I am on a new quest. The aim is a secret for now, but I can tell you that I must travel a long distance via motorcycle. Luckily, I happen to own one.
A trip in 2021. I stopped at a cold windy beach on the coast and the guy in the RV/van invited me in for tea and coffee and we discussed Herman Hesse.
Unfortunately, my motorcycle is broken right now.
…also, I don’t know how to fix broken motorcycles.
However, the whole point of a quest is to learn new skills, face and hopefully overcome challenges, and return a changed person. So phase 1 of my Quest is fix my motorcycle. Implicit in Phase 1 is that I need to learn how to fix motorcycles.
Luckily, I do already know how to read so I’m basically halfway there. In libras, libertas.
What’s Wrong With Your Motorcycle?
Some dumbass (points at self) forgot to torque the oil drain plug and then went sailing down the freeway in 2021. The engine switched off at 75mph as all my oil glugged out. I was lucky to stop the bike without mishap - the entire back half of my bike was splattered in fresh engine oil.
The engine still turns over, but it doesn’t go. So it isn’t seized, but something ain’t right. I got a compression tester on it: 50psi, and spec is 188psi. I put a little oil in the cylinder and cranked it over again, and read up to 150psi before my cheap meter #noped on me. Conclusion: the rings are blown, at least. I also observed oil leaking out of the head gasket after my compression test. So the head gasket is blown and maybe the cylinder or head is warped? Possibly?
So now I’m in the process of a top-end rebuild: removing the motor from the bike, removing the head cover, head, cylinder, and piston, and evaluating everything. I’ll be checking the bore for scoring, the piston for warpage, and bearings for… being no good anymore, however you determine that. (Did I mention I don’t know how to fix motorcycles?)
If I’m lucky, I’ll just replace the rings and all gaskets and seals and be on my way. If I’m less lucky I’ll be replacing the piston, cylinder, and Behemoth knows what else.
A Digression on the Weather
But that’s not the fun part. The fun part is the weather forecast:
…and my motorcycle ‘workshop’ is an oversize canvas bag:
If you haven’t been inside a canvas bag in the sun in triple digit heat before, expect to add 10-20F to whatever the ambient temps are. It’s a death sentence to spend more than 15 minutes in there during the day.
So my wrenching hours are nights and early mornings.
In other news, I’m dreaming of building an earth-bermed reinforced and stabilized rammed earth workshop with in-slab radiant and geoexchange loops charging thermal energy storage tanks…
But that’s a quest for another day. Right now I need to get this bike running in a couple of weeks. If I fail, I’ve got backup plans, but I’d really like Plan A to work out.