CAR THREAD ( ..wheeee) :)

[DocRob]

Our dog owns the spacy luggage compartment of our Jeep. He is not that big, but has more space than anybody else. On the other hand, he never destroys things other than unattended shoelaces.

Cheers Rob

[Clunkmeister]

On 2/22/2022 at 9:17 AM, Martinnfb said:

Love the woodwork Ernie. I have a licence plate from Bratislava, not vintage, but probably rare in Texas. You want?

Not just yes,  but HELL YES!

[Clunkmeister]

Martin, that Jeep is so amazingly cool!  I’ve been wanting one, but I’ll wait till the market cools off a bit first…

[Clunkmeister]

In the meantime, we dragged out another old clunker and cleaned it off. Still starts and runs well, but it really needs to be tightened up and serviced. 
I love big old American motorcycles.
Big, brash, slow, noisy, leaky and smelly.

Just like me 😀

This thing cruises along like you’re riding on a wheeled sofa. Incredible torque and power below 3500 RPM, and will run all day long at 150 KPH (90 mph) and not break a sweat.   Not an Italian or Japanese superbike, but Harley Davidson pretty much invented the heavy touring bike market. 

[harv]

Wow, Ern. That's beautiful 😍....harv

[Clunkmeister]

15 minutes ago, harv said:

Wow, Ern. That's beautiful 😍....harv

You’re a rider, Harv. C’mon down and put some miles on it. It really needs to be taken out and ran long and hard. 
I’m doing some changes and improvements to it since this was last on the road. Technology has advanced and most of the old Harley problems have been solved  

1. install a swing arm stabilizer to cure the dreaded Harley death wobble plus a new front engine mount.

2. Upgrade the cam tensioners from spring loaded to hydraulic, plus while in there, install a higher volume oil pump. Maybe beefier cams for even more bottom end grunt. This is the Twin Cam motor. 88 cid  plus a 5 speed transmission and belt drive  

3. Change to true duals with fishtail mufflers. Plus maybe get a more “socially acceptable” helmet for today’s sensibilities 😇

4. New tires. The old ones are 6 years old and these look best with wide whitewall tires anyway. 

 

It’ll just make it smoother, more rideable, safer, and much easier to live with. You hop on a Road King, you expect smooth and steady for 2000 miles. 
I also have the original air spring solo seat for it with compressor and gauge. Plus the rear fender chrome luggage rack and saddlebag chrome wrap around crash guards. 
You and Bev can come down and hop on.  Slide on out to Cali and visit family. This thing’ll eat up the miles. 

[Clunkmeister]

A more sociably acceptable helmet is in order. I’m certainly not a troublemaker anymore.  💩💩💩

 

[Martinnfb]

What's wrong with that helmet?  As long as its DOT approved you should be fine.

[Clunkmeister]

3 minutes ago, Martinnfb said:

What's wrong with that helmet?  As long as its DOT approved you should be fine.

It ain’t. It never was, and never will be.  Besides, wearing that I kinda look like Sgt Schultz. 

[Martinnfb]

Rokblokz mud flaps arrived at noon and what a beautifully engineered product. They look little oversized with the stock tires, but I will make a way where there seems to be no way……. Wait what ?!

 

 

 

 

[Clunkmeister]

Martin, that looks awesome!  The color is seriously cool, almost a German panzer grey. 

[Clunkmeister]

46 minutes ago, harv said:

Wow, Ern. That's beautiful 😍....harv

The bike was sold new as a Firefighter Tribute model at a reduced price to active duty firemen after 9-11.  It has special badging test to that.  I got it from the firefighter after he quit riding.   Harley-Davidson certainly has the style down. It hasn’t changed in 65 years. 🤣

[DocRob]

6 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

A more sociably acceptable helmet is in order. I’m certainly not a troublemaker anymore.  💩💩💩

 

Nice bike Ernie, not my style, but as you said for eating up miles comfortably it's perfect and the looks are just wow, but I doubt, that you can go above 3500 rpm without nose bleeding.

There's a more socially accepted variant of helmet. These were worn by German firefighters until the 80's or 90's at least, but not DOT approved.

Cheers Rob

 

[Clunkmeister]

Those are mighty cool, Rob. The bottom one I’ve never seen before. 
We have a huge land mass here, and these big Harleys are simply amazing at eating up the miles on the interstates. These certainly aren’t built to the same formula as, say, a Ducati or a Triumph triple, but they are all great in their own right.  Not fun on tight city streets, though. 

[BlrwestSiR]

Very nice bike there Ernie. A lovely colour and presentation. 

Reminds me of the ones the cops here in Toronto ride. Except theirs are white.

One time I saw an officer riding one. She was maybe 5' tall and looked like one of my boys had hopped on it. That being said, she rode it like an absolute pro.

Carl

 

 

[GusMac]

18 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

In the meantime, we dragged out another old clunker and cleaned it off. Still starts and runs well, but it really needs to be tightened up and serviced. 
I love big old American motorcycles.
Big, brash, slow, noisy, leaky and smelly.

Just like me 😀

This thing cruises along like you’re riding on a wheeled sofa. Incredible torque and power below 3500 RPM, and will run all day long at 150 KPH (90 mph) and not break a sweat.   Not an Italian or Japanese superbike, but Harley Davidson pretty much invented the heavy touring bike market. 

Looks amazing Ernie. A hilltop road near us gets a lot of bikers in the summer and they pass near us as they come off the bottom. You can always tell the Harleys just by that glorious, distinctive sound they have. Not the best round some of the sharp corners though, or for typical Scottish summer weather! 😄

[Clunkmeister]

3 hours ago, GusMac said:

Looks amazing Ernie. A hilltop road near us gets a lot of bikers in the summer and they pass near us as they come off the bottom. You can always tell the Harleys just by that glorious, distinctive sound they have. Not the best round some of the sharp corners though, or for typical Scottish summer weather! 😄

Yeah, they’re a handful on the twisties, if for no other reason than that they weigh over 60 stone. 800 lbs!  
But they’re nice handling bikes, and extremely nimble given their size.  They’re more limited by lean angle than anything else. They’ll grind the inner board in an even moderately aggressive turn if you’re a straight up and down rider, so you learn to slide way off the seat inward to keep the bike upright, and then you can really run it through the sweepers. 

[Clunkmeister]

12 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Very nice bike there Ernie. A lovely colour and presentation. 

Reminds me of the ones the cops here in Toronto ride. Except theirs are white.

One time I saw an officer riding one. She was maybe 5' tall and looked like one of my boys had hopped on it. That being said, she rode it like an absolute pro.

Carl

 

 

Yep, those cops sure know how to handle their big Harleys. They tried Kawasakis one year due to upfront cost savings, and they had all new Harleys again within 2 years. The Japanese bikes just didn’t hold up to the constant pounding like the Harleys do. 

[BlrwestSiR]

Brought our Honda Element in for service. I asked the dealership to take a look for a randomly occurring rattle. They checked the cat and although not the source of the rattle, they noticed that the flange on it attaching it to the exhaust is badly corroded. Not a surprise being a rust belt car. The surprise though was the quote to fix it:

 

Needless to say, I told the dealer to leave it alone. 

[Martinnfb]

Bandits, aftermarket converter with flanges and a brand new welder cost a fragment of that amount. 
Or even a complete aftermarket exhaust  system. I’m fuming just looking at it. 

[BlrwestSiR]

2 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Bandits, aftermarket converter with flanges and a brand new welder cost a fragment of that amount. 
Or even a complete aftermarket exhaust  system. I’m fuming just looking at it. 

At this point, I think I'm going to leave it until/if it fails and then deal with it. 

Since they no longer do emissions tests here, a friend suggested just  getting a straight pipe welded in and forgo the extra costs.

Forgot to mention, we bought the car last year for $6800.

[GusMac]

20 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

Yeah, they’re a handful on the twisties, if for no other reason than that they weigh over 60 stone. 800 lbs!  
But they’re nice handling bikes, and extremely nimble given their size.  They’re more limited by lean angle than anything else. They’ll grind the inner board in an even moderately aggressive turn if you’re a straight up and down rider, so you learn to slide way off the seat inward to keep the bike upright, and then you can really run it through the sweepers. 

Yes, it's the tight corners here that are the test. Thanks for the explanation of the 'correct' cornering technique for a Harley as all my biker mates ride Japanese bikes or Ducatis, so never heard of that one. They all regard the ability to get as close to horizontal as a badge of honour until it goes horribly wrong! Done a bit too much hospital visiting over the years than I'd care to remember.

[Clunkmeister]

On 5/18/2022 at 3:56 PM, GusMac said:

Yes, it's the tight corners here that are the test. Thanks for the explanation of the 'correct' cornering technique for a Harley as all my biker mates ride Japanese bikes or Ducatis, so never heard of that one. They all regard the ability to get as close to horizontal as a badge of honour until it goes horribly wrong! Done a bit too much hospital visiting over the years than I'd care to remember.

Ha, yep.  Riding a big Harley fast can be done easily enough, but it’s a totally different technique. Sport bike riders often can’t break their old habits, and that’s where the reputation of them being real slugs arises.  
 

I’ll also point out that Harley-Davidson also manufactures several different chassis, most of which are completely different in design.  They have the Softail, which looks all the world like a classic hardtail bike, with the big av-Twin, except it has a hidden rear suspension. I think Jeroen rides one, actually.  Then the Dyna, which is an update of the old FXR, who’s frame layout was a clone of the classic mid 80’s Japanese style frame. The old FXRs were ugly to me, but are by far the nicest handling Harleys out there. They handle like a typical Japanese inline, but with the big Harley V-Twin.

Harley now has an adventure tourer on/off road to compete with BMW, and it has the big V-Twin as well.  
Then the smaller Sportster, which is a hot rod around town.

Only the big touring bikes like mine are the slow boats. You won’t find a more capable big bike than the FXR/Dyna. They corner like they’re on rails and I’m sure a 12 year old could ride the snot out of one. 
And depending how you set up your Softail, it’s either a low slung cruiser or a stripped down hell raiser. 
 

One of the nicest things about Harley is that even though they do depreciate like any vehicle, they are by far the best value in a mass produced vehicle. They cost more new, but are worth a ton more used.

[DocRob]

7 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

Ha, yep.  Riding a big Harley fast can be done easily enough, but it’s a totally different technique. Sport bike riders often can’t break their old habits, and that’s where the reputation of them being real slugs arises.  

I toured a lot of times with a good friend of mine, he on his Harley Sportster and me on my KTM 950 Supermoto. The only thing both bikes had in common, was the fun they made driving. We ate lots of kilometers over the years, on German, Austrian and Czech roads, doing week trips without using highways.
Sometimes I went to the north sea in the first warm spring days, only to jump into the ice cold sea and ride back to Berlin, 700 km's a day, only for fun.
The KTM was a blade, fast, light, reliable and could go around corners like nothing else and was able to go up to 200 km/h without wobbling, a hard to achieve thing, given the high Supermoto shape of the bike and no wind protection at all. One other prominent feature were the breaks, they did, what they were made for perfectly, even without ABS.
Sometimes we exchanged bikes and I learned to steer the Sportster like you described Ernie. To go fast on curvy mountain roads with the Sportster needed a lot of cojones though, as the brakes were a nightmare and the acceleration was downright poor. That meant, no breaking, if it can be avoided, to not have to accelerate that chunk of metal again. Sounds terrible, but wasn't. I never would have changed permanently to a Harley, but it was real fun to drive her, sound and vibrations are absolutely cool and the low center of gravity makes them easy to handle (not the case with yours, I think).
Would I have lived in the US, I think, I may had owned a Harley myself, but commuting in Berlin and having lots of bad or curvy roads, other bikes were a better choice. 
Fond memories as I have promised my wife not to buy a motorcycle on my island, where driving can be really dangerous. 

Cheers Rob

[Martinnfb]

Did I mention that Chrysler sells new cars with steering wheels in this shape? 
I’ve noticed that after 3 days and contacted the dealership, no response from the Chrysler yet.