cheesy

Last Sunday was the 45th annual Chicago Toys for Tots Motorcycle Parade. It was also the first time for me riding it. I'm not a guy for group rides but I had a great time and I'm already looking forward to the 46th. It was a 55 mile ride for me to get to the start at the Dan Ryan Woods FP at 83rd and Western. It was also 17F when I left home. Glad I have heated grips and winter riding gear. There were thousands of motorcycles participating. And just a few Urals. The route ran north on Western Ave to Lane Tech High School on Belmont, about 15 miles, and took nearly an hour to cover. A surprising number of people lined the route to watch and wave to the riders. I had some faith in humanity restored as I was stopped, waiting to turn into the Lane Tech parking lot. A young guy and his little boy came up to my rig and placed an arm load of toys on the sidecar as a donation. The ride home was 60 miles and was a tad warmer. I'm glad my buddy talked me into it.

The short shakedown ride on the new to me Raleigh Technium was uneventful, which is a good thing. New tires and tubes, greasing the bearings, a replacement saddle and a wipe down was all it took to get this 36 year old bike bike back on the road. The last time I used stem shifters was on a Schwinn Varsity sometime in the mid sixties. I did not like them then and I do not like them now. I said I won't molest this bike but I do have a pair of bar end shifters looking for a home. We'll see. As far as how it rides, very similar to my Miyata's and my bikes built with Reynolds 531 tubes, stiff but not harsh. Meaning your fillings stay in and the frame doesn't flex much when climbing or hammering. The handling is neutral, so it goes where you point it. I will need to retrain myself on using derailleurs, though. Too many years on fixed gears and 3 speeds. I think I'll keep it in the herd for Old Phart rides.

This followed me home today. It's a barely used 1987 Raleigh Technium 440. Other than a new old saddle and new tires, I'm not going to molested this one. Even leaving those damn 'Turkey Leg' brake levers and 'Jewel Snagger' shifters on there. These were a technological breakthrough when released in 1986. The three main tubes are heat treated aluminum bonded to internal steel lugs. Not brazed or welded. The seat and chain stays, along with the front fork, are cro-mo steel. Those parts are brazed. There were four models. The 420, 440, 460, and the 480. All models used the same frame but the higher the number, the better the parts hung on the frame. Back when I was doing ultra-distance racing in the late 80s, early 90s, we called these bikes 'screwed and glued together' because the main tubes and internal lugs are basically Loc-tited together. Must have been an okay way because it's still together after 35 years.

New front tire day.

I afraid I do not. I got the bb from a I guy I know on chinariders.net by the handle of Falkon45. I may get together with him next time I have to go to Beaufort, SC. Also known to the Sales and Service Staff as Corporate Hell.

1300 miles on the Ural this week, with a marathon 450 mile day on Thursday. Solo camping trip to N. Wisconsin.

My boss at my previous job was a loud racist, sexist, xenophobic POS. He got his rocks off by teasing and insulting the crew but got bent out of shape if was turned back on him. Myself and a couple of the guys were usually the first to the shop and the last to leave. Depending on how big an A**hole he'd been during the day, we'd either turn up the volume on his radio, or change it to a foreign language or soul station and crank up the volume. He'd jump pretty high when he pushed the ON button. As he drank a carton of cold milk every morning, we'd crank up the temp on the fridge once in a while to watch him chug the milk with lumps of frozen milk in it. His eyes would get big as he thought he had just swallowed some spoiled milk. He was a walking doppleganger to Mike Ditka, right down to the gum chewing. We just called him Dikka.

The best laid plans... Working on this DeSoto trike has been an edumaction. Some of it is because the trike is kind of a bottom feeder in quality and design, some of it is because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and a lot of brain farting was involved. I replaced the less than adequate Bendix rear coaster brake hub with an NOS Maillard drum brake freewheel hub. I also replaced the 20 for $1 flange bearings with 8 for $15 bearings. Before that could happen, I needed to make a new axle. The axle that was in place was a replacement Euro/Asian 14.8mm axle. American built trikes take a 5/8" axle. The 'engineer' that installed the wrong axle proceeded to weld all the 5/8" parts to the 14.8mm axle.(prick) The above is the finished set up. There is a 3 speed freewheel on the hub with the 22t cog on the FW connected to an 18t cog fixed cog on the axle. Brain fart #1 is that the fixed cog should have been a freewheel. Brain fart #2 was thinking I could use the other two cogs on the freewheel with a derailleur as a 2 speed. I probably could if the 22t cog was a 24t or larger so the chain on the middle cog would clear the chain on the larger cog, but I'd rather slam my hand in a car door several times than change freewheel cogs. A friend in Savannah gifted me a BMX bottom bracket adapter with an RPM BB spindle(good stuff)so I could use a square taper crank. That knocked about five pounds off the trike right there. I opted to use French 170mm Soligar cranks with Shimano 105 pedals. Very nice and very light weight. However, brain fart #3 showed up. I did not take into account the bottom bracket height, or lack of it. Lousy pic pic but that height will result in bruised and bloody heels. Solution? Go with 26" wheels. I already have lightweight rims on hand. I was planning on tossing the rusty 20" rims anyway and using alloy rims. Now I just need to find 26" fork with a 7" steer tube. That is turning out to be tougher than I thought but I shall persevere.

Be glad it is the AWC and not the TCW. To quote an old Ziggy cartoon, “Your brakes will slow you down a bit but I don’t know about out and out stopping.” Out on the 1968 Raleigh Superbe yesterday.

Late 60's Schwinn 3 speed would be a Sturmey Archer AW with a 36 hole shell. Good choice.

What rear hub is on the black one?

I know nothing of Maxwell tractors but we had McCormick-Deerings on the family farm when I was kid. Other than them being red, all I recall is that those seats really hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Good score.

You do nice work.

Latest acquisition. 1979/1980 trike called, wait for it, DeSoto. It's missing the rear basket but that little platform where the basket was sure looks inviting for a small engine.

My grandsons and I did a little local off roading earlier in the week. Both the ATVs are electric. I didn't feel like changing clothes to ride my fat bike with them, so I put some 2 stroke into the tank of the Phrench Phart and rode along with them. That's the newer of my two Velosolex mopeds. It's a 1977 4600 V3 built for the US market. With an 18 mph top speed, they couldn't give them away. Is it a bicycle or a moped? Not sure, because it doesn't do either very well.

I made use of the IMWA (Irbit Motor Works of America) warehouse sale of painted steel parts and ordered a new sidecar fender for the Ural. Got the new fender for $69 + shipping. I can't fix my rusted out fender for that.

Priorities.

That is awful.

Out and about this humid morning. Stopped at the local coffee shop for some ice tea with lemonade, aka, an Arnold Palmer. So far, an hour riding the bike burns more calories than trying to get the elusive 10K steps in in 12 hours. My wife is getting upset with my weight loss.

The boy in the green bucket is getting a tad large to ride in the tub with his little brother.

When I was working, mowing was one of my stress relievers. Now, it's just something I like to do. Maintenance on this beast isn't much; once a year oil change, filters, and blade sharpening. Hit it once a month with the grease gun. This thing is so much faster than my old Troy-Bilt, too. Used to take upwards of 2 hours to do the lawn, now it's about 45 minutes.

That's my Cub Cadet zero turn mower. A time saver when you have an acre to mow.

I can quit anytime. And this isn't showing what's in the attic.

So I removed the spring and I am pretty impressed right now. Thanks, Tom. The Desoto has been in the family since 1978 and I don't ever remember it running this nice. I will add the everything in the carb was pretty wonky. I'm willing to bet that my Dad probably built this carb from three different ones and eyeballed everything(Probably where I got my carpentry skills[?]). Depending on what you read, float height is anywhere from 1/16" to 5/64". I'm willing to bet the float height was in the neighborhood of 3/8". Explains a lot. I have the M6 transmission in this beast and I didn't notice any difference in shifting before and after the rebuild. Maybe the spring was never there to start with. What I did notice is that acceleration is not so leisurely* as before and the kickdown now works 100% of the time. There is still an issue with the choke, but one thing at a time. *I used to think my Ural sidecar rig would slap the DeSoto in a drag race. I don't think that anymore.

Hey all, I pulled the above carb off my 48 Desoto for rebuilding. I haven't found much on the EV2 other than in the Carter spec book, but what I have found in my DeSoto shop manual shows a spring below the dashpot piston. I don't recall seeing it when I pulled the carb apart but that doesn't mean I didn't drop it and it went into an alternate universe. I did find one errant spring in my search, so I used it but I may have found someone else's spring from that alternate universe. In a nutshell, the engine starts better than it has in years but I can't get the idle below 1500 rpm unless I manually pull the dashpot linkage down. Once there, it idles fine until I blip the throttle, then I have to manually pull the dashpot linkage down again because it's once again sitting at 1500 rpm. I know the purpose of the dashpot is to slow the return of the throttle so it doesn't slam shut, so I am assuming I have found the wrong spring. So, is there even supposed to be a spring below the dashpot piston? If there is, does anyone have dimensions of this spring or an extra one taking up space in a drawer? Thanks.