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The Unwelcome Piece
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Every time I take a motorcycle thoroughly apart and put it back together I wind up with two or three surplus bits. Don't you? So long as it's just a couple small washers I don't worry about it. If it's a tempered 14mm socket head machine screw, that's when I take a careful inventory looking for which fastener for which case did I not torque up. Can I do without it? Did it really come from this machine, or was it simply sitting on the bench from previously? But when it's a bit like this trick spring extra, that's when I know I'm in trouble.:
Where the heck did this spring sproing out of?
Yesterday, Eagles on the toob squeaking by the Cards, Modelo Especial on the work bench, Partagas 1845 on Dan's Stogie Stand, I finished putting that K75S back together. To lube the tranny input splines on these dry clutch beemers, you have systematically take the bike apart from the tail light forward until you can slide the bell housing back. Then you put everything back together in reverse. When I was done, I had this mystery spring. Looks like it probably connects a brake light switch to a frame ear or such; but I can't figure out where. Ruins the whole party. Instead of satisfaction with a job well, done, you have a bad taste in your mouth.
Likewise with this:
Top rate construction, top rate aroma, top rate flavor, top rate burn, top rate smoke, but leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Where did this foul taste come from? It's such a puzzle. The cigar has a beautiful appearance. Hard packed throughout. A faint odor of cedar and citrus. An unlit flavor so faint as to barely hint of citrus. An easy unlit draw, again cedar and citrus. Easily lit toasting the foot with one match. Great volume. Wonderful flavor, cedar, citrus, some gentle spice, and even some vanilla. A dry aromatic retro. A very enjoyable smoke. But then the finish of it grew and grew until it coated my teeth. Began to taste like caries. I tried washing it with beer, but no dice. I tried resting it, but no joy. I brushed, came back, and started again. Same deal. When I stuck it in the nub jar, I still had a third left, and I was still thoroughly enjoying the smoke. It's just this foul tooth fur springing up from who knows where.
I much preferred the Black Label.
Where the heck did this spring sproing out of?
Yesterday, Eagles on the toob squeaking by the Cards, Modelo Especial on the work bench, Partagas 1845 on Dan's Stogie Stand, I finished putting that K75S back together. To lube the tranny input splines on these dry clutch beemers, you have systematically take the bike apart from the tail light forward until you can slide the bell housing back. Then you put everything back together in reverse. When I was done, I had this mystery spring. Looks like it probably connects a brake light switch to a frame ear or such; but I can't figure out where. Ruins the whole party. Instead of satisfaction with a job well, done, you have a bad taste in your mouth.
Likewise with this:
Top rate construction, top rate aroma, top rate flavor, top rate burn, top rate smoke, but leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Where did this foul taste come from? It's such a puzzle. The cigar has a beautiful appearance. Hard packed throughout. A faint odor of cedar and citrus. An unlit flavor so faint as to barely hint of citrus. An easy unlit draw, again cedar and citrus. Easily lit toasting the foot with one match. Great volume. Wonderful flavor, cedar, citrus, some gentle spice, and even some vanilla. A dry aromatic retro. A very enjoyable smoke. But then the finish of it grew and grew until it coated my teeth. Began to taste like caries. I tried washing it with beer, but no dice. I tried resting it, but no joy. I brushed, came back, and started again. Same deal. When I stuck it in the nub jar, I still had a third left, and I was still thoroughly enjoying the smoke. It's just this foul tooth fur springing up from who knows where.
I much preferred the Black Label.
“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)
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The Honda CT90 is without a doubt head and shoulders the very best motorcycle design for its purpose ever. The list of features is flabbergasting. Like a lil red knob you pull out over 6,000 feet elevation, kicks in an extra air jet for high altitudes. Step thru design so you don't bust the family jewels on the tank when you hit too big a rock. Heel toe shifter keeps your boots up out of the rocky riverbed. Jerry jug strapped to the frame. A cargo rack you can actually pile cargo on. A monster air cleaner. A two speed jack shaft to give you road or trail gears without changing sprockets. Trail gear, in first, all wrapped up at 5k or 6k, you strolled along mebbe 3mph. Could hitch up a stump and pull it, in that gear. Same size tires fore and aft, or at least close enough you only need the one spare.. Quick release handlebars. On and on and on. 110 mpg road; 50 trail. Ran on 80 octane Pemex stored six months in a rusty barrel. Here's one: cast iron cylinder and alum piston meant that the hotter it got the more the cylinder expanded, faster than the piston swelled, making this thing un-siezable. Even in sizzling desert heat at 3mph all you got was blow by, but the machine kept creeping along. Centrifugal oil filter lived in the center of the centrifugal clutch. That's an odd one. Unscrewed a little cap, wiped out the oil filter with a rag, good to go.
First wife and I took a pair of CT90s from Santa Barbara down the length of Baja before they built a road there, across by ferry to Topolobampo, then zig zagging thru Mexico far as Belize. Awesome bikes. Awesome. Fabu. Glad you brought one back to life.