Saturday, October 09, 2010

Road The Rat Today

Yep, got to go on a ride today finally after all this work it had me doing. Had a little problem when stopped at lights and intersections because all of a sudden she'd just quit. Rat would fire right back up and I'd be on my way so I had to keep a little throttle on when stopped so it wouldn't stall. Going down the road she's running great and throttle response is dead on. Pulls hard and smooth too. This was a shake down ride and I did find some minute problems such as my speedometer still won't work, I think the gear at the hub is worn out because I found a lot of slop there. I have to ride by Tach for now and feel.

Something else was this annoying rattle which turned out to be the front gas tank mount, half a turn with a half inch did the trick on that using a self locking nut. I still want to mount a set of true FatBobs on there but I want a mount that can be used without being welded on. My thought is that if I could find a mount that utilized the stock mounting points on the frame to attache the FatBob mount with that would be trick. I just hate the thought of cutting the original mounts off and welding on the fatbob type mount. I have a Rat bike and don't want a Butcher Bike. Of course if I have to keep fixing crap it won't be a Rat. This one is not a full on Rat, nope, that would have been my 75 XLCH which rattled things loose, had an unbalanced front tire, covered in oil and grime, a very worn kicker gear, a chain oiler that always slung oil etc.

Anyway, I got home and addressed these little problems except the idle. I took some "orange pumice go jo hand cleaner" and polished away the rust spots appearing on the front spokes that I noticed when messing with the speedo. Then my chrome turn signals on the front were showing the spider web scratches and generally were dull looking. Those babies shine real nice now with the go jo. The back rim needs attention on the spokes but I'm waiting until I get a new tire put on.
After that I decided to go for a short ride before the grill for the steaks was ready. I got down the block and Rat just up and quits on me like last weekend. I try several minutes but she won't start so I get off and start head scratching. I twist the throttle and I don't hear any squirt. Open the gas cap and shake the bike, yep still has gas. Hmmmm. I work the petcock back and forth a few times then put it back to on, Rat still won't start and no squirt. I scratch my noggin a little more. I put the little gas lever on reserve and after half a minute push the start button. VVVrrrroooom. So now I thinks the idle problem is due to fuel starvation when stopped but when riding things are sloshing around keeping the petcock clear til I stop again.

I check this out when I get back home. So the pet cock barely dribbles when in the on position but flows perfect on reserve. I pull the petcock off the tank and the fuel screen is all nasty with gunk and brown mess. I start to disassemble the pet cock but one of the damned screws won't budge so I say to hell with that and put it in my sonic cleaner. You should see all the shit that the sonic unit got out of there. But the on position still won't flow. I need to get that little lever off to get in there good cause it has to be some trash in that minute hole. I cleaned out the tank with Kerosene, and put an in line Mr. Gasket fuel filter on to at least keep the particles from the tank from getting to my new carburetor. It leaks. Yep, the dang in line filter leaks so tomorrow I'll have to put some Teflon tape on there, that should fix that. Then I'm gonna ride that Rat and get it good and warm.

1 comment:

FLHX_Dave said...

Dude! I read this...but I can't fully comment...B.B. is flashing me...gotta go! comment later!