I’m looking down the barrel of 2012. The New Year is less than a week away, and we are scrambling to get my son’s Mudflap Girl FXR running and off the lift. It’s been an interesting time for me. Nyla keeps harping on slowing down, but the projects keep coming. I thought maybe I was done with building bikes. I’m about to turn 64. I would kick back and write books, but then Harley-Davidson wanted a bundle for the Road King I rode and wrote about since 2003. The economy smacked the factory hard. I couldn’t afford their demanded amount so we sold the bike to Mike Cole, a Hamster in Ohio, who helped me with my Hearse purchase.
Get this; Mike has never paid for the King. He’s still riding it around, waiting for the factory to find the paperwork. Hell, I could still be writing articles about that bike, but noooo. It’s been almost two years. So, suddenly I was out of a rubber-mount touring motorcycle to ride long distances. Hell, Mike Cole had the King sold several times, but no paperwork, no deal. I started building the Mudflap Girl Dyna, turned FXR for my son and fell in love with what Paul Cavallo at Spitfire was doing with the stretched almost single-loop frames and girder front ends. Those guys can do anything, build any kind of frame, so I asked about FXR configurations and they stepped up. When I saw what they created, I had to have one.
I worked a deal with Paul to build me one, but slightly different. Suddenly we were building two bikes in the shop. Then there was that damn XS bike being built with a local kid and Ed Martin of Mr. Lucky’s products. Then Ray Wheeler moved into our building, and since we converted his turbo-charged Dyna into a Bonneville dedicated roadster. Fortunately, it was being built in Oregon, but he needed something to ride, so we dusted off the Salt Shaker, another FXR configuration I built with John Reed’s hot rod dream bike kit from Custom Chrome. Ray started to ride the 120-inch Accurate Engineering Panhead around.
He attended three Bonneville meets this year, and at the last one, he planned to ride the Salt Shaker. It broke down on the 210 freeway, about 60 miles from the shop. I hauled ass out to pick him up and so begins this fuckin’ story.
Ray was convinced that the ignition went south, since the spark was gone. He pulled a plug wire and searched for spark as the engine turned over. We had experienced a goofy breakdown once before with one of these Mallory electronic ignitions. I spoke to Eric Bennett and he confirmed that electronic ignitions in distributors have heating flaws, and recommended a Dyna S unit.
I ordered the Dyna S electronic single-fire ignition from Biker’s Choice and a set of mechanical advanced weights. I read the instructions carefully and installed them. When I tried to turn the engine over the rotor in the S&S distributor didn’t turn. We had sheared the key on the pinion shaft, due to a loose pinion shaft nut. It was seemingly an easy fix that went all to hell. Keep in mind that we had three other unfinished bikes on lifts haunting us.
We fixed the key, lapped the gear and prepared for final assembly as the holidays approached. Maybe twelve items hung over my head. During the last couple of years, I met with mechanical failures twice, and it brought me to an ebb I never faced before. Our Peashooter was unprepared at Bonneville and blew a head gasket.
Eric Bennett took the heat off my vibe when he said, “Sometimes the salt is good to you and sometimes it’s not.” We ran into problems with the Assalt Weapan, and parts didn’t arrive in time, so the silver rocket ship didn’t make the trip. As the team leader, I kept smiling, but Nyla broke down.
Then I built the factory racer and was pleased with the outcome, but I ran into a mid-range blubber with the Crazy Horse engine, and I’m still not sure we have remedied the malady. For the first time in my life, I faced mechanical doldrums. With tremendous help from experts in the industry, I replaced the ignition twice, then ultimately decided that it was just carb jetting issues. I’m still not sure it’s corrected. I had to move on.
I need to add that I was extremely proud of both builds, the 5-Ball Factory Racer and the Peashooter. They both contained interesting challenges. I was frustrated and had the wrenchin’ blues as I headed into this year. It’s as if the old adage about getting back on your bike after a fall is the best cure. Without planning, suddenly I was faced with three builds. But this year brought to the Bikernet Headquarters an enhanced team approach. I had more old school mechanics around me than ever, which poses positive and negative elements, but we’ll stumble over to that side of the shop in a minute.
Okay, so we’re flying along and the Salt Shaker takes a shit, so we cleared one lift of the XS project, since the kid, who had recently cleared himself off drugs, or so I thought, flaked on the project. He quit showing up, quit working for us. I offered him a day’s work once a week, painting and detailing the building. Then when Nyla stumbled into an opportunity to afford him work, and experience, as a cook at the Chowder Barge, he flaked. I had to pull the plug. I don’t get it.
Moving right along. I replaced the Mallory ignition with a Dyna S. I spent hours making the slightly larger distributor fit against the massive — barrels by shaving the fins with a dremel tool. We fixed the pinion key, but the bike would not start. This is where the shop crew comes to the surface. We performed a compression test and found a slight difference between the front and rear cylinders. Dr. Willie recommended pulling the heads.
There was nothing wrong with them, as Ray gave them the gasoline flow test, but I took them to Branch to be freshened. All these stumbling blocks were holding us back from riding and working on builds. Months were slipping past and I was beginning to feel those broken wrench blues, so I relied on Dr. Willie, a life long Harley mechanic, and our new performance editor, Ray C. Wheeler.
Every time we got the gang together, the repair project took another turn, with the wrong gaskets, the compression test, the Dyna S gears, you name it. We were burnin’ daylight, and that beautiful V-Bike deserved to be repaired and rolling. Branch detailed the heads and ground the valves. We assembled the engine and discovered that the Dyna S ignition with advance weights was turning the wrong direction. Most electronic ignitions are designed to turn clockwise, whereas distributor ignitions turn counter-clockwise. We were forced to change the gears, then waited another couple of weeks for the S&S distributor gear to match.
Okay, we finally put the lower end together and adjusted the valves. The bike wouldn’t start. Ray wanted to cut the battery box out of the John Reed designed frame to enlarge the battery. We let the bike set for a couple of days while investigating. We pulled the choke knob system out of the Mikuni carb. Most of my team don’t use Mikuni chokes at all. I finally put down the shop rag, and went at it myself, on quiet brisk night in the shop. I pulled the cam cover, checked the cam spacing, check the cam timing, then began the timing, and valve adjustment process again.
I wanted to learn how to adjust these damn hydraulics one final time. I didn’t like the variety of lifter travels, and not knowing how many turns. Then there are the pushrods with a variety of thread configurations. I followed the JIMS instruction, and experienced a brilliant light at the end of the tunnel. They called for finding the bottom of the valve travel, taking up the lash, then screwing the pushrod adjustment out until I reached four complete turns. I let it set for 10 minutes, then backed off the adjuster until I could spin the pushrod.
Then I set the timing for the 30th time, and the bike fired right to life. It was amazing. That puppy fired before we could hear the Spyke starter begin turning. It ran like a top. Finally, we could go for a ride, after almost two months. Hell, my Mudflap girl bike was running already and we shipped it off to Saddlemens for a custom seat.
We changed all the fluids in the Salt Shaker and she was ready to roll. Ray riding the Salt Shaker, and me on the Sturgis Shovel headed to Walkers. “Let’s ride to the rock store,” Ray said chomping at the bit. “I want to shoot the shit with Jay Leno.”
I was a tad apprehensive about a longer, maybe 60-mile run to the rock store, so we hit the road for Walker’s Café on the point in San Pedro. The ride was uneventful as we pulled in front of the historic café over looking the Pacific and Catalina Island across from the Pt. Fermin Park. It was a Sunday, Christmas day, and the joint was closed. Usually Sundays are packed with riders of all sizes and persuasions.
One older gentleman stood in the gutter smoking a joint and spraying the street with a hose, pushing the dust and debris toward the end of the road where it disappears into the relics of sunken city.
He wore a tattered t-shirt and a lightweight aluminum cane hung from his hip pocket of his frayed cut off Levis. This portion of the coast is picturesque with bluffs plunging to the rocky coastal surf. But it’s also a slow moving precarious trap. Back in the ’60s, an earthquake tousled the road in front of Walkers and portions of the road with homes fell into the sea, hence Sunken City. Ragged portions of the road remain.
Just north of this point about 5 miles is the notorious Portuguese bend, where the earth is constantly shifting and no one is allowed to build homes in the region. The city resurfaces the street every three or four months. The earth-moving malady began in the ’70s. Still, folks live up and down this jagged coastline and portend extremely high dollar property price tags. Just recently, Donald Trump built a high-dollar golf course to compete with the famous Pebble Beach course, near Monterey. I’m sure his investors warned him of delicate coastal land balance.
Then just last year, the same treacherous road weaving along the coast faced another earth shifting obstruction. The road just north of Walkers Café caved in. “Can we get through?” I asked the older gentleman.
The gray-haired homeowner, living next door to Walkers diner, looked at me askance, took a puff on his joint and said, “No way! Take Gaffey to 25th and head north.”
I should have taken his warning as a sign, but both bikes fired to life and we rolled north on Gaffey, turned left on 25th and hung on the straight hilly street until we came to the Trump Resort on the coast and the road faced the coastal curves. Just then, Ray pulled along side and pointed at the massive 120-inch Accurate Panhead. I leaned left at the golf course entrance and stopped.
Ray wears a flamed full-face helmet and must stop and open the screen to communicate. “Its running on one cylinder,” he said.
We shut it down and checked every possible busted wire connection threat. We were traveling light and had no tools–stupid. We headed back to the Headquarters, down a long straight hill surrounded by homes, into Pedro. Pedro is very much like a small San Francisco with hilly streets, all overlooking the sea either into the Pacific, or over the Port of Los Angeles.
Ray waved at me and shook his head as 25th dead-ended at Gaffey, the major Pedro thoroughfare lined with franchise joints. I generally avoid this wide boulevard. It contains no character, just stoplight after stoplight, and plastic signs. Much of Pedro is ’50s cool, Spanish homes looking out to the harbor. I don’t need to ruin the vibe with In and Out Burger signs, and Taco Bell plastic. You name it, they line this street.
Ray flagged me that the engine up and quit, but we were on a serious decline and could coast for another couple of miles, but I sensed his discomfort, so we coasted down to 22nd street and turned toward Pacific and stopped. Once more, we tried to blame this ignition infraction on the battery. That poor bastard can’t catch a break, but what else could it be? I took Ray’s truck keys and headed to the Bikernet Headquarters, about 5 miles away.
I returned with the truck and we fought over how to load the dying Salt Shaker. With the tall Ford Ranger backed almost against the curb, I placed the arched aluminum ramp against the rag-protected tailgate and up she went.
Back at the shop, we unloaded the beast and immediately ran it onto the lift, and installed a battery charger, then waited. The plan was to charge the battery, and if the bike started, immediately check the charging system.
While we impatiently waited, we received a call from another mechanical genius in the motorcycle industry, Duncan Keller, of Yankee Enguinity. He made a handful of investigative suggestion and we checked the voltage to the coils, 9.4 volts. Then I check the ohm reading across the windings and from the windings to the sparkplugs. Then we proceeded to turn the ignition on again and test the voltage at another lead, and the front coils exploded, cracked, and smoked like plastic model car on fire.
We couldn’t give up. I went to my electrical locker in search of replacement coils and found two Dyna coils, but single plug versions. We immediately installed them and tried to start the bike, no luck. That front coil sucked the life out of the ignition system. I returned to the electrical bin and dug around for another Biker’s Choice Dyna S single fire ignition system. I had one. Once more, we studied the wiring configuration, carefully making sure no wires or coils were installed improperly.
After checking the timing one final time, with the advance mark in position on the flywheel, then making the plug spark with the rotor advanced, the bike fired right up. We were free once more.
The next morning, we felt the riding vibe once more. We cleared the deck, worked on Frank’s bike some, then Buster called. He bought our Shrunken FXR and recently, Saddlemen added lumbar support to his dinky custom seat. They did a masterful job and Buster rides the RevTech powered FXR daily.
Buster showed up and we had to hit the road. This time, we would roll south into Long Beach, along the safe coast, and maybe visit Toph, the boss of Bagger Magazine, then bother my 89-year-old ma at the south end of Long Beach, on a small island. I was determined to stay in town once more to test all our mechanical systems before we ventured into lane-splitting freeways.
We rolled out of the industrial Wilmington just behind the Port of Los Angeles. It’s a strange dichotomy of cultures. Wilmington is all 18-wheelers, ships, cranes, trains, and funky industrial yards where crews hammer pallets together all day long. Then we suddenly roll onto the last 100 yards of the Long Beach Freeway as it dumps us into the new coastal Disneyland area housing the Queen Mary, PF Chang’s restaurant, the convention center, and the new Pike. It’s all upscale, clean, crisp, and bright lights. We rolled along Golden Shore on the same street that burns rubber with the Long Beach Grand Prix every year.
As we came up the Golden Blvd toward Ocean Blvd, we faced a massive intersection where the plan called for bending right at the intersection. We stopped and waited our cue, while various lights blinked and changed. The intersection restricted right turns while the arrow shined in a crimson fashion. We were patient until we were permitted the full green glow of freedom, but pedestrians crossed and delayed progress.
Suddenly there was a break in the line and the car in front of us darted forwards. I released my BDL clutch, rolled forward slightly, then the car lurched attempting an abrupt stop and I hit the brakes. My trusty Shovelhead slipped to the left and flipped on its side throwing me against the unforgiving corner curb. I slammed against the curb and rolled onto the sidewalk. I couldn’t breathe. My wind was knocked out of me and I tried to lie still for a couple of moments while others scurried around and called for back-up.
In a matter of seconds, I was breathing again and checking my extremities for injuries. I was okay, and immediately hauled to my feet with the help of Ray. My first concern was for my trusty Shovelhead, my pal for seven years. I snapped off the kicker pedal, on the kick-only motorcycle. The two young guys in the notorious compact car jumped out and apologized. I learned something. I gave them my contact info, but I was sorta in shock, and didn’t grab their info, or a photo of the slight damage to the lower plastic skirt on his car.
Buster gave me a push, the 93-inch Shovel fired immediately, and we rode home, where I immediately replaced my kicker arm with the new Swift Kick from Nash. I’m sure all that rolled through my mind later is covered in Slider Gilmore’s class on accident management, or in Vicki Sanfelipo’s classes. This was minor, but immediately following any accident, folks are in shock, and unable to think clearly. I need to take a class.
So, what’s the bottom? We waited two months to ride, and both days contained notorious adventures. Not exactly the type of adventures wrapped in whiskey and soft flesh. But both scooters are running, and I’m anxious to roll the dice on the streets of Los Angeles once more. Can’t wait to pick up my FXR. Need to finish my son’s and get to work on the Bonne Belle for Bonneville. Hang on, this year will be non-stop.
