First ride in a month and upcoming motorcycle maintenance projects

I have been traveling for work almost every day for the past four weeks, and the one afternoon I was home was one of the rare Southern California rainy days.  So for nearly 30 days I hadn't ridden.  I had visited a Polaris shop, talked bikes with a few of our students and even received some replacement parts for the new-to-me 1994 Kawasaki Concours.  But I hadn't ridden.  Yesterday I pumped up the older Connie's tires, checked the fluids, rolled her out of the garage and tried to fire her up.  True to form she was a little hard to start, but since it's nearly summertime tempuratures here already she fired up on the third try and soon was idling nicely.  I let the Connie warm up a little bit longer than usual and was off.  The improvised bracket my buddy Glen and I made is holding up nicely-I'll probably pull it off when I move the tank to the 94 Connie for test rides and plasti-coat it, but for now that motorcycle repair worked well.  I rode on a few errands and took the long way home to my short twisty road "run" I do just to get some non-highway miles in as well.  I rode about 50 miles which was a good break-in ride after that much time off.

I've got a number of projects-both motorcycle maintenance and motorcycle repair-awaiting me.  The replacement parts I bought off of the Concours forum (a great resource for Connie owners) have been sitting in the garage.  I opened the box tonight and the front brake system looks great at first glance.  The centerstand is in much better shape than the one on the '94 Connie but not a priority.  If you've ever put a full-size sport-tourer on a centerstand you'll know why!  I'll likely do that project as "mechanical fellowship" with Glen.

The next project will be a new front tire for the old Connie.  The parts are on order from BikeBandit and should be here by the time we're ready to do the project.  My local indy shop where I have tires mounted and balanced isn't open tomorrow, so that motorcycle maintenance project is awaiting both the tire and the shop being open.  No rush as the current front probably has 500 miles plus left on it and I won't get to ride that much until this weekend at the earliest.

Other repairs need to be done to the bodywork on the older Connie, but that can wait.  I also need to service the Harley Sportster's K&N air filter, but the bike is out on loan right now for a friend who is rebuilding his bike's clutch.  I am in no rush to get it back what with these projects and also getting some riding in!

I'll post some pics and maybe a video or two to my YouTube channel, where there are a few motorcycle maintenance videos already.  And the Joe Namath/C.C. Ryder sandwich intro scene from C.C. and Company, probably my favorite biker exploitation movie!  Check it out if you get a chance.

Too long on the road-but not riding

I am finally near the end of nearly four straight weeks on the road for work.  The one day I was home not only did it rain but I had much more important business than riding or wrenching on motorcycles to take care of, including visiting some dear friends having a medical emergency/distressing news and spending some time with my family.

Which means as soon as I get home I have some deferred motorcycle maintenance to get done, and some riding to do!  The projects I know I have to do are:

Replace a Kawasaki Concours front tire
Remove/Replace other Kawasaki Concours front brake system
Bleed and adjust both Connie's clutch fluid (may just change both out)
Clean the K&N air filter on the Harley Sportster
Sort out linking tank on "new" Connie or migrate tank from bike to bike for test ride

Speaking of test ride, I need to ride too!  March 11th and so far ZERO miles ridden.  Blah.

New motorcycle maintenance videos coming soon

I just found two motorcycle maintenance videos on my tablet.  A few months ago I removed the front forks from my 1999 Harley-Davidson Sportser, took them to an independent shop and had the seals replaced.  I re-installed them, tightened everything up, and front fork is good as new.  I did the work back in October of 2013 and shot two short videos of the removal.  I even blogged a little bit about the fork seal replacement project, but never posted the videos to YouTube.  Since my YouTube channel is taking on a definite motorcycle maintenance theme, with both Sportster maintenance and Kawasaki Concours maintenance videos making up the majority of the uploads, I'll add these two videos as well.  Both are fairly short-one isn't even a minute long.

I don't go step-by-step into how to remove your front forks, but show enough that someone with basic skills and either the shop manual or a Clymer manual should be all over the job.  It was very easy-I was able to do the front fork removal project quickly on my floor lift but left the fork seal replacement to an independent shop I have used in the past.  He's a real pro and between not wanting to hassle with the forks at that time and give him some business it was a no brainer to take the forks and new seals to him.  He was able to squeeze the project in between some major work he had on the lifts.  The fork seals were really boogered up-if not the originals they were pretty close to that age.

In the second video I also disclose the true goal of any motorcycle maintenance project.  How's that for a teaser?  Hopefully my WiFi will speed up today and I can get them uploaded as both are 50MB and a 9MB e-mail attachment is in limbo.

Ride far!