must have just missed seeing someone go off the embankment and that is what those 3 trucks had been stopping for, the other one that was going the wrong direction was probably actually picking up road cones. So 2 really nasty accidents on the way down today, and neither of them were in a place that I would have thought of as particularly dangerous. The first one, the car on its side was on a really straight stretch of road, and this one wasn't really much of a turn.

We started off again, taking a different highway, and I noticed the temperature had dropped pretty dramatically, and the smell of moisture was in the air. Sure enough it began to rain. It wasn't to terrible, it was heavy enough to keep from dirtying up my visor, but not so heavy that it was dangerous. For about 5 or so miles I enjoyed this natural swamp cooler effect. The speed limit here was only 65mph. After a while I had a white car pass me in a no passing zone, which I thought was really tacky and rather dangerous. It wasn't until I got to Richfield that my mom was able to inform me that I was actually only doing 55mph... so I guess I won't hold it against the white car for passing me. After about a 3.5 hour drive we pulled in to my uncles drive way which is where I will be calling home for the next few days as I venture out on day rides, exploring the beauty of central Utah. Here is a pic of the bike parked in front of his bushes.



His house is actually in a little town just to the east of Richfield called Glenwood. It's a small town, no street signals yet, but it has grown the the 20 or so years I have been coming down. Here's a few more pics of around the town, the post office is pretty small as you can see.



Glenwood is right near the mountains.

The family reunion was fun, unfortunately about only half the family could make it. But even with only half, it was a study in controlled chaos :)



It began to rain a little and we had a pretty double rainbow. Unfortunately my camera doesn't do the colors the justice they deserve, but it gives you a decent idea of what it looked like.



Here's a pic of the sun coming through the misty rain in a valley a ways off.



I rode the few blocks back from the park where the reunion was held, to my uncles house and parked on his sidewalk. After a few minutes I looked down and noticed a puddled of oil forming and decided it'd be rather rude of me to let my bike leak oil on his sidewalk so I moved it a bit. I know the oil is leaking from my oil pump, and seems to be getting a little worse as time goes on. For now I just plan on checking the level and keeping a spare quart with me. I must not be leaking too much since I topped off before leaving home and after 170 or so miles the level doesn't seem to have dropped much. Guess I'll be fixing that when I get home. For now though I just want to enjoy the time down here.

Brandon

Antelope Island- Where the outhouses smell better than the outside!

I decided I was tired of wrenching on my bike only to ride around town so I planned a trip to Antelope Island, which is the biggest island in the Great Salt Lake. Over 10 years ago as a Boy Scout I had ridden down the 7 mile causeway that connects the island with the mainland on a bicycle. Back then it was so windy that you had to lean into the wind at almost a 30% angle just to stay upright. With all the wind back then there wasn't very many bugs.

This time around there wasn't as much wind, and my two wheeled ride is powered by the ghosts of dinosaurs. I pulled up to the payment booth and read the reader board which informed me that the insect population on the island was really high... bugger.


The causeway that connects the island is about 7 miles long, with a lane headed either direction. As I rode I noticed the lovely smell of the Great Salt Lake, it smells of methane. It's a product of all the brine shrimp washing up on the shores and rotting, VERY smelly.


There's a lot of birds in the area, from seagulls to sandpipers. There were these little birds with black heads and greyish white bodies that were in groups. They were amusing to watch, they just bob their heads up and down for no readily apparent reason.

Once you get to the island your choices are pretty limited, right or left. I chose to go right, which would bring me to the visitor center. I stopped at the first pull off to check things out and take some pictures. Catching site of a latrine it struck me as funny that it was probably as smelly outside the latrine as it was inside.


I took my riding gear off and immediately regretted it. I had sprayed myself with bug spray before leaving home, but apparently it wasn't near enough because the horsefly's and other buzzing things either landed on me or divebombed me. I snapped a few quick pics and put my gear back on. I rode to the visitor center, which wasn't really huge, but did have a few interesting things. In addition the the flying bugs, there were these spiders all over.

I wondered why the Barn Swallows that were flying everywhere didn't eat the spiders, maybe there are too big for the little birds. The barn swallows had made several nests in the eaves of the visitor center and they were fun to watch. There were 2 or 3 chicks per nest it seemed and they looked old enough to fledge soon.



These Bison statues are all over the island and they are all painted differently. This one was in front of the visitor center. The visitor center had some interesting information. The Great Salt Lake is 24 to 26 times saltier than the ocean, so the only organisms that can live in it are the Brine Shrimp (Sea Monkeys :D ).


After going through the small visitor center I walked around the west side of the building and found this little guy just hanging out. He looked to be the same age as all the rest of the chicks that were in nests, so maybe he was a little more adventurous than his siblings. The mature Barn Swallows were all a glossy black on top while the chicks black feathers were muted like this fellow. His perch was so low that I could have reached out and touched him, and I was tempted to see if he would hop on my finger, but I figured that may lower his chances of survival, or scare him. I love animals and handling them, but when it comes to wild ones I try to observe with my eyes and just take pictures.

From the visitor center I rode around for a while just seeing what was on the island. There are several places with picnic tables, camp sites, sandy beaches, and even a Grill. I stopped at one of the highest lookouts on the island and took these pictures. This seagull just sat on the rail and just watched everyone.


















There are many hiking trails and I took one near where I took the above pictures. I had already doused myself in bug repellent again and it seemed to be doing a pretty job, except for keeping away these huge fuzzy bugs I wasn't familiar with and they kept flying at me. I didn't get a picture of them since they wouldn't hold still long enough for me to.

After the hike I rode toward the ranch that is on the island. I thought it was still a running ranch, but it was more of a museum. On the way I got pictures of the islands larges inhabitants, and a sign that makes ya just a little uneasy to be riding on a motorcycle.



Fortunately I didn't get any pictures closer to the Bison, since that would have involved me being physically closer to them. For anyone who hasn't seen one in real life, they are about 6 feet tall at the shoulder and weigh more than a big cow. They are big, shaggy, and can be bad tempered. It's sad to think about it though, over 100 years ago there were herds of them that numbered in the millions, but as the settlers pressed west the bison herds were decimated. Now there are only a few hundred pure bison left.

I arrived at the Fielding Garr ranch and was greatful to see modern toilet facilities. The ranch is about 130 years old and was in operation until approx 1970 when control was given over to the Parks department. It started out as a cattle ranch, but at some point they were herding sheep instead of cows. Here's a pic inside the shearing barn and the big engine that powered the belt and pulley drive near the top. The setup reminds me of the stuff you see in pictures of old time factories in the New England area around the time of the Industrial Revolution.

There was a store room with all sorts of really cool things. The saddle made me think of one of my co-workers who trains and rides horses, so I snapped a picture of it. The tooling was pretty nice looking.

I found an old detinator box, plunger style.
The only thing missing is Wylie Coyote.

There was a fair amount more to see at the ranch, if you ever get a chance to visit the island I recommend it. As I rode back from the ranch to the causeway I couldn't help wondering about the ecosystem that has evolved in this otherwise hostile environment. There are grasses and shrubs that are growing in soil that is super salty. Nature is an amazing thing, it can adapt to just about any environment.

Here is one more bison statue that greets you as you enter the causeway to leave the island. He seems like a handy sort of fellow ;)

The Great Salt Lake - First Big Trip

My coworker bought a bike from our supervisor, a 1980 CB750 K, and I've been helping him get it rideable.

We decided to go for a ride after work out to The Great Salt Lake. For those of you who have never been to Utah, or never heard of this lake, it is one of the few landlocked lakes that is salty. It is so salty in fact that only Brine Shrimp (Sea Monkeys ;) ) can live in it. When Brine Shrimp wash up on shore they die and begin to decompose and it gets really smelly. There is so much salt in the lake that it's really not hard to float.

Mike and I rode out from work, and took Old Bingham road out. It was a little windy, but not too bad. For the most part my motorcycle handled well, but when we entered the town of Magna and started to decelerate my bike died. No big deal, pop the clutch and she's running again. I need to fix my idle circuit, it's too lean, which is what causes it to die like that.

We arrived at Saltair, which is a building on the shore of the Great Salt Lake. It has been flooded a few times as the lakes level has risen and fallen over the years. It's kind of a dump these days, but apparently back in the day it was quite the happening place, lots of dances and such held there.

We parked and checked the bikes. Somewhere during the trip the nut holding Mikes left footpeg on had come off and the only thing that had been holding it on was the pressure of his foot. Unfortunately we didn't have anything to repair it with on us, so we just slipped it back on and rode carefully.

On the way back home Mikes bike died a few times when we stopped, turns out his charging system wasn't working correctly. Good thing these bikes can be push started in a pinch, not fun when you are on a highway, but at least you aren't stranded. Apparently on the way home we were both nearly hit by some lady in a black car. I didn't know about it until we arrived at the fuel station to top off.

All in all an enjoyable ride.

Just as a reminder to everyone out there, please watch for motorcycles, there's a lot of us out there these days. We may be agile, but we're also fragile.

Unexpected Surprises on the Road to Ridability

Sometimes in the road to life you hit speed bumps, and when doing custom work the bumps are even more frequent.

I was waiting for the drive chain I had ordered from Bikebandit.com ( a good place for blown up schematics for your bike and a decent selection of parts both OEM and aftermarket). Up to this point I hadn't finished my fuel tank. While I waited for the chain I decided to make a push and get everything done on the bike so when the chain came it was a matter of installing it and riding around.... or so I thought. I spent a few hours wet sanding and buffing the tank until it looked really nice. After using the multi component professional paints with urethane clear coats I don't know that I'll ever willingly use anything else. The tank came out looking excellent, I wish I'd taken a picture, but due to what happened next I didn't. The tank was pretty much the last thing I needed aside from the chain to start riding. I lined the front of the tank up with the rubber bumpers and started to lower it into place when....... it stopped going down. The back end of the tank was about a half an inch from where it should have been.

When I was fixing this bike up I decided to swap the stock 650 carburetors for some from a early 70's 750. I chose to do this as the 750 carbs have a mechanical choke and are cheaper to build than the 650 carbs which use a choke cable. I just like the mechanical choke for some reason, just seems more classic to me. In order to do this I had to make some changes that unfortunately put the carbs closer to the engine. I didn't think about it, but turns out this was a big issue since it put the top of the carburetors right under the petcock.

This just wouldn't work. After thinking about my few options to remedy this problem, and saying a few choice words I chose the one option I knew would work, relocating the petcock bung. The biggest problem with this choice was it involved either welding or brazing the tank, which involves a large amount of heat. I knew in advance that the paint would get buggered, but what choice did I really have? Fortunately I learned how to weld thin metal so I was up to the challenge.

I moved the bung back about 3 inches, and didn't mess the paint up too badly.

All things considered I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. Unfortunately it wasn't air tight, but some JB Weld fixed that. Ideally I would have soldiered or brazed it but that would have destroyed a lot more of the paint so I settled for this way. Besides I used a sealant inside the tank anyhow so in the end I'm covered. With a little cleanup and some rubberized undercoating it turned out pretty good I felt.

I used POR15 tank sealer so it takes 96 hours to cure before I can fill the tank up. So now it's just the waiting game, once it's cured I'll try and put the tank on and ride the bike!!

The Beginning.

A few years back when gas was reaching for $5 a gallon for the cheap stuff I decided to buy an old motorcycle to commute to and from work to save money. I figured an old motorcycle would be just the ticket, cheap and easy to maintain. I was naive to say the least. The bike I bought was a 1973 Honda CB500 in pretty decent shape for $1000. In retrospect, I really should have tried arguing the price down a wee bit, it needed a little work but nothing too major. Since it was my first motorcycle and I'd never ridden before, I didn't know the things to check.

I fought with that bike for a few months, mostly due to my own ignorance and lack of knowledge about motorcycles and how they work. I replaced a lot of things that probably didn't technically need replacing, but I'm a tinkerer so I did it anyhow. I loved riding around on that bike, it was fun. I eventually decided to buy a second bike to try and fix it up. The original thinking was I'd ride the 500 around while working on the other bike. As you'll see it didn't quite work out that way.

December of 08 I bought a 1980 Honda CB650 for $500. When I went to look at it she wasn't running, but I did hook a battery up to her and shot some starter fluid into the air filter and she coughed and tried to start. This told me two things, the most important was that she wasn't seized up, and the second was with a wee bit of work she'd likely run. I'd found my new project bike!

Originally I'd planned on just doing a quick rattlecan jobbie to touch her up and then start riding her. I figured it would take about $500 to touch her up and make her more presentable. In addition to being an addicted tinkerer, I'm a dreamer. I habitually make things more involved and complicated than they have to be, but that's okay, since in the process I tend to learn a lot of stuff.

Over the course of 3 or 4 months while I thought about what I wanted to do to the 650 I started doing a lot of research. One of the things I found was rattlecan paint doesn't hold up well to gasoline spills. This was concerning to me since I really didn't want to spend the time to do a nice paint job only to have it erased by that all important liquid. I started looking into other types of paint, mainly the catalyzed automotive paints the pro's use. As a warning to anyone thinking of using these types of paint, do your research they have some health hazards that rattlecan paints don't, namely Isocyanates. I'll let you look up and read about them.

So about April of 2009 I started acquiring the things I'd need to do the job I had finally decided on. To minimize dust in my paint, and over spray on everything else I built a paint booth.

I put the fan on the intake side so I wouldn't have to worry about fire hazards due to the flammable paint hitting the motor of the fan. In retrospect that's probably not that big of a hazard, but I'll keep doing it with the fan blowing in just to be safe. I'm really not interested in my one claim to fame being some byline in a news article reading "Stupid Do It Yourselfer Blows Himself Up."

I proceeded to dismantle the 650 and bagging and labeling the parts. Anyone who decides to do this, use a TON of ziplocks and labeled the stuff like you are sending it to someone who has never seen it before. I didn't do as good of a job as I should have and it came back to haunt me later.

As any good painter knows, it's all in the prep work. You will spend at least 4 hours prepping a piece for every 30 minutes you spend spraying, just be prepared. The reality is though, it's all worth it when you end up with that gorgeous paint job you've always dreamed of!

I'd decided to sandblast everything, it sounded faster and easier than sanding or using a paint removal disk to get everything. This was true and wasn't all at the same time. Sandblasting with a small pot (like the ones you can get at Harbor Freight) is a tedious process. However, you can get into all those nooks and crannies that you just wouldn't be able to otherwise, and frankly a well sandblasted part is a thing of beauty. Again a warning, sandblasting is an abrasive process and if you don't pay attention you could cut through your metal. I've also read that sandblasting sheet metal ( such as fuel tanks or body panels on cars) can cause them to warp due to the heat generated by the sand bouncing off the metals. I sand blased all the frame pieces, but I opted to use a paint removal wheel for my fuel tank. If you are going to sandblast, buy a sandblasting hood, wear heavy gloves, pants and long sleeved shirt. If you don't it will hurt VERY bad.

I built a sandblasting booth out of some old wood I had laying around, and used a couple of 5 horsepower shop vacs to keep it as dust free as possible. If you choose to go this route be prepared to blow the filters of the vacs out frequently as the sandblasting dust breaks down into frighteningly fine particles. The advantages to using a sandblasting booth I found to outweigh the drawbacks. I was able to reuse the sandblasting media many many times over, whereas if I'd been blasting just on the patio I wouldn't have been able to as easily. There was also the pleasant benefit of not having the sand come back and hit me which is very very uncomfortable. I spent many many hours sandblasting my parts, I was pretty meticulous about it.

Once the sandblasting was done I started painting. I've only used rattlecans up to this point in my life, so I was a bit nervous to try using spray guns. I did a Ton of reading, some of my favorite books were by Joanne Borless, she does just amazing work and her books on motorcycle painting were written basic enough that a complete noob like me could understand.

I tried to think through everything and anticipate problems, but as with all things, I couldn't anticipate everything. No problem, half the adventure is trying to figure things out, and I have enough experience in life by now to realize I'll never get anything perfect the first time around (or the second, or the third....)

To test out my painting prowess I sprayed my friends old Craftsman snowblower, it's a pretty solid piece of work that was beginning to rust, so it was a good test subject. I must say the paint has held up surprisingly well.

I did a lot of reading about different paints and manufacturers. It seems like a lot of custom painters swear by House of Kolors paint, and I'll admit they have a fantastic selection of products. However their pricing was way outside my meager budget. I was looking online at a place called TCPGlobal and they have a line of paint called Kustom Shop that seemed intriguing. I did a google search for them to see if I could find reviews. I was unable to locate any information on them, good or bad, which I took to be a decent sign, lets face it nothing spreads faster than negative news.

I ordered my paint supplies and proceeded to travel down the path of learning how to paint with these professional paints. One caveat about ordering paints online, the price was good and they shipped them pretty fast, but it was a pain in the butt when I needed something today. If you can't find any good paints locally then by all means order them online, but if you have a local paint store I'd advise checking them out. They can help you out when things go wrong and it's always a good idea to try and spend money on your local economy.

I made a number of mistakes while I learned and removed the paint from the fuel tank a few times. After a few restarts I ended up with a pretty nice paint job. There are a number of things I wish I would have done differently and things I will do differently in the future, but thats part of learning.

Right now I'm just waiting on a few more parts and the bike will be ridable.

If you own a Honda SOHC 4 cylinder motorcycle I recommend visiting http://www.sohc4.net/ Without this site and all the fantastic members and information on that site I wouldn't have been able to do any of this.

You can also see a more detailed account of my motorcycle build on my build thread: http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=53013.0