Working on the "new car",

"Alloy" is the name of this color. The Pony package provided the 17 in. wheels, grille mounted driving lights. and black leather interior. 200 hp V/6 provides 28 mpg. through the five speed auto transmission. ABS was still on the option sheet this year, mine has it. This is not my car, but a look alike. These are really very good cars.

photo source: all Ford Mustangs. com

When does a car you purchased new, stop being the "new' car?

In 2007 I did the outrageous, (for me) act of purchasing two brand new vehicles, a 2007 Ford F150 pick up and a 2007 Mustang coupe. Fast forward ten years and the truck is displaying 123,000 miles on the odometer and the Mustang has rolled up 143,000 miles. I've purchased many late model used cars with less mileage. The Mustang served as my Wife's car and was used for family excursions. My then, teen age children shared the rear seat on these family journeys, luckily neither is very tall! My Chrysler minivan suffered from several mechanical maladies along this time period and it became too unreliable to trust on long runs.

Like most new vehicles my truck was used extensively during the early years of ownership while I was trying to develop my business. Plus, I just liked driving a new vehicle.  As my children are now grown my Wife and I find ourselves taking many empty nest trips together and we find that the truck is ideal for these activities. (Lot's of room for flea market and antique store finds!) We have gone to Las Vegas, The Oregon Coast, and a two week trip that took us to Oregon, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and back to California. While I did use it for our last vacation to Oregon I now kind of use it just for hauling stuff. During these years my Wife has never driven my truck, not that I wouldn't let her, it's just that she doesn't want to drive something so big,

After my Daughter finally got her license at age 18 we passed the Mustang over to her use. She did pretty good getting a seven year old car as her first car but there was a selfish motive for me involved. When my oldest Daughter got her license I bought her the car she wanted, an older VW bug, with a manual transmission.  These old bugs are great for teaching a new driver how to drive a stick. They are pretty hard to stall no matter how suddenly you let out the clutch. However I always worried about the reliability, of driving an older car. There were a few times that I got the call out responding with my tool bag to see why the car had stalled out  or wouldn't start, usually at inconvenient times, for me!


My youngest seems quite busy now, running all over at all times so I seldom drive the Mustang. In fact the car is seldom parked long enough for me to take a look at it! So my access to the car is limited. Just getting the oil changed somewhere near the recommended intervals is a struggle. Out of sight out of mind. So true. I don't get the opportunity to drive the car enough to see if it's developing any problems. I'm quite busy trying to manage the rest of my fleet, and besides it was the "new" car.  Not any more. I was kind of surprised by the accrued mileage.

I had bought new tires for the car some time ago and even with the 70,000 mile wear guarantee are getting near replacement. It was the air bag recall that really brought home the need for service. While they had the car, the Ford service center provided their analysis of desperately needed services and their cost estimates. As if I would pay to have the dealer do them! I've got a good indie shop that I would rather send some business.

One thing that it needed was new brakes. I had already replaced the rear brake pads several years ago. My Daughter had recently been mentioning that the car was squealing once in a while. I figured that a squeal is better than a scrape, so I hadn't paid too much attention, even after I heard the sound myself. They also recommended a brake fluid change which sounded okay since the car is ten years old.

Cheap and disposable. This way you wont contaminate the fluid during the next use.
 I added a short length of hose to the end.

I decided to do the brake job myself. I bought new pads, rotors and fluid, One of the pads was almost worn down to the metal. I drained the fluid from the master cylinder with an infant snot bulb. I added a length of rubber hose and this worked great. It was cheap, less than four dollars and I could discard it after use. Then I bled the brakes to get the rest of the old fluid out of the system. Luckily my Daughter showed up and helped, which made a hard job merely tedious. I had been doing it very slowly on my own. I gotta learn how to use my Mityvac! That brake fluid sure was dirty!

It is kind of funny that I have put new fluid in many of my old hobby cars, in the last few years. My '70 Mustang was changed when I totally rebuilt the brake system. I had replaced the fluid when I rebuilt the brakes in my old Riviera. This was also a total brake rebuild including new brake lines. I had changed the brake fluid on my F250 while rebuilding the brakes, and even on my '96 Mustang. I just didn't think about doing it on one my "new" cars. Which is the real root of the problem, they just aren't new anymore. I've got to think of them like I think of my hobby cars, always in need of something!

I performed the brake job, replacing the pads, rotors and fluid. I also rotated the tires which should be good until next Spring. I'll just drain and refill the power steering fluid, using one of those bulbs and a transmission fluid and filter service is on the schedule. Oh, also a belt, hose and coolant change. Spark plugs would probably be a good idea too. So much to do. If I bought a new car every six or seven years I could avoid all these headaches and just make a monthly payment, if that isn't a headache of it's own.

My truck is also in the same situation. I did change the front brake pads a while back, but didn't have the rotors turned at the time. The rotor is held on with a big non reusable nut, that had to be torqued down to 150 lbs./feet of torque. I don't have a torque wrench that can register that high and besides I don't have the wrench to do the job. There is a tell tale pulsation in the pedal while braking that tells me that the rotors are warped. Hoses, belts, transmission service and more are on the agenda also.

While maintaining a fleet of vehicles does reduce the mileage accumulated on each vehicle, it just increases the amount of maintenance that has to be done by someone. That would be me.

Does it ever end?

Roadblock!  Dead End. Progress comes to a grinding halt!

photo source: livefromlockdown.com.

I have described in an earlier post how my Mark VII's wheel cylinders defied my efforts to disassemble them. This resulted in a feeling of frustration and then, even desperation. Rebuilt cylinders were available on an exchange basis for 400 British pounds, that's over 500.00 American! And there was a 200 pound core charge, That's a total of almost 750 bucks. There is also a disc brake conversion which goes for around 1,500 bucks, much more than I want and am able to spend right now. I don't plan on spending that kind of money until I know that the car can be a runner.

What do I do now?

Luckily, I don't have a lot of spare cash to throw at the problem. Step back, take a breath and look for that detour.

My Wife is going to be out of town for a long weekend with the girls; a three day "crop." For those not familiar with the term, it's a get together to work on scrapbooking and other artsy projects. Doing it out of town at a nice hotel is just an excuse to have a little holiday away from Hubby and the kids. I planned my schedule to accommodate this outing and I'll have several days to work uninterrupted on my own automotive projects. That is if I actually get to work, and dive into some of my longstanding projects. Sometimes it's easier to get up late, have some leisurely breakfast and surf the web over coffee for several hours. The time can easily slip away.

I decided that I want to put some time in on the Mark, it has sat for a few months after my wheel cylinder rebuilding program ran into some unexpected snags. I had redirected my the time on much delayed yard work in preparation of my Wife getting her "she shed," (Quite a silly name.) This shed will lead to the liberation of my garage, at least in theory. So I don't mind putting in the time to achieve my payoff. This is an example of the enlightened self interest that I learned about in Economics class.

As stated, I found that I could not disassemble the wheel cylinders as easily as I hoped. (Actually not at all!) Sitting for twenty five years leads to some stubborn mechanisms. I soaked them with different penetrates to no avail. I shared how I had tried using my hydraulic bench press, heat, and compressed air in an attempt to free them. Only one wheel cylinder yielded to my efforts. Diving into the web for more ideas I read a post that explained how you could hook up a grease gun to the cylinder and use the hydraulic pressure to pop the cylinder pistons out. One advantage of this approach is that the pistons will not be propelled across the room at a high velocity, they will just ooze out of the bore. (This proved to be true.) He made it sound quite easy, just thread a grease fitting into the bleed or hose port and pump the thing full of grease. A high pressure grease gun can develop up to 15,000 psi . I'm guessing that my old unit will be much less, but it will still be more than the 130 lbs. of pressure I could achieve with my air compressor.

This just like mine.

Going at it "Mano a Mano" on the garage floor!

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was unsuccessful in finding some cobbled together fittings that would work. I concluded that I would have to drill out and tap a bolt to achieve the desired result. I considered approaching a machine shop to do the job for me. They of course could easily handle it, but I was unsure if they would even care to bother with such a minor job. I decided I should give it a try myself first. It would have been nice to use a drill press but my old HF unit quit working years ago and had an encounter with the landfill, I considered buying another drill press but figured I would attempt it old school; a hand held drill and a bench vice placed on the garage floor. Without a fixture I would just have to eyeball it.  A few more new drill bits would have been nice. Of course I couldn't located my center punch, enough delays. I just dove in.

With a 1/16 in. drill bit I managed to make a shallow divot in the bottom of the bolt.
This would guide the bit for further drilling.

All the way through with the 1/16 th, inch bit.

I began with a 1/16th. inch carbide bit and gently started drilling with my rechargeable Makita until I made a minor divot. Now I had my reference mark. I  then switched to my heavy duty Makita plug in drill. I held everything as steady as I could and things went quite well. I went through several bits. It took a long time and I must have been getting a bit tired. When I had drilled almost a half inch I must have pushed too hard and the tiny bit broke off in the bore. Darn It! It was under the surface and I couldn't pull it out.

I drilled from the top and the bores met in the middle.

I figured that I would start drilling through the top side and if both bores met, I could drive the broken bit out. I started with the 1/16th bit then moved up to a 1/8th bit. It went okay for awhile until the process came to a halt. It just wasn't going any deeper. I wondered if I'd hit the broken bit since it's really hard to drill through a carbide steel bit. I took the bolt out of the vice and wiped it off. I noticed that the broken bit had been forced out of the bottom bore a bit. That's why it wasn't drilling deeper. I got a 12 inch pair of channel locks and worked that broken bit out like a bad tooth! I ran the 1/16 bit all the way through. I followed that up with the 1/8th bit. Success! Now all I had to do was drill and tap the top of the bolt for the grease fitting.

The grease fitting was 1/4 in x 20 coarse thread. I drilled the top of the bolt out with a 1/4 inch bit and found the appropriate tap in my set. This is the first time I ever threaded a drilled hole. Usually I've just used my tap sets to chase bolt threads. After cutting the threads I tightened the fitting down.

It worked! Nothing more than a drilled out bolt with a grease fitting,
but I was depending on this to work.

The ribbon of grease tells me the cylinder is filled with grease.
Note that the piston is approx. 1/4 inch below the rim of the cylinder bore.

I blocked the crossover port with that old Sportster crankcase stud.

It only took a couple of minutes of pumping before the piston
was almost completely out of the cylinder bore.

Finally! Now to clean out all that grease.

The whole process was not nearly as time consuming as I would have thought. The most time was spent drilling out the bolt. Though I managed to do an adequate job by my crude methods it would have been much easier with a drill press. I should also have bought some extra drill bits. Luckily I had a few on hand. Drill bits are consumables, like sandpaper, paper towels and cleaning solvent. I remember that at GM I would see that the repair men had handfuls of drill bits that they would discard quickly as soon as they lost their effectiveness. Time was money. I sometimes lose sight that my objective is to complete the repair, not save money on tools and supplies. There are sometimes diminishing returns from being a cheapskate!

Harley wings over America, Part Four, The road home.

Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho.

This 2,000 year old lava flow created some interesting formations. Even though it was almost 90 degrees outside, inside these caves there were still sheets of ice!

Stopped in mid flow, frozen in time.

Frozen in time and cold enough inside to freeze water.

Just a nice walking path through the surface of the Moon.

EBR-1

EBR-1 was the first nuclear breeder reactor in the United States.It's located in the middle of a large restricted experimental area. EBR-1 produced enough electricity to light up the small nearby town of Arco. It's surprising how little shielding was used around the reactor core. I'm glad I stopped to see it.


It gets really hot in the central Idaho- Oregon desert. After I spent the night in Boise, I finished up crossing the desert to Bend Oregon.

Crater Lake, well worth the detour.

At Bend it became cooler and greener. As the elevation increased it even became cold enough to find some snow left on the mountainside.The side trip to Crater Lake was well worth it. The lake is surrounded by very steep cliffs and it is possible to go over the side. That water is 3,000 ft. deep! At the rim of the lake I met some people and we took each others pictures. Unfortunately his finger got in the way! At Grant's Pass Oregon I was lucky to find the only open gas station in town.

Always a picture of the bike.

At least they got my face in the picture.

As I crossed the border into California I knew that my trip was coming to an end.

The coast just south of Crescent City.
California sure did look good.

Paul Bunyan is joined by Babe, who is off camera.

Rick and I had stopped at the trees of Mystery in Klamath Ca. a couple of years back. This time I just stopped to take a couple of pictures. My last night on the road was spent in Eureka. The next day I was home.

Epilogue:

This was the trip of a lifetime. When I started the trip my bike was using oil at the rate of one quart every five hundred miles. By the end it was only getting 125 miles to the quart. The valve guides were pretty worn and a puff of blue smoke marked every instance of acceleration. Except for the trouble with the ignition advance weights it had been pretty trouble free. Since I assembled it using Locktite not a single part vibrated off. I had learned my lesson about cheap aftermarket parts and preferred to use genuine Harley Davidson parts and accessories in my bike's construction.

I had bought this bike new and at the end of the trip i think that I only had a total of around twenty five thousand miles on the clock. I decided that a top end rebuild of the motorcycle was required, new valve guides, and regrinding the valves brought the motor up to snuff. It seems odd now that Sportster valve guides didn't have much of a life expectancy. The entire motor didn't have much of a service life beyond around fifty thousand miles. When I reached that mileage I did a complete rebuild and used Manley phosphur bronze valve guides and stainless steel valves, These higher quality components would last another fifty thousand miles. 

Though I continued to ride motorcycles for the next thirty years, I've never again took a single trip that was longer than this. There were plenty of trips to Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Mendocino and LA. The responsibilities of adult life started to take up more of my time, and it was not a bad trade off. 

Almost forty years later I don't think that any more motorcycle trips will be in my future. When I stopped riding motorcycles my family and friends were kind of amazed. I had been riding since I was fifteen and a half years old. I rode everyday and everywhere, I had wanted to disprove my Dad's perception (and comments!) that motorcycle was just a toy, not real transportation. My Brother said it was like "Fonzie" giving up his bike.

 My decision to stop riding came from a couple of factors. For one, I had seriously injured my back, though it had not been motorcycle related. After I recovered I continued to ride, but I just found that I didn't enjoy it that much any more. Especially just getting on and going for an aimless ride. It just felt like a waste of time. After a second more serious  flare up of my back problems ten years later, I decided that It wasn't worth taking any more chances, and I would reduce the risk by not riding motorcycles anymore. I suppose that the most terrible thing isn't that I gave up riding. The terrible thing is that I don't even miss it anymore.

In the early shows, Fonzie rode this cool knucklehead
photo source: Happy Days


Fonzie Out!

Keep Calm, Motor On!

I'm at it again, trying to be clever developing logos and such.
I came up with the artwork, My Daughter handled all the computer design stuff.

First it was the logo for my blog, now it's this inspirational shield. This shield sort of summarizes the right approach and attitude you need when dealing with hobby cars. When problems or complications occur, keep calm, take a step back and review the situation. You can't eliminate the innate frustrations and disappointments of our hobby, just learn to manage them! The crossed wrenches symbolize our ability to pick up a wrench and fix the problem, and our pride in our ability. Motor on, Good Man.


Wading through the swamp. Too many cars with too many problems.

It feels familiar though I've never been there, at least literally!

I'm sure you've seen a movie where the hero was lost in the jungle or swamp and battles his way through , only to find that he has been walking in a circle! Right back where he started!

Not too easy to find your way out.

That's kind of how it feels to me right now.

My XJS is in limited use status, That just means that I will be able to drive it to work. It doesn't sound like much, but for almost two years it was just sitting. I know the front suspension needs work, but it will wait for now. I have driven it during our recent heat wave, and it performed quite well, keeping it's cool. This week the weather has taken a delightful turn towards Autumn, cool mornings, warm days and cool nights. This is our usual weather pattern. With the windows down it should be quite comfortable. I took the opportunity to wash and wax the car. I found that the area under the rear bumper was pretty dirty. A careful wash was followed by polishing up the stainless steel tail pipes. It made quite the difference. The original paint is still very good, it's a survivor, a twenty eight year old car. I want to preserve the finish as long as I can. The car is under a cover when it's not being driven. A clay bar cleaning is probably next.


The XJ6 is running fine but it really needs the front suspension done. This has got it into the limited use rotation. It has also developed a slow leak in the left front tire. I replaced the tire with the spare this evening. I'm going to drop by the shop to get it fixed. There are lot's of used tire stores around San Jose and I've even used a few. However I wasn't going to trust my Jaguar's wheel to those guys! These shops will usually use a floor jack under the rocker and they are not too concerned with bending the rocker stamping. It happened to my Chrysler minivan so I am very wary.  I would not take my car to a shop like that.

It turns out that the tire was leaking at the valve stem. I visited my usual tire store, Wheel Works, and they were quite busy. The counterman told me to drop off the loose wheel and come back in a few hours. The manager said that he could do it in five minutes! I gave him the wheel and he did have it done, just like that! When I asked how much, he replied, "no charge". Now that is how you build a customer relationship. I have purchased quite a few sets of tires there and that's where my next set for my XJ6 will probably come from. Hopefully a set of Kumhos or Hankooks.

Then something happened to the Explorer. My Daughter was driving it while the newer Mustang was at the dealer getting the airbag recall done. It stalled out at a stoplight and wouldn't restart. My Daughter has no interest in cars, she doesn't even think about them, just drives. She didn't know where the emergency flashers were. I really can't blame her as I've never shown her.

Typical fuel pump set up.

At first I thought that maybe the fuel pump had given out. This is one of those failures that occurs without any warning and it renders the car unusable. This is probably the bane of a modern fuel injected car. With the fuel tank mounted pump it's not something that can be easily or quickly fixed by the side of the road. I remember when the fuel pump failed in my '96 Mustang. My Daughter had made a late night call at one o'clock in the morning telling me that she was having trouble with her car.


After addressing the issue with her car, I was driving home at about two in the morning, when the car suddenly lost power. Luckily I was able to exit the freeway and reach the shoulder. The car wouldn't restart and Triple A flat bedded my car home. I thought that it was the fuel pump. The next day I tested my theory by shooting some starting fluid into the throttle body. The car fired, then died, just what I would have expected.

However the Explorer started when the Triple A guy arrived for my Daughter. He was able to drive it up onto the flat bed. It also started at the house and he drove it off the truck into our driveway.  When I got home I tried to start it and it fired up. I didn't want the Explorer taking up a spot in the driveway so I started it up again later, and parked it in the "Valley of the Excess Cars" ( This is the side street around the corner. Quite a few cars parked there). Maybe it isn't the fuel pump.

There's no way of knowing when the fuel pump will fail. Usually they will last between one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand miles. If you bought the car new, you know that you're driving on the original pump. When you buy a used car there's no way to know how long that pump has been there unless there is a receipt for it's replacement in the glove box. Modern pumps are housed in the fuel tank. They run cooler and their long life span is proof that this is a better idea. Back in the old, low tech days the fuel pump was bolted to the side of the engine block and could easily be changed in a half hour, and the pump could be purchased for under 50.00. Though it didn't last anywhere near 100k. Replacing the pump in my '96 Mustang cost me 500.00. Now I know that it's good for years to come. Would a preemptive replacement on an older car with no service history be a good idea? It would give some peace of mind, but it's hard to spend that much money if the car is currently running okay. I remember that the pump in my '90 Dodge Caravan, (purchased new) lasted until 130,000 miles were on the clock. It did give me fair warning of it's impending failure. Sometimes it took a lot of cranking time to fire up, but it never left me stranded.

So what to do? As I stated, my '07 Mustang went to the dealer to have the air bag recall done. It came back with a print out of work that the car need to have done- Pronto. Since I bought this car new, I always think of it as a new car, but it's not. At least anymore. There's a good bit of needed maintenance that I have to get done soon. So my Jags will have to wait a bit more.

Maybe I can find a minute to work on the Mark VII? It's about time that I try to drill out that bolt for the grease fitting. I suppose that I can find a machine shop to do it for me if my efforts don't pan out. I should at least try to get the handbrake working properly. I've got to install the carbs again and see if I can get the motor to fire up. My plan is to make up a fuel can that will feed the carbs directly since I don't think those old fuel pumps are going to be in working order. I've also got to primer those rusted surfaces on then hood and roof, the rain will be coming soon.

My current  big project has been working on my backyard. There has been a lot deferred maintenance. It has taken  up a lot of my time, and has cut down my time available to work on my fleet. It had gotten overgrown since the kids grew up and stopped playing outside, so it was easy to ignore. I had a tree blow over in a storm last Winter.  It resulted in a huge mess that I tried to ignore for awhile. Finally though I had to deal with it, I had to cut up the tree and dispose of it. It was a huge job. That was only the first installment.  

This is just half the tree.

Cutting up all those branches!

Sometimes the cars just have to wait.

Harley Wings over America, Part Three. On to the Big Apple!

After a visit to the Harley factory museum at York PA. I left for NYC.
The factory tour was suspended while new models were starting up on the line.

Rodney C. Gott was the chairman of AMF.
The board was responsible for saving Harley Davidson.

I never got the chance to wear this badge.

A low key sign for a source of so much history.

The streamlining caused instability at speed, 136 mph.

The museum was very interesting. Antique Harley Davidsons were not commonly seen although some of the chopper magazines began to feature articles on vintage bikes. Joe Petrali rode a streamlined EL twin to a new speed record. The EL was the new for 1936, OHV 61 ci. twin. This bike was the father of all following big twins. I had seen the bike pictured in a black and white photo in a book, but was not prepared to see the actual bike in that appealing shade of blue.

The streamlining was removed for the top speed run.
It looks like the paint has held up better than the leather.

Never would have expected this.

The prototype of the OHC Sportster was quite surprising, as HD had the reputation of being excessively tradition minded. Perhaps the most telling vehicle on display was the green and white '58 Panhead. Such a beauty. Everyone who saw it asked the question, "Why can't they build a bike that beautiful now?" Well they did. The return to Classic styling is what saved the company and almost damned them at the same time.

Quite the bike!

The Seventies were not the most tasteful decade.
The boat tail seat didn't work out on the Sportster  or the new Superglide.

As I mentioned before in the Summer of 1979 there was an uneasy social malaise in the air. There had been reports of fights at gas lines although I never witnessed any altercations, There was a free floating anxiety that was pervading the country.

Ready or Not, Here I come!

Adding to the mania of the day was worry of where Skylab was going to crash to Earth. Satillites have to follow the law of gravity and fall back to Earth sometime. The concern was whether or not the debris would be completely burned up upon re entry into the atmosphere. The path of the orbit put it over much of the United States. It ended up landing somewhere in the Arctic.

Three Mile Island

That about sums it up.

Passing by Harrisburg PA which was the site of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor.  This is only a short distance from the Harley Davidson factory at York. Three Mile Island was the site of a near melt down of a nuclear plant. This had occurred in March of 1979, just a few months earlier. Luckily the incident was contained, but some radioactive steam had to be released. Still, tragedy was averted and life goes on. (Things did not go so well at Chernobyl, just seven years later). Everyone was bit jumpy until that space station finally crashed. Duck!

Passing by Valley forge in Pennsylvania I dumped my bike hard.

I had kept my map in the top pocket of the tank bag. I was approaching  a junction where I was unsure which road to take and spent a little too much time checking the map. When I looked up, the car in front of me had braked suddenly. I hit the front brakes hard, locking the wheel. The bike skid and went down on the left side, spinning into the intersection. I went down hard on my left leg and knee, My left boot toe was worn through to metal. My left knee and calf where scraped and bloody where the pant leg had abraded. My left elbow and forearm got pretty scraped up also. Luckily I wasn't struck by any following cars. My poor bike just slid into the intersection on it's side.

My reaction was to jump up immediately and move my bike out of the road. Some motorists stopped and helped me to move the bike to the shoulder and asked if I was okay.  I was already getting sore but I knew that there wasn't anything broken. As fate would have it, I had stopped earlier in Fort Smith Arkansas and  bought a silver and black, stars and stripes design helmet, ( I wasn't about to get a Confederate design) as I knew I was now about to enter the  helmet law states. Lucky for me!  I had left California without a helmet.

I hadn't felt it, but my head must have had some contact with the pavement as there was a scrape on the back of the helmet. I told my helpers that I didn't need an ambulance. I really didn't.

I checked out my bike. Damage was limited to a broken shifter and clutch lever. The end of the left handle bar grip was ground up a  bit and the lower edge of the left saddlebag was scraped up. I didn't realize that the windshield was cracked and that one of the bolts holding the fender brace had broken. I had "cushioned" the bike's fall with my leg. I wanted to continue on until I could find a Harley dealer and fix my bike. I attached a small visegrip pliers to the end of the broken clutch lever and I could still use the twisted remnant of the broken alloy shifter lever to change gears. I set off slowly down the road.

I stopped at nearby market and bought Mercurochrome, gauze bandages, tape and large, square, self adhesive bandages.

I went into a gas station bathroom and surveyed the damage. Lots of fairly light roadrash and scrapes, that oozed blood.  Nothing so deep that I felt that there was any real danger of tissue damage. I washed all the affected areas with soap and hot water, and dried off with paper towels. This was a very clean well equipped wash room! I applied the Mercurochrome and applied  the bandages and gauze. My pants were ripped but since I hadn't been wearing my leather jacket it hadn't sustained any damage. Skin will heal but that jacket cost me money!

I made my way up the road and found a campground in New Jersey and set up my tent. I remember waking up in the early morning darkness feeling very sore and for a moment, disoriented.             Where was I? I looked around and saw the tent and then I remembered what had happened. The thought of the accident filled me with a sudden deep sense of sadness, and I felt very alone. Was my adventure at an end?   How badly was I hurt? Could I continue? I didn't think that I was really injured, just a little beat up. I was beginning to feel sorry for myself until I opened my tent flap and stared out into the darkness.

Photo source: Mike Lewinski

Just then I saw small flashes of light flitting among the trees. What could this be, was something wrong with my vision too? No, these were fireflies. Fireflies! I had always wanted to see them. They had seemed like an almost mystical creature to me. I took this to be a good sign. What ever happened next, I would deal with it tomorrow

The twin Towers

It kind of chokes you up to see it for the first time.

This was the view from inside the Lady's torch.

Touring through NYC as a motorcyclist just passing through wasn't easy. In a car you can hide and lock up your gear, what can you do on a motorcycle? I really wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I decided to follow the lead of Blanche DuBois ( look it up if you don't know who she is!), and depended on the kindness of a stranger. When I parked in the lot, I asked the attendant to keep an eye on my bike and gear. Obviously he must have, because my bike and gear was fine when I returned. I guess all New Yorkers aren't as bad as their reputation! As I was driving around the city I passed some of those stripped out, abandoned cars, that I'd seen on the TV, so maybe some of them are that bad!

I wasn't planning on spending the night in town, so I kept on going.

Through to Upstate New York. Once I left NYC everything seemed to go downhill. I was tired, sore, and in a hurry to get back home. There was a terrible headwind all the way across the state and I had to jettison my windshield which had been damaged in the crash. The headwinds made my back, neck, and arms ache. I camped at a KOA at Herkimer where I met a group of riders from Connecticut, but I still spent a depressing night. At Lowtown NY I had to fix a broken bolt in the fender /saddlebag mount. I headed up into Canada at Highway 81 above Watertown. This time it took longer to get in. Traffic is crazy and no one goes 55 mph. I spent the night in Peterborough. The weather was cloudy and cold. The next day it rained. My ride around Lake Ontario wasn't very pleasant.
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The lowest part of my trip was on the day that I drove from Peterborough to Iron Bridge. It was cold and rainy and the campground was infested with mosquitoes. I must have gotten bit at least fifty times on my back and arms. There was a sauna available to the campers and I decided to gave it a try. Walking from my tent to the sauna building was like facing a gauntlet of mosquitoes! Those darn things would crawl along the  zippered tent door and window, trying to find a way in! It was a miserable night. The next morning I made a run for it to Sault Ste. Marie. I saw Cook Nielson's ( of Cycle magazine fame) van at a coffeeshop where I had breakfast. He gave my California plates a quizzical look, but said nothing. I was glad to be back in the US. The ride through Michigan was dreary. Wisconsin was a turning point for me, things began to look up. I spent a really relaxing night at a pleasant motel in Norway Wisconsin, The motel provided a nice Continental breakfast in the knotty Pine, wood paneled lobby. I chatted with the manager who was very friendly.

That morning I began to anticipate my last week on the road. Passing through Minneapolis/Saint Paul I picked up a new windshield. The Harley dealer sold me the windshield off one of the new Superglides that was on the showroom floor. I had kept the windshield mounting brackets on my bike's triple clamps (which are different on the Sportster ) the windshield was identical and bolted right on. As a bonus the shield had been pinstriped to match the showroom bike. Having a windshield really increased the comfort level when fighting the many headwinds.  My morale improved immensely. The Thrifty Scot motel in Owatonna provided a good room for 13.00! The weather warmed up and the helmet came off. I made it to Badlands National Park.

The Badlands national Park.

Things were much simpler back then.

Through the Badlands of South Dakota I made my way to the Mt. Rushmore monument. Things were a lot more basic in those days. Today this is a highly developed site, with a huge parking structure, viewing stands, displays and  a large snack bar /restaurant. And of course gift shops! A couple of years ago my Wife and I visited the site and I told her how much it had changed. I had heard of the Crazy Horse monument back then, but didn't take the time to stop by.  We stopped on our last visit and were amazed. It's incredible and well worth seeing.

Despite all the anticipatory signs, I didn't stop at Wall drug. Maybe next time.

That was the biggest storm cloud I had ever seen!
Those are the Black Hills in the background.

Up across the Continental Divide.

The Bighorn Mountains. Pretty rugged territory.

After the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore I headed north for the Bighorn Mountains. I kept waiting for that giant cloud to unleash thunder and lightening on my head. I've since experienced some horrific thunderstorms on my last visit to the area. Back in 1979 I managed to escape the storm. I spent a cold night in Buffalo Wyoming.


The Bighorns are tall mountains, one pass was over 9,000 ft. At that altitude it was cold. My bike was running pretty good but the third gear ratio jump made it a bit uncomfortable. Lots of time was spent running in second and third gear. The road was too steep and twisty to keep it in fourth. Running through the mountains I passed a caravan from Indiana State University. There were 15 vehicles full of Geology students. They waved as I went by.

Not my photo but my memory. I've gotta take my Wife there.

The next day I rode through Yellowstone Park and made it all the way to Idaho Falls. It was a long day. That's probably why I didn't take any pictures of Yellowstone, maybe that, combined with the fact that I had been there just last year. Rick and I had passed by the Grand Tetons and had spent the night in Jackson Hole. I was feeling like a real adventurer until I met a fellow in camp who was riding his bicycle cross country! He had ridden through those same Bighorn mountains several days ago. Now that would be a real adventure.