-Holiday won’t have access to an internet connection this evening so he asked me to update his blog a bit with what happened over the last couple of days.
He arrived at Loonette and Scan’s house in Yellow Springs on Thursday, a day earlier than planned. I met up with him and Loonette at Competition Accessories in Springfield, Ohio right after work on Friday, so we were able to get a bit of riding in before tbonee and family (and his 1-hour-old Vulcan 900) came up from Cincinnati. The following pics are from Caesar Creek state park which is S.E. of Dayton:
Later that night……a jam session:
It rained pretty hard Friday night, and we were all up ‘til 3:00am kickin’ it old skool. We finally departed around 10:00am after much appreciated hospitality from Scan, Looney, and family. “We” meaning Scan, tbonee, -Holiday, and myself. We left Yellow Springs and headed for the Ohio River via Cincinnati where we picked up Route 50 which would take us all the way to St. Louis.
Some pics of our first pit stop just west of Cincinnati:
tbonee’s 2-day-old Vulcan 900, freshly baptized on the ride through downtown Cincy:
It rained off and on in S.W. Ohio, but cleared once we crossed over into Indiana. Scan and tbonee had other obligations, so we parted ways in Versailles:
Once underway again, -Holiday and I picked up the pace in order to make up for us all sleeping-in a bit later than planned. We crossed the lower part of Indiana in record time, despite the slow-going nature of Route 50. We ran at a sustained 95mph for a good part of the time, crossing into triple digit range during some “now-or-never” passes. Part of the route took us through what appeared to be a state forest, with plenty of high-speed twisties and some decent elevation changes.
Once over the border of Illinois we stopped so I could….*gasp*….put on the Skid-Lid I brought since I was under the impression that Illinois was a helmet-law state. Luckily a couple bikers rode by with their hair a-blowin’ so I gladly put that thing back in the saddle bag! We didn’t get too much further when the unfortunate finally occurred….-Holiday’s bike started bleeding. The oil pump cover, which had been damaged along with the engine case by a previous owner (mentioned earlier in the blog), was leaking far worse than before. I can only speculate why the problem escalated, though I’m sure the high-speed run through Indiana didn’t help. In any case, -Holiday’s right boot was covered in oil and it was unsafe to continue with the possibility of coating the rear tire with the slippery goodness. So, off came the cover along with a healthy application of JB-Weld so we could come up with a solution to get us up the road. The best I could come up with at the side of a busy highway was to coat the mating surfaces with RTV and pack the inside of the cover with a make-shift gauze (one of my socks). This helped only slightly but was enough to get us to a gas station in Olney, Illinois to take a closer look and assess our options.
I decided to try making a gasket with some duct tape, which actually seemed to hold pretty well (no drips at least), but was never tested at high-speed:
In the end, we were 150 miles short of our destination (St. Louis) with two hours of daylight remaining. The tiny lackluster town of Olney had a Super-8 motel, two auto parts stores, a KFC next door to the motel, and a 24/7 Wal-Mart a mile up the street. The decision was made to crash for the night and use the remaining daylight to attempt a more suitable repair to the cracked cover and gouged engine case. I had never had any success with the 2-part JB-Weld gel, which is what was originally used and had apparently broken down due to heat and contact with oil – but I
had experienced success with the JB-Weld putty which comes in a tube and has to be kneaded. So, we purchased all the supplies at O’Reiley Auto Parts and checked-in to the motel.
After removing all traces of RTV, JB-Weld gel, and silicone (a futile repair attempt by the previous owner) it was time to remove all the oil residue. A quick shot of aerosol engine degreaser made short work of it and prepped the bare metal adequately for the putty. After most of a roll set up quicker than it could be applied (d’oh!) the results looked promising:
Keep in mind there was a roughly 1-1/2 x ¼” chunk of metal missing out of the engine case, and a hole in the cover itself big enough to pass a dime through! The JB-Weld epoxy putty supposedly contains metal dust and can withstand 300-degrees and pretty much most solvents and petroleum products. It was the best we could come up with at 7:00pm in the middle of B.F.E. and, the last I heard from –Holiday, he was west of Topeka, Kansas without a single drip.
This morning we made a run to the aforementioned 24/7 Wal-Mart and purchased a wrench to adjust the chain on his bike (and some sun block for my John Denver wannabe nose!). Apparently the shop that changed his tire neglected to replace the cotter pin in the castle nut on his axle and it crept forward causing the chain to contact the frame and swingarm. After sorting that out we parted ways at 10:00am. I had to be back in Marysville, Ohio by 3:00pm to fetch the kids with my truck so I spent all of Route 130 and most of I-70 running 100+mph. –Holiday’s goal was to make the Colorado border by sundown, but I believe he found Kansas little wider than expected so…….he’ll pick it up from here.
-z00t
P.S. Yes, I have many more pics of Friday night's "festivities" but am very much afraid that Loonette will dis-own me if I share them here!
I'm glad the bars seem to be working out for you. I'll be following your progress, as I hope to do something similar some day. You should be passing within about 75 miles of me within the next day or two (Effingham, IL is 75 Miles south) 
Thanks, Holiday, for dusting off the guitars with Scan. That's always fun, no matter how rusty everyone is. (my kids said that they didn't hear a thing! I'm amazed by that, 'cuz we were pretty loud sometimes).
. I think its managable, but worst case, I have extra fluid, and even a rebuilt kit for the slave cylinder should it come to that.
