Ahh Memorial Day. A day for celebrating freedom. And nothing says freedom like riding through the countryside on a sunny day with the wind in your hair.
And after a week of rain and misery or broken/missing bike parts, I was ready for that. A nice day. A tranquil day. A no $@*#ing around with my Grubee motorbike day. Well ready sometimes isn't enough. Yesterday was no exception.
Somewhere 15 miles down the road, she suddenly got speed out of nowhere. Next thing I know I'm approaching my current max out of 33 MPH and that was on a downhill..this was flat terrain!
(Now I don't know why I just enjoyed the performance increase instead of stopping and figuring out what had changed. Sometimes you don't think about these things when you're gleefully bunny-hopping Detroit's crater-sized potholes (or possibly pothole-shaped craters, the jury's out) and sucking up the adrenaline.)
I should have looked. My enjoyment lasted approximately 6 miles before the entire pony ride came to a fizzling halt. There, still dangling back and forth between my legs from the momentum like a pair of cast aluminum..well let's just say the carburetor was dangling from the fuel line and indecently placed and leave it at that.
The intake manifold was cracked into three pieces. The two bolt hole flanges and a tube. 8 miles from home in the middle of bum<BLEEP> nowhere with a crescent wrench and a multi tool to work with. What I needed was a CNC machine, a parts bike or a miracle. That's when I saw the Foster's can lying in the ditch.
Now I grew up making toys out of trash. It's all we had..and where one man sees a beer can, I see a versatile source of materials. I took the pocket knife out and cut a large rectangular section out of the middle of the beer can and rolled it up as tightly as a could. I then made four slits on each end of the tube I'd formed and folded them down to form flaps.
For the carburetor side I removed all of the flaps except two. One top and one bottom. then I slipped it through the leftover broken tube from the manifold. It looked like this when I was done. (Except on the side of the road..not in my kitchen.)
Then I bent the two flaps (on the carb side) down to keep it in place, and inserted it into the carb outlet.
It looked like this:
Then I centered the beer can tube over the engine's intake port and made sure the flaps weren't covering the screw holes. It looked a lot like this:
Then I attached the flange pieces from the broken manifold over the top of the beer can flaps to secure it in place. Like this:
She started right up, and with a little minor adjustment to the tuning..didn't give me any problems. I made it home and stopped by the liquor store for a cold beer. I passed up my regular brew in favor of a Foster's green can.
I figured I owed em one.
Happy Memorial Day!
Ride fast, ride hard and get home safe,
daf
And after a week of rain and misery or broken/missing bike parts, I was ready for that. A nice day. A tranquil day. A no $@*#ing around with my Grubee motorbike day. Well ready sometimes isn't enough. Yesterday was no exception.
Somewhere 15 miles down the road, she suddenly got speed out of nowhere. Next thing I know I'm approaching my current max out of 33 MPH and that was on a downhill..this was flat terrain!
(Now I don't know why I just enjoyed the performance increase instead of stopping and figuring out what had changed. Sometimes you don't think about these things when you're gleefully bunny-hopping Detroit's crater-sized potholes (or possibly pothole-shaped craters, the jury's out) and sucking up the adrenaline.)
I should have looked. My enjoyment lasted approximately 6 miles before the entire pony ride came to a fizzling halt. There, still dangling back and forth between my legs from the momentum like a pair of cast aluminum..well let's just say the carburetor was dangling from the fuel line and indecently placed and leave it at that.
The intake manifold was cracked into three pieces. The two bolt hole flanges and a tube. 8 miles from home in the middle of bum<BLEEP> nowhere with a crescent wrench and a multi tool to work with. What I needed was a CNC machine, a parts bike or a miracle. That's when I saw the Foster's can lying in the ditch.
Now I grew up making toys out of trash. It's all we had..and where one man sees a beer can, I see a versatile source of materials. I took the pocket knife out and cut a large rectangular section out of the middle of the beer can and rolled it up as tightly as a could. I then made four slits on each end of the tube I'd formed and folded them down to form flaps.
For the carburetor side I removed all of the flaps except two. One top and one bottom. then I slipped it through the leftover broken tube from the manifold. It looked like this when I was done. (Except on the side of the road..not in my kitchen.)
Then I bent the two flaps (on the carb side) down to keep it in place, and inserted it into the carb outlet.
It looked like this:
Then I centered the beer can tube over the engine's intake port and made sure the flaps weren't covering the screw holes. It looked a lot like this:
Then I attached the flange pieces from the broken manifold over the top of the beer can flaps to secure it in place. Like this:
She started right up, and with a little minor adjustment to the tuning..didn't give me any problems. I made it home and stopped by the liquor store for a cold beer. I passed up my regular brew in favor of a Foster's green can.
I figured I owed em one.
Happy Memorial Day!
Ride fast, ride hard and get home safe,
daf
) That led to a lucky find that my girlfriend's