Billy & Me and RB


Billy and I had been planning on this ride all week. We changed it from Sunday morning to Saturday morning with Billy coming to my place for breakfast. I mean, at first we were going to meet somewhere and grab a bite until my wife chimes in midweek. She volunteered to get up and make us a hot breakfast right here of scrambled eggs, sausage, grits and biscuits; I made the coffee after running to the early store for grits cause we were out. Funny, my teen aged son even got up to partake in the morning feastivities.

Billy showed up right on time even though he had had a minor problem with his bike. Every time he put his kickstand up his bike would quit. Seems there is some sort of safety switch that will stall the bike if you put the bike in gear with the stand in the down position. Thing was, the stand was in the up position when the bike would stall. He found the switch was sticking and fixed the problem. The bike is a Yamaha 650 Limited or some such with the Triumph copy engine on it. The engine has a cool look to it and is a pretty reliable unit; almost bullet proof in design. He caught the bug about these bikes and has a few he picks up here and there and redoes them. One he's working on is being made into a hard tail and I'll be helping him out on that one.

So, breakfast is over and we go out to leave. I get Rat Bastard unchained and begin warming up and getting my Gear on when I smell something like hot oil and I glance down to see smoke from around the oil tank. Shit! That isn't a good sign at all so I shut her down. The culprit is my return line to the oil tank has a hole in it right beside my rear pipe. Billy, having ridden H-D's for years has the solution in less than two minutes. Cut out the bad piece of line, splice in some copper tube for refrigerator ice makers water line and we should be good to go. Copper lines were used on older vintage motorcycles for years and years but the weak spot was the connecting ends. With using it. copper line, in conjunction with rubber hose for the connections you have a stable fix that won't melt or burn through when routed near hot engine parts such as exhaust pipes. Just make sure the copper has easy bends around obstacles and not Sharpe bends that will pinch the line.

The longest part of the fix was running out to get the copper tube. Back at the house we pull the oil tank loose, cut the hose, measure our length, cut splice and fit while my son runs to the auto parts store to get us some clamps. He does good and gets me the fuel injection type hose clamps I use that are much better than the clamps with the slots in them. Trust me on this, the injection clamps are way better than the slotted for the worm gear type of clamps that can cut into your rubber lines.

So we're getting it done when you know who comes from across the street. Yep, the Gremlin has to give me a ration of shit. Billy steps in with his easy way and bullshits with him. Gremlin isn't a bad guy,really he's not, he just likes to give me grief when I'm working on anything. It's just his way but now I give him grief when he's working on something and his buddies are around. See, I've figured out that Gremlin doesn't know how to fix mechanical things himself. He stands around giving you shit but actually he's watching and trying to see how your doing something.

Billy, my son and I get things back together fairly quickly, and RB (Rat Bastard) fires right up and sets to idle as we watch. No more oil leak and oil is returning to the tank. Which also makes me conclude that my chain oiler WAS not oiling to much. It was the pin hole in the oil line getting larger that was dripping oil down to the chain and slinging it all over my tire and rim the other day.

We went on our ride, which was shorter than planned because of the time working on RB, we had a trouble free ride though only cut short by an hour or so. The carb still needs a wee bit of tweaking on that high speed jet but RB done real good. I had planned on taking pictures of our ride but at the last minute I switched jackets and the camera was in the one I left at home.

RB talks to me but I've been missing the signs however I'm learning to listen to what RB is trying to tell me.