Hit and Run Driver.

Just when I thought my bad luck could not get any worse it does. Here is my note to the hit and run driver who hit my car Saturday, April 28 2007 at the Home Depot in Burlington North Carolina.

Dear Mrs. or Mr. Asshole,

You are a sorry low life SOB by hitting my car today. To add insult to injury you pushed your two empty shopping carts into my car after you hit my car with your vehicle damaging my front fender. You are a coward and a loser who probably does not have insurance and don't give a rats ass about other peoples property. You didn't even leave a note to say your sorry to own up to your mistake.
I also want you to know that we checked with the manager of the Home Depot (who was very helpful by the way) and found that they do have cameras with video tape watching the parking lot. We were there for around thirty minutes and you arrived some time after we did as there was no vehicle parked beside us when we parked. We also know what time we left by the time on our store receipt which gave the manager a time frame to search in. Oh, and by the way, we filed a hit and run report with the Police Department who will be reviewing the tape at the store. So now Mrs. or Mr. Asshole, instead of just a misdemeanor offense that could have been easily dealt with in a civil manner you now will have a felony hit and run charge. So see, wouldn't it have been better to come in the store or wait by the car to own up to your mistake?

Yours truly,
Waiting for your arrest in Burlington.

M5OD Ford truck Transmission Warning.

Is your motorcycle hauler a Ford Built truck with the M5OD Transmission? I found out to late about a serious problem with this transmission but maybe I can help you save yours. This transmission is made by Mazda and used in a variety of Ford trucks both large and small and if it fails will cost you plenty. This is the 4 speed with overdrive also known as a 5 speed. There are three rubber plugs on top of the transmission that leak fluid only when the truck is in motion so when parked there will be no tell tail signs of a leak. You can replace the plugs yourself or take it to the dealer and have them check it for fluid lose and replace the faulty plugs but it's not cheap. Thing is, the seals are going to fail and if caught to lateas in my case cost you a bundle. The cost to replace this transmission is around $1500-$1900 used including labor. So, you can imagine what a new replacement will cost and all because of $10 of parts that are plastic plugs. Another set back for theback yard mechanic is the bleeding of the slave cylinder. If not done exactly correct your clutch will not work no matter how much you bleed it. Bleeding the slave cylinder, which is inside the transmission and not on the outside like older ones, relies more on gravity to bleed and not pumping. It's just a big pain in the ass actually and it will test your patience.
To my knowledge, there has not been a recall on this problem as there should be as it is a defective issue and could cause a crash. If you were to be be hauling a trailer or on the interstate in heavy traffic when it failed, this could be deadly. You will lose all pulling power suddenly, such as in my case, and won't even have a gear to get you out of harms way. I was lucky because I was just exiting the interstate when my transmission popped and was also lucky the transmission did not lock up causing me to skid. Had I been hauling a loaded trailer going onto the sharpe curved exit ramp I probably would have flipped and rolled.
My advice is to take your truck to your dealer now before it is to late or go to this site if your handy with a wrench which tells you how to replace those seals:
www.ford-trucks.com/article/idx/9/059/article/_m5OD_mazda_design_manual_five_speed_transmission_preventative_measure.html

GM vs Toyota.

This isn't motorcycle related about Toyota passing GM by with more sales. I can just see the GM people now standing there with their mouths open and wondering " What happened here?"

Let's see, hm, Gm keeps making these huge gas guzzlers, the quality of vehicle design and reliability has gone in the dumpster, they make inferior products and won't issue recalls to fix known defects. One man bought a Chevy S-10, a few years ago, only to have interior parts falling off and other part breaking. The seat adjuster handle and window cranks broke off several times and he found this was not an uncommon problem. His older S-10 had given him two-hundred-thousand miles of great service, and, was still running strong when he traded it in. Another couple bought a 1998 Lumina only to have the intake gasket go south on the 3.0 engine just before the warranty ran out. It has gone bust twice more but the dealership would not fix it without a six-hundred-dollar repair bill. All service work had been done on the vehicle at a GM dealership until the couple kept getting home only to find that they had been billed for work never performed even after three return trips to get it done. On top of that, they wanted a huge price just to replace a bad battery. Even Auto Zone, with their claims of free battery replacement after the sale, wouldn't do it. They won't replace the battery in the same style Monte-Carlos either despite what their ads and signs say. False and mis-leading advertising maybe? (The Luminas and Monte-Carlos are built on the same format) The battery placement on these cars is in such an idiotic place that all sorts of car parts have to be taken off just to un-cover the battery. Who was the engineer that got big bucks for that design flaw? My eight year old son, at that time, could have thought that out better. GM Service after the sale, what a joke that is.

No wonder you see so many 3.0 powered GM's sitting in yards for sale cheap. Yep! Chevy like a rock . . . like a rock in your yard because it's broke.

Another man bought a new Toyota and found the tires kept wearing out quickly. He bought a set of tires, not knowing what was happening, at a tire store. When he took it back into Toyota for regular service work he was informed that during manufacturing or shipping that several of these cars had bent frame work which was causing the tire wear. Being that as it was, a four wheel alignment would never fix the problem. Did they tell him it was to bad for him? Nope. Did they tell him it was his fault in some way or try to cover their tracks? Nope. Did they tell him it's your car now and we have to charge you for the repair even though we screwed up and used bad parts? Nope. They apologized for the inconvenience, told him there was a recall for it, kept the car and ordered new parts and replaced them. They called and told him his car was ready after it was repaired around a week later. But, when he got to the dealership they told him he could not have the car back yet. Why? Because during inspection of the repair work they discovered that the new parts were damaged as well and would not let him have the car until they made it right.
Toyota stands behind their product and wants you to be happy with your vehicle. That other company could care less after the sale . . . sucker.

Good Night

I'm Bored.

I'm bored and tired and want to get out and go somewhere . . . do something other than work. Perhaps it is because I see things going by so fast these days. A friend of mine, for many years, had a stroke and others in my family are getting up in age. Another friend died earlier this year.
Its just a fact of getting older and looking back at what you have done and worse, things you have not. My Pop just had a big scare and have to have surgery. Had he not gone to the emergency room when he did he probably would not be here this week.
All of these things have made me realise how mortal we all are; how time waits for no one and time gets less patient as we get older.

One thing that my brothers, all four of them, and I have always wanted to do was get together and take a motorcycle trip together. Just seems that there was always one or two of us who had a bike while the others did not. We've talked about it recently as now two of the others have bikes and the other three of us don't have one, or in my case, a running complete one. Each one of us have our own personal responsibilities, family, wives, jobs, bills to pay, mortgages, the list goes on. What happened? Each of us has gotten into the daily grinds of life that we have forgotten to have some fun. As time goes on the chances for us to all ride together grows farther away. Our schedules conflict and the timing never comes together plus, three of us live in one state while the other two live in different states.
All of us have different goals and have different types of jobs along with different tastes in things, but the one thing we have all had all of our lives was the love of motorcycles that began at an early age. That's the one constant we all still share, that, and we are all still brothers.

Will we all ever get to ride together? I doubt it. Will Harley and the Discovery channel come knocking wanting us to get it together and help it happen? I doubt that too.
Will we all keep trying to get it together before its to late? I'm sure of it.

The Biker and the Rabbit



A biker is riding along when he sees a rabbit jump out into the road in front of him carrying a basket of eggs. He swerves to avoid hitting it, but unfortunately the rabbit turns and runs back. Thump! The rabbit gets run over by the bikers back tire and flips into the air then hits the pavement. The biker, actually being a sensitive man by nature aside from his rough exterior, turns around hoping the rabbit is alive.

Upon reaching the poor creature he finds the animal to be dead. The biker feels so awful that he feels a tear falling down his cheek. An Angel riding down the road sees him crying and pulls over. She reaches down and flips out her kickstand and asks the biker what is wrong.

"I just feel terrible," he says, "I accidentally ran over this rabbit and killed it."

The Angel says "Don't worry." Then she rummages through her saddle bags and produces a spray can. She walks over to the lifeless, twisted animal, bends down, tosses her long blond hair over her shoulder, and sprays the contents of the can all over the rabbit.

All of a sudden the rabbit leaps to his feet, grabs up his eggs, waves to both of them and hops off down the side of the road. Ten feet away the rabbit stops, turns around and waves again. He hops on down the road waving constantly until he is out of sight.

The biker is completely astonished and rushes over to the Angel and demands, "What is in that can? What did you spray on that rabbit?"

The Angel just smiles and turns the can around for the biker to read:

"Hair Spray - Restores life to dead hair, adds permanent wave"

Kyrie Eleison - "Lord have mercy"


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The Symbol of the Easter Bunny Revealed.

Have you actually ever wondered what the heck the Easter bunny and Easter eggs had to do with . . . Easter? Well here it is, and now you can wow your children and your friends children about the origin and relation of the Easter Bunny, Easter eggs and the celebration.

The symbol of the Easter Bunny originated with the Pagan festival of Eastre. (Yes, that is the correct spelling case you wondered.) The goddess, Eastre was worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons through her earth symbol, the rabbit. The Germans brought the symbol of the Easter rabbit to America. It was widely ignored by other Christians until shortly after the Civil War. In fact, Easter was not widely celebrated in America until well after that time. The Hare and the Rabbit were the most fertile animals known and serve as the symbols of new life in spring.

The Easter egg is a symbol of rebirth in most cultures. If you were of a wealthy family, the eggs were wrapped in Gold leaf or, if you were a peasant, the eggs were brightly colored by boiling them in the leaves or petals of certain flowers.

The custom of giving eggs in the springtime was centuries old before Easter was adopted and celebrated by Christians.