Asshat indeed

I've been sitting on a general motorcycle rant for a while. I have it all written but I thought I'd let it stew and see if I could improve on it. I'll post it eventually- but I found this today and man did he get it right. So cruise on over The Pizza Crusade and enjoy a slice.

How to remove the engine from a CB550 Honda

Take off all the stuff that is not engine.
Struggle (unsuccesfully) to lift the greasy, pointy, heavy engine out of the frame.
Realize it would be easier to remove if the oil filter housing were off.
Round off the oil filter housing bolt.
Cut through the left side frame tubes with a Sawzall. Support the engine properly so it does not fall. It takes about 3 sec. to cut through the frame-no kidding.
Toss the frame tube in the trash.
Place the engine in the corner of Joe's garage.
Wash hands.
Wash hands.
Wash hands.
That's all there is to it.
I should get a job working for Clymer.

The apron strings eternal...or how I learned to finish concrete

Well Billy boy and I poured the aprons on Sunday. This would be our first foray into doing concrete finishing. There's a real art to that. Bill and I worked on the actual pouring and Amy and Bruce ran the mixer. Of course, Amy took the pictures here too. Mine came out nice and Bill's is nicer. Were both happy. The apron is a requirement for a garage but they dont give any specs. Whatever, I have a chunk of concrete 3'x16'x4" in front of the garagemobile.
That's all I've got to say about that. Almost ready for a final inspection and I can move in.

Garagemobile and Honda update

Windows! The garagemobile has three windows. I took the glass out of two of them to move the building. After painting the frames I put the glass back in and they are more or less weathertight. The third had an air conditioner or a board or a piece of foam in it for the last 10 years. As a result it was getting pretty rotten. Of course the carpenter ants were having a good ol' time in there as well. About four swings with a 22oz. framing hammer and I was back to rough opening. I snagged a double pane vinyl sash out of the garbage (brand new) the other day and made a frame for it. I made a new sill out of treated wood from the ginormous pile of lumber that's starting to accumulate in the driveway. Not bad for someone who's not a carpenter. Or an ant. The windows and doors still need some work and I still dont have that damn apron poured. The progress is getting smaller and smaller. As for 550 Hondas, I started parting out the junker tonight. It went pretty well. Suprisingly, there were no stuck bolts. I hope I can make a couple of bucks on it or my wife is going to kill me. Oh well, at least I get to keep the good stuff.
I cant get the stupid blogger photo thing to work tonight. So, you'll have to wait to see the pics of the ratty piece of crap Honda that you really don't want to see anyhow. I'll try later.
Rock on.

Doesn't Fjord Blue just sound nice?

It's tough to type and eat fried chicken simultaneously. Sort of like eating tacos and driving a stick shift. Anyhow, on with the post. I finally "fixed" the oil leaks on the Honda. The seals were only a few dollars and it only took about an hour to change. Why then, did it take two years to acomplish this task you ask? Shit, I dont know. I didn't have time to properly clean the bike after the seal change so I get a drop of goop under the scoot after it sits for awhile. A drop mind you, not a puddle. I think this is residual goop falling off the bottom of the bike. I'll clean it after I get paid and can buy some Foamy Engine Brite. I also replaced the front wheel with a more suitable round version. Of course I pinched the tube not once, but twice while changing the tire. Thanks again to Joe Dirt who rescued me from yet another moment of motorcycle ineptness. I rode the bike to work twice this week (it's raining today) and it just made it past the 400 mile mark. I set the trip meter to zero when I bought it, so the 400 mi. is what I put on it. The brakes are just starting to bed in nicely. I've been thinking about paint lately. Over the winter I would like to put a proper paint job on the old girl. I'm torn. I was thinking originally about some sort of post-apocalyptic Road Warrior meets Andy Warhol on a Radiohead jacket scheme. I like that idea but I dont think I could pull it off and I dont want someone else to try to inerpret my vision. I considered going back to the stock paint, brown or black with a sticker stripe and some new gold badges. That would help the value and blah blah blah.......expensive and boring. Restorations are for rich people. I'd shit that up in about a nanosecond anyhow. So now I'm leaning toward a more Teutonic paint scheme. But first, let's set the mood. It's post war Germany. A small beetle shaped car is climbing it's way through the Alps. The car is not flashy, not fast, just basic transport- not unlike the CB550K. The car is painted a subdued hue of blue or green. In this era, war torn Europe was in no position to be using flashy metallic paints even if they had existed. That was best left to American teenagers on the west coast. Are you starting to get it? The early Volkswagens that were shipped over here had neat colors. They were all sort of low-contrast. None of them were bright. Sort of like the colors on this page, actually.
This, my friends is how I'm thinking of painting the Honda. A color that says "I look respectable, I don't leak oil, I am just sporty enough to make a 25mph corner feel like a 50mph corner, and no sir, I don't want to race. That wouldnt be proper." Like a BMW but not complicated or snobby. Paint the badges a contrasting color and put on a tasteful pinstripe. Sort of a Gentelman's Express without the express part.

Man, I gotta get me one of these

I've been sitting on a couple of posts for awhile. It's time for this one to see the light. Enjoy-

Across the street from my home is another home inhabited by a family of four. The house is pink. The "man" of the house enjoys sitting on the porch 'neath his rebel flag and drinking beer while listening to music at unreasonable levels. He has since quieted down a bit after receiving a $500.00 ticket from the county thanks to the next door neighbor who called the cops twice rather than walking across the street and kicking the shit out of him. While the latter would have been right entertaining, I believe it was a good call.(Update!-He actually called the guy out. Stood in the street and asked him to come get the ass kickin he's got comin. The Silver Bullet was allegedly calling the neighborhood girls bitches. He stayed in the house and avoided a richeous stompin.) I love music, I get the loud thing too. I have tinnitus, I've been in rock bands. I get it. When I can hear his music at the opposite end of my property as though I'm wearing an iPod, methinks it's a bit much. When the family moved in the Silver Bullet, oh I call him the Silver Bullet due to his silver grey skullet....Anyway the Silver Bullet was unemployed. This pattern of beer drinking and enjoyment of fine music under his rebel flag on the porch of the pink house was at least a weekly occurence. Oh, lets say every three days to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Today (this is an old post) I read about this little item right here. How wonderful would it be to set one of these up in the driveway. I initally thought about blasting the most offensive, gut wrenching music I could find at the pink house. Just imagine, the Silver Bullet running out of the house vomiting, blood running out of his ears, fabulous. I also thought about mabye The Carpenters, or the new Kanye West record (don't forget he has that rebel flag). I think the best idea was given to me by a co-worker who said I should use it to wisper things to him. Tell him God wants him to dye his hair pink to match the siding, or tell him we know he touches himself and he should start lacing his weed with saltpeter. At any rate, with this handy little item I think I could drive my thoughtful, fun loving, neighbor absolutely freakin bonkers. What a dick.

Jerry Rivers is a freakin turd

This is not a political blog, but this can't go unnoticed. Stephen Elliot reporting for salon.com gives us this little gem. Click the link for the entire story.

Geraldo Rivera arrives in a Fox News truck. An elderly woman with blond hair grips his elbow. She's wearing thick dark glasses and a pink shirt. He carries her small white dog in his arms. He's wearing thigh-high waders unzipped to below his knees. We shake hands.
"Her relative called one of our stations," Geraldo tells me, explaining how that call went to another station, and then another, and finally to him.The woman had been stranded in her home for six days. Geraldo picked up the woman and her dog and brought them here. The woman looks frail on his arm, though not as bad perhaps as a lady collapsed on a chair nearby, unable to move. Or a woman in a wheelchair being lifted from the truck, carrying her prosthetic leg on her lap."That's the second time he brought her here," one of the doctors tells me, nodding toward Geraldo."What?""They did two takes. Geraldo made that poor woman walk from the Fox News van to the heliport twice. Both times carrying her dog."
"Are you serious?" I ask.
He says he is.

You know when you wipe your butt and you get some poop on your thumb by mistake?
Geraldo is that piece of poop.

Wow, new interest! and Honda update.

I thought only two people read this funky little e-rag. I guess talking about the Honda brought out all the kooks. I mean that in a good way. I got some comments from people who aren't related to me. Thanks for the kind words about how nice the bike is. Yeah, it's not too bad. I can't decide how to paint it. I hate brown motorcycles, you can call it root beer but it's still the same color as the stuff in my boy's diaper. So original or not it wont stay brown when/if I paint it. Yesterday I went and picked up the wheel I ebayed for the 550. The guy also had some stuff that didn't sell so I got it cheap. I got a starter just in case, some miscellaneous doo dads that I might need sometime, and (most importantly), a cam chain tensioner that actually seems to work. My bike has some crazy noise coming from that area and I don't think the tensioner is working properly. This winter I can roll the bike into the garagemobile (remember the garagemobile?) and tear the top end apart-again. I also got a line on another 550 parts bike and a 350 four with a title. Remember a couple of posts back I asked if anyone had a 350 four with a title? Careful what you wish for. So I might wind up with a garagemobile full of four cylinder leaky pieces of crap waiting for me to turn them into........?
Something other than crap. Oh, and by the way, my buddy has a whole bunch of vintage British bikes and they don't leak, but the Honda pees all over his driveway like a puppy in a thunderstorm. That, my friends, is irony. Or as Bart Simpson says, The ironing is delicious.
Inquiring minds want to know about the title service. There are several out there but I used International Title Service. There are some states that allow you to obtain a title without prior paperwork or some shit. Maine, Alabama I think etc...do a search and you'll find a few of em and they will explain it to you. The prices have gone up. I paid around $100, and I think now it's like twice that. If you buy a bike, get the title. It's a pain in the ass otherwise. Although, it's cool to have that Maine plate.