Redneck BBQ

It all starts - as it should - with the Blue Angels!!!! Yeah Baby!

What a great reason to assemble the gang and watch the airshow from the yard, while enjoying some yummy BBQ goodness!

Things didn't stay high-brow for long. Rolf and Claudiene, Meryl and Marco, & Krissy and Newton were in the house and they wanted entertainment of the Lizzy variety. After listening to the sound of freedom (thank you Angels!), it was time to listen to some beautiful OHC Single purr. But first - the thing I have been *dreading*...(drum roll)... changing the rear tire!
Marco is looking a little bored here holding the girl up, while Newton and I are looking at the rear of the bike. Newton, the crazy viking bastard, is all about wrenching first and asking questions later. Seriously, he tore into the job. Shocks in the way? Take them off. Extra nuts? Who needs them.
I must say his fashion of sandals and blue socks entertained all, as did the wife-beater cape combo. They lined the seats up around the bike and watched us work. Gabriel and Rolf worked on the rear tail light that wasn't flashing and cured the problem by removing the seat, unplugging the wire - having a drink - plugging it back in and voila! (Should I mention the other tail light mysteriously stopped working after that point? Nawhh, that would just be mean and belittle their accomplishment!)

Seriously, it was an epic day. I haven't had that much fun in eons. Or laughed that much. It was a wicked decent day.

Front Tire Fun

I decided after I commuted into work for the first time and hit blazing speeds up to 55mph, that I shouldn't be repeating the speed-racer moves with a front tire that goes flat by the end of the day and a rear tire that has cracks all in it. I ordered some tires from Depot Honda here on the NH seacoast and got to work.

Getting the wheel off was interesting. I used a jack under the engine (green thing in picture above). It only took dropping the bike one time before I lashed it to a pole. Scared the shit out of me when it happened. Poor Lizzy. Bad Mommy.

Gabriel and I watched You Tube videos of how to change a tire. Most of them were bunk. We really liked the one of the guy at the dealership who was like "Take the tire. Deflate it. Then put it on the tire changing machine." Um, why are you posting this dude? Not exactly DIY.

I used cut up milk cartons under the irons, because I was worried about scratching the wheel. It came off OK. But the new tire that we ordered from the *dealership* didn't even fit between the fork. Awesome.

My front tire was fine so I just replaced the tube - because that was totally f-ed up. Totally. It had 4 ---- FOUR ---- patches on it. Really, Mr. Previous Owner ( and I know you were a man because no woman would be this stupid) is a $8 tube too much to spend, to put your life on?

Arggghhh!
I decided to clean the wheel with Simple Green which was going fine until the break came out and bonked me on the head, when I had the thing flipped over for inspection. That *hurt*. The book should warn you those things are free ranging when you remove it from the bike.

Yeah I know it should be obvious - but still! Ouch! I was so grumpy I had to yell at Gabe even though he was across the yard when it happened.

I measured the drum ID and looked at the pads. They were OK - not great, but OK. I made sure their surfaces were clean (dry brush only) and free of oil/grease. Before putting it all together.

The new tube holds air and the old tire looks OK.

For future reference small bike folk out there - go to smalltires.com to find the freaking old things that are impossible to find elsewhere. I learned that from the cb125 yahoo group - a little too late.

Next - the rear tire. I shake with fear.

The Mystery Machine

We inherited a lot of junk when we bought our house three years ago - like two freezers full of ammo, two kegs of black powder, tubes of liquid Mercury, a gun ... and an engine analyzer?

Why would I care about this Magical Machine of Mystery? Well, I don't have a tachometer on my bike, so I have no clue what the engine speed is. Even though I had the carb put together and working OK, I had no way of tuning it with the air and idle adjust needles.

Folks kept telling me "I do it by ear" but I have no clue how things should sound - so that was not only cocky advice, but totally useless to a newbie like myself.

Of course the engine analyzer didn't come with directions, so I hit the internet to try to understand the bugger. It was surprisingly difficult. For reading RPM, the thing has a black clip, a red one, and a green one. I did a butt-ton of research and still I just went with my gut in the end.

Red clip - positive terminal on battery. Black - negative terminal on battery. Green - the lead that comes in and attaches to the points.

It's a single cylinder bike which means when I have the analyzer at its lowest setting (4 cylinders) I needed to take the reading and multiply by 4. So when it read 310RPM, it really was 1240RPM. Check the awesomeness...
The gauge is from another era - but what-ev's ... its bitchin.

The problem with using this beauty was threefold -

1) The bike or the analyzer was not super stable so the needle drifted around by a bit

2) The bike seemed fairly insensitive to changes in the two needles. Yeah I could go way off the mark and it would stall or sound nutty, but it wasn't like I could tune +/-50RPM, which would have been fun.

3) Gabriel was *supposed* to be keeping track (on paper, no less) of the # of 1/4 turns out or in and recording the corresponding reading of the gauge on the mystery machine. I, being on the other side of the bike turning the screws, trusted him with this task. After about 15 minutes, he turns around and asks me... "How many turns total out did you go?"

Really Gabe? Why don't you tell me - seeing as you have all the freaking data!!!

This is why, folks, an engineer and an artist do not work well together on projects such as this.

What the what!!??

Anyway I succeeded at getting annoyed with my husband, so the day wasn't a total loss. And I totally cracked the mystery of the analyzer wide open. Take that, all you 1960's smarties.

First Commute

It was a big event - my first ride into work. Hubby captured my liftoff.

I shook with adrenaline nearly the entire ride. Real roads. Real cars. Real speeds.

I maxed out at 55 and cruised at 45 mph. It was a stretch for Lizzy but we had tons of fun.

I don't think I will do it again until I get those tires but it is liberating to know I can!

Salvage This...

Once Lizzy and I agreed that fuel was a good thing, I needed to turn my attention to what I really need to be road legal. Knowing my speed would be nice. Neither the speedometer or the odometer ever worked for me. I also needed mirrors, blinking lights, new tires and and inspection but that is getting ahead of myself. One thing at a time. Gabe and I took the speedo unit off and tried to find where the problem was.
Jacking the bike up, and spinning the wheel let me look in and see that the tang that rotates with the wheel, was indeed rotating - so the portion on the wheel looked fine. Then I tried to rotate the cable, and it went freely. Too freely...
The cable was broken partway up! See the broken chunk I pulled out. So sad. Not only that but the speedo was shot too (could tell with the drill). So this was the perfect opportunity to go to my first motorcycle salvage yard!

Someone recommended Coopers Salvage in Franklin NH
http://www.mcsalvage.com/coopers.htm

I have to give Gabriel serious props for driving the hour and change there and back while yours truly was reading Chloe Neil's Chicagoland Vampire serious (most fabulous read by the way. I heart Ethan!) And he let me spend money that should go into the house on the bike. What an angel. I will always heart Gabriel the most!

Coopers had crates of speedos! Crates! I got to pick one with a trip meter! FYI a speedo should read ~20mph when you spin it with a typical hand drill at top speed in reverse.

They also hooked me up with a new speedo cable and two (mismatched mirrors) and a new 6V relay to get my lights to blink (not just turn on).

Coopers was an experience. When was the last time you were in a room with this many carburetors?

Dang didly!

There is the new (old) guy installed with the new cable. I snugged those mirrors on and hooked up my new relay and I was ready to hit the road. (Yeah I know I need an inspection ... working on it! Really, I will try after I get new tires!) I went out on real roads for the first time on a 17 mile joy ride! And oh the joy!

The black leather and the sweet bike - kick ass!

Motorcycles Need Gas?

This post is hard to write. Obviously, I put it off for awhile. But I am going to be honest even if it pains me to do so.

The good news is that I got Lizzy started. The bad news is all that frustration, binge romance reading, and tears were for nothing! All I needed was fuel.

*taking a deep breath and writing on..*

So, I got so freaking frustrated that I joined the CB125 yahoo group (which by the way is awesome) and posted a short description of my woes. It was titled "trouble starting".

I got two responses back in less than 24 hours. Both folks suggested I look into stale gas. I was less than convinced because the fuel I put in there was less than a month old. But whatever, it wouldn't hurt to dump the contents of the carburetor fuel bowl and refill it.

So I dropped the bowl and noticed, um ... it was, um... empty? Yeah, empty. What the what? So I started looking for obstructions in the fuel line. Nothing. Then I looked into the tank and saw fuel and really started scratching my head.

The petcock (thing that controls gas flow) has three settings: off, on, reserve. When it was on, nothing came out, but in reserve it gushed! What happened, you ask?

Turns out the take-off for the "on" position is above the level of gas that I could clearly see in the tank. When I was away in Austria, Gabe reported riding the bike around in a parking lot and that it became increasingly hard to start. Well its because the gas level got too low! I put the petcock over in the reserve position...

I let fuel back into the bowl and seriously was wincing when I kicked...

She started right up. Oh the sweet sting of humiliation!

I had to write back to the CB125 guys that posted responses and all I could bring myself to say was "putting fresh gas in the bowl worked"

The real mystery is why the plug smelled of gas when I pulled it and mistook it for being "wet".

The recovering Catholic in me requires that I come clean. So I am.

The pain was almost worth it as I blasted down the street, to the nearest gas station, and filled up my bike for the very first time (see the receipt for proof)!

I had to take a class in small engines, study CB125 books, work my ass off - only do discover I needed gas.

Life is freaking awesome.

Static Timing

So I got to the point where I was sure I had fuel, air, and spark - so what was wrong? Could it be my timing is so off that she won't consider starting (the spark happens at the wrong time in the 4 stroke cycle)? I doubted it, since it would be near impossible for that to change while I was abroad. But whatever - I was desperate.

My Clymer book tells me how to check the timing by hand. I couldn't get Lizzy started so I had to do this the "static way". All I had to do was make the gizmo as picture above...
Ok, so it doesn't look like it - but all I had was tape and nails! It lit up when the two leads were connected, so it did what it was supposed to (which isn't winning a beauty contest).

I connected one lead to the fins, and the other to the breaker points. The idea is that when the breaker points are closed - the light bulb is on and visa versa. You want to get the point where the points *just open* (and the bulb starts to dim) such that the match mark that indicates the appropriate time to fire "F" is aligned properly.

Well - the first time I connected the gizmo and rotated the crank shaft the bulb died. Okaayy... so I just had to find another. After I found the last flashlight bulb on our property and plopped it in, it popped too. What the hell?

Turns out,I was stupid. I totally forgot that I had turned on the bike initially to play with my new battery (honk the horn, turn on the lights) and forgot to turn it off! The spark plug was disconnected but the battery wasn't and was blasting my poor bulb filament to dust!

That said, I noticed that when the battery was on the points would spark when they disconnected. Hey - no need for the gizmo after all! I just watched for the lightning show as I moved the crankshaft. Turns out my timing was a bit off. So I fixed it by rotating the points slightly. I am not sure how to keep the spacing while doing all this... (ideas?) but it didn't look that bad after I cranked the screws back down.

About a minute after I accomplished that, I was on the bike kicking away. After kick 50, I gave up and went inside to sulk and read trashy books.