Motorcycles, ADD, and oooh, look at the shiny kitty....

Yep, sidetracked again after my last post. Work needed done, more motorcycle projects, wait, when did I order those parts?

I had a couple of "new" parts at the painter and had been in paint jail since early July but with my annual trip to the Poconos coming up after labor day I really would like to have them, "them" being the front of my Reckless fairing and a king tour pack. The fairing would make some difference but the tour pack would be key, I threw my travel bag of 6 years in the garbage after the last trip, it had served it's purpose well but was getting a little long in the tooth with the waterproof coating starting to flake away.

This last week I pressed the painter a little more and received my parts. WooHoo! And in true fashion, "while I'm there" I may as well replace the sticky throttle cables, but if I'm doing that longer ones aren't that much more expensive.....I have been thinking about going to 16" apes......the hell with it. I ordered new Wild Ones 16" apes along with braided throttle cables.

 In for a penny.......

Old 14" bars


New 16" mid install with inner fairing


Front fairing and new bars





With that finished the last project was assembly of the tour pack, one thing I had been dreading because of the blind rivets used. Well the first problem was the Chinese made ebay rack for the top, I'm guessing they don't put these in a form as only two of the bolt holes lined up with the stock Harley lid. That's okay, a little persuasion with a long wrench moves them around to fit and the welds held! After ordering new weatherstripping and new latches I should be set.

But next up was rebuilding the factory hinges, the pivots were shot, I figured I could knock them out and replace them with a bolt of appropriate size and a lock nut. That may have worked "if" I hadn't got heavy handed with what I thought was a stuck pivot pin, nope just an asshole with a hammer and a few beers. One hinge jacked up. Well I had been eyeing the premium hinges at $60.......and they don't require those stupid rivets.

Off to Adam Smith Harley


I have to say I enjoyed the radio but what I enjoyed more than anything else was the calm, cool pocket of air behind the fairing. I bet I could smoke a cigar behind it and not even catch an ash in the eye.

New Pipes

Before I write part two I decided two things needed to be done, get it cleaned up from the ride and replace the RCX slip ons that I decided were too loud. After hours of research while my ears quit ringing I decided that I would go with a pair of CVO mufflers and then swap out the baffles to Fullsac baffles if needed. Of to Craigslist I go and an ad was listed late Sunday and the guy had three pair, by the time I texted him he had one pair left and I snagged them! I decided I'd get them mounted before washing it.

And all cleaned up

Four Days of Riding, Days 1 & 2

Back last night at 8:25 from 2000 miles of touring!

My buddy JV and I left Wednesday morning and headed for the great state of Colorado for some mountain riding plus some good beer.

First day plan was to slab it to Colorado Springs from Dallas via 287 with a stop in Dalhart, TX for some food with a friend. Well those plans were dashed when running at higher speeds killed our gas mileage and a poor decision to forgo gas while leaving Amarillo lead to me running out of gas in the middle of nowhere south of Channing, TX. JV ran out to grab some gas and ended up in Hartley while I napped on the side of the road in 100* temps while everyone passed up the dirty biker on the side of the road. Shout out to the Hartley Co-Op for sending JV out with free gas and can, even offered to follow him back to me if he couldn't carry the can! Love small town hospitality.

My solitude.


JV catching it for posterity while pointing at the can of shame


We missed our friend but did get a glowing recommendation to try XIT (10 In Texas) for good grub and beer.


After a "few" more uneventful hours we made it to home for the night in Colorado Springs and this was the view from Amandas Cantina while we sipped margaritas.

JV is somewhat of an avid "photographer" risking life and limb to document our trip while riding a motorcycle, a few shots while riding up Pike's Peak

And the view from the top, beautiful morning with no clouds




We rode back down and headed north on 67 stopping for lunch and beers at Deckers Corner, great little place to eat. I highly recommend the breakfast scramble and when they say the hot green chili sauce is hot, they mean it! More beer cured the heat.


Out of there we headed up several more small back roads with great scenery and then stopped in Evergreen at Little Bear for more hoppy refreshments



Out of Evergreen we headed North then west for Central City, neat little main street town but the turn onto Central City Parkway off the highway was strange as they had a cow crossing next 8 miles sign. Actually they might have saved some money to just put "look out for and all animals" signs at the Colorado border, seems as though they have a sign for every animal imaginable.

Next Refreshment stop, Dostal Alley Casino & Brew Pub



Our next stop was Nederland which was confirmed to be a cool place by this guy

So leaving out of Central City we turned north onto 119 and ran all the way to Nederland, home of the Frozen Dead Guy Days and another great place for beer and pizza, Crosscut Pizzeria & Taphouse. Tons of good beer on tap and great staff.

Our last run of the night was to head back towards Boulder and down to Louisville to call it a night, almost. We headed over to another brewhouse to end the night and our staff member Elizabeth put up with us without kicking us out. 

WOLO because YOLO

While looking for inexpensive mods that can make a difference I came across one that didn't see much play on Harley's but did for imports and cars...... The WOLO Bad Boy air horn. I can say every single bike I have owned has had horns that barely qualify being called a horn. They do a piss poor job at notifying fellow drivers and inattentive cager's that they are going to run you over, an upgrade is definitely a step forward in safety. The impetus besides a fresh mod also came in the form of an email from Harbor Freight with a 25% off coupon which made the $39.99 horn only $29.99, how could anyone sane man pass that up?

In all it's glory after removing from the blister pack


With a silver bullet for scale


It is a compact two tone air horn that has a self contained compressor that does require battery power and a relay to be added but that is an easy deal. Well, so I thought until the curse of the Chinese relay bit again. I removed the factory horn from the bracket, drilled out the top hole, and bolted the WOLO right to it, easy peasy. For wiring you put the factory horn contacts on 85 & 86, +12v switched to contact 30, then contact 87 to the horn's positive, then the horn's ground to ground.

Easy.

Unless your relay that comes with the kit is broken and you spend too much time thinking you have a bad ground. SMH Using the spare I bought the other day when installing the cruise control every thing worked perfect, the damn horn scared the bejeezus out of me first time.

I'm sure it will get inattentive driver's attention when/if it is needed.



Actually tucks in tighter than stock




I'm now part of the club

It's the little things

It's almost too hot to ride in Texas, testing the cruise control can wait a little while, besides I leave Wednesday for a run through Colorado. 

So instead I decided a little extra project was needed for the right saddle bag. With the 05' cop bikes having ABS it leaves a useless part of the bag on the front side which is only good for a pair of folded up soft lowers or your bungie straps but I though a shelf was in order.

I whipped up a quick pattern and made this shelf out of some scrap lexan and some black faux alcantara, both of which I had laying around the garage. 

It makes a nice shelf for the things that usually ended up in the bottom of the bag like sunglasses case, ear plugs, phone, etc. 

Success!

Kind of...

After running through the diagnostics 50 times and not getting the correct results I decided that I needed to add a relay for the brake circuit. I grabbed the two I had on hand and wired one up, screwed around with it for an hour, grabbed the second one and spent another hour, wiring it every way possible and still not getting the correct diagnostic reading. I quit, I have something else to do, run out and get cat food and I'll stop at Autozone and pick up a new relay. I get back to the garage, wire it in and BINGO! Brake circuit is working correctly! Tuck a few wires away, add the side covers and let's see if it works.

I get on the highway, hit 70mph, turn on the switch, thumb the set button, and cruise control! Wait, it drops about 3mph, speeds up 3mph, drops about 3mph. Darn, I think I may have too much slack in the control cable or I have the sensitivity set too low.

But I did get it all back together



More things to check tomorrow.

One Step Forward

And maybe a step sideways.

Spent most of Saturday finishing up the wiring on my cruise control project, well most of that time was spent looking at wiring diagrams to decide where I would pull the tach and VSS signal from or running after heat shrink and split loom. I was able to grab the tack wire from the stock 12 pin connector on the right side of the bike but I got tired of chasing that white/green VSS wire so I split it and tagged into it near the connector also on the drivers side.

After connecting to the wrong taillight wire, brake instead of running, I got it all hooked up right and performed the diagnostics on the paperwork included and it works! Go out for a ride, no bueno, the cable is too tight and binding the throttle. This creates a cruise control of itself lol. Back to the garage to extend the attachment. After burning myself twice I got it done but called it a day, the wife asked me to install two new faucets, one kitchen the other our bathroom, and the latter tested every bit of patience I had requiring a dremel to remove the rusted nut holding the hot side handle on. That was the end of working on Saturday, on anything. Now to find time to replace the faucet in the other bathroom....