The continuing carburetor blues
Well, all effort to the contrary, I received the parts for a Kiehn carb today. Which is fine, because I own a Kiehn carb — but I don’t need any parts for it! Jesus.
Why is it that a business doesn’t listen to what the customer tells them? Are the morons who work there so dulled by the stupidity of RUBS that they just go and order any old thing, part numbers notwithstanding?
Are they too accustomed to selling bolt-on chrome doo-dads to stupid people who are more dense than those employed by the dealership?
Do any of these people even know what a carburetor is, and how it functions?
Perhaps they can’t spell. Let’s see now…
M-i-k-u-n-i. Oh, yes. Mi-kun’-i. That’s it. Sound it out like a public school moron.
K-i-e-h-n. Hmm. Now that’s a little more difficult. At the end of the word there’s something that’s real hard to pronounce. Like, an h and an n, real close together, like.
Like, much head-scratching over that one, I’m certain. There must have been. I got the wrong parts.
Morons, all.
Carburetor blues
The Mikuni HSR42 is a great carburetor. I had one on my Low Rider and it never skipped a beat. I think some dealer finger trouble occurred to the enrichener circuit on this one — although that circuit should never have been touched at any time during my reman engine install back in December of 2005.
I’ve been looking — unsuccessfully, so far — for a couple of non-standard parts for the carb. There’s a piston and a spring involved, which I’ve been trying to find locally. No such luck. Unfortunately, dealers only carry jets/needles and re-build kits.
On March 5 I finally broke down and called Mikuni in Northridge. I was patched over to the voice mail of someone named Steve. I left a brief explanation, including the two part numbers that I was unable to obtain locally, followed by a request for a callback.
No response so far.
Had I been able to find an email address for Mikuni, I’d have sent them an email.
Today I emailed sudco.com asking them the same question, and in a matter of an hour I had a reply directing me to a Canadian distributor for the parts that I required.
I’ve ordered everything I need, plus a little extra. Thank you, Sudco.
True lies
Dreamland IV
Sonny’s affections were rather fickle. You could always tell when he was drawn to a new victim by the questions he asked: “What do you think of so-and-so?” “Did you see the blonde that was here yesterday?” Or, his old stand-by, “I invited ‘insert female employee name here’ out for dinner last night with her family, but her husband was out of town.”
Sonny was big on, “We’re a small family business and I like to get to know my employees”. In truth, he wanted to get to know only the next employee that he thought he could sleep with. Consequently, the rest of the employee trash was exactly that — something to be let in in the morning and swept out at the end of the business day — an inconvenience that interrupted his desire to spread his goodwill among those he deemed worthy of his hard-on.
During the course of his affectation with Celia, he developed a yearning for one of his customers, a tall, big-boned blonde, and he took an opportunity to follow her on an overnight group ride south out of the country. Normally, he never went on these rides — unless he was chasing something or other — for the rides were beneath his dignity. Sonny didn’t like to associate with the riffraff that was his customer base unless there was something in it for him. This time his chase was short-lived and didn’t appear to go anywhere, for I had seen him skulking around the cantinas late at night, alone. The lucky woman didn’t know what she missed.
Toward the end of year two of the business reclamation project, Celia finally clued in to Sonny’s bullshit and realized that the promises he had been making to her would come to naught. Much to Sonny’s chagrin, she reached out to one of her married customers — a contractor with his own business located in the low desert — and began carrying on with him. Adding insult to injury, she bagged one of Sonny’s employees just for spite. That really knocked the wind out of Sonny’s sails, and definitely ensured that Celia wouldn’t have a future at the shop, no matter how she spread her goodwill.
After that, Sonny took matters into his own hands — not the smartest thing for him to do since he wasn’t the brightest candle in the wind. He screwed with Celia’s email, hoping that would scare her into not straying. When that didn’t work, he phoned the contractor’s wife at home from the shop and revealed her husband’s relationship with Celia to her.
Sonny never heard of call display, but the contractor’s wife certainly had.
And that’s when, through no fault of my own, I became involved.
Waiting for parts
July 25 - 27, 2006
The road has been good to me so far on this trip - only a downpour after deboarding the Tobermory ferry on the Bruce Peninsula while headed east, and a warm shower when almost in Maryland. There have been no close calls with vehicles; no freezing temperatures to fight in the early mornings; no fierce winds.
As luck would have it, I discovered a cracked header pipe, and I must wait for a new one to be shipped in. I’ve picked up a loaner bike from the Harley dealer, an ‘04 FLSTC. It has apehangers on it, but the hand controls haven’t been set up for riding it comfortably. I make a simple adjustment to the clutch and brake lever positions, helping my wrists to overcome an uncomfortable and twisted position. It never ceases to amaze me what some will put up with to look cool.
Over the next few days I do the tourist thing in this city of 750,000, visiting the Forks and a couple of other places. There is now a nice walking bridge — the Esplanade Riel — over the Red River with a Salisbury House Restaurant located mid-span. I stop to check out the bridge and to have my Nip & Chips fix.
I head out to Lac du Bonnet to visit a friend that I haven’t seen for seven years, and to see a couple of acquaintances from a former life. We talk over old times and have a few laughs at the expense of others who I used to work with. It seems that things haven’t changed with my former place of employment. I was so happy to be done with the place back then, and it is now a lifetime away.
When my header finally arrives and gets installed it is mid-afternoon. As I head out on the road, the clouds and fog begin, and the rain starts on the west end of the city. It only lasts for a couple of hours and then the sun finally pops out and warms the rest of the day. It’s a boring ride to Moosomin and my overnight stop. At least the highway has been twinned in a lot of places now. I suspect it will be completed across Saskatchewan next year.
14,000 miles and running strong
I plan on making Lansing, Michigan tonight.
Early out is the game for today. I headed north on the 270 to make time. This is a nice treed route, and although it’s an interstate, it’s a great ride. There are plenty of pullouts to take breaks and view the surrounding land, and one can still make good time. Another day and I’d trace the Potomac for a leisurely ride. It’s only a few miles away.
It’s a good morning for riding. The sun is at my back and highlights everything in front of me with that early-morning glow. With the sun low in the sky like this, the humidity hasn’t started yet but I know it will. Thankfully I’ll be long gone by then and into the shadow of the Great Lakes.
I’m in the groove now, and since there’s plenty of pullouts for gas, I can make good time on my way west. These roads are fantastic - obviously being close to D.C. they get all the money. Too bad some of that cash can’t be spent around Detroit, but that’s just the way it happens here and in every other part of North America.
Around noon I hit the Ohio border and stop for a long break. I’ve made good time and I think I’ll slow down during the heat of the day and take it easy for a while. Plenty of breaks for rest and water to keep refreshed and I’ll be home-free tonight when I hit the sack in Lansing.
Tomorrow I’ll change the oil and filter on my new engine, which isn’t so new now that it has 14,000 miles on it since installation in December of 2005.
Damn but I love riding!
En route to Tulsa
May 17-19, 2006
I needed a break, so I took off for Tulsa. It was hot when I started in the early morning darkness, and it got hotter by the hour across Kingman and Gallup and Albuquerque. Gas and go at every stop. Finally, at 800 miles, in Santa Rosa, New Mexico I had enough, and I pulled off for the night. I checked in and hit the sheets and didn’t wake up until 7 the next morning.
Refreshed and fed, I loaded the bike and found the nail in my flat rear tire. I could have plugged it, but I don’t like riding on two wheels with a plugged tire, especially at interstate speeds and in this heat. I checked locally, but there were no independents here. The closest dealer was in Santa Fe. I’ve never been to Santa Fe, but courtesy of Road America and $19.95 a year, I have now. Motorcycle towing packages are sweet, and this was the second time that I’d used mine.
I was back on the road by six in the evening, but only made it as far as Tucumcari. Tucumcari Tonight, as the road signs have said for decades. I didn’t care. It was bedtime for Bonzo one more time. I don’t like riding at night any more. Reaction time and eyesight diminish with age, and slowing down would only allow me to see the blur that I hit in the darkness. I think I’m smarter than that now.
The next day I steamrollered through Texas past the western hemisphere’s second largest cross, a religious monstrosity outside of Groom. It even has a memorial to every fetus ever aborted. Sweet. The cross in Effingham, IL is eight feet larger. So much for “everything is bigger” in Texas.
At the Oklahoma border I stopped for a water break. Things were getting a lot greener compared to the ride across the brown desert of the Texas panhandle. The humidity was going up too, and I wasn’t used to that any more.
The TA on the west end of OKC featured Popeye’s chicken and biscuits, so I had to stop there. There’s nothing like a little of Popeye’s best — naked, of course — to excite flagging spirits on the road.
By losing a day I was missing out on a lot of Route 66 riding, so in Stroud I pulled off to meet up with Coaster, a friend, and went to the Rock Café for lemonade and fried green tomatoes. The Rock Café has been remodeled to appear more like it did when Route 66 was in its heyday, and it looks really good. There’s a small store beside it, with slim pickings for souvenir hunters. Dawn, the owner, was there. Dawn is caricatured as one of the cars in Disney’s “Cars”, which is coming out in June.
Another hour and I was in Tulsa, visiting Coaster and wifey.
If I have to explain
I’m looking forward to a ride to Tulsa next week. It will get me away from here for a week or so, and make the time until my departure go much faster. I’ll spend some time on Route 66 too, since there’s a good portion of it remaining east of Oklahoma City. I’ve ridden Route 66 before, back in the mid-’90s, and I can’t wait to ride it again. I’ll be passing through some old haunts — Shamrock, Clinton, the DQ in Vega — nowhere places that have the ring of the old-time towns of the ’50s. There’s something about the atmosphere of these towns that to this day attracts me. If you don’t understand, I can never explain.
The reason I’m going to Tulsa is to visit an acquaintance from an internet movie forum. On the way home I’ll be stopping in Phoenix to see another net acquaintance. I’ve not yet met her, but I’m looking forward to doing so. Later, in mid-July, some of us from the same forum are making a trek to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio to ride the roller coasters. That should be a lot of fun.
The weather in Oklahoma hasn’t been the greatest so far this spring. I’m hoping it will clear up for my trek. If not, well, I have a good rain suit, but I’m not tornado-proof. That would be an adventure for sure.
For now though, it’s tough trying to kill time until mid-June and my departure from here. I’ve been doing some work on the bike, replacing tired old shocks, oiling cables, changing circuit breakers, fuses and electrical relays. The bike is eleven years old and has 110,000 miles (177,000 kilometers) on her. She’s getting tired, and by doing a little preventive maintenance I’m hoping to avoid problems on the road as best I can.
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