Motorcycles.....and pistons in general.

Someone once gave me a tongue in cheek trophy for having the most pistons of anyone short of a junkyard owner.  I actually enjoyed the hell out of it and still do.

I grew up working in a gas/service station garage (among other things).  My father was an old school mechanic and we were brought up to know that anything could be fixed and that sometimes creativity in the repair ruled the day.

Growing up on the water, my first engine was an outboard motor.  I drug it out of the local dump when I was about 7 years old.  The dump was a place to go on my bike on a Sunday afternoon when it was closed to shoot rats with my .22 and to find discarded treasures.  In fact, many people here called it (and still do to this day) "The Exchange" rather than "The Dump."  In any case,  this was the first thing that was mine and mine alone with pistons.  It was a 1936 5 horsepower Champion outboard.  One cylinder, rope start.  It was in surprisingly good condition and its only problem was that it had been sitting and neglected with old gas in the carburetor.  I carried it home on my bicycle (no small feat) and my dad hauled it down to the garage for me and we put it on a 2x4 clamped into the vise and he told me to start by seeing if it had spark.  It did not.  With his direction, I removed the flywheel and checked the points, which were corroded.  He had me file them down and told me that if we could get spark, the battle was mostly over and the outboard would run, but if we could not, it was unlikely that we could get coils to fit and I would probably have to wait for another "find."  I later found out that I could get the coils had I needed them, but it was moot because filing the points got me good blue hot spark!  I was excited!  No more rowing for this guy!   Where is the gas?  My dad told me to cool my jets because while spark was the most important step, it was not the last.  A sniff of the gas tank, which smelled like old turpentine, gave me the next direction.  Remove the tank and fill with carburetor cleaner and allow to soak with all the holes plugged.  You can't get carburetor cleaner with Methylene Chloride in it anymore, or at least not easily, because, it is (big shiver) dangerous! 

While the gas tank was soaking, it was time to remove the carburetor.  It was a simple Tillotson with a float, inlet needle, simple jet and a high and low speed adjusting screw.  Dad had me put a clean rag on the work bench and disassemble it one piece at a time, placing each piece on the rag in the order in which it was removed.   He admonished me to be careful with the gaskets because we did not have a kit available and would have to cut our own if I wrecked one.  I was careful.  The bowl and body of the carburetor went into a bucket of cleaner and the smaller parts were carefully cleaned with a small brush and compressed air.  After putting everything back together, cleaning the spark plug (yes, cleaning - not replacing), checking the oil in the lower unit and a general once over by my Dad to make sure nothing had been missed, into the outboard tank it went with a bit of fresh mixed gas and oil to try it out.

I carefully wrapped the rope around the flywheel and pulled.  Nothing.

Once again, I carefully wrapped the rope and pulled and......POP!  along with a big bubble of blue smoke in the tank.

One more time, with the choke off and the throttle moved to "fast" and  pop...pop....pop....pop it was running!  Wooooooo!  Hoooooo!  My dad helped me with carburetor adjustment and wow!   This thing ran smooth!  Both fast and slow!  I was excited.

My Dad came with a 2.5 gallon gas can full of mixed gas and told me, "This is the only gas I am giving you for this.  The rest you have to pay for."  Gas at that time was, I think $0.379 per gallon.  It wasn't long after that that it doubled.  I could hardly wait for the work day to end so I could put it on my Grandfather's 14 ft aluminum boat that he let me row around the harbor.

I was off to the races at that point.  Outboards, mini bikes, motorcycles, lawn mowers, chainsaws, and eventually cars and trucks.....with a few hit and miss engines mixed in for good measure.  All of which were acquired by trade, treasure hunting at the dump or with a very small amount of money and a whole lot of elbow grease.  In retrospect, it is funny I chose electrical engineering rather than mechanical engineering as a career.....

In any case,  all this wind leads to motorcycles.  My first motorized wheeled vehicle was a "Lil Indian" mini bike that I also pulled out of the dump...sans motor.   The motor I took off an old 5 hp Moto-motor riding lawn mower that also came from the dump.  The only thing I had to buy was the clutch, which I paid $3 for at a yard sale.  I was probably 8 or 9.  I rode that sucker like the wind....everywhere.  My first actual motorcycle was a 1966 Honda S90 which I paid a whopping (and very dear) $50 for at age 14.  I actually still have it.  I had a 1973 Kawasaki H2 750 in college (they called it the widowmaker) that I wish I still had, but it had many, many miles on it and was loose as a goose and threw a rod at one point and I scrapped it in favor of a 1979 KZ650. 

I always told myself that I would not own a Harley Davidson until I could afford to buy a new one.  This proved not to be true as my first Harley, which I still have was a 1957 xlh Sportster.  This was a right hand shift, left hand brake bike that took a bit of getting used to.  I remember that there were only two of us that rode Harleys at one job and we used to get some ribbing about it.  In fact, some of the guys I worked with switched the spark plug wires around on the Sportster once hoping to see me kick and kick and kick to get it started.  Little did they realize that both cylinders fired at the same time and it made no difference.

Later I stumbled on a 1954 Duoglide Panhead that was in pieces that I put back together and rode for a while.

I later bought that new Harley that I always wanted.   A 1992 xlch Sportster Deluxe.  Bought it brand new in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in October of 1991.  My wife is riding a 1976 Honda CB360T that I fixed up for her, but is now complaining that it is too small and that she doesn't like to have to keep up to me on our short trips that we take on the occasional weekend.  She has more or less taken over my Sportster and it looks like either I will need to revert back to the 1957 or find something new for her (or maybe me - wink).

Too bad I can't find something at the dump.......