Stuff-mo-tron

Wed, 28 Nov 2007

And I didn't die! Considering all the possible scenarios, that was an absolutely problem-free commute into work on the new/old bike.

Notes for the future: jetting is wrong at mid and full throttle; probably too lean. Rear brake needs to be adjusted. Check play in the steering head bearings, might be a touch loose.

I believe the CL175 is finally in good enough shape to ride to work. Cue dramatic music

I got the new wheel set up this weekend, and last night I finally fixed the headlight to a condition safe enough for street use. With that, I've addressed every one of my initial complaints as listed in the servicelog.

Mon, 26 Nov 2007

The CL175 is steadily improving (well, "steadily" if you ignore the pause for Thanksgiving, anyway).

I got the new front wheel laced up and tensioned last week, and spent last night repeatedly levering the tire onto and off the wheel as I realized I forgot various important steps. Fortunately, it was much easier than the last time I'd tried, thanks to a hint from Jesse: tires are easier to work with when they're warm. So I set the tire in front of a heat register inside. Truly, that made a huge difference.

Finally, by 10:30, I had the front tire all set up and mounted. I gave it a spin, and although it's much straighter than it was, there's still a curious lump that you can see when you spin the tire. It's there whether it's inflated or not, so I'm finally sure it's not the tube binding inside the tire. However, with the newly straight front wheel, it's much better, and looks like I won't have major problems riding on it.

The new wheel, by the way, looks fabulous. I went from awful, dull, rusty spokes and a spotty, bent rim to a much cleaner, straighter rim, and brand new looking shiny chromed spokes. I even spent a few minutes cleaning up the outside of the brakes with one of those green scratchy pads. It's a huge improvement, and along with the front brake work, makes the front wheel one of the best parts on the bike.

I now only have one major impediment to riding the bike on the street: the headlight switch. It's very intermittent, such that the headlight is only on a very small percentage of the time, and that happens pretty much at random. That's not acceptable for street use, so that's my next task. I'm hopeful that it's just a matter of cleaning up the contacts and lubricating all the bits. I took a look at it earlier, but didn't really commit to cleaning it up at the time.

So, if I can get that cleaned up, and clamp a hose to the crankcase breather (which has been blowing oily mist at the underside of the gas tank for a while, judging by the sludge to be found there), it'll be ready to start riding. Then I can start finding the real problems. Whee!

Thu, 22 Nov 2007

That title pretty much says it all. I turned in the last 4673 words today, thereby completing the first draft of my latest novel, Hybrids (working title).

There were no particularly tough writing spots, but the conceptual leap I had to make as things started breaking down was extensive and difficult, including a couple nights' worth of weird, troubling dreams.

The final word count, according to the word counter used among my friends (The Only Count That Matters) is 77,633 words. That includes some extraneous stuff, such as parenthetical notes to myself about how things should go, or be fixed, or whatever, but those notes probably make up less than 200 words grand total.

As seems to be usual with me, I end the novel in the "wide open for a sequel" style, but of course I'll tell you little more than that, so as not to ruin the surprise. One of my enterprising fans has been reading every installment the next morning, and had made encouraging comments as I went along. Of course, this fan is my mother, so it's not altogether unexpected to get encouraging comments.

Last year, at this point, I turned around and started assiduously editing the completed draft. I don't know if I'm going to do that or not, at least not tomorrow. Tomorrow, being the day after Thanksgiving, may be given over to some kind of craven shopping nightmare, although I'm also debating begging off the whole thing. I don't think this would surprise anyone, and I could reasonably explain that I had to start editing, in addition to my general dislike of crowds -- particularly frantic pressing crowds.

In any case, it's nice to be finished, although this one will be a bigger editing job than the last novel, Troublesome Cargo. My editing job on that one kind of petered out some time early this year, but I should pick it back up and finish. I was nearly done with my second-pass edit to clean up awkward language and such, and then it'd be "publishable" enough that I could toss it up on Dangerpants (my "art" website) without being too embarrassed.

Now, I must away to my sleeping-chamber, to sleep off the ridiculous amount of food I ingested for this particular turkey day.

Mon, 19 Nov 2007

Today was a momentous motorcycle-day for me. I finally had (almost) all the pieces I needed to get the CL175 safely and legally on the road.

So, I hooked up all the bits and bobs, plugging the gas tank back in (and diagnosing a mysterious lack of fuel flow, which turned out to be basic, run-of-the-mill flakes of rust in the outlet) and getting it all ship-shape. It started, and once I'd sorted out the petcock's clogging problem, it ran pretty well.

I strapped on my riding suit, and headed out for the momentous first ride, trusty video camera riding on the handlebars. It actually didn't turn out to be that momentous: everything basically worked like I'd expected it would. The bike is loud, and surprisingly powerful for "just a 175," but it's still far behind the Ninja 250 in performance. That's fine, I would have been shocked and dismayed that a 1967 design of smaller capacity beat a 1987 design.

Most interestingly, the front brake works really well. I'd been concerned that it'd just be a slight improvement, but Metal Frictions really set me up with a good brake. It's not perfect: although it's now perfectly capable of locking the front wheel up, the transition from moderate braking to heavy braking is rather sudden. It'll take some getting used to, after the beautiful, smooth application and comparatively high power of the Ninja 250 brakes. It's humorous to me that all these comparisons elevate the little 250 (among the smallest bikes you can buy now) so high.

Unfortunately, there were definitely problems. The biggest one is that both wheels wobble like nobody's business (and I mean wobble -- I shot some video of the front tire, and it looks like the wheel is about to collapse; it's not, but somehow the tire is really uneven). I'll have to sort that out. One suggestion has been that I need to put some lubricant inside the tires so that the innertube doesn't bind. I don't know if that'll fix it or not. I hope so -- the other choice is that the new tires are severely out of whack, which would make me sad and delay further riding until replacements arrived. That assumes that I could even get them replaced, now that I've ridden 5 miles on them.

So, it was a mixed success. It ran, but the tires are a problem. I also, in my efforts to free the fork legs, managed to disturb the delicate network of rust holding the headlight to its moorings, so it's now essentially sitting loose in its brackets, held firm by gaff tape. That's like duct tape, but black and 5x more expensive (but right at hand). I have a new headlight (and blinkers and handlebar and speedometer, all hanging from a mass of wires), but it'll take some effort to get it mounted -- the bike is essentially grounded until I do that, since it gets dark so early. I also have to fix the headlight's off-dim-high switch, which is so intermittent that it's essentially impossible to keep the headlight lit except through occasional accident. This may severely limit my ability to ride the bike through the winter.

Anyway, it was nice to get the bike not only running, but riding, albeit a bit wobblishly. That's not a word, but it should be.

I will also have a new episode of the video series uploaded. I'm sure these will be a lot less popular than the countersteering videos, but that's fine. It's interesting to work on them, essentially making my own miniature American Chopper, vintage Honda edition.

Wed, 14 Nov 2007

Tonight, I passed 50,000 words. My novel now stands at 50,412 words, more or less. I'm only part way into the "second half" story that I'm now telling (the first half of the novel pretty much being setup for the second half; ah well), so I'm still far from the end, but it's cool to see the milestone pass so quickly.

Tue, 13 Nov 2007

Tonight was fork-night for the old Honda. I tried to make yesterday fork-night, but the forks weren't cooperating, and I didn't have time or energy enough to figure out what was going on.

What I did do yesterday was to drain one of the fork legs of its oil. Well, I say oil, but what I mean is "oil" in big quotes. What actually came out of the fork leg was a quarter cup of water, followed by what appeared to be the original fork oil: dark green sludge that dripped lazily out of the drain hole in the fork slider. I didn't make any further progress than that.

Tonight, I drained the other fork leg. Instead of water followed by oil, what I got was a horrifying, thick white sludge that appears to be emulsified oil and water. The resulting mixture that's currently sitting in my oil drain pan does not look like anything I'd expected to get out of any part of any motorcycle, ever. It does look like something I'd expect to find along the Cowgate in Edinburgh, or outside frat row at any major university in the US. That is to say, something with disturbingly organic origins.

In any case, that decidedly distasteful topic aside, I set about trying to solve the problem of how to actually remove the forks. Each fork leg is held in place by two clamps, which are collectively called the triple tree. Triple because you've got the two fork legs, and the central pivot tube. The lower triple clamp had pretty obvious bolts, which I loosened. The upper triple clamp, unlike any other bike I've worked on, didn't have any clamps I could see, just a big bolt in the top end of the leg, which served as both the attachement into the top clamp as well as the plug holding in the "oil."

So, normally, getting a fork leg out is a simple operation: undo one clamp bolt, remove the top bolt, and pull. In my case? Naturally not that simple. I couldn't actually get either leg to budge until I'd entirely removed the top clamp from the bike, and spent several minutes' quality time with a big hammer. Finally, I dropped out the left fork leg, which was covered in rust.

Next came the curiously difficult task of removing the accordion-like fork boot. This is the piece of rubber that covers the sliding surface, nominally to keep it from getting dinged up by flying rocks or bugs or whatver. In the case of my bike, what it had actually done was provide an excellent container to keep several inches of water pressed against the very corrodable fork leg. Extrapolate that against 35 years of life in the great, rainy Northwest, and you can imagine what kind of shape the fork slider was in. Let's start by saying it was Not Good, and conclude by saying that one of the areas of pitting was so deep that a good-size grain of sand could have ridden from outside the fork leg to inside the fork leg without touching the oil seal.

The other fork leg, once I finally got it out (which involved considerably more time with my big hammer -- I'm going to get a blacksmith's arm if I'm not careful) was in much better shape, with only one comparatively tiny area of pitting.

I called Tim, the wonderful repository of all 160 parts, and asked if he had a spare set of fork legs I could buy from him. He said he might, but he'd have to figure out if another project required them, so I'll be calling him back on that front. However, he did suggest an interesting idea: rather than scrapping the forks (which was my only thought so far), why not try filling the pits with JB Weld? It's not as if the surface of the fork tubes actually has to be that hard, it just has to provide a smooth surface for the oil seal to ride on. It's an intriguing idea, and one I'll have to explore further.

Of course, the screws holding the slider to the tube are both completely frozen, so the question may be moot. If I can't get the sliders off, then I can't replace the seals, and there's no point trying to fix up the tubes. In that case, I might as well just refill the forks with oil and plan to spend a lot of time cleaning up oil gushed up past the ratty seals. Unfortunately, that will never pass the technical inspection at the race, so that idea's pretty much a non-starter.

So now, I've got the forks sitting on the workbench, with penetrating oil soaking into the frozen screws. I'll have to hit up Sears for a variety of replacement screwdrivers, as the ones I have are all starting to look a bit rounded. There's a lot to be said for that no-questions replacement policy...

But hey, progress is progress, even if it results in disgusting sludge and the feeling that I'm taking two steps back for every step forward.

Sun, 11 Nov 2007

I made a little breakthrough today: I discovered another adjustment on the old Honda, which means that the clutch cable I bought (and which appeared to be the wrong size) actually does fit just fine. That was an immense relief, and considerably elevated my mood.

Yesterday, I actually got a good amount done, too. I pulled off the swingarm, in order to lubricate it, and ended up lubricating the pivot, but also wire-brushing the whole thing and repainting it. It's hardly perfect, but it looks better now, and is less likely to rust. I also cleaned and painted the chainguard, which has obviously seen a lot of splatter activity from the battery (delicious sulphuric acid!).

While I had the swingarm off, I took the opportunity to drill out the lower shock mounts, so that I can put the new shocks on. Even now, the bike is looking much better with its shiny new shocks in place. I ended up using pieces of plastic bottle as shims in the upper mounts -- the same material i've been using for rim guards while working on tires. It's handy stuff. Good thing I like the contents so much (Karam's Garlic Sauce).

I am going to see about putting together another video update today. Hopefully it'll be less time consuming this time, since I've already got a lot of the work started. I'll certainly post here once it's done.

I have been alerted that the link I originally posted about my novel was wrong. Indeed it was. I'll correct it in the old entry, but the correct link is here: my novelling progress. That's just a page showing my wordcount progress.

If you'd like to read some of my text, you can read an excerpt at my NaNoWriMo.org page (click on the "Novel Excerpt" tab). If you really want to see the whole thing in its unorganized glory, click here. That link will be updated every night with new text as I write.

Be warned that you are looking at absolutely raw, unedited and poorly-conceived writing. As I've mentioned, I'm having trouble with the concepts, and I honestly have no idea what direction the story will take over the next few days. I had more dreams about the breakdown of civilization last night, trying to trace out all the paths of effect that the changes in the story will take.

Sat, 10 Nov 2007

So, in my novel-writing adventure so far (up to 33,310 words as of just now), the world is breaking apart. I'll spare you the details in case you decide to read it at some point, but this novel is considerably more about the world falling apart than I'd really considered when I started out.

What was a cool premise has turned out to be a really cool premise, but also much more comprehensive and a lot more mental work than I'd been anticipating.

Last night, I noticed that I was having dreams about the falling-apart aspects of the story. Dreams where I was exploring the ramifications of everything that might stop working. They're pretty all-encompassing.

One other interesting thing I've noticed about this novel is that it's affecting my perception of reality. I find myself planning for this falling-apart event, or pondering with sadness an activity that I do and enjoy now, and won't be able to do once the novel comes true.

Of course, the novel is a work of fiction. It contemplates a reality that's so far out in left field that it's not even in the running for a possible future. It's set 5 years from now, and the falling-apart-ness of the whole thing is actually somewhat real, in the sense that everywhere you turn now, people are talking about how unsustainable our lifestyle is. I think that message is getting wrapped into the story, albeit in a very roundabout way. In the story, we're forced out of our terrible, wasteful habits, but not in a way anyone would want -- there will be a horrendous reduction in population before the story's over, whether it's through war, famine, or disease (or all of the above). The novel's turning out to be a bit more of a downer than I'd anticipated, too.

Anyway, I've typed an awful lot lately. Sorry for the lack of updates here, but at least I'm getting stuff done.

Wed, 07 Nov 2007

I got all my new parts home last night, and started to install them. Unfortunately, my success rate wasn't very high.

The brake cable is 5" or so longer than the one that came off the bike. Not a big problem, but kind of annoying, since I think the Ebay listing description was inaccurate. I had already avoided several cables that were extra-long specifically because I wanted the stock length.

The clutch cable was simply the wrong thing. It's so close to the right thing that it fits, and can be installed, but the cable is just a bit too short for the housing. The cable is actually marked for a CL160, and I can't recall now if the Ebay listing was wrong, or if I overenthusiastically assumed a 160 part would fit a 175 bike. Either way, it won't work the way it is, since I think a full slack the clutch is still very slightly disengaged.

The throttle cable may or may not fit. The one that's on the bike was in such good shape that I didn't bother removing it. Just sprayed some lube in and called it good. No need to fix what's not broken -- I guess I have a spare cable now.

The new clutch lever didn't fit -- the pivot bolt hole is too small. That would be easily remedied if I had a drill press, but my drill press is still up at Jesse's house, buried in his garage. I was looking into getting myself a new drill press anyway, but I couldn't find the one I wanted locally, so that's a nonstarter. At least the lever looks otherwise like the right thing.

The new shocks look good. They'll require a little bit of work, but I was expecting that, at least. I found some bushings I thought might work for the upper mount (which is too large for the mounting pin on the bike), but although they're a good fit to the shock, they're too small internally for the bike. Again, nothing a drill press couldn't fix, but see problem A.

The other problem with the new shocks is that the lower mounting bolt is an M10 bolt instead of the M7 from the stocker. So the mounting hole on the swingarm is 3mm too small. This one's a job for a hand drill and a steady hand most likely, but by the time I got to that point last night, it was too late to embark upon high-precision tasks. I've learned the hard way that my ability to start up demanding jobs after about 9 pm is not very good.

Fortunately, this morning went well, and I now have a shiny new front brake setup, with a round drum, and fresh pads, and everything. It was on the pricey side, at $125, but it looks like Metal Frictions did a good job, so I can't complain. At some point in the next few weeks, I hope to have the bike rolling well enough to check out the brakes, but I'm hoping they'll be a lot better than what I experienced that wet night in Indianola, checking out the bike.

Tue, 06 Nov 2007

I arrived in the office today to find my mailbox overflowing with packages. A huge wave of parts off Ebay have arrived. I now have:

I'm particularly excited for that last one, as the shocks on the bike now are really crusty looking, and completely devoid of damping oil. The Redwings were almost scandalously cheap, just $63 after shipping -- I paid about $400 for a new shock for the Ninja 250, and the next cheapest shocks you can still get for the CL175 start at $194 (or presumably even more as the dollar falls further against the pound). Suspension parts can get ridiculously expensive. I could probably pay over $1000 just for a pair of shocks for this bike, if I were so inclined.

I also got a call that my front wheel is done, so I can go pick that up soon, and I'll have the bike back together, and nearly rideable! I'm still waiting on a replacement sprocket after the first one wouldn't quite slide onto the countershaft. I'm excited to check out the new brakes. I'm hoping they'll be an obvious improvement over what I felt before, and I'm sure that between the new cable and the fresh pads, it'll be like night and day. As good as the disc brake on the Ninja? Probably not. But way better than they were.

I've probably got enough video after making Part 1 that I could put together Part 2 pretty quickly, with minimal new footage, so that's a potential upcoming project. If I do that, the editing will go a lot faster, as I've already got all the footage on hard disk, and capturing from the camera takes a lot of time. I definitely need More Disk, though. My poor little laptop's running perilously low on free space. I'm not sure where it all went.

With all those new parts in my hands, I definitely know what I'm doing tonight: workin' in the garage!

Sun, 04 Nov 2007

I decided, as part of this CL175 vintage racer project, to document some or all of the process on video. Might as well. I've failed to do anything with all the vintage racing footage I shot last year, and this kind of makes up for it.

Sat, 03 Nov 2007

So, I just spent the last 4 hours building a workbench for the garage. I tossed the ex-Boeing computer table I'd been using before. It was too low, and not really the right shape. I knew what I wanted: a 2' by 8' table that was actually at my waist level, instead of some malnourished 19th century European craftsman's waist level.

Making it would be straightforward. I had a complete sheet of plywood left over from something, so I'd use that as the top. I could get a bunch of 2x4s to form the structure underneath, and voila! Workbench!

So, I checked in the shed. Yep, there was the plywood, but also... What's that up there? Oh, look, it's a 2x8! Oh, huh, and there are four more 2x8s! And, pull, it's 10 feet long?! So's that one! And look at that, some 8 foot 4x6s! Wow, I could build a bench out of all that!

The thing is, using 2x8s like I did is completely massive, dramatic overkill. That bench could probably support a car without creaking. It's way, way stronger than it needs to be. But I only had to buy one piece (a likely-redundant diagonal brace to keep the legs from wobbling side-to-side), and it cost $2.50. I even had all the screws I needed. The amazing, $2.50 workbench! The 3/4" plywood (which is very, very strong) is probably the weakest part of it. It kind of makes me giggle a mad, power-hungry giggle.

I really hope, if we have an earthquake while I'm still living here, that it happens when I'm in the garage. Ain't nothin' touching me under that bench.

First things first. I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month again. That's a link to the page of a small group of friends, but what's cool is that you can check it each day, and see how I'm doing. The goal is just this: wordcount. Nothing more or less. The target is to write at least 1667 words per day.

Last year, I ended up writing 50,000 words (the goal for the month) in just 12 days. I was finished writing on the story in 13. This is... unusually fast, let's say. I don't expect I'll finish that fast this time, but so far I've turned in over 3300 words per day, which will have me finishing in 15 days if I keep up that rate. We'll see.

The story this time is sort of modern fantasy-ish, kind of. It's called Hybrids, and involves a DNA scientist and a Wiccan. How's that for a description you can't really do anything with? I'll put up a link to the text later, so you can read along each day, and see how terrible my writing is when I write too fast.

The next thing I'm doing is working on that motorcycle. I've made good progress: the front wheel is in to Metal Frictions to have the brake shoes replaced, and the drum turned. I have a new rim in the garage, and new spokes on the way, to rebuild the front wheel once the brake work is done. I have a flood of parts arriving from Ebay over the next week. I spent a little bit of time, and was able to straighten up the spare rear wheel, which is now mounted to the bike.

What I'm doing with the bike that makes things so interesting is that I'm filming it as I go. I decided this would make great material for a series of YouTube shorts, so I'm shooting myself as I work, and narrate what I'm doing. It's fun so far, and I've got a bit over an hour of footage, which will reduce to the first installment, of perhaps 3-5 minutes. I expect, by the time I'm done, I'll have at least 5 installments, probably more. It depends a lot on how much work I have to do, and how much patience I have for filming it as I go. It'll also depend on my patience with editing down the footage to a standard of quality I'm willing to put out. On the plus side, I'm finally using the shotgun microphone I picked up last year. It makes the longer shots in the garage sound a lot less hollow.

The third busy-maker is that I'm still working on unpacking boxes. I've set myself a goal of unpacking at least a box a day. So far, I'm one for two, so not doing too well. Today should be a good day, though, as I don't have anything definite planned. I should be able to get in a lot of writing, some motorcycle work, and a few boxes, at least. And of course at some point I'll fall over, exhausted.

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.