I may need to find a different sidehack tub

This almost looks like more fun...

What a neat barn mascot!

While at a fundraising auction at church today, I just couldn't resist picking up this little beauty.


This "Flying Dutchman"(I know.. how could I NOT buy it)was an advertising display (solid copper) that would have been found in a Moline Plow Co. dealership. I would estimate it to have been made around 1890 +/-. Originally, he had wings and held an ear of corn in his raised arm.


This statue for reasons nobody knows was stashed under a stairway in the church years ago. It had been sitting outside the back door for the last few years.



Here's an old print ad with a better image of what he looked like originally.


When I finish painting the tool room I think he'll look good on a shelf in there.

Nice ride on the holiday weekend...

I really need to get the MGB out more often. Often, I let it sit long enough that it needs a battery charge before it can go. It still cleans up pretty nice...

The Shovel Lives!

The shovel came off the lift Sunday as was fired up for a lot ride. The 98" motor runs STRONG. Compression is ridiculous. The stock starter only occasionally rolls the motor and kick starting is a major chore.

Sure sounds nice, though...

Read a passage today that I think I have written in my own mind or maybe told this story after a few beers to people that probably didn't want to hear it. It's amazing how insightful we think people are when they think like us...

"Every machine has its own, unique personality which probably could be defined as the intuitive sum total of everything you know and feel about it. This personality constantly changes, usually for the worse, but sometimes surprisingly for the better, and it is this personality that is the real object of motorcycle maintenance. The new ones start out as good-looking strangers and, depending on how they are treated, degenerate rapidly into bad-acting grouches or even cripples, or else turn into good-natured, long-lasting friends."

~Robert Pirsig

Looking More Like a Motorcycle

Made some more progress adding things that casual observers more commonly associate with motorbikes. Tanks on, seat on (although not feeling the buddy seat love just yet)...

Finally found some pipes that fit

Messed around trying to find some cheap drag pipes for the shovel. They wouldn't have been my first choice but I wanted to get something on quick to run. Well, the cheap pipes I thought would fill the bill came and didn't fit. Toledo Craigslist to the rescue. I found some new tru-dual headpipes and if you know me, you know there's always a few fishtail straights in a pile in the corner...

Brake assembly mocked up

Even the higher dollar re-pop stuff is getting all Taiwan Teddy on me. A forged in the USA hammer and a bad attitude brought it all to heel.....

Turn signals relocated on the shovel

on a new bracket I hammered out for the fender from Doug...

Sled changed color unexpectedly

After buying the Black Widow, a sinking feeling of too many projects crept up my spine. I found a clean low mile 800 Mountain Cat and unhooked from the widow.

Thanks for letting me welch, Geoff....

I decided I didn't have enough going on...

Got my replacement for the grenaded Powder Special

2005 Arctic Cat F6 Firecat Black Widow









Of course you know by now if I buy anything that new I wouldn't buy something that doesn't need work... Unfortunately, those pictures were taken before the last ride of the season.



It's not as awful as it looks. It's all unbolt/rebolt stuff. No tunnel or plastic damage. If I can figure out how to add reverse it's quite a step up for me.

Who can help a Luddite with Honda Wiring?

Can anybody guide through the haze on this goofy honda. I believe it's a 1978 Twinstar 185. I have a new battery in it (6V). I have absolutely nothing working. If I jump over the lugs with a screwdriver on the solenoid the starter rolls, but that's it. No lights, no horn, no turn signal, no ignition. Is there a master fuse in here I'm not finding? Last year I took apart all the conections I could find to clean and reassemble. No change. My neighbor wants his bike back that I told him I would fix two years ago.... ;^}

Let their be Juice!

Service entrance cable pulled into the tool room today. 100 amps of Alternating Current to the west end now. Let their be chips!

We don't need no stinking computers!

"When technology assures that no skill is required to do something, then it destroys it, for skill is the very least that is required to make art of any merit."