Other Things I'm Playing With This Year.

Enjoy Phred. That was built when Chrysler had it's business sorted out.MB was at the helm. If you look around there are fun things to play with that are not TOO expensive. Keep us posted. Maybe start a thread on your Crossfire. I don't know that much about those. It would make interesting reading. ...J.D.

 

Finally got the last of my mechanic's shop moved over to the heated garage yesterday. We had a reasonably warm day and my bum knee was not hurting too much. Of course a little help from Mrs.JD helped too. Even though it is mid-January, I'll still get some shop time in before it gets warm again. Maybe next year I can get some insulation and drywall up. ...J.D.

 

I am finally beating this year's to-do list in to submission. Now that we are well in to February, I can get down to servicing/repairing my bikes .Yea !
I started to touch on this subject elsewhere on this site, but decided I needed to be out of the way of other conversation. Started taking my.Sprint apart today. Fixed it's broken throttle cable [as discribed elsewhere]. The bike has been out of service for almost 2 years. I have a oil pressure.gauge on order that I am installing in the dash. I need to flush all it's brakes.this year. Never been done, at least not by me. Going to change it's plugs, put in some good gas, a.battery and hope.she fires with little problem. ...J.D.

 

I ordered me an oil pressure gauge and a new throttle cable for the Sprint this week. [Tried to repair the old cable, but that failed]. The gauge arrived so far. I need to find fittings to attach this mechanical VDO pressure gauge to the banjo fitting on the cylinder head. I had a banjo bolt machined that will accept a 1/8 npt fitting. I have already done this on my other T-3 engine. On the sprint the gauge needs to be mounted remotely as there is no room for an electronic sender due to the fairing. Here is a picture of the one I did on my Legend. ...J.D.

 

DD: Yes. I have one on my America like that but they are kind of pricey, here at least. This was a lot cheaper. Here is the one on the America. I am real big on monitoring oil pressure and engine temp. ...J.D.

 

If I am not careful I'm going to get caught with a nice early spring and nothing to ride. Spring weather is coming in mid-February this year, and I don't have a bike together to start the spring. I have my Sprint still in pieces. I installed a VDO oil pressure gauge where the clock used to be. I have been held up a bit waiting for a new throttle cable. I opted to buy it out of Germany and pay the shipping instead of being robbed by the local dealership. In the mean time the battery on "Lola" my old America gave it's last gasp. The was the battery that was in her when she was a garage find down in San Diego County in December of 2014 [think I got my moneys worth out of that one]. Still have "Cedric" waiting for a new starter. Come on ol' man ! Get to work. Spring waits for no one. ...J.D.

 

Well it happened. All I had left to ride was "Lola" and her battery died. I had to pull off getting the Sprint in shape. Can only afford so many parts in one month. $90 for a new battery. Spent the afternoon installing it. Boy ! The factory could have made that a lot easier to get in and out. What a pain ! But she is up and running. Weather is becoming very spring like and that old America sounds GREAT ! ...J.D.

 

An interesting observation on this battery problem. I had been noticing the bike being hard to start and running a little "off" the last few rides. I had chalked it up to the fact that it had not had it's spark plugs changed in YEARS. I figured I'd change them and all would be well again. What faked me out was when I would put it on the battery maintainer after every ride, the charger light would go to green after a minute or two and all would seem normal. But the engine was still a bit sluggish and the exhaust did not have it''s usual sharp, clean sound. Changed the battery, and she is back to normal. I checked the old battery after I took it out. It still reads good voltage. It still comes up to charge on the maintainer, but it won't start the bike. Don't think I have ever seen a motorcycle battery do that. Interesting [at least to me]…J.D.

 

I never did anything with Commodore. My computer experience was PC based. In 1985 I was contracted.out as an apprentice engineer to a company in Orange County. A handful of us were sent to school to learn to write some of the earliest automation software to run HVAC systems in large high rise buildings. At the time I knew nothing about computers or software, but I had a deep understanding of how these mechanicial HVAC systems worked. In those days you had to write [actually type in] every character by hand. I didn't even know how to type yet ! I had to learn the computer language, typing, and translate my mechanical knowledge into program. All at the same time. Needless to say, the mid-80's are a blurr in my memory. I graduated from my apprenticeship in 1988. As they say "the rest is history". ...J.D.