9-19-09 Radar and the Hairy legged mountain woman

365 Group (f)

The rain continues and this morning, I got up to a wet everything.
My plan had been to get an early start on some light maintenance on the bike and hopefully get in a few miles before lunch. With the rain, it was looking now like I would get the chance to hit my bone yard and pick up a couple of parts for one of my project bikes instead of any before lunch riding.
I have a friend with an old 305 Honda that I have been working on for a while. I was hoping to get up and going for the Bikes, Blues and BBQ rally.
It’s not anything, special, a bike her dad cobled together from a Dream and a couple of old 350’s, just an older bike in good condition. Something for her to ride around a little and to park on the curb for folks to look at and say, "I had one of those when I was in college" or "I started out on one of those." Today looked like I might get the chance to finish it.
I finally got enough coffee in me to get both eyes open at the same time and headed out to my junk pile. A lot had changed around this place in the last thirty years. Fields, barns, Goats…no no the Goats are the same.Still in the way. The roads around the place have had to change from time to time. My bone yard however was still the same. A trip down memory lane as some say.
Old Honda’s in various conditions. Cushman’s, Triumphs, BSA’s My Suzuki’s, notably the old water buffalo. This small piece of ground with all this junk piled on it is one of the most comfortable places in the world for me. Every time I’m here I end up spending more time than necessary for whatever I’m doing. Today was no different.
From my motocross days the Suzuki 125 was standing off to one side looking dapper as ever even with a blown engine.
The old Honda CL 90 that has been every thing from a hill climber to a road burning "hog" with ape hangers for that classy look and running on just the header pipe for the annoying the neighbors approach. I guess this little bike was the best of the bunch. For a kid of 13, growing up with these wheels was awesome! The places that I was able to go and all I was able to do because of it, is like being in your 30’s and tearing across the country on an old shovel head. I can’t adequately describe it. Other than to say I’ve been lucky. I have been allowed to experience something unique in my life, twice. It’s almost like getting to live two lives.
The Suzuki GT 750 Water Buffalo. A fast bike I don’t care who ya are. My uncle bought it with big ideas. He wasn’t a rider and asked me to come over and look it over and see if it was worth what he had given for it. Long story short I convinced him I needed it and he needed to stay on four wheels. That was a great bike for years. It was just the thing to get on the road several days at a time. Road trips became more fun, if that’s possible. A freak accident took this bike out of service. Due to having to be away on a job, I had to leave the bike sitting, the engine locked up. The shop advised spraying something like WD40 in the cylinders and rocking it in gear to break it loose. It worked. A second time this happened I had help in spraying the cylinders. Due to this help the little red straw from the spray can ended up inside the middle cylinder. Since money was too tight to have the shop get it out. And their advising against running it with the straw in the cylinder, I rolled it into my parents carport and there it set for years. Actually I have two of them, one for parts. One of these retirement days, I’m planning to bring it back to service.
My bone yard is hard to visit because I get back into another time with everything I look at and end up forgetting what I was there for.
Finally, I grabbed up the parts I had came for and headed back to the shop for more coffee and to get started. After another couple of cups I started to clean up the bone yard swing arm for the 305. It was in pretty fair shape. A little surface rust, that came off with mild effort and steel wool. After a good cleaning and repacking I put it all back together and started bolting all the little pieces in place. Before long it was starting to resemble a motorcycle’s back half. Once I had everything back together I primed everything and hit the kicker. Finally after lots of coaxing the old ride fired up and blew smoke for about thirty seconds. A little rough running from setting but it sounded real good. I let it idle for a few minutes and shut it off. Time to start the clean up, mostly dust and cobwebs from 5 years sitting in a shed. The last owner had thought to drain the gas so the tank was in good shape. I replaced the gas lines and added fuel filters and scrubbed all the age discoloration off.
The rain was really coming down now. I had an idea and got a bucket of water and some dishwashing liquid. I lathered the old bike up from with a brush and rolled it out in the rain. In just a few minutes it was looking pretty good. I brushed around on things till I was satisfied and rolled it back in the shop to wipe down. I wasn’t going for "brand" new looking, just serviceable. Once I got it all dried off I started with the replacing of all the rubber. New tires, cables, chain and sprockets and anything else that looked like it needed it. Before long it was at a point where I felt comfortable about riding it.
I went in for something to eat and called Sandy and told her I had a surprise for her. She laughed and said "it’s not another hound dog is it?" I had to remind her that Radar was a special member of the family and not just any old hound dog. Then I told her to come by and look at her dad’s old bike.
Sandy showed up and looked the bike over from head to tookerus and broke in to her big silly grin. I explained that all it needed to be totally finished was tags and insurance but if she wanted to try it out we could burn up the roads around the house without too much worry. That was all it took. She jumped on and turned on the key and went to pushing the horn button and looking lost. I had to laugh. This isn’t your sportster girl. No fancy push buttons on this old ride. Again she looked lost. I patiently explained that she would have to be a real "hairy legged mountain woman" to ride this machine as it had to be kick started. I walked her through the starting process and I got to admit it was fun to watch her jump on the starter. Finally she got it right and it fired up. Yep! She was happy.
We tore around the dirt roads around the house for about an hour and after getting good and soaked, packed it in. Sandy was happy as I’ve ever seen anyone. She said she was going to go call her dad and tell him all about it, and headed toward the house. I noticed that she stopped and gave old Radar a big hug.
Now all that’s left is a little more cleaning and for her to tag and insure the old ‘girl’ and let the hair grow on her legs so she can start it without too much trouble. Oh, and maybe get a side car for Radar?
With a little luck she make it to the rally and people can poke each other as they walk by and drop an octave in their voice and say I used to have one of those. Otherwise she’ll just have to suffer and ride her Harley, again.
Catch ya on the road