Speaking of mag gaskets, I just cut a new one from a roll of gasket maker I had laying around. My last gasket shredded last time I opened the mag cover.
I rode about 5 miles to my storage shed today, and had a couple little problems before I made it home. On the way there, one of the nuts that hold the exhaust on vibrated off. I didn't notice until the other side loosened enough to let the muffler separate from the motor. Things got real loud real fast. Luckily there was a nice pull-off area next to a railroad track, so I just pulled over there and luckily had a 10 mil nut with me.
So, made it to the storage shed, loaded up two laptop-style bags full of miscellaneous items I've been needing, grabbed my helmet (definitely been needing that), and headed home. The chain started grabbing about 1/4 of the way home, so I pulled over to find that there was about 2.5" of slack in the chain. (This is why I bring a specific set of tools every time I ride.) Adjusted the rear wheel, and took of again. Got about half way home and noticed that my left pedal arm was hitting the motor. I was like, WTF? So, I stopped again and found that I had a bolt missing from the front motor mount!!! This time I didn't have the necessary bolt to replace it, so I just made sure all the other bolts and nuts were tight and headed home. I was shaken pretty badly on the way, but I made it home under power and in one piece.
Okay, so I know I seriously need some loctite. Then I won't have to worry so much about losing nuts and bolts. Regardless, this has inspired me to add a collection of nuts and bolts to my riding tools. A few motor mount studs, a bunch of 10mm nuts, several 10mm bolts, and any other commonly loosening fasteners that I can think of. I mean, that ONE 10mm nut that I had today kept me from having to call my significant other to come pick me up. (Oh, um, I still have to tighten my pedal chain, so I couldn't have pedaled home.)
Oh oh oh, I almost forgot . . .
When I took the muffler off, or should I say, when the muffler FELL off today, I noticed something very important. There was a big sloppy piece of metal blocking about HALF of the exhaust pipe!!!! I guess in my rush to get the bike running, I forgot to even LOOK inside the pipe before I installed it. So, I took my handy-dandy flat head screw driver and got to work on breaking out the remains of the crappy weld job. I cleared out about a dime size piece of weld schlag that was JUST thin enough to chip out with a screw driver. I've wondered why the expansion chamber didn't seem to help at all. I also wondered why I had like zero throttle response, no take-off power, and just overall fuddy-duddy performance. Hill climbing nearly brought me to a stop. After putting everything back together, I could finally out-accelerate traffic again. Wow, I mean, just wow. Stupid Chinese (lack of) quality control. Still, it's my fault that I didn't QC the pipe before I installed it.
You Canadians are tough. Cold weather gives me the blues.
