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Hmmm, good to know, flynrider. I've probably started noticing it because of the cooler, more humid mornings we've been having lately.
Just as an FYI, did you know that engines make the most power in cold, dry weather? Cold = denser atmosphere and dry = less moisture to displace air. These two variables combine to make atmosphere with more oxygen available for combustion, hence more power.

edited for spelling(twice)

mgdavis wrote:Hi Monica. He went with the 318 because that's what he had in it before he put it on the duece-and-a-half chassis. It's a strong engine, last I heard it was pushing about 350 hp and similar amounts of torque. I don't think there was any other reason behind it. -Mke

That's what I started thinking looking through his build page - it was readily available. That's got some good numbers.

Last night my tail light started to crap out on me. I was warming up the bike before leaving work and happend to look back and see the tail light flickering. It seems to change intensity with vibrations, so I'll be trying to track down a loose wiring harness or a broken wire. I hate electrical work.
I think I'm done riding to work until spring time. The ride home last night was cold, and foggy in places, and my visor and mirrors kept fogging. My fingers were also freezing by the time I got home. The nitrile gloves under my riding gloves didn't seem to help keep my fingers warm, I guess I need to get warmer gloves.

If you read my last post, you saw I was having issues with my tail light last week.

Does it ever seem to you that when one thing goes wrong, it starts a whole string of bad events?

I had Monday and Tuesday off, so I decided to do maintenance on my bike and truck. I started off by doing an oil change on the bike, as it was overdue. As I was letting the oil drain, I started trying to figure out what was wrong with my tail light. I pulled the whole assembly off the back fender, as the lens was stuck to the housing and proved difficult to remove while still attached to the bike. I also removed the seat in order to access the other end of wires. I seperated the connectors, which were a bit corroded, and hosed them down with QD cleaner. I plugged them back together, hoping that I had fixed the problem. No dice. At this point I got frustrated with the electrics and decided to finish my oil change. I changed the filter, got my drain plug back in, and added the prescribed 3.7 quarts of SF grade 10-40. After putting the filler cap back on, I started the bike up. The oil light came on like normal. Then the oil light failed to go out. The manual explicitly states not to let the engine run more than five seconds with the light on. I thumb the kill switch. I try to run it one more time. Light stays on. I thumb the kill switch. Muttered obscenities. I went and checkes the manual, just to make sure it really says five seconds, which it did. went back out and started the engine again, this time giving some throttle and lettig it run about fifteen seconds. Still no dice. More obscenities. At this point I became truly frustrated and decided to go work on my truck.

I had planned a few things for my truck to bring it up to snuff for the winter. Among these was replacing my headlight switch. The man I bought the truck from, the father of one of my friends, had told me that there was a defective headlight switch that would overheat if I ran the high beams. Some experimentation over the last year-and-a-half has shown me that running the high beams will cause my headlights to totally shut down. I had gotten a replacement switch earlier, so I started to tear into the dash to replace it. It wasn't all that difficult to pull out the switch, but once I had it out I found just how hot it had been getting. The plug into the harness had gotten hot to the point of discoloring and deforming. It looked like this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/ ... CN1318.jpg
It appeared to have been replaced at least once already, judging by the butt conectors splicing it to the rest of the wiring. I started clipping the wires and swearing.

At this point my day is looking a whole lot worse, and my language is starting to turn the air surrounding me blue. Both vehicles are down, so I hop on my bicycle and pedal the three miles to the Schucks in town in search of a wiring harness. Once again, no dice. The assistant manager there says my best bet is going to be the dealer, or a junkyard. This being a fifteen year old truck, I'm not inclined to go to the dealer, so I hop back on the bicycle and head back home. At this point I should mention that what was a 20 mph downhill into town is an 8 mph slog heading the other way.

Upon arriving back at home, I decided that my best course of action is going to be getting the bike running and making a junkyard run. This is actually where the day started to look up a bit. I grabbed the multimeter and headed for the Honda. After shooting for continuity on various wire and finding no breaks, I decided to put everything back together and give it a try, just for care and giggles. To my surprise, it works. I suppose that I moved things around enough to make a good connection where there had been a spotty one before. With my fingers crossed, I started the engine. It fired right up, and to my relief the oil light extinguished itself in a timely manner. As it was warming up I bolted the seat back on, and got geared up. I threw the bare minimun of tools into my Maxpedition bag, and the added a pair of Vice Grips. I then headed straight for the wrecking yard.

I found a workable connector in the second truck I looked in. The connector I found did have a bit of heat damage, but it was on a different pin. Apparently this is a common problem on Ford pickups. I was unable to find another connector, so I took the somewhat damaged part to the counter, and got out the door for a buck. By the time I got back home the light was fading, so I decided to put off splicing in the part until the morning.

On Tuesday morning, I spliced the new(er) piece into my wiring. So far it has worked, no fires and the lights have not gone out. Hopefully the problem was in the switch, and this is not and indicator that I have a short in the headlight wiring.

One of the reasons I wanted the motorcycle was so when my truck went down, which it does occaisionaly, I would have transportation until the truck was back up. So much for that. I never planned on both going down on consecutive days. Oh well, that just proves Murphy's Law. Roll with the punches.

This is a copy and paste from another one of my posts. It pertains to bagging and tagging parts so as not to get mixed up. I learned how to do this at tech school (I'm a propulsion guy for the Air Force Reserves). I learned how neccesary this is the hard way, and I'll put it down here for everybody to see. Just a little bit of effort can save you a world of hurt.

As far as labeling, I get pretty precise. I'll put a part or assembly in a ziplock. Then I write down the name of that part or assembly, where it came from (e.g. No. 2 eng), then the page and step that tells you how to remove it (p. 132, step 3) and a picture if it has one (fig. 3b). This way, if you get pulled away, when you come back you know what that part is:

#2 Carb
Main Jet
P.132, Step 3
Fig 3b

Also, when you have the carbs pulled off, cover the openings into the engine so you don't get bugs, dirt, or anything else inside the engine.

Good thoughts on tagging parts. I sometimes do, now that I'm into more complicated things. My "always" method is to take off bolts and lay them on the floor in the pattern that they were on the part. While not as precise as labeling, its been my little method I like. Though with lots and lots of pieces, definitely label!

I used to trust my memory. Then a team of us were re-assembling a TF34, and couldn't figure out where those parts went to. That REALLY sucked. Hence, my current ana-ness about bagging and tagging.

I've got my MSF class coming up this weekend. The weather forecast shows heavy rain this weekend. Time to find some rainpants.

I want a SV650 in a bad way. The engine, the styling, it was made for me. Anyone want to trade a new SV for an old CB?

And got soaked while I was at it. We had five-point-something inches of rain over the weekend. That means it was frakking WET. The outer layer of my jacket soaked through, including the pockets, which means my leather wallet was soggy by the end of the day.
Overall I enjoyed the course. The classroom part was mostly dull, but I did pick up a couple things. I aced the written (multiple choice) test, and also completed it in about four minutes. The riding section started out slow, but by the second day was getting more interesting. I rode a Honda CB125T, this was the most represented of the trainging bikes. There were also a couple Rebels, a Nighthawk (250?), and two almost new Dual-Sports (XT's I think). Most of the bikes smoked badly, and also dropped oil. They had obviously seen a lot of high RPM, low speed riding. They had also been dropped more then a couple times. The power delivery on my bike was very poor, with a lot of hesitation followed by a jerk when the engine finally caught.
My ten classmates were a varied lot, with one girl about nineteen years old, and a couple gentlemen in their sixties. Experience levels ranged from none to forty years of riding. There was one lady in her late forties who competed in enduro races, but had never ridden on the street.
The drills started very basic - walking with and without power, and became more complex as the training progressed. During the second day we got as complex as doing consecutive U-turns in a twenty by thirty(?) foot box, emergency braking, swerving, and 135-degree turns. All four of these exercises comprised our practical examination.
As far as the exam goes, I was docked for two five-point infractions. I crossed a line during my right-hand U-turn in the box, and I wasn't going fast enough prior to entering the 135-degree right turn. I blame the lack of speed on the bike (what, my fault? couldn't be), I had to massively slip the clutch to get any sort of speed off the line. I did the emergency braking well. When I was given my card, the insructor told me that I had 23 or 24 feet allocated, and I managed to stop in nine.
Nobody failed the class, which surprised me, I was expecting at least one individual to fail.
All told, I enjoyed the class (despite the weather), and took away some new skills. Two of the most important were looking all the way through a turn, especially at slow speeds; and using the clutch to straighten from a slow turn.