cheesy

Interesting. I ran a pair Holley 1904 carbs on my 1952 Ford F2 215 six cylinder. My SIL now has the truck so I know where there is a stash of extra carbs. And I know them inside and out. (wonders to self, How could I make the M6 work with this?)

Remember this abomination? I I finally got around to pulling the starter today. It was locked up with a rusty armature. It took about 90 minutes to make it nice and shiny. And conductive. I hooked up my big battery charger to it and it spun like new. Got it back in the engine and it turns over now. Next step will be getting some spark out of the Magnatron coil to the spark plugs.

I grew up outside of a small town in Wisconsin. I lived in Chicago for three years and since 1978, I will go no closer than O'hare airport. I now live outside of a small town in rural Illannoy. I don't get to spend as much time as I like there because I'm still jetting all over the US. But I'm always glad to get back. We have a very active Lions Club and American Legion. There is also micro brewery that is community oriented. Kind of spendy but the food a brew are worth it. I do wish we had a hardware store, though. A few developments have gone up in the few years east and north of us. What I have taken some smug enjoyment in is folks moving 'to the country' then getting bent about the trains, crop dusting, Dairy Air, and harvesting.

Ditto

You could always go with an alternator.

A future 'Sit, Stay, Ride' candidate. Our grand puppy, Anna.(The grandsons have this 'Frozen' fixation) 12 weeks, 20 lbs, and glass shards for teeth. This is the first step in training, getting her to just sit in the sidecar. So far, a natural.

It’s gotten to the point that I have a complete-ish set of tools in various locations around the house; my garage, wife’s garage, basement. It hasn’t stopped me from loosing what I just had in my hand but I know where there is a duplicate. As far a buying a replacement, a few years ago I was having an engine issue with my Ural and wanted to do a compression test. I went through every drawer in every tool box in the garage and no dice. Said screw it and picked up a new one at Garbage Freight. Finished the testing, all was good. Set the new gauge down on the bench to make a spot in the drawer and found that I had set the new gauge right next to my missing one on the bench.

The venerable Raleigh/Rudge/Humber DL-1. Still built under license in India as the Eastman and China as the Flying Pigeon. Probably a few other places, too. Another bit of useless information to fill your brains. At least eight different types of Raleigh's take up space in my garage to keep the DeSoto company. As soon as I finish my lunch, I'm heading out to rebuild another one.

How to be a cool grandpa? Get a sidecar. My youngest grandson and I rode to the Chicago edition of the IMS yesterday for his 5th birthday. Does he look happy? We couldn't do much with the motorcycle demos because of his small stature and age, so we found kid stuff to do. And there was plenty to keep him happy. We ran into a downpour on the way home, but grandpa was a Boy Scout and keeps rain gear in the sidecar trunk. He must have been tuckered out as he fell asleep in the sidecar, in the rain .

Sadly, I have had plenty of those days. This summer, the bikes and I have been getting along just fine. Me and that bleeping Wrangler…

My son in law took this photo of the hood ornament on my 1948 DeSoto with his IPhone. I couldn't do this in a darkroom when I knew my way around a darkroom.

This followed me home yesterday. It was a 1975 Honda CB750F at one time. It's now UJM powered by an 18hp Briggs & Stratton flat twin. Fifty bucks from me is keeping it out of the scrap heap.

You beat me to it. I grew up in KC and never heard of it either.

The stars all aligned and I scored a tire. My granddaughters are coming in from Maine tomorrow and will be wanting in the sidecar on Monday. Methinks a little garage time with them early Monday morning to help change the tire will be interesting.

Well, heck. It looks like the Ural may get parked after next week. It needs a new pusher tire and my tire of choice seems to be out of stock in the entire US until October. There are others available but they're street tires that won't help one bit once the snow flies. I'll have to ride the Honda in the interim. Oh, the humanity.

Jeez, how could I forget Puerto Rico? My favorite customers and a great place for a get away. A few nights in a B&B located in the upper elevations of the rain forest is one of the best ways to unwind. And they have rum.

I did a brake fluid flush and oil change on my 42 year old Honda CX500 last night and took it for spin. Woohoo. I'd almost forgot what acceleration and 75 mph felt like after 9 months of Uraling. I did remember to put my foot down when stopping (my big fear) and that there is no heel shifter on the Honda. I'd also forgotten what a pig the Honda is when I roll it around the garage to get it out.

With the employer running me ragged before I retire, I've been packing on frequent flyer miles. I'm sitting on something like 325,000 with American. Once I retire, my other half and I will take a first class trip somewhere tropical, or mountainous, then I will never set foot in an airport again. I have 55 flights under my belt since 8 January and have two more next week.

It took me 65 years, but I finally managed to set foot in all fifty states. Knocked the last one, Mississippi, off the list last week. If it hadn't been for the new job I started in 97, I'd probably rarely gotten out of the Great Lakes states. World Bingo, now, I have quite a ways to go but have a pretty good start there. Canada, Mexico, Bahamas, Iceland, England, Spain, France, South Africa, and Australia. Not too bad for a kid whose parents rarely left Wisconsin.

UDF or Ural Delay Factor event of the year. Wife and I took the Ural to the Dairy Joy Cafe in Hinckley, IL for a Saturday cheeseburger run. There must have been some kind of sports car event in the area because there were a few Corvettes, a Porsche or two, and a sweet little 1990 Miata that we parked next to, in the parking lot. So, my wife and I were sitting on the concrete parking bumper behind the Ural, downing our burgers, when a large Mercedes sedan pulled into the parking lot. A well dressed couple and their son got out of the car and made a beeline to the Ural. Dad and son are giving the rig a once over and asking the usual questions; "Is it a real military bike?, Did you restore it?, It's Russian!!?" Mom pipes up and says, "Both these guys said, Screw the Corvettes, we wanna see that bike."? Happens with the DeSoto, too.

A couple of old road maps.

Tom Lehrer. I have a Russian friend that about wet himself when I played Lehrers' Lobachevsky for him.

Yes and no. I keep a mileage/destination log for the company car only because it’s gets zero personal use. They didn’t believe me at first, the log saved everyone a legal fight. I keep a maintenance log for my Russian motorcycle because it’s Russian and, for the most part, 40’s technology. Anything else, nada. If the light that says it’s time to clean the water softener comes on, it means it’s time to change the furnace filter. I did keep a weekly log for finished and in work jobs when I ran our shop but management was more interested in when the floor got swept, so I quit doing it.

I’m approaching a Russian milestone. My Ural sidecar rig has 31,005 miles on it. Another 63 miles and it will have the US equivalent of 50,000 kilometers. Something I was told I’d never see on a Ural. I will admit that the original speedometer crapped out early. ?

I travel for work every week and the last month has been costly, with the exception of Puerto Rico, regarding rental cars. Because I rent so often, I can always get a car but it’s pricey. One of my co workers spent 10 days working in Hawaii and was socked $700 per day. Not our money, but still…