Meeting with the Bro

My eldest brother, TOC (The Old Coot) came over today on his way to a family trip to Moab without motorcycles. I had to show him the latest and greatest stuff that I had been doing to my bike. Here is what he wrote to the rest of the MMMM clan:

"I have just been formally introduced to Eddie's new motorcycle, Wolfie. Yes, he wants to call his bike Wolfie. Anyway, he has had his bike for less than a month and the following is a list of the work that he has done on Wolfie thus far, at least the stuff that I can remember: disassembled front end and greased his steering bearings, rewired the back light to make it into a brake light, a horn, a new light switch that includes low and high beams, a speedometer with self-designed bracket, license plate holder, rear view mirror. And he has purchased a new FMF pipe and jetting system that still needs installation. And all of this in less than 4 weeks. This guy is a maniac."

Yes, my bro, I am a maniac. The motorcycle shop is working overtime, baby!

Work on my bike

I have still yet to come up with a name for my bike. But I have done A TON to it lately. I have put the speedometer on. Not only is this a speedometer, but it has a tachometer, ambient temperature, engine temperature, tripmeter, and odometer. It installed pretty neat and it is even ran off of the motorcycle's battery. Here is a link to it:

Vapor Computer

To make the bike street legal, I had to install a horn and a brake light switch. Luckily, the WR already has a dual filament bulb and wiring all set up for the brake light. I just had to wire it up with a switch in between. I also switched the kill switch to my horn switch, and vice versa. I have a switch that can turn off the headlight, and go to high and low beam. I think that my bike is already set up for that except the plug to which the wires go into at the headlight. I am thinking about wiring it up, but I don't know for sure. Not sure if it is necessary or not.

So I got it inspected, insured and licensed. I was really pleased with Progressive motorcycle insurance. My main concern is that it is going to be stolen, so even with $100 deductible, it only costs $157 per year to insure it. That is cool.

I also have installed some nice Acerbis Rally Pro hand guards.

I have yet to install my James Dean jet kit or my FMF Titanium Q slip on exhaust. Tha should happen in the next week or so. I am getting it ready for the big Moab trip on the 10th - maybe on the 17th depending on how many people from MMMM group can come.

I have also been doing a lot of greasing of the bearings lately. A lot of people from the thumpertalk forum" say that the bearings come from the factory very dry. So I took off the front wheel, the forks, the handlebar, etc etc etc and greased the bearings. They were right. They were bone dry it seemed. So now my steering is smooth as a baby's bottom. I need to do that to my rear linkage, but that can happen another day. I also greased the bearings on my front wheel. Man - that is so nice.

Anyways, this has taken me about 10 or 12 nights working on my bike. Wow. That is a lot of work. But I just love to go out there and work on it. I love getting my hands dirty, I love the smell of grease, I love the thought of accomplishing something. It is just a good feeling to say that it is done.

Oh - and I have to say that nothing came apart, or fell off, or broke while I was driving to work this morning. Yes, it is warm enough here to ride a motorcycle to work. Let's hope that it stays this warm so we can start riding in the hills!

eddie