The Harley has been apart for a couple of weeks. Multiple systems were torn down at one time, making the bike look more like I was doing a complete overhaul of it. While it's still up on its jack, it's basically finished after I do a few final tweaks and adjustments, and take care of a few little details. During the process, it received a complete carburetor cleaning and rebuild, a new starter ($), a new battery ($), oil & filter change, primary oil change (it had be completely torn open for the starter change anyway), drive belt adjustment, fixed a spot where the throttle cable was trying its best to rub through one of the gas tanks, replaced a couple of burned out light bulbs in the dash panel, and a few other little things.
The starter was an easy purchase (good ol' internet), but it involved a lot of disassembly to get to it. Very much a labor-intensive repair. When I put it in and tested it, it worked much better than the old one did, but was still obviously lacking in something, and that something was battery juice. I bought a new battery a few years ago, but it was a "non-Harley" battery, and while it worked fine when I installed it, it never fit exactly right, nor did it have the kick that it should have. Trouble is, you don't notice it when you're going from a completely dead and useless battery to a brand new one. You just thank your lucky stars that your bike starts once again like its supposed to. Saturday found me in a Harley "stealership" plunking down $140 bucks for a new one. When I installed that battery (which obviously fit like it was supposed to by the way) and hit the starter button I was amazed. The bike has never turned over that fast as long as I've owned it! I also tracked down suitable replacements for the Harley oil filters at NAPA a store. Harley gets almost $20 bucks for an oil filter. NAPA = $5. It was funny when I was at the Harley dealer and was once again reminded of the rider demographic. Being a beautiful sunny Saturday, it was filled with bikes. Everywhere you looked you saw the "bikers" milling around in their perfect leather garb with no road grime anywhere on any of them, perfectly put together in every way, holding their cups of trendy coffee from the latte' stand inside the dealership. They were there to see and be seen. I know I've blogged all this before, but I have to wonder how many of them use this Saturday ritual ride to the dealership as their sole reason to own a Harley. Anyway, Saturday was spent working at a nice, easy pace on the Harley. It was nice weather even if I did just "waste" it in the confines of my garage.
Yesterday morning while Sue was at her JW meeting I loaded up our canoe. I built a couple of supports for it to sit on in the back of the truck and also drilled and mounted some anchors in the truck for tie-downs to attach to. When she got home it was loaded and ready. We recently found out about Rattlesnake Lake, near North Bend, and that's where we headed. It was beautiful! With temps in the upper 80's, we floated and paddled lazily at least three times around the lake. It was quiet (no boats with motors), just a gentle breeze, and even the water temp was nice. We enjoyed it immensely. We even got to watch a falcon or hawk of some kind dive-bomb the water with a splash and carry a fish away! I found this interesting article about it that you might want to read too. I love learning the history of places we visit--whether you can see any sign of it or not.It was a nice day. We're definitely going back to that lake. It's close enough, and we liked everything about it.
1 comments:
Rattlesnake, nice! It was a good day for it.
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