uncledj

I never did understand the PC mindset that we're supposed to embrace and celebrate diversity of culture. They say this diversity is what makes us strong. I call BS. I welcome all who are willing to do their best to assimilate, work hard and have a positive effect for our nation, but I reject the idea that an array of cultures trying to coexist somehow is beneficial. It seems that many immigrants are not wanting to become US Citizens, but rather conduct a sort of a "soft invasion"....slowly turning the US into the country they left.....(Which makes no sense, since if where they left was so great,,,they wouldn't have left) Such diversity merely adds to confusion, misunderstanding, and offers obvious barriers to communication. IMHO. We're in deep doo-doo. As for the desire that many have for "Open Borders".....If a state has no border, it has no sovereignty, and therefore is not a state at all. (When I say state, I mean Nation State, such as the US)

It kinda' depends on the exact situation, and ya usually have to react instinctively, as there's usually not enough time to think it through, but what I will say is DO NOT use the brake for whichever tire is flat (Front, Rear)....which is kind of tough on a First Gen with linked brakes. Pull in the clutch and coast to the side of the road.....What's worked for me is to stand on the footpegs rather than stay in the seat so you have your knees for some extra suspension travel if she starts to jump like a buckin' bronc, and standing makes it easier to do a controlled launch off the bike if necessary. There's no guarantee of a happy outcome, .....the best you can do is improve your chances. I've been through a sudden flat at highway speeds twice, and once on a 35 mph road when I was young.... I chose to ride my enduro about 10 miles on a flat, trying to get home. I went down hard on the enduro when the car in front of me braked suddenly, (I should have kept more distance) I went down soft on a Honda 750 with my girlfriend on back....got it almost stopped before she went down.....And, thankfully, I was able to keep my Second Gen up from 80 mph to a complete stop. I should mention that these were all rear tire flats. I've never had to deal with a front tire flat. It takes a mixture of skill, instinct and luck to come out of such a situation without a scratch. Ride safe

PERNICIOUS Sounds like a female name.....sometimes describes a females nature....

I went with the copper gaskets. You're right....they're pricey, at just shy of $50 to my door, but like Kevin said, heat transfer is important so I had to agree that copper would be best. Now to wait for the parts.

As far as mating surfaces go, the heads look pretty good, but the manifolds had some flaking rust. I tapped the surfaces lightly with a ball pein hammer to flake the rust off, then took a wire wheel to it, but there's some surface imperfections. Should I see if I can get the manifold resurfaced....go with a gasket....or use the copper sealer...???

Thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

With your Canadian equivalent of are you suggesting I use the gasket? Anyhoo, I'll never seize everything up pretty good, so it shouldn't be so difficult to remove again, if it should be necessary. (At least for a while)

This plays off of my recent post about replacing the exhaust manifold bolts on my 01 Dodge pickup. 5.9...(360) I ended up being able to remove the broken studs / bolts that were protruding from the head. The two that were broken off flush I couldn't get out, tried the easy out thing, but abandoned that for fear of breaking the easy out, which would put me in a world of hurt... and the holes I drilled for the easy out are pretty well centered, so I'm going to drill them to size and re-tap the heads. Looks like it'll work out. I think I'll put the one manifold back on, then put it all back together and see if it solves the problem. I can't see where the other side has any evidence of leaking....I can find no cracks in the manifold...so I'm not gonna mess with the other side unless it's necessary. The interesting thing is that there were no gaskets. I saw that gaskets are available, so I got a set, but am now wondering if I should use them or not. Opinions?

It's just not worth it to try to berate or educate them. The best thing is to get out of their way as best you can and let'em go by. Turn off if you need to. If they're good people, they'll recognize the mistake on their own and try to learn from it. If they're not good people they won't care, and if you try to yell at them, anger usually gets more anger. Could even be dangerous. Trying to prove you're the bigger badass to someone you don't know is stupid....maybe even dangerous. Whether it's after such an incident on a bike, ...or an argument with wife / family / friends / fellow employees or boss, it's best to grit your teeth, and if you can't smile and reply with courtesy, kindness and grace, then don't say anything. That is where true strength is shown. Life's too short to spend any more time than your nature requires being angry. Took me a lot of years to realize that, but it's working pretty good for me now. Just wish I was better at dealing with my anger over politics.......That'll still get me goin'.

Ditto on that. Wife likes the second gen just fine, but says she thinks the first gen is a bit more comfortable. From the drivers perspective, ....I prefer the second gen, with the pillowtop seats.....aaaaahhhhhh......

Bologna (Baloney) samich in Waldo is over-rated anyway. Glad ya made it home safe.

That reminds me: I saw a Blonde First Gen in Mt. Vernon, OH the other day. It had the trunk removed, and best of all it had a huge middle finger gesture very clearly etched into the windshield. What class. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but I was driving and he was waiting at a light at a cross street. I doubt he was a member, but ya never know.

Take a break, rest up, heal up, and you'll be back at it next year. Keep us filled in on your progress. Thoughts will be with you......Black Cherry riders are special folks.

My older brother retired about a year and a half ago, and moved down to Big Pine Key, about halfway between Marathon and Key West. He's been tryin' to get me to move down there.....called the other day and said a local HVAC company is advertising for an experienced tech at $39 an hour. That's a bit more than I make, but I've a good retirement building and I'm not gonna walk away from that before it's where it needs to be for a comfortable retirement. When we retire, Wife and I may buy a shack down there to Winter in, or maybe just live in the RV if we can find a place to park it long term. Still have some time to figure it out.

Like you said, Carrier and Bryant are the same. Not similar...identical....except for the nameplate. Parts are completely interchangeable. Bryant will probably be a bit cheaper.....as I think on the base model, they omit the low / hi pressure safeties, which are there only to protect the compressor in the event of condenser fan failure or refrigerant loss. Bryant would be fine. Stay away from York. Trane's OK IMHO Lennox is the best, but they've been slipping a bit over the last few years.....still my first choice though. The Carrier or Bryant will slide right in, as all electrical / duct connections will be exactly the same as on the old unit. Best of luck. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

I might be able to come up with a used inducer assembly. Heat exchangers on those little Carriers are SUPER easy to replace. Takes one guy about a half hour to 45 minutes. If you want me to try to get one wholesale, lemme know. Just sayin'

I'm not a Harley guy either, but I gotta say.....that's one sharp scoot. Congrats.

Where's the challenge in that? It's been a good truck, although I don't drive it much. Bought it in 06 with 30k miles on it, ...haven't quite made it to 90k yet....I generally only use it when I actually need a truck. Plus, it's been paid for for quite some time, so it's nice to not have that payment to make. Besides the leaking manifold, I'm gonna replace the shocks and the front axle u-joints, and then I should be good for a few more years.

So far so good. I soaked everything in the secret mix again this morning before work...gave everything a tap or two. Came home and asked the wife if she wanted to go out to dinner, and she said "I know you're itching to work on the truck, so go ahead".. God bless her heart. One by one, I heated the head around the bolt for a minute or so, then gripped the protruding studs with vice grips and got them out. One was a bi-otch....took over an hour...fought me to the last thread. The second one wasn't too bad....had it out in 20 minutes...then the most troublesome, hard to get at one actually came out pretty easy. THANK YOU GOD!!!. Now for the two I have to easy out. I determined from the ones I removed that the hole was about 1/4" deeper than the bolts, so I ended up drilling all the way through them with a small drill, then got some secret mix through the holes so that it's soaking from the front and back.....gave them a few taps... I promised a buddy I'd help him with something tomorrow, but as soon as I get home, I'll drill them out to the proper size,....apply a bit of heat and go for it. Wish me luck

I saw where a guy suggests heating the bolt heads until they're red hot and try it, which is how I did remove the one rear bolt. The idea is that it expands the bolt (lengthens it) to where the stress is off the bolt. It makes sense, and is certainly worth a try, but when, as in this case, the threads are two inches in from the bolt head, and inaccessible to penetrant until the manifold is removed, there's not much you can do to loosen the threads themselves until the manifold is removed. If I have trouble removing them tomorrow, I may put some heat on the head itself near the bolt(s).

Seems like what I was looking at was a bit more involved than this, but I found this pretty quick. For all of you that are mechanically inclined..... Penetrating Oils Compared A study done by Machinist's Workshop magazine in their April 2007 issue looked at different penetrating oils to see which one did the best job of removing a rusted bolt by measuring the pounds of torque required to loosen the bolt once treated. If the study was scientifically accurate, it turns out a home brew works best! Here's the summary of the test results: Penetrating oil .......... Average load None ..................... 516 pounds WD-40 .................... 238 pounds PB Blaster ............... 214 pounds Liquid Wrench ............ 127 pounds Kano Kroil ............... 106 pounds ATF-Acetone mix.............53 pounds The Automatic Transmission fluid (ATF)-Acetone mix was a "home brew" mix of 50 - 50 automatic transmission fluid and acetone. Note the "home brew" was better than any commercial product in this one particular test. A local machinist group mixed up a batch and all now use it with equally good results. Note also that "Liquid Wrench" is about as good as "Kroil" for about 20% of the price.

A couple of months back, I noticed the front bolt on the right exhaust manifold on my old (01) Dodge Truck was loose, sticking out of the manifold a half inch or so. Turns out it was actually broken. Then I started getting a tick from the left manifold. All bolts appear intact on that side. Anyhoo, I figured I'd better replace both exhaust manifolds / bolts before it becomes a problem this Winter. There wasn't much to grab to with a socket. 4 bolts and 2 studs per side, and everything was so rusted that a solid connection with a socket is difficult to impossible. (6 point) I spent two nights after work getting the manifold to exhaust flange bolts out by cutting them with a dremel cut off wheel. They were hard to get to, but after literally going through 50 small cut off wheels, I was able to cut / chisel them off. Then I moved to the left manifold that had the broken bolt. I gave the heads some pretty good raps, but couldn't get any penetrant to where the threads were, so I ended up busting the other front bolt, flush with the head. One of the rear ones came out, and the other broke, but left an inch or so sticking out of the head, so I still have something to grab to. (THANK GOD). The rear bolts are hard to get to. Lastly, I decided to burn the two studs off so that I wouldn't break them off at the head. (I always get nervous burning in an engine compartment.) Fire extinguisher....tank of CO2 with hose and a water hose handy, I went for it and it worked out ok. More tapping and heavy prying and I got the manifold to come off in one piece. Now to remove the broken bolts and studs. I cleaned the protruding studs off as best I could, ...chipping any rust that I could remove. Then I started drilling pilot holes for an easy out in the bolts broken flush. Mixed up a batch of 50 / 50 tranny fluid and acetone and soaked down the protruding bolts as well as the flush broken bolts.....gave them all a few taps to get the capillary action going.....cleaned up the tools....soaked them down and tapped them again....and again...and will do that again tomorrow morning. Tomorrow after work I'll try to vice grip out the studs...or if necessary, weld a nut onto the studs to crank them out.....I'm worried about the flush broken bolts though. I think I got the pilot holes centered well enough that if I can't get them out with an easy out, I may be able to drill and re-tap the holes. If and when I get through this...I get to start all over on the other side. I've had this truck since 06, when I bought it from Texas and drove it home. It looked like it came off the showroom floor....but 10 years of sitting outside in this humid swamp that is Central Ohio has rusted all the bare metal parts to ruin. Body's still ok....been stayin' on that as best I could. Anyhoo, I know folks here enjoy hearing of a mechanical challenge, so I thought I'd share. I sure don't wanna have to pull the heads for this. That'd be an even bigger PITA. Wish me luck.

How much was it and how ya likin' it ?

I used to have a Dolly Parton wrist watch. .......It didn't keep very good time.....but it sure was fun to wind.....!!!......