cowpuc

Awe,, thanks for thinking of me ya bunch of lop eared frost bitten varmints = I definitely feel the love:bighug:!! Had my 3rd cancer surgery for the year not long ago and it kinda knocked the wind out of my sails a little more than usual but we got er done!!! Back at ya Condor = weren't to long ago (this past summer) that I had the occasion to be missing you too brother!! Been an off season with my usual reporting but here is past tense video of, like my Grandson said, us two old biker buddies passing each other on one of the highways of life!!

:sign yeah that:

Pretty cool site... https://www.salvagebikesauction.com/

Someone once explained my quandry about this to me like this: ""When you were a young scallywag, say 6 years old; one year was a 6th of your lifetime. Now at 60; one year is a 60th of your lifespan & so seems to whiz by in a blink of the proverbial eye. Ten times as fast as when you were that little kid"" Which has solved a lot of lifes issues for me. Because I am lousy with math and knowing that Vaz is a little more mature than I am, I am not really sure how to alter the above algebraic equation to exactly line up with his age group but I am sure a good mathmatician could figure it out!! Hope this helps Vaz and is an encouragement to you that, indeed, you did make a good investment by sticking around the club house for another year!! Thanks for loving us and being part of our family! Puc

I have friends who have gotten hurt doing dumb things on motorcycles so I don't mess around doing things on bikes that could cause injury, legal problems or - worst case scenario = Tippy Trouble. I do like to participate in threads like this though and I have a cousin my age who did something dumb on his 1100 Virago once when he decided to CTFW with me and Beeg (one of my earlier 1st Gens) on a run out to the west coast = in the spirit of friendly participation, I will write about his dumb behavior. Chip, my cousin, and I are the same age - grew up in the same town and went to the same school system. Our parents noticed early on that when ever we got together we tended to get into trouble so they let the school admin know that in NO WAY were Chip and I allowed to be in the same class room with the same teacher = this was so all the way thru our school years. Our after graduation separated us even more so, we each got married and went about life raising children and all that. As the years disappeared and we both matured, I bumped into Chip at a Birthday party for our now deceased Grandma and was shocked when Chip walked up, smacked me on the back of the head and announced that he had heard of the iconic motorcycle adventures I had been taking with my children all over the country and that he was gonna get a bike and "head west" with me so he could experience life as a biker. Of course, I was elated (I could tell by her eyes rolling back in her eye sockets that I was more elated about this plan in the makings then Tip was) and agreed to meet Chip in a couple weeks to help him pick out a new scoot at the local bike shop so he wouldn't have to run on foot behind my Venture all the way from Michigan to California. He really liked the new 92 V-Max sitting on the showroom floor in front of us A LOT but, knowing that there was no way my tired old Blonde 84 Venture that my kids and I had been beating on since 1987 stood a chance at keeping up with that brand new V-Boosted screamer with my cousin hanging onto it for dear life while we CTFW across the vast expanses of the desert region that separates Michigan from Bodega Bay out on "1" (our chosen destination) - I told him I thought he would be much happier on a new Virago 1100.. Thankfully, this worked and he fell for the Virago!! Chip, the bikes and I pulled into a fuel station just west of Donner Pass. I was busy filling my lungs with the sweet odor of the Ponderosa Pine that all of us touring freaks love so much, as my cousin pulled his freshly fueled, dirty and dented up new Virago next to my over packed tire old Venture (I ended up carrying all our gear in an effort to lighten the load on his unpowered 1100 Virago so he and his putzy bike could somewhat keep up = dork wad shoulda bought the V-Max) with a really puzzled look on his face.. He pointed down at his fuel tank and mentioned something about fuel flowing out from under the bikes fuel cap and wanted to know what he should do about it.. I laughed at his juvenile brain having forgotten about what happens when cold gas hits a fuel tank that has been soaking up the sun all day in 110 degree desert heat - obviously that cousin of mine doesn't have to work to hard to fulfill the requirements of this thread!!!! After I finished laughing at his foolishness and then yelling at him for doing something so dumb as pulling the foul smelling filthy thing next to Beeg and I where a simple exhaust spark could result in loss of life, both bikes, much needed camping gear and all the food we had - I began making suggestions as to how he could stop the ever increasing flow of fuel that was producing no small puddle under both our bikes. Following my geniusly inspired directions to simply loosen his gas cap and then tip the bike to the right (away from Beeg and I) to dump some fuel out of it - he proceeded to do so.. As I stood there balancing Beeg between my knees while waiting for something to happen so I could do my best Olympic style judging of the pending catastrophy (Chip usually produces a healthy 9 and NEVER under an 8) I could tell by the scowl on his face that he was needing help keeping his bike from going all the way over so I kindly reached out with my throttle hand and grabbed the left grip of his falling Virago. That was about the time that the sole of the boot on Chip's right foot got just enough fuel under it to cause his foot to slide under his falling Virago which instantly tested the holding strength of the grip of my right hand to the level of rescuing 950 falling pounds of bike and human flesh. Actually I was fairing pretty well until the angle of my trail packed Venture got to the point that it added another thousand pounds to my right leg and the four of us (2 bikes + 2 people = 4 of us) ended up in a tangled up mess in a gas station parking lot just west of Donner Pass. As Chip layed there with his bike on top of him, me on top of his bike and Beeg on top of me, we started laughing a laugh that I hadn't heard since playing football with him on a third grade play ground and getting trapped together under a jam pile consisting of all the boys in our elementary school!! We would probably still be laying there in that parking lot laughing hadn't we both gotten distracted, at about the same time, by other laughter that was taking place - it seemed that more than one local person who had stopped for fuel that day also got a kick out of the latest exploits of the two bikers from Michigan who obviously belonged to the "Two Cousins M.C., Muskegon Mi." (a club that we started during our trip - we even took tee shirts and drew our club name on the back of them and were wearing them at the time). Later that evening while we were camped in a Cemetery in California and were laughing while changing our still fuel smelling clothes, we both stopped laughing at almost the same time again as we suddenly realized how close to disaster we had come because of my cousins dumbness.. The End

:sign yeah that::sign yeah that: and I cant help but wonder if anyone remembers those AWESOME J.C. Higgins,,,, I mean Witney,,, catalogs with a complete section of nothing but Bug Parts?? SOOO COOL!! You could completely rebuild a Dub with new crank, jugs, pistons, heads, push rods = give me the works partner - for under 200 bucks Man those were the days!! Talk about a RIOT in the woods and endlessly fun for doing circles in a parking lot to get er up on 2 wheels and see how far you could drive it like that.. Never in motoring history has 40 horse produced so much fun (car wise - bike wise a little 18 horse, tank shifting HD beats it). They were amazinly durable too for an air cooled, rear engined bugster.. I beat a 64 to death and, even with its crankshaft having so much end play that when I opened the hood cause I heard a scraping noise and had snow flakes of aluminum flcwing all over as the crank pulley ground into the motor, she kept right on running like a top!! I must have been a people back in my youth cause that little peoples car was my kind of fun - meep meep !!

That's ok Jeff,, trust me,,, it was all very polite,very true, very kind and very straight forward about how nice of neighbors you and Saddlebum are and how thankful Tip and I are that someone as kind hearted and warm spirited as you has control of that White Washer..

:rotf:!!!!! Heyy, wait a second here,, I just noticed while I was reading your response Carl that the winds changed direction dramatically,, by any chance - do live in more easterly direction from me than Bum does :ignore::ignore::ignore::ignore:!!!!

Opps, wait a second,, you said the hub itself was worn didnt cha,, my bad brother.. Lewis,, did you happen to notice if the new shoes on that rear brake had metal inserts built into them where they contact the cam on the brake arm? Some do, some dont.. If its the hub itself that is worn, possibly increasing the size of the contact area on the shoe by building up the cam face itself with quick pass of weld (and cleaning it up with a dremmel) to increase the spread on the shoes would do it? If its the arm that is worn and your already using new shoes,, replacing the arm cant be to expensive.. Just thinking outside the box beyond spoking up a new hub....

I am hearing you on the rear brake brother - I must have replaced a kazillion of the little things.. Not that bad of job as long as the axle comes out cleanly.. Fozzy,, if it were mine, I would just stick some new shoes in it BEFORE you give it him.. Lets see if I can explain this so it makes sense as to why I say that = perfect braking power has very little to do with it so try to follow this.. Those shoes operate off a "cam" on the end of the shaft that the rear brake arm is attached to. The pull rod that also attaches to the foot brake pedal attaches to that brake arm with a little barrel shaped connector - following me so far? So what happens when the brake linings that are glued to the metal shoe get worn is not so much that they stop functioning in stopping the bike,, what happens is the "cam" tends to be able to over rotate and lock the rear brake up.. When this happens (and it WILL happen), the bike can become uncontrolable especially if the youngen is on a hill side or wet grass or wet ever... Really brother,, I would fix em.. P.S. You are more than welcome on my tendency to just jump right in and spout out my thoughts Fozzy.. I guess you know that all my comes from the heart!! Da kid is gonna LOVE that scoot!! Puc

Actually Case,, I think those last two lines pretty much sum it all up perfectly from my perspective.. While I TOTALLY loved and miss those days of yesteryear when, on a moments notice, I could pop the hood on my old 351 Cleveland 4 speed fast back Macher, reach under my front seat and grab my Distributor wrench and advance the timing in her just to the point of spark knock to suck every ounce of horse power out of her cause one of my buddies wanted to race = "tweaking" was the name of the game!! While those days of Mallory ignitions, duel pumpin 4 barrels, cheater slicks on 10inch Cragars, traction bars, Hooker Headers and Sunoco 260 flowing from one of those pumps with the little twist dial selector was, without a doubt, AMAZING and fun,,,, it was also a ton of wrench spinning.. Having gotten lazy in my old age AND having experienced the days you mention of modern machining and modern technology in computerized ignition and fuel control = I opt whole heartedly for your last two lines!! Actually,, HD had a pretty good thing going there with their Screaming Eagle tuners that recently got totally and completely outlawed.. Like you mentioned in those last two lines = those tuners gave the mechanic the chance to "tweak" both ignition and air/fuel mix to exact proportions with 200 RPM parameters = IMHO,, like jetting and setting points to perfection without getting dirty .. I LIKED that!! Like you,, my problem is when that same technology puts someone other than myself in control - thats where I too have a real problem.. That said,, I think just a simple falling back in time just a tad to lose "Big Brother" and not have our machines ratting us out in any way would be as far back as I think one should go.. My machine = I own it = I decide how fast it goes = if it blows up its my fault = if it goes fast its cause I made it go fast - if I fall over on it no one knows unless I tell em I fell over and on and on.. You and I,, we still live in AMERICA where we really shouldnt even be having this discussion IMHO,, an individuals pursuit of happiness and all that.. Yea,, I am a hard core anti Big Brother no good rat thats for sure ,,, but I love to soooo much:banana:

WAYYYYYY COOL Fozzy!! Personally that lil XR100 is, bar non, my favorite "training bike" of all time!!! Some of the high end MX training schools agree with me too as they are still using those lil rippers to teach track skills to both amateur and A riders alike! Congrats brother on the GREAT find!! Had you of posted this before you started getting er up and running I would have suggested that you pull the little 10mm bolt right above the spark plug on it BEFORE starting it and kicking it over until you get a good oil flow. Then kick 20x with the bolt in to get some oil in the top end (actually, preferable to remove the valve cover and squirt the cam down real good) to insure no cam journal damage but,, thats a mute subject now.. Only other thing I can think of that you might wanna check on the XR before turning out for rototilling the back yard would be to pull the seat and check the torque on the upper mono bolt = these like to destroy the mount flanges when they come loose = very common.. A better practice yet is to grease all pivots associated with the mono system. Check motor mounts too.. Congrats Lewis - LOOKING AWESOME BUDDY!!

We have a huge car lot not far from us whose business, at one time, was almost exclusively built on the repossesion of vehicles whose owners decided not to pay on em any more - my buddies and I called it "Repo World".. A unique feature about this particular lot was the size of the lot and the fact that you could climb in any car and if they would fire up - you could rip around the lot in em (A BLAST!!).. We used to scoot over and hunt for exotic cars to "test drive" on a regular basis. One time I climbed in a boosted Audi all wheel drive while my two buddies were checking out a big van thing to see if we could fit 3 dirt bikes in it.. I remember "boosting" across the back lot at a pretty good clip, hitting the brakes = malfunction, and then having to toss the Audi into a screaching slide to avoid piling it up into a line of repossessed cars .. Right after I did this ladies comes over a speaker inside the car and asked me if I am ok:scared:... After my initial shock I had a real pleasent conversation with her. After she hung up I spun over by my buddies and told em what happened, of course,, they were non believers so I ended up doing another slide near them with the window down so they could talk to the lady too.. Later on the way home, we all chatted about what the world was coming to and how close we were getting to wayyyyyy to much "Big Brother" involvement with even our cars!! Obviously Casey, I TOTALLY agree with you only, as usual, I even go to a further extreme.. I think this whole discussion is even having a GREATER impact on motorcycling!! This whole touch screen business and computer control nonsense and smart motorcycles that record our every move is wayyyy out of line IMHO.. This ties directly into a comment I recently made in a thread about the new Beemer American being speed limited to 101 mph - NONSENSE IMHO!! Also tied directly to all this was my discussion out at Sturgis about the new Venture = the Reps BIG sell point on the scoot was this whole touch screen business. He didnt appreciate it when I told him my personal opinion about what is happening (being bike or car) with the push toward more distractions for the modern day driver!! He also did not agree with my thoughts of the inherent dangers involved with anytime a driver/rider takes his eyes off the road.. Just makes no sense BUT,, his point that it obviously does sell vehicles so I dont think we are gonna see a reduction in the touch screen movement or the control we loose of our vehicles/lives any time soon:confused24:

WOWZY do I like this one Roller!!!:bowdown: IMHO, he who has H.A.S. has been given a great gift!!!

Not me,, I'm still excerzising my right to stay as young at heart as possible!!

I am hearing that brother,, can make a person just wanna fly as far below the radar and off the grid as possible at times!! Prayers Up!!

Thanks for the update Mike!! Glad to read things are improving even if its ever so slightly= forward motion is always a good thing IMHO.. Also glad to hear your wife made it into retirement - please tell her Tippy and I wish you folks all the best in finding ways to enjoy that special part of life.. CONGRATS to her!! Have you done any checking into early retirement through disability?? If there is one thing I have learned thru my latest go around with this medical stuff is that it never hurts to inquire about what may be covered by all those insurance dollars we paid out thru the years.. Just a thought!! Puc

Thanks for reminding me of this you lop eared wild man varmint,, this one still makes my knuckles white when I watch it :dancefool:.. IMHO,, uncorked - that new Beemer American would sound sooooo pretty stretching her legs out across the Salt like the second vid of Tweeks.. Unstable over 101 mph because of a rear trunk = poopy on that,,, have to find out for my own self!!

OUTSTANDING FIND TRADER!!! Definitely a worthy piece of awesomeness sitting right there!! Get that puppy rolling this winter and come to Michigan in the Spring of '18 for a zillion hot dogs:178:!!! ROCK ON!!!

NICE!! I like it!!!

I have always LOVED those things!! Have passed up a number of them at the dealer auctions thru the years cause we just never really got enough snow to justify owning one IMHO. Back when I was still running dirt scoots I was part of the Michigan Cycle Conservation Club and alot of our group trail rode all winter long (night riding in the snow = talk about FUN!!).. Hardened "Kold Kutter" screws worked awesomely! It was not legal to just head out across State or Federal lands on a sled or a bike (we have "marked" designated trails) and the sled trails here were always groomed in the winter time (no powder) making those Kold Kutter screws the absolute MAXIMUM (5 gear wheelies on a KX500? No problembo) so very very few of the "snobikes" were ever seen/sold. One of my buddies moved out near Helena Montana and now sells these devices!! He SWEARS by em and contends they are wayyyy more fun in the open/loose powder of the mountains then even a high hp, long track mountain sled!

Thanks you guys,, your thoughts, prayers and "being missed" are ALWAYS greatly appreciated!! Gotta say,, I feel the same way,,, almost like a day without two way with you lop eared club member varmints tends to be a gloomy one at best!!

Hey Joe,, dont know nuttin about nuttin but do know I wanted to say THANK YOU for your service to God and Country my brother!! Your dedication in the fight to keep our way of life going is GREATLY appreciated Joe!! All the best in getting your scoot back up to snuff down there!! Puc

I get that and really do understand the reason(s) but what I still dont get is why.. Why do I need someone who thinks they know what is best for me to make the final decision of whether or not what they think is best for me is the same as what I decide is best for me = totally old school straight up American individual independant thinking - I know,, but still,, its the way I think.. In my way of thinking, those old stickers on the new bikes and quads and stuff that read = always wear your helmet, operate under adult supervision and obey all traffic laws should be good enough :big-grin-emoticon:101 I have read a lot about possible "litigations" being the reason for the limiters too.. It would seem to me that if the manufacturer says they are limiting the speeds at 101 mph because the bike can be unstable above those speeds that if some knuckle head now gets in an accident at speeds below 101 because he lost control - he could very easily sue and win against the company by claiming they were negligent in stating the bike was suppose to be stable under 101 mph.. Thanks for the well wish Riv - getting stronger everyday again but getting down right tired of foolin with this nonsense.. Truthfully brother = I'd rather be shoveling Wisconsin White Wash but I do totally appreciate your concern!! Casey and Riv,, I aint much learnered in tweakin on the efi/ecm/ecu scoots = more of a carb/points ignition old schooler myself BUT - I have tinkered with some of this stuff (almost exclusively HD). I am aware of and have fooled with HD's in using their "Screaming Eagle" tuners of the past which gave total access to mapping and making it possible for the owner/operator/dyno guy to adjust all parameters at will = WAYYYYY WAYYY cool stuff and TOTALLY my kind of thinking AND lines up with what you two are talking about!! I would be 100% good with this if it were still good to go.. Problem: Not to long ago HD got nailed for these "tuners" that left it all up to the owner.. HD ended up having to pay fines for these now "illegal" tuners (millions of dollars is my understanding) and had to purchase them back. There is now a "street tuner" available that no longer allows adjustments of certain things that have been deemed no pass zones. I think it is wayy cool that you could "chip" your Beemer Riv (hey Riv, did you happen to notice where that chip came from in Greece? Thessolinca? Wonder if thats the same Thessolinca as the one in the Bible = 1st and 2nd Thessolonians?? Ol Puc,, he may be slippin but his pea brain still dont miss that much!! Tip just said it was ok for me to order a "chip" like you got just to get something from the Thessalonians ) but I have my doubts that it included a speed limiter eliminator if your scoot had one? I just have this underlying thought that this speed limiter thing (not talking rev limiter - those typically protect the engine from grenading and most authorities dont care if our engines blow up) is straight up not gonna fly. Will the aftermarket have one for us? I think this is slowly becoming a thing of the past with smart motorcycles with big mouths now being the norm. Some of this stuff records every move we make including tip overs, top speeds, top r's, ecm's that are ONLY functional on bikes that match the original VIN's and on and on.. I know that HD has become VERY strick on what they will work on, what they will warranty and the like because of the outlay in fines they have paid. Maybe it's all this medical stuff I have been going thru or just grumpy old age setting in that is turning into some kind of a conspiritory suspicious type but I really dont like what I see happening.. Sing this to the tune of "dont fence me in" = Give me R's lots of R's with unlimited horse power at my control = dont fence me in.. Give me R's endless R's at my choice of when it's used = dont fence me in.