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Another hot and sunny day in Eastern Ontario! We took full advantage of the weather by taking part in a charity poker run, you can read the report on my website.

I had an interesting chat with a lady on my way home from work today. I took the Pretty River Parkway home in an attempt to get a cool breeze from the river but it was just too hot. I stopped at a convenience store at the halfway point to get some beer and parked the bike in front of a picnic table where two ladies were sitting having a chat. When I came back out one of them asked me if I found it too hot on the bike; I told her I'd take this heat any day over the bitter cold of my March-April commuting days. She then complimented me on being properly dressed for riding (jeans, denim jacket, full gloves, riding boots, helmet) when so many other bikes that passed by had riders clad only in t-shirts, shorts, a helmet and sneakers. Turns out she works in the ER of a major hospital and has seen it all when it comes to motorcycle related injuries; 2nd and 3rd degree burns from hot engine parts, skin and muscle ground down to bone by road rash, smashed bones, massive internal organ damage and all kinds of other gory stuff. When she started talking about head injuries caused by improperly fitted or substandard helmets I had to gently remind her that I still had another 25km to ride before making it home and she was starting to make me feel really paranoid. She smiled, apologised and wished me a safe ride. Then she said something that surprised me - "You know, it's not motorcycles that are dangerous; it's the people that ride them. If they would take the time to get proper training and be smart enough to wear proper riding gear I wouldn't have to stitch so many of them back together". My sentiments exactly. She's never ridden a bike in her life, btw.

After a frustrating Dnepr rebuild session on Saturday, I tackled it again this evening and finally made some progress. The left side cylinder and piston are now installed and I'm hoping to fit the cylinder head and valve train components tomorrow night. If all goes well with that, I'll assemble the right side of the engine and maybe bring it back to life by this weekend. It was some hot out in that garage, though - the temp was at 32C in the shade and even with both doors open it felt like an oven in there; my bandana and shirt were absolutely soaked with sweat by the time I was finished.

Tomorrow will be worse, it's supposed to reach 34C by mid-afternoon.

Got caught in a major thunderstorm on the way to work this morning. So much for the accuracy of The Weather Network Online, as they had predicted only a 30% chance of rain in the afternoon. So I really wasn't prepared when I rounded a corner on the 401 HWY and saw a solid wall of rain 100m ahead. It hit me like, well, like a wall of rain and I was blinded almost immediately by the force of the huge raindrops. I slowed to 110kmh, mindful of the two semi-trailers that were bearing down on me from behind - I didn't want to slow down too much in case they couldn't react in time. I couldn't see in my mirrors but they must have slowed as well because they never did pass me. The clown in front of me was another thing to worry about as he was in a small black car and had not turned his lights on before we hit the storm. I had no idea where he was; the rain was bouncing about 1m off the pavement creating a thick haze that was impossible to see through; a dark car with no lights was invisible in the mess. I slowed to 100kmh and put one hand in front of my face to deflect the rain so I could see; it helped a bit but for the most part I was still flying blind and navigating only by the dim outline of trees on both sides of the road. Then the road surface changed and the Harley hit deep water filled ruts, began to hydroplane and the front end went light. Oh, cr*p. I managed to steer it onto the higher center portion of the slow lane and held that track for 5km until the next exit came up. My water resistant Harley denim jacket had stopped resisting water by then and I was totally soaked from head to toe. I pulled into the Long Beach gas station and hid under their canopy while the storm raged on; there were several lightning strikes close by and the sheer volume of rain was causing a mini flood on the road and in the parking lot. I grabbed my cell phone and left a message for the boss saying I'd be late, then stood and watched and waited for the rain to subside. Finally it dwindled down and I headed out, only to hit it again 2km down the road. To hell with it, I was already soaked so I carried on into work. Got there 15 minutes late, changed into the uniform and took my soaking clothes to the boiler room and hung them above the boiler to dry. Had to put up with wet biker jokes all day from the various comedians I work with, but at least it was warm, dry and sunny by quitting time. I had a much nicer ride home.

Worked on the Dnepr again after supper and managed to complete the re-assembly of the left side. Just have to rejet the carb, replace the slide and pop in the spark plug and it's all done. Tomorrow I'll start on the right side; I might just have this sucker running by the end of the week.

The Dnepr lives! Left work early on Friday afternoon and worked in my garage until 10pm; managed to get the bike re-assembled and damned if it didn't fire up on the 4th kick.

Spent yesterday morning replacing the rear u-joint on the driveshaft, hooking up the sidecar and various other small tasks then took the rig for a short victory run up and down the alley. When I returned the right side was running HOT, so I have to synch and adjust the carbs today and hope that cures it. Otherwise, it could be a lack of lubrication on that side which is not good.

I'm slowly making a web page report about the whole ordeal and will post it on the Dnepr portion of my site when it's done.

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Finally worked up the nerve to take the Dnepr out on a maiden voyage today. Loaded Hector into the sidecar (boy, did he get excited when I put his Doggles on in the house - he knew right away we were going riding!) and away we went. Took it nice and slow up and down through the gears and rode to the north end of town and back, then on to the gas station to fill up. It was only 1.5km and the right side cylinder was smoking when I shut it off at the pumps. By the time I was done filling the tank the smoke had dissipated; I'm thinking/hoping it was just some oil left on the cylinder barrel fins from the rebuild process. We carried on for another 3 km then returned home; the engine was hot but no smoke this time. Pulled the plugs and they were both a light tan colour, then removed the right side rocker cover and saw lots of oil on the valve train parts. So far, so good. Tomorrow morning I'll wash her and take Hector for another spin, this time down the Pretty River Parkway for about 20km total. If all goes well, I'll keep expanding the distance travelled each time we go out until the 500km mark is reached at which point the engine is deemed to be fully broken in.

Took the Dnepr (and Hector) for another run this morning, went about 13km in total. Went out to the Howe Island Ferry dock where he reluctantly posed for a pic and then went for a swim. The people in the ferry lineup though it was just the coolest thing, they were waving and smiling as they went by. One woman in a minivan rolled down her window and said "That is the coolest setup I've ever seen!" Hector took it all in stride, puffing out his chest and perking up his ears like he was in some dog show.

The bike ran good, but the valves are getting noisy so I'll have to re-check the clearances and torque the heads again. The cover for the rear driveshaft hinge was rattling away the whole time; turns out the threads are stripped so I'll remove and toss it out tomorrow. Couldn't access the grease fitting with it in place anyway. Saturday I think we'll attempt a run out to my parent's place do Hector can go play with his brother Jess.

The Harley is just shy of the 48,000km mark now and is still running as sweet and trouble free as the first day I got her. Did the 48k service last night; all the oils were free from metal filings and other crud and the spark plugs are a nice light tan colour. All I had to do other than the oil changes was to adjust the primary chain. This bike is so easy to work on!

Things are not so good over in the Dnepr world, though. Three days ago at the 100km mark on the freshly rebuilt engine I started hearing a clattering noise. *sigh* Got the mechanics stethoscope out and placed it at different points about the engine; the valve train sounded normal, there was a little bit of a "clicking" noise from both pistons as they slung about in the barrels, nothing unusual from the area around the base of the pushrod tubes... but there was one hellacious noise coming from the alternator. Removed it and found that the rear bearing has spun in the housing and the drive gear is worn. *more sighs* So my parts source is sending down a newly rebuilt replacement this weekend, if all goes well it will be installed by Monday. Hopefully that will cure the noise problem, otherwise I'll have to rip the motor apart to check the camshaft bearing.

Oh, and two days ago I had an interesting session with the bike's rear hub. One of the yokes on the rear u-joint had spit out it's circlip and the bearing cap had all but fallen out. LOTS of free play at that end and as I wiggled the driveshaft about I noticed some free play on the coupling fork at the transmission end. I guess that's where all the vibration I felt through the footpegs was coming from. So off came the rear wheel, hub and driveshaft. The coupling fork was secured by a castellated nut on the transmission output shaft. "Was" being the key word here, as it had unthreaded itself and was mashed into the rubber coupling "doughnut". Of course, its threads were totally stripped and the ones on the shaft weren't much better but I was able to scrounge a replacement nut from my hardware collection and use it to repair the shaft threads. A generous amount of blue Loc-Tite was then used to secure it in place.

The rear u-joint did not want to leave the hub and it took an hour of hammering, prying, cursing and several smashed fingers before it finally gave up the fight. I installed the new, never used hinge from the driveshaft that came with my 2WD sidecar (I opted not to convert the bike to 2WD, so it was just hanging on the wall of the garage) and made a new wedge bolt at work to replace the one that had been pounded into submission by previous owners.

Before re-installing the hub and wheel I checked the rear brake shoes just for the heck of it... and noticed the bracket for the lower pivot point was loose. The bolt was tight in place but it wasn't threaded down enough to clamp the bracket securely. So I removed it, thinking someone had simply put too long of a bolt in there but I found out that the threads had been previously stripped and a repair made by squirting some JB Weld into the hole and jamming the bolt back in place. So, I rethreaded the hole and installed a new bolt. And hey - the rear brake pedal now snaps back into position after use, something it never did before.

Last night I noticed a big puddle of oil under the sidecar diff hub. I had blocked off the driveshaft hole so it wouldn't leak after I had removed the drivshaft but never thought to check the oil level until two days ago. I removed the drain plug and watched about 5oz of very thick, black oil s l o w l y drip out in heavy strands. It looked more like crude grease than oil. I filled it with fresh 80W90 gear oil, silly me. Now that it was at the proper level it was free to seep out of the rear plate that was separating itself from the hub due to the bolts not being torqued down at the factory. I got so annoyed I actually thought about selling the Dnepr and using the money to get a sidecar for the Harley.

I just re-read all my blog entries.... hmm, maybe I should change the name to "Gummi's House Of Dnepr Horror Stories" as that seems to be the main topic in all my ramblings.

Angie and I were about to head out for a ride this morning when we noticed the rear tire on her Vulcan 800 was flat. It took a long time to inflate with the 12V mini-compressor, but I couldn't see any nails or sharp pointy things sticking out of the treads. Just to be safe, we phoned the bike shop and they were able to take it in for an inspection right away. So we headed out on the 28km trip to their service dept. About 10km into it her bike started wobbling and vibrating real bad; I rode up beside her and could see that the rear wheel was bouncing up and down like the hub was out of round or something. The further we went the more severe it got and I realised that the tire had gone completely flat again. We made it to the shop - my poor sweetie was white with fear when we got there - and waited while the mech checked it out. He pulled the tire and found that the valve stem was torn; looked like it had a small tear for awhile (which would account for the slow leak that dropped 4psi in a week) and it also had a fresh tear that was most likely the cause of the flat on the way there. So he got a new inner tube and installed it... then called me into the shop 1/2hr later. He had it mounted on the balancer and when it spun the wheel you could see two high spots on the top of the tread; the tire was seriously out of round. So that explained all the vibration and bouncing on the way there. The mech figures the belts had shifted inside the carcass; pure coincidence and bad luck with the defective valve stem. So they replaced the tire free of charge and under warranty and we were on our way. BTW, the tires were the Dunlop Harley brand... go figure.

I must be losing my mind. That friggin' Dnepr of mine has had more of an impact on my riding style than I first thought. I'm currently in the process of getting a new Ural hack for my Harley; Ken Beach at Old Vintage Cranks (he's the latest Ural Canadian dealer and is located near Guelph, Ontario) thinks he might have a lead on an '05 Retro hack. As soon as he gets it I'll be making arrangements to go visit him for the installation.

I feel pretty weird about the whole thing... been riding on two wheels for 23 years, but had a hack on my Sportster many years ago and know what it's like. There's a major change from two to three wheeled riding techniques and many pros and cons to both, but I think I can live with it. Maybe it's time I slowed down anyway... the Dnepr has re-introduced me to the "relax and smell the roses" part of riding and as a consequence the sidecar bug has bit me good. I'd love to have a new Tourist or Patrol but finances just don't permit that unless I sell the Harley, which is out of the question. I waited a long time for my FLHT and am not about to give it up so soon, so it seems the obvious choice is to attach a chair to it. That way I'll have one rig capable of extended highway speeds and another for wrenching and puttering about. And my dog wins either way.

But I still feel kinda weird/nervous/excited about the whole idea.