I'm Back

Technically I was back Sunday.....
I had the greatest plans to blog my trip out to Tennessee for a work convention and a ride with friends afterwards but we all know what they say about best laid plans of mice and men....

So I left home last Sunday and made a beeline to Nashville for a trade show that lasted until Wednesday and then on to ride the backroads of Tennessee with a group of 8 bikes and 13 riders. First part I loved was pulling up to the Omni in downtown after 10 hours on the road and there was a wedding party there fixin to leave in Ferrari's, bet they loved the grungy biker rolling through. After three days of the trade show and out til darn near 3 every morning I headed out to meet up with the crew at Boswell's Harley.

Heading out


After a slight detour by me when I made a turn that nobody else dared after a signal by the leader....
We were back on the road and headed south on 24 and jumped over to 41A for a loading cruise down the backroads on our way to Lynchburg, for a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery. A beverage stop at a small gas station had local entertainment with a lady freaking out on a phone about someone they knew trying to run them off the road. We arrived at Jack Daniels and took the very interesting tour then back on the road as it was a dry county. ;-)




Our motley crew


We headed down a few more backroads towards Winchester when the skies started turning really dark and we knew we couldn't avoid the rain so we pulled into the Oasis Steakhouse for more adult beverages and some grub while we waited out the storm then back on the road for our destination for the night, Chattanooga, and our hotel for the night, the downtown Holiday Inn Express. And they made us park in the hallway despite charging full price for the covered parking, we did get a 50% refund in the morning though.



And so we finally get sat down for dinner by 10, after visiting the bar at the Holiday Inn and Sticky Fingers, at the Taco Mac where the service was meh although it may have had something to do with the Predators losing. I'm pretty sure there were lean tips given at our table. After that we called it a night.



Map of our route
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EF7UlY8UYjKFET9F9wX0jaRXFQQ&usp=sharing

An easy day for a change

Up and at em! Pulled the bags this morning to double check the rear axle torque and while I was there decided to change the oil in the rear shocks. Quite a few people say buy new but then again quite a few have had good luck changing the oil to a heavier weight or just fresh oil. Grabbed my new favorite toy, the Mityvac, and pulled the first shock. After mounting it upside down in the vise I connected the reservoir for bleeding brakes to the shock with an 1/8"npt X 1/4" barb and pulled vacuum.
That oil was gross and smelled bad, like pond water.

Next up was load up a graduated cylinder with the right amount of shock oil, in my case a 75/25 split of Belray 7w/10w, only because I am trying to use up the 7w I bought when I changed the fork oil. I remounted the shock in the vice right side up, clamped of the line to the shock while under vacuum, stuck the end of the hose in the graduated cylinder, and voila! It sucked all the oil back into the shock, no muss, no fuss.

Can't wait to try them out on the ride tomorrow.

I did also decide on a windshield, I stuck with old trusty, the Long Ride Shields recurve I used last year.

What now....

After all the hard work it's back together and running good, the tune is a little off, grab a new one from the web, upload and go ride to try out my three windshields. Running down the road and the new tune is iffy but I notice a new noise, a humming almost, what now? I had mounted an under fork baffle this morning and I usually don't ride with a windshield maybe just hearing normal noises. At this point I'm down to the wire, dammit, I'll pull the wheel and check the bearings.

Bingo!

The right side bearing I didn't replace has gone crunchy. A quick run to Harley to grab one and fix it up.

Still haven't decided on a windshield though......

Productive day now that it's done. Picked up the new spotlight at Tractor Supply, installed and found a loose wire while I was there, that's all fixed and working. Next was a trip down to Adam Smith Harley for my wiring harness to install the new style 2015 dual halogen headlight, it made it in. A quick run back to the house an plug it in, it's worse than my old style headlight but something isn't right. Out comes the manual and the wiring diagram, lo and behold, the headlight has been mis-wired at some point in it's life, quick switch of the wires and it's back to stock.

The new headlight is bright!

I highly recommend this upgrade if you have the stock single bulb style headlight, these are cheap on the eBay.

They don't look too bad either.

All the little things

So going over the bike stem to stern looking for anything I may have left loose before heading out to Nashville Sunday. I did bleed the brakes, gave the rotors a once over with a scotch brite pad, and wiped them down, should be good there. Put the highway bar back on, I'm not going to risk running in rain and not throwing the soft lowers on, no way, and then all the other touring parts, windshield, passing lights, and sissy bar. Also threw a fresh coat of wax on just for the hell of it.

She's ready to ride, almost.



One of the passing lamps burnt out as soon as I turned them on. Off to Tractor Supply for replacements.

I was going through pics today and I wish I had started this blog the day I purchased the Road King, I didn't but here is a pic of the day I bought it. This pic was taken halfway home from Conroe at a gas stop while I also changed into some drier clothes after a rainstorm.



This pic makes it look much cleaner than it really was, I'm not sure that it had been thoroughly washed in it's life, it certainly hadn't ever seen chrome polish and either had spent time near the ocean or the chrome was just rough from no washings. The Ultra seat was missing the front catch so it was only held on by the rear screw through the fender, that windshield was bought at a random boat/harley shop we hid at while the rainstorm passed, the original looked like it had been scoured by a brillo pad. Also while it had a new rear tire, the front was 5 years old, hard as a rock, and weather checked but it made the 4.5 hour trip home.

Best laid plans...

I had ordered up rebuild kits, new rotors, and pads, they all arrived Friday as planned!

So first thing I head out to the garage Saturday to get it all put together. No surprises as it all fell back together as everything was new and clean and bleed out easy. I make sure the master cylinder isn't over filled as to add to increased pressure when hot, and I hit the road.

Excellent brakes the first couple stops with the new sintered pads from Galfer to match the rotors and then, hard lever and brakes bearing down on their own. Luckily I hadn't hot the highway and hauled it onto a side street to bleed off the pressure and turn back for the house.

Going through a checklist everything is new other than the freshly rebuilt calipers and freshly rebuilt master cylinder. But if it is building pressure than that means the master cylinder has to be holding pressure somehow, someway. Remembering when I rebuilt it and installed it I had printed out the exploded diagram from Harley and looked at the pushrod and installed it the way it seemed to go and I had hesitation. Apparently if you blow up the picture big enough you can just tell the big end goes out, not inward because this is enough pressure to hold pressure on the brakes and ruin you day. Ugh.



Quick flip around of that and the brakes were fine except for being spongy, I didn't take the time to bleed them but have that slated for today.

After that triumph I installed the new 2016 Street Glide badges too, then gave it a quick wipedown.



It is almost ready for the trip to Nashville this coming Sunday, just need to bleed front brakes again, road test again, then mount up the windshield/sissy bar/driving lights, otherwise known as the tour package.