Whew! Super long day on the bike. Unwrapped and inspected my new tanks first. Then I got right on the carb. Another huge-ass debt of gratitude to Kiersten who did a marathon Zoom carb rebuild with me. Love you, woman!!
We disassembled the carb – found all sorts of gunk in the accelerator pump – I cleaned everything – and we reassembled it and got it back on the bike. There were some finicky bits, like the float wouldn’t move free till we figured out that the needle had to go in a certain way. And the drain plug leaked till I changed the o-ring back to the old one.
Lots of nervous on my end. Lots of patience on hers. And the carb found its way back on the bike.
Lowbrow Customs has these super cool extended float bowl screws that make those back screws SO easy to get to, so I was really excited to install those. The left rear one was fine – the tougher of the two to reach. The right rear one didn’t fit. The shaft was too large, so I just reused the one I had. So that was almost cool.
We also took a look at my pushrods, but it was getting late, so that’s something for another day.
Atomic Shovel update: I wasn’t sure how much I was going to get done on the tanks today, but I did OK. Not stellar, but OK. It took me a bit to get going this morning – I was so tired from yesterday and my body hurt pretty bad – but I had to get in gear.
Tried fitting the tanks up on the bike, but I couldn’t do it by myself. The left tank went on pretty easily, and before I started, I checked the depth on the inserts at the smaller ends of the tanks – near the seat – so that I wouldn’t use a bolt that was too long and punch a hole in my new tanks. Check that off the list of possible fuck ups.
Once it became obvious that I wasn’t going to fit these up, I moved right to cleaning and painting.
Jason Sims gave me a sensible procedure which I followed. It was pretty easy. I filled the tanks with citrus degreaser and water, and let them sit a couple hours. That cleaned the tanks and gave me a way to check for leaks.
Thank dog there were no leaks. I seriously don’t think I could handle one more “oh fuck what now.”
Then I rinsed the tanks well and ran acetone through them to flash dry the insides. I moved right to primer and paint, and before the folks who paint feel the need to tell me what a shit job I did and how I shoulda this and I shoulda that – don’t. I need these tanks to be black. That’s it. They don’t have to be pretty. I don’t have time. The primer and paint are simply to keep them from rusting, and to allow me to do Chix on 66 in oh… a month. Later on, I will pull the tanks and have them painted properly. But for now, it’s a jackass job and I’m ok with it. I mean, check out my redneck “paint booth.”
Anyway, defensive caveat aside, once I cleaned the insides, I cleaned and taped the tanks, hung them in the back yard – thankful that it was a beautiful day – primed and painted them.
Once they were dry enough to move, I hung them in the garage for them to finish drying.
And now it is bourbon o’clock.
I unwrapped my lawn chairs, made a drink and some cheese and crackers, and Maizie and I are enjoying a late afternoon rest.
Back at it tomorrow, but right now, I need to do nothing.
The Atomic Shovel 