meanwhile...

Where has the last month gone?

A very large portion has gone to Little Z and the Princess. When Little Z comes for a visit, I don't get anything done around our house, except maybe he and I help the birds a little and he loves to pull weeds. If we get a chance, MKH and I like to go see both the Princess and Little Z and their parents. We also like talking on the phone to all our kids. These activities are much more interesting than blogging.

I've gotten over being mad at my motorcycle for breaking down on me on my motorcycle chautauqua with my brother TJH. I got a price from a guy in Indy who the Honda dealers recommend for work on old motorcycles. He told me that to fix my carburators he would charge me at least $500 because he wouldn't trust the work that anybody else had done previously, namely the guy in Holland, Michigan who rebuilt the carburator and got me back on the road to the tune of $440. Thanks but no thanks.

So I removed my motorcycle's four carburators and replaced the gasket that goes down the middle of all four of them. That was a problem that was diagnosed in Holland but the mechanic didn't have the part. That cost me $32.

I replaced a spring in one of the carburator float bowls that was the wrong part that's been there since the motorcycle was completely torn down to the frame four years ago. That cost me 50 cents at a motorcycle recycle place in a very tough looking part of Indy. 50 CENTS. Honda would have charged me over $100 for a float bowl kit.

I cleaned out the carburators and took them to a motorcycle racing mechanic who agreed to just look over the work I had done and make sure there weren't any obvious problems. He charged me $10 for a job that he said took less than one hour. Everything looked good but he replaced a short piece of rubber hose gas line. I had seen that it was cracked so I was glad he replaced it.

I ordered four new O rings to put on the the intake valves when I hook everything back up again. I probably don't really need them but at $2.75 apiece, just to be on the safe side I thought I might as well replace them. Hopefully they'll be in at Honda today so Little Z and I can go get them. I'm interested to see Little Z's reaction to all the motorcycles. Plus I want to show him off to the people in the "Parts" department. What does that say when the people in "Parts" know you by name?

Hopefully everything will run the way it's supposed to when I get everything hooked back up. The only other expense would be getting the carburators synchronized by the racing mechanic. He seems to be a great referral from JM in our faith community.

I'm probably overly optimistic but I think those parts add up to less than $500. To ride again this fall, that will be satisfaction.

There were a lot of work related things that kept me from blogging, but I won't whine about that. Life is good. God is good. Grandkids are good. Motorcycles are improving.