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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| I have been neglecting blog for some time now. I would apologize but whats the point...? I know what I know and don't require reinforcement from others who agree or disagree with my views. Particularly my views regarding UFOs. I'm gratified to see that some people are coming out of their slumber of disbelief. Scientists and academics are beginning to acknowledge there might just be something to the hypothesis that intelligent life might not be unique to the planet Earth. Good God! the conceit of humanity still clinging to the conceit that we alone have marbles rolling around in these brains of ours! Anyway the plot has been thickening ever since the Navy had to admit that those tic-tacs in the gun camera footages were real and the bare faced bald ass assertions that while they are real that is all the Navy knows about the phenomena. What this shows is that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. There is plenty that is known but the truth has been going into a stove pipe and into the hands of what MJ 12 has morphed into. Because of all the security only a few have the real know about UFOs and even these only a compartmented need. There will be no disclosure. The deep state has painted itself into a corner on this issue it will have to explode in the face of President Truman's pet committee before anything is ever revealed to the American people. |
| Well, its Christmas day and I was out in the shop working on my motorcycles. Today was the day I turned my attention to the Bison. The Bison is a 250 cc version of the 350cc Bighorn. Not withstanding the 100cc displacement the bikes are pretty much identical except that the Bison is uses a points system and the Bighorn operates on a CDI ignition system. Yesterday I cleaned the carburetor and today it was time to look at what was under the flywheel. There are three coils, which are electrical winding that produce electricity. The three look to be identical which is quite different from the Bighorn. There the coils are visibly different. One serves the ignition, the other provides the trigger signal to the CDI and the third charges the battery, and operates the lights. Anyway I was plugging away and found there was no Woodruff key to center and connect the flywheel with the crankshaft. I knew something was amiss when the flywheel came off so easily. In replacing the key I dropped it down into a coil of wires and quit my wrenching in disgust. Now I have to take the points plate off to retrieve it. Not that its so hard but sometimes the day starts bad and I didn't want to spoil the day with bad karma and unspoken swearwords. So there it is... Merry Christmas! |
| I'm a self acknowledged UFO conspiracy theorist. Anybody who has paid the slightest interest in developments since the end of WW2 must conclude that the planet Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials. It is not just events in the past seventy years, which have included numerous sightings of UFOs by credible witnesses, reports of crashed saucers and living and dead aliens, human abductions, cattle mutilations and reports of activities at Area 51/S-4 involving back engineering of ET hardware and interviews of surviving extraterrestrials, not to mention incidents involving contacts, visitations and interactions with aliens and their civilizations. As if this were not enough there is also the growing realization that these interactions are nothing new and have been going on throughout history. The deciphering on ancient texts on clay tablets and huge Stone Megastructures, leave little doubt of a long historical ET presence on planet Earth. Something that is not new but something that has escaped my attention is the taped interview of retired CIA Agent "Kewper." In June of 1998 he contacted Linda Howe, a leading UFO researcher and provided a narrative of his experiences with extraterrestrials. He was subsequently threatened by the "Men in Black. Intimidated, he dropped out of sight for about fifteen years and then resurfaced when he was terminally ill with a blood disorder. In March of 2013 he was interviewed by Richard Dolan. The results of that interview can still be seen if your search the key words shown above. He states that he and his supervisor were sent to Area 51 by President Eisenhower on a fact finding mission to discover what was going on. Amazing the new president had been told exactly the same thing that Admiral Wilson was later told when he attempted to look into the activities going on in Dreamland, where there is zero government oversight. "Sorry, he was told, you don't have a need to know." For those who don't know, President Truman set up a special commission to report of the findings that took place following the Roswell Incident. This commission, Named MJ 12 was chartered to look into the UFO crashes and given broad powers to investigate and take action outside the boundaries of government oversight. During these times the Atomic Bomb secret had been stolen and President Truman did not trust the government to keep secret the most incredible revelation of modern times. The revelation was that humanity was not alone in the universe as an "intelligent life form," that an alien presence had been revealed by crashed saucers and dead ETs, and that their technology was of a scope that defied all human understanding. MJ 12 was supposed to provide reports but had failed to keep President Eisenhower advised about what they had discovered and what they were doing to exploit the technology. As a result Ike sent people to Area 51 with an ultimatum to tell him what was going on or else.... "Kewper" and his CIA Boss went to Area 51, saw the crashed Roswell saucer, the autopsy films and even spoke with a surviving ET. The results of the visit were briefed to President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It is important to realize that with the establishment of MJ-12, regardless of the justification, this comission became the genesis of "The Deep State." It has grown into a cancer that has spread its tentacles throughout out our constitutional government and operates as an independent entity unanswerable to the will of the people. For many years they were devoted to figuring out if the ETs were a threat and trying to reverse engineer the technologies they became the guardians to oversee. It appears the Deep State, at some point, decided it was necessary to have a one world government to deal with the extraterrestrial threat. The result was that over time the Deep State became involved in global politics. Using the Intelligence Services they covered up a growing influence in foreign affairs. They interfered in elections and developed the means by using their newfound technologies to make or break foreign governments. It should come as no surprise that one day they would turn those technologies on their own government. Ironically, the biggest obstacle faced by the Deep State was the United States itself. Because the wealth of the planet is centered in the US the plan was to shift the distribution of wealth on a more equitable scale. This meant that the standard of living for Americans had to come down so the third world could go up. President Obama was a big advocate for this as was Europe and interests in Asia. The plan was well along. Obama said, "One percent GDP growth in the US is the new norm, get used to it." The Democrats were all in on the plan and agreed that the economic scale in the United States needed to tilt away from Capitalism and more in the direction of Socialism. It is important to realize that under Communism the government controls all economic infrastructure. The failure of that economic model was clearly demonstrated in Russia and continues to be felt in China. Under Socialism the means of production remains in private hands, however, the government regulates private enterprise to insure the gap between the "Haves and the Have Nots" remains somewhere in the ball park of public interest and private enterprise. Greed as an incentive and market forces have been shown to be far better regulator than bureaucratic meddling and five year plans. So to the Deep State, socialism was the answer. Keep private enterprise but control it through government intervention and regulations. For all intents and purposes, the United States is already a Socialist Nation. Clearly the Deep State is not well versed in "Chaos Theory." The off shore money and inside bureaucracy really think they can control a wildly expanding world population and the inequitable distribution of wealth. Surprise, Surprise. President Trump came along and sent all those utopian dreams of the Deep State into chaos and derailed their well laid plans for a new world order. President Trump refused to play ball and that's why the Deep State has exhausted every means at their disposal to try and stop him. These efforts might appear to have succeeded in the election of Biden, but consider for a moment the bill payers. They have lost the trust and confidence of the American people in the free press. The "Free Press" was coopted by offshore money and the home grown cabal of wealthy elitists who signed up for a global one world government... The networks and print media have redefined "Yellow Journalism" and taken the practice to a new level. They have openly shown their contempt for everyday America. Their contempt for the "Deplorables" and the "...stench of the Walmart Shopper" is barely concealed. They have corrupted in the Deep State in ways heretofore unrealized. Venerable institutions such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of justice, Internal Revenue, have been perverted to achieve a parochial deep state agenda. Law enforcement has been demonized as a bill payer for the rot and corruption in the inner cities characterized by poverty, poor education, lawlessness and substance abuse. In order to gain power they have unleashed anarchy and chaos. They have rioted, looted and burned the decaying infrastructure of the inner cities, bought on by a century of Democratic corruption and mismanagement. In the 2020 election they took the recommendations of the past, designed to prevent corruption, and used them as a road map to election victory. Early voting, ballot harvesting, rigging voting machines, and a host of other weaknesses, identified long past, were necessary to keep president from achieving a landslide victory. Seventy-Nine percent of Republicans believe the election was rigged. The truth is coming out as as reports leak out from the few sources of honest reporting that remain to the people. I have not digressed in shifting from ETs to political corruption. All this is related. A breath of air created by a butterfly often leads to inexplicable and unintended consequences. The ends do not justify the means. Be careful what you wish for. |
| I took the engine out of bike #3 and it was MECHANICALLY SIEZED. If you're wondering what that means, it means that the engine was not frozen up as a consequence of long years languishing in a shed, or worse outside, where things got gummed up and corrosion set in. It means the engine quit running as a result of a catastrophic failure, when the piston and cylinder fuzed while operating at high RPM... probably the result of an air leak or lack of oil. Despite all my gentle efforts to unstuck it, the results have been futile. I am constrained by the fact that I don't want to destroy the bottom end which seems to be OK. To know for sure I need to unstick the piston without damaging the main case sitting underneath the cylinder. Since I don't have the tools or the skills to go any further I'm taking it to my friend, Mike, at the engine shop in Wisconsin Rapids. He has done work for me in the past, rebuilding a flathead engine. There are three tasks I will ask him to do. Task 1: Torch out the old piston. Task 2: With the piston freed, remove the cylinder. Task 3: Finally there is a bolt still frozen up in the side cover that needs to be removed. So that is where we are at with bike #3. |
| I feel a great deal of empathy for Black Americans. They have not been treated right. Ironically... and this is truly one one of the amazing ironies of our times, the Political Party that wanted to see them kept in in iron shackles was the party of Slavery... the Democratic Party. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and without Honest Abe there would still be slave states and free states. Lincoln mobilized the country to correct this travesty. The Civil War, gave "emancipation" to the blacks. However, they were never really emancipated. For the Democrats there was a workaround that.... to use the old proverb, gave them their cake and allowed them to eat it too. The Clan was formed to keep a lid on things in the rural areas and young and productive negroes were incentivized to move to the cities. There they were allowed to live in segregated ghettos which later gave way to public housing often referred to as "The Projects." So what happened over time was that the iron chains were substituted for economic ones. Blacks were told by Democrats that if they didn't play ball they'd loose their food stamps and welfare checks. Once every four years, at election time, they were trotted out and told to vote Democrat or those Boogie Man, Republicans would shut down their gravy train. Still this wasn't enough. There were some smart blacks who could see through this sham. In order to deal with potential dissent the Democrats tacitly looked the other way on the drugs. African Americans were provided with enough drugs and alcohol to numb their minds and violent black on black crime thinned out those showed potential for upsetting the status quo. Still this wasn't enough. Since the Democrats have always disdained Blacks they sought to limit their numbers and found a way to do it. Planned Parenthood offers no real choice for a young black girl who becomes pregnant. This whole prochoice charade has continued to where today over forty percent of black women who conceive abort their pregnancy. Still this wasn't enough. To make sure young black children were not provided the tools and opportunities to advance in today's world the Democrats insured that public education systems in the ghettos were so bad the kids can't meet the very lowest math and english standards. Still this wasn't enough. To further thin the flock the Democrats turned a blind eye as urban violence and black on black crime, in urban areas, particularly Chicago, reached staggering thresholds. Thousands of young blacks are murdered each year by other blacks. When I was in the Military I worked with many talented young black men and women and know from experience that given a chance they are just as capable as any other race. It's a damn shame. The Democratic Party I once associated myself with is no longer what it once was. It's been hijacked by the Socialist Left. The Democrats have become addicted to the economic influence of George Soros and the off shore money he represents. The Third World War is being fought in the United States and these outside interests have worked tirelessly to undermine the values that Americans hold dear. Fortunately, Donald Trump came along and showed Republicans how to fight. The Democrats, seeing certain defeat looming in 2020 pulled out all the stops. Just as the Socialists hijacked the Democratic Party, with the help of the "SWAMP," Democrats hijacked the election. How they did it is coming to light. The CIA through their contractor "Dominion" developed software and voting machines for rigging elections. They tested it in Venezuela. The Hardware and software were then marketed to the Democrats in the United States who used the technology, as well as other time tested methods to hijack the election. The Supreme Court, gave the COUP the time it needed to work. They say "Opportunity makes a Thief." Justice Roberts gave the crime all the time it needed. I feel bad not for just the blacks but for all Americans and the Constitution that has served us well since our founding. The off shore interests have slowly and insidiously gained control of the the print and broadcast media, education, and plan to rewrite the Constitution once they gain power. They will add States, pack the courts, repeal the second and turn the good old USA int a Socialist Shit hole. Is this what we want for our grandchildren? |
| The rehabilitation of a vintage motorcycle that has in most cases been parked broken and left to languish for fifty or more years, is a big undertaking. In my experience it involves several phases. 1. Finding the Bike 2. Cleaning up the bike to where you can see the effects of the deterioration 3. Understanding how the bike operates 4. Starting the bike to see if it runs 5. Teardown of the bike to see the operability of the systems 6. Thoroughly cleaning the inside and out the entire bike. 7. Finding the missing parts 8. Replacing all defective parts inside and out 9. Second run up to test functionality of the rehabilitation 10. Planning the final look. |
| Assumption: If Joe Biden wins the election. I did not vote for Joe Biden. I think the effects of age have taken a toll on his cognitive abilities. The Presidency of the United States is the hardest job in the country. Next is how much political capitol does the hopeful have to offer. For example, President Obama spent way too much of his capital on the Affordable Care Act. It was so poorly conceived and written that it turned into a quagmire that swallowed up any hope of Obama's lasting legacy as president. It became a fixation and prevented him from doing other things he could have accomplished easily with control of the House and Senate. I have seen the same squandering of economic and political capital in Biden's bid for winning the 2020 Presidential Election. Look at some of the bad political investments the Democrats have made over the past five years. 1. They vested the faith of the American people in the Print and Network media. With the Exception of Fox News, and a minute number of print Newspapers, print and network news outlets like the Washington Post and ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN, have led a scorched earth policy of negativity that has rewritten the rules of fair and balanced reporting and led to an acceptance of "Yellow Journalism" as the new norm. These "Fake News Outlets" have chosen an adversarial role with a heavy bias towards the Democrats. They have tried to redefine the term "Journalism." As a result of their omissions and commissions half of all Americans don't believe a word they say. In addition the Fake polls they commission are so unbelievable that it takes an election to show how far off the mark they are. For example on the eve of the election the Washington Post predicted Biden was ahead of Trump in Wisconsin by seventeen points. It was a race that Biden won by barely a percentage point. 2. Hillary's pact with the Russian's to produce the "Fake Dossier" that led to the Muller investigation. 3. The Lois Learner and the IRS scandal. 4. Bengazi. 5. Comey/McCabe FBI scandal, spying on Trump associates. Lying to the FISA courts. 6. The impeachment fiasco 7. The Cavanaugh confirmation hearings and the outrageous allegations of his sexual misconduct in High School. 8, Takeover of the Democratic Party by the Radical Left. The rise of Socialism. 9. Alienating Law enforcement/ Encouraging their base to loot and riot across the country in a bid to stir up political unrest. 10. Getting the "Robert's Vote" approved by the Supreme Court giving them the opportunity to fabricate false ballots to close the difference between what the election results showed and what they needed to win in key battleground states. Early voting was a lapse in common sense and jurisprudence. Justice Roberts is blind to the Democrat's ongoing efforts to subvert our Democracy. 11. Hunter Biden's Laptop. 12. The Republicans becoming the party of the working class, and the hope for minorities everywhere. These are hurdles and baggage the Democrats bring to the table. It is a record that gives new meaning to the proposition that the ends justify the means. Means are important... they used to a moral imperative. The words of Harry Reed come to mind when he lied about Mitt Romney's Taxes..."Well, it worked didn't it?" he quipped. The media has been all in since Trump came down the escalator and complicate in covering up the Democrat's miserable track record. Trump has taught the Republicans how to fight and realize they need to quit acting like "Jelly Donuts."He showed his base how to break the chokehold that Democrats have on minorities. Credible Black voices are speaking up on the injustice of herding blacks into the government projects and ghettos in many of our urban centers. Credible black voices are questioning the abortion question where forty percent of black pregnancies are terminated. The cheek of the Democrats is mind boggling. They promote the genocide of their own political base. Had it not been for Democratic support of Planned Parenthood there would be twice as many black voters today. Is that unbelievable or what? The Democrats are still the party of Slavery, and only the chains have taken a different form. Black Americans are awakening to the shameless pandering of Democrats who trot them out on election day and forget about them the rest of the year. Only the chains have changed from iron shackles to economic handcuffs. Blacks are told if they support a Republican they'll lose their welfare check and food stamps. The Democrats view other minorities as Blacks with a different hue. This is not being lost on other minority Americans who are gradually starting to wake up. In Florida the Democrats failed to grasp the difference between a Cuban, a Porto Rican, A Venezuelan and a Hispanic. Their view on minorities is that one shoe fits all and assume that minorities coming to the United States are automatically going to flock to the Democratic Party. Guess what? Minorities coming to the United State are looking for the American Dream a big part of which is economic prosperity. All the Democrats have to offer is Socialism. Many immigrants are well versed on what this failed type of political system is all about. The Democrats have awakened a sleeping giant. Trump has boldly pointed to where the soft underbelly of the evil dragon is and where the missing scales are located. So where does this leave Joe if he gets elected? It leaves him with a morally bankrupt victory and surrounded by outside interests who have hidden agenda's and great expectations." There is a swarm of these circling vultures. China, Hunter, George Soros and Silicon Valley brought much to light and the moguls threw money at this election with unprecedented zeal. Does Hollywood, offshore money and tech industry millionaires have the best interests of Americans at heart? You tell me, but what I do know is that it will be payback time for the Republicans and leave half of all Americans believing the Democrats stole the election. It will delegitimize the Biden Presidency from day 1. Trump will emerge as the Great American Hope who was treated dreadfully by the Democrats who finally got their wish. He will leave on a high note with a legacy for getting things done under the most impossible of conditions. We will look back on his term as one which broke the mold and changed the political landscape. He will become a political folk hero on parr with Washington and Lincoln. It is more a loss than a victory for the Democrats. They are now going to have to produce more than platitudes. The Republicans were able to close the gap in the House and hold onto the Senate. Nancy Pelosi will not find the going as easy as she did last term. Joe will become increasingly isolated and surrounded by those who have a deep and abiding hatred for his party and everything he stands for. The Republicans will denigrate his platform and everything he tries to accomplish. There will be no letting bygones be bygones, reaching across the isle, kissing and making up. The Democrats wrote the playbook on obstructionism and they can expect to see these tactics used against them. Affable Joe is in for a rough ride if the Democrats succeed in their election bid. In the midterms the Republicans will return with a vengeance and Biden will be left standing with a record of more corruption and failure. Ironically his only hope will be to strike a deal with Mitch McConnell if he expects to get anything done during the next four years. Such a deal will come with a price... and best of all, guess who will be back in 2024 with the quip, "Did You Miss Me America?" |
| I like to pretend sometimes that I own a motorcycle shop and restore vintage motocross bikes from the 1970s. While I own quite a few, I am pretty much a failure as a mechanic. That doesn't dissuade me from pretending I'm like one of those Hot Shots that really understands motorcycles and makes those amazing U-Tube videos. Since I have been at this charade for some time I have surprisingly gotten better at my mechanical skills. However, I am still in a fog about how to wire up the Rectifier/Regulator I ordered on E-Bay. I hope there are instructions but won't be holding my breath. In the marketing diagram for this device it showed four wires with the following explanation. The diagram said, connect the hot wire to the battery positive terminal, the ground wire to ground, a third wire to the wire you want regulated and the forth wire somewhere else. It is really getting foggy in my brain. Maybe more later... don't hold your breath. |
| Before I started on the Bighorn adventure I knew that Electricity powered things I knew that Electricity was like a water tower. Voltage was like the pressure in the tank created by all that water high above the ground. I knew that pressure was created by the forces of gravity acting on the tower and that amperage was like the flow of water out from the tank powering the appliances in my home. Ohm's law was one of those three part power equations where if you know two of the values you can calculate the third. I knew all that and I could have probably passed a high school science test with flying colors. What I didn't really know was AC and DC current. If you remember your High School science one of the experiments was to wrap an iron coil with copper wire and then move a magnet over it and measure the current you induced. So what? You induced an AC electrical current. Big deal. That was my state of thinking about electricity until last week. It was scientific voodoo you couldn't see that made appliances work in today's world. In a motorcycle there is a crank shaft attached to a piston going up and down inside a cylinder. Attached to the crank case beneath this cylinder is a crank shaft and this shaft runs through an array of coils positioned around the shaft. This is called the Stator. Surrounding the stator is a flywheel with magnets inside. Voila, the piston is not just making the motorcycle go but is also producing electricity... AC Electricity. The number of loops around each of the coils determines how much current they produce. In my motorcycle there are three coils. One of these makes juice that goes goes up to the CDI box and powers the coil. The coil juices the current up and sends it to the spark plug. The spark plug ignites a vapor of compressed air and fuel and BANG... The big piston goes up and down, the crankshaft goes around and around and the mechanical forces proceed via a clutch and gear train, to a chain and rear wheel sprocket. Now that explains what the first coil is there for but what about the other two? Well, the second coil is there to tell the CDI box when to send the pulse to the coil. The first remember, created the current, the second coil tells it when to act. This depends on where the flywheel is in its rotation. You see just before the piston is in the perfect position to ignite the explosive mixture of air and fuel vapor, the second coil gives the signal and the big bang happens. It is worth noting at this juncture that we are discussing AC current. Keep in mind that when the north pole of the magnets in the flywheel pass over a coil the current is positively charged and when the negative pole passes the current becomes negatively charged. This is called AC or alternating current. As far as the spark plug cares either type is fine. As far as the signal coil cares either one is fine. And if there was a coil to run the light that would be fine too. AC current powers the lights in your house after all. The difference between a house an a motorcycle is that a house is stationary and served by a power plant and a motorcycle makes its own power on the fly. The problem with AC current is that a battery hates it. If your machine needs a battery a battery requires direct current and so the Third AC coil must convert the AC to DC or Direct current. It does this with a device known as a rectifier. This device rectifies the battery problem, at least to the extent of the current issue. There still remains a need to make sure the current stays within reasonable limits and doesn't destroy the battery or burn out the light bulbs. Keep in mind that early cars and motorcycles had a hand or foot crank to get the AC current flowing. This was fine as long as the operators were willing to turn the crank or kick the engine over. Once operators got addicted to electric starters, the need for a battery became self evident. So this required rectifiers and regulators. So now you know a bit more about AC and DC current and the need to understand why someone doing a rehab on a motorcycle needs a remedial knowledge of what is going on beneath the surface in order to get one running especially if it has been lying in a neglected state for the past half century. |
| F-5 350 Kawasaki Today I did a damage assessment on my 350 cc Kawasaki Bighorn. I took off the right side engine cover, and tested my rebuilt carburetor. To my astonishment I noticed a big glob of solder or maybe a weld behind where it mounted. The right side case is essentially junk. Maybe I can find a replacement on the Internet. Regardless I'll still try and get it running in this condition but wether or not the weld/solder fixed the problem is mute. There is no way that blob is going to fly. The carburetor still fits even though the attempted fix pinched the oil line. If run very long this would have done serious damage to the engine. Still the motor still turns over and that is a hopeful sign. This model of Bighorn has an external oil reservoir. The motorcycle does not required a premix of oil as the oil is designed to automatically flow down into the combustion chamber where it is metered by the throttle cable. I plan to take the oiling system out and seal it off and run a premix in the gas tank. While some say the oil also lubricates the main bearing others say that premixing works just fine. I probably need to pull the top end and take a look. I also noted that the tab where the rear break attaches was torn and will need welding. The steel foot lever has been cobbled together and will require some fabrication to work properly. Once I get the oiler taken out I can look to removing the part of the case that covers the clutch pack. The clutch is presently not working. I suspect it's corrosion and will sort itself out once it is cleaned. Then I can see if the transmission works. If it does I'll breath a huge sigh of relief, however sometimes the transmission works on the bench but under load reveals other issues. Broken gear teeth require spitting the case and a complete teardown of the engine. The good news so far is that I have a clean tank, a good carburetor, and an ignition that produces spark. If I can get the clutch to free up and the gears to work, I'm in a position to attempt cranking the engine to see if it still runs. At best this motorcycle will live on as a dirt bike and at worst will be used for parts. Time will tell. |
| I have twenty-five vintage 1970s motorcycles in my possession. Some run and some don't. Right now I'm focused on four. They are a Kawasaki Bison and three Kawasaki Bighorns. For the past month, sandwiched between all the other demands on my time I have been working to develop a more transparent understanding of how they operate and put into motion a rehabilitation project for the four. I use the term "Rehabilitation" rather than "Restoration" for a purpose. A restoration I define as returning the bike to its former showroom quality. This is a "Concours" motorcycle that is authentic down to the last detail. A rehabilitation gives the owner/operation more latitude. By latitude I mean being able to upgrade to more modern components as well as make design improvements that make the bike look "better." As one can imagine the two types of bringing a vintage motorcycle back from the grave require different mindsets and while advocates debate one method over the other, the end product is a machine, often a half century old, emerging as an awesome expression of creative effort. If you could see the four bikes today you'd wonder why bother? That is a question I often ask myself. The answer is that as a younger man, in my twenties I rode these bikes and spend many enjoyable hours on the road and in the dirt. Now that I am in my mid seventies, I have the time and resources to take on a rehabilitation project. Back in the 1970s I knew only the barest of how to maintain a bike and spent my time riding them. Now, in order to enjoy these machines once more, I have to take these surviving dual purpose bikes, ridden hard and put away wet, and left to languish for long periods of neglect and exposure to the elements. I'd been looking for a Bighorn and finally in 2019 had the chance to acquire the four bikes. The first of these was an F8 Bison, a 250cc which was a smaller variation of the 350 cc Bighorn I was looking for. It came in a three bike deal along with another 250cc Kawasaki and a Honda. They had all been abused and left to languish in a shed. The bike I had my eye on was the Bison. The data plate read F-8 10/71 #12249. It was red and had been molested, but all the pieces seemed to come with it and it turned over when it was kickstarted. Since I had not been able to find a Bighorn at a reasonable price, these three seemed a deal worth considering. I bought the lot for $700. Those three bikes remain today in the condition I found them. The reason I didn't turn the Bison into a project was three other bikes were to come my way in 2020 and as fortune would have it, they were all Kawasaki 350 cc Bighorns. The first of these was F-5 2/70 92733. It was brown, just like the one I purchased for $1000 when I came back from my first tour in Vietnam. It was a handful for me, weighting about 150 pounds at the time (me not the bike). It wasn't my first purchase of a dual purpose bike but it provided many fond memories. This motorcycle came from a small town in Northern Wisconsin. After talking with the owner over the phone we tentatively agreed on a purchase price. This price was one of those... If it lives up to the picture sort of agreements. Obviously if I was willing to drive six hours up and back I was interested and I told the guy to call me if he changed his mind. I really hate it when I drive a long way only to discover the seller has changed their mind. Anyway I arrived at this little town and the owner was an old motocrosser out in his shed working on his latest ride. He dug the bike out of a dusty corner and pushed it into the light of day. The first thing I noticed was the left hand side cover had been removed. Looking beneath the bell crank that the stator coils were missing. He handed me the backplate to which they had been once attached, gave the polish salute and said how sorry he was but that was the way he got the bike over thirty years ago. The agreed to price of $1000 dropped to $900 and firmed up when I kicked it over and realized there was good compression. This would not be the last time I'd find ignition issues with a Kawasaki Bighorn. Several weeks later I found another bighorn down in Rockford Illinois. It was a green F-5 2/71 07614. It was in the corner of the shop at a Maw and Pa dealership currently being run by the Son. There were two bikes sitting side by side. One was for sale and this became the best of the three I'd ultimately acquire. When I asked if it was "Running" he assured me it did and rolled his eyes when I asked him to fire it up. He did, and in fairly short order, and the shop filled with belching smoke. Slowly the motor began to clear and he drove it up and down the access road in front of his shop. It didn't run all that well but it was still fairly lively. The next week, another Bighorn popped up. It was in Fargo, North Dakota. It was an up in the morning early, drive all day, overnight and come home the next day. I knew in advance pretty much what to expect. It too was a green F5, 12/70 and the motor was seized. When I took the crank cover off it was filled with brown mud like it had drowned out in a stream and never started again. The deal went smoothly and I returned home with a third Bighorn. Regarding the latest acquisition I have yet to discover if the seizure is the result of corrosion and neglect or a mechanical issue. The good news was that the ignition coils are still in it, waiting to be tested. So this is as far as I intend to go tonight. I'm thinking about writing a book on my experiences. I'll be taking some pictures and using this blog to document the adventure. |
| Sitting in my garage at the present time under the spotlight there are 3 Kawasaki Bighorns and 1 Bison. The difference between the two models is that the Bison was 250 ccs and the Bighorn 350 ccs. Other wise they are pretty much identical. They are all in a pretty sad state and only 1 is close to having the engine started. Still they are complete bikes and three have good compression with one that won't turn over due to something being stuck inside. I have two friends who live close by. They could not be more different. They are both mechanically gifted, one being better educated and the other never graduated from High School. For my part I have a passion for motorcycles but not a great deal of aptitude. Like many challenges I have faced in life, this is one of those I really have to buckle down to master and even then "True Understanding" comes slowly. It does however, eventually trickle down. One of the techniques I use to foster understanding is to take the diagrams from shop manuals and enlarge them up to tenfold. One can do this by taking a diagram to Stapes and having the girl behind the desk do it for me. It costs about $15 a diagram but it sure makes it easier to understand for example a wiring diagram. At first glance they look daunting but blown up are much easier to read and understand. So that is what I did this morning, had three of them enlarged. Coming home I got some spark plugs and we picked up the Nissan for the trip we plan to take soon. Then I dropped off some tools I borrowed from Al and stopped by Dennis's place to chat. This evening I drove motorcycles around the block to give them some exercise. I have over twenty so that can be a lot of exercise. |
| This morning I heard my wife get up and I told her to hold off on letting the dogs out. It was still pitch dark and we need stool samples to send off to the vet in order to get them into the kennel. I took them out into the lighted back yard, but to no avail. There is an old saying that goes... "A watched dog never poops." This morning at 8 O'clock we need to drop the car off to get it serviced for the trip south. Then I need to get the right sized screws for the flywheel puller. Removing it will be a hurdle and might reveal some clues as to why the engine locked up. My friend, Dennis, thinks it might be a frozen bearing given all the corrosion shown on the flywheel. The piston seems to move slightly. He says he thinks a bearing can be replaced without splitting the case. I doubt that, but hope springs eternal. Finally got some stool specimens for the dogs. Took them to the vet for testing and the dogs have tapeworms. We bought the medication and informed the kennel where we will be boarding them. They told us they will not accept the dogs until they test negative. So after paying $90 we get to pay $90 more for a negative reading. This trip south to see our kids is getting more expensive by the day and we haven't even left yet. Al loaned me his flywheel puller, however I had to buy the three metric bolts to go with it. While in town I decided to buy my own puller and a set of metric taps and dies. When I got home and went to work one or the cheap Chinese bolts sheared off. The bolts from ACE Hardware on Al's puller worked fine and the badly corroded flywheel finally popped off. The coils looked good however there was some corrosion on the pick-ups. I'll need to test them tomorrow to see if they're still good. The early Model Bighorns had a long narrow needle that went down from the top and attached to the inside of the sliding throttle body. It was used to adjust the idle. Later models used a more traditional screw that lifted the slide barrel to achieve the same effect. You can tell the model by noting if one of the holes is sealed on the threaded cap screw. If there are two holes the idle adjustment in on the top, however, if one is plugged then the idle screw is on the side. I like the the product improved version. I wish the choke lever or plunger cap were located on the engine rather than on the handlebars. |
| Today I drilled out the broken off screws inside the case. Then I used an "Easy Out" into the hole and was able to walk out the broken screw. I now had the three contact points for securing the new stator plate, complete with coils on the engine. In addition the stator coils got tested and appear to be in good shape. Moving on to bike #3 I decided to take a look at the flywheel side of the case and see if the stator and coil on that bike had been plundered and sold on the internet. The case cover did not want to come off and was held in place by one stubborn screw. The impact driver ruined the head and I was on the verge of grinding it off. My friend, Al, suggested first sharpening a chisel and trying to pound it off. That effort failed and I decided to torque what remained of the head with a vice grip and try and twist it loose. After much angst and muttering it finally gave way and I was able to screw it out. With that I tapped the case cover with a rubber hammer, wondering what the flywheel was going to look like. My heart sank! It was coated in mud, rust and corrosion. This latest bike has been one disappointment piled on the next. First the carburetor, then the corroded broken off stator screws and now the rusty flywheel. Once we got the case off I chased the threads so I can put on the flywheel puller tomorrow and yank that off. The good news is that behind the rusty flywheel I can see the precious coils... I felt like I was gazing into Tut's tomb. |
| I know I should be concerned more about the seized piston in Kawasaki, bike 3. I am, but I'm even more concerned about about the stator coils in bike 2. I went up into Michigan to pick it up and discovered when I got there that the coils were missing. This was disconcerting because of all the parts it takes to get a Bighorn running, the stator coils are the hardest to find. I had about given up trying to find the part on Ebay when low and behold a stator plate with the the two coils popped up and I bought the part immediately. Today it arrived and I went at once to bike 2 to see if it was the correct one by fitting it on the primary shaft. It was the right part, that was the good news but the bad news was that the old owner of bike 2 had sheared off the screws in trying to get the plate off, many years ago. So in the engine case two of the three screws are broken off inside the attachment holes. This means that I will have to drill them out tomorrow, put an extractor in the hole and try and twist them out without destroying the threads in the process. I will also need to be careful that I don't drill too deep and go through the case. Some damage is certain to occur, so I'll need to take a tap and repair the consequences of the extraction process. Once I accomplish this there is no assurance that the coils I received off Ebay will still be operative, having been fabricated almost fifty years ago. If I find that to be the case the only option left is to convert to a modern electronics system and that is very expensive. Oh well, whatever it takes. Speaking of repairs, the jet on the float bowl of the carburetor sheared off and I will have to drill that out and try and extract the remains. So, I have the slide operating for the throttle cable. Since there are 4 variations on the carburetor I'm not sure about some of the details particularly how the choke will operate. In addition there are the jets that are hopelessly locked tight in their threads as a result of long term corrosion and rust. I ordered a book on parts numbers for a Bighorn. I hope it has an electrical wiring diagram. |
| Recently I went up to Fargo ND and picked up a 1972 Kawasaki Bighorn motorcycle. To provide some background I had one in 1970. I'd just returned form my first tour to Vietnam. Naturally I had to enter it in an Enduro and the experience left me in a complete state of exhaustion after one hundred miles. My hand locked up so I couldn't even pull in the clutch and had to break using my finger on the compression release. There was one great memory that came from the experience. I was told that John Penton would be somewhere out on the course watching the spectacle. Fat chance of ever seeing him. Anyway early in this enduro I came to a steep hill. It had just started to rain and there must have been one hundred bikes milling around the bottom and not having much luck getting to the top. Undeterred I picked a line off the trail, gunned the engine and popped the clutch. My motorcycle did an unexpected wheelie and and took off for the top. I held on for dear life and couldn't get my wrist over the throttle and barely kept from flipping as I zipped between trees in a miraculous display of sheer good fortune. My line took me straight to the top where the great John Penton was sitting on one of his bikes. He got off as I approached the top waving me on. "Great Ride!" he cried out. "Great Ride! The front end settled to the ground as I reached the top and he came over and slapped me on the back. I was still wide eyed with terror realizing I had only survived the attempt by a huge stroke of good fortune. He pointed to the path and the trail descending the hill. It was a descent that would have done a rollercoaster designer proud. Still I didn't care, after the trip up the ride down was a piece of cake. Not to mention I not only met the great man but he complimented my riding. I always loved that bike and lamented ever letting it get away from me. After I retired I tried to find one but the price was always too high. Then last month three came up for sale on Face Book, of all places. I normally search Craig's list and within the period of a week I bought three, one for $1400, another for $900 and the latest for $800. And there they sat, until yesterday when I finally decided it was time to see if I could get one to crank. Keep in mind all these bikes had been sitting neglected in a garage for the last half century and were parked because something was wrong with them. So I put the first one on my lift and cranked it up to working level. The engine was seized up and the seller could not shed light on why. Hopefully it got bound up as a result of sitting for a long time neglected. The first thing I did was remove the case beneath which the carburetor resided. My impact driver did not have the right tip but it worked anyway. As the case came off my heart sank. It had been parked in a filthy state of neglect. The carburetor for the rotary valve was inside a protected case however, it was so full of crud it looked like it had been submerged in water and mud and never cleaned up. My hopes that the engine seized form disuse changed to the likelihood the seizure was more mechanical in nature. Not only was the engine seized but so was the throttle body in the carburetor. It was stuck and gently prying after spraying with WD 40 and a host of carburetor cleaners did nothing. Removing the idle screw showed the tip to be pitted with corrosion. I was discourage but instead of going further and doing some permanent damage decided to go watch some U-Tube videos and check out some of the forums. I wasn't having much luck until somebody showed boiling a carburetor on the kitchen stove. Unfortunately my throttle cable was stuck inside and I didn't want to cut the cable to get the carburetor out of the engine. Then I had a flash... why not take a Coleman camp stove and boil the damn thing in a pot still hanging from the cables. On this particular bike there are three cables on the right hand side of the handlebar throttle. One of these cables goes to the the throttle body of the carburetor, another to the choke and the third to the oiler. Yes this is a two stroke engine. The choke and the throttle body were the problems as both were corroded into their orifices. My wife suggested Downy dishwasher soap and water and gave me an old kitchen pot that was no longer being used for cooking. I fired up the gas burner, filled the pot with soap and water and deposited the carburetor letting it boil for about six minutes. In the first session the float body came loose and slipped almost effortlessly from the cylinder. I then unloosened the choke cable and let it boil for another six minutes. This too came out but with a bit more effort. Now all the parts are dissembled and removed and are soaking in the sonic parts cleaner. The first hurdle had a positive outcome. I only hope the next is as successful.... no it isn't getting the piston unstuck but rather seeing if the stator is still serviceable after all these years behind the left hand side cover. |
| I find it hard to believe that sensitive research facilities are getting hacked. There is a simple way to prevent this from happening. In a nutshell it involves a facility with an upstairs operating space and a basement with the SECURE server. The basement is not hooked to the internet. Each day a worker takes an elevator to the basement and picks up a working (floppy) disc of the compartmented project he is working on. The disc has only that information needed for the day's work. The upstairs computer can (if necessary) be connected to the internet with all the attendant state of the art security software that is available. Then again it may not, the point being that the working disc is separated from the source data base in the basement. At the end of the workday the disc is returned to the basement. There is no storage of the data allowed upstairs overnight. In the basement is the secure server which has no connectivity to the internet. This server takes the work done upstairs and updates the mainframe. The floppy that can be taken upstairs, has a limited capacity for data. A supervisor at the basement level oversees the limited information the worker can take upstairs. The worker can only access source data related to their project and only in a quantity needed for daily tasks. What this does is very simple. A hacker has no access to the unconnected data stored in the basement. Neither do they have access to the working data on the first floor because there is no data storage allowed at the upper level. Thus a hacker would have to break through the fire wall of the upper level, as the work was taking place, or find nothing on the drives to hack into assuming that they were successful at penetrating the first line of defense. Information to update the basement servers with other regional and national servers across the country would be provided by a human courier service with a route that insured daily updates. One could probably get away with UPS, FEDEX or the US Postal Service for the deliveries. The information on the update parcels would have little meaning in their limited context. If the Government is serious about security, this type of design renders hacking impossible. |
| Today FOX News had a blurb on Extraterrestrials (ETs). They went on at great length showing that contrary to what we are being told the Military is still very involved in ETs particularly the Navy. Keep in mind that the Navy has been a leader in the quest and was effectively shunted aside with the creation of the Space Force. That decision must have galled them to the core. Clearly it dashed their hopes that they become the Service to head up the effort. Instead it was the Air Force (AF). Why do you suppose the AF got the gold ring on the cosmic merry-go-round? The answer is that the AF acquired most of the early artifacts and succeeded, in a remedial sort of way, at transferring some of the technology into useable products. However, the real strength of the AF had less to do with what they did in back engineering the alien technology and more with their expertise in Operational Security. The Navy finished a close second but there was no prize for first runner up. I can only imagine how fierce the infighting must have been. The Navy would have been a better choice because they are already a Service with ships, an army (Marines) and an Air Force. In addition they have submarines which are as close to space craft as it gets. Add to this the SEALs which is the premier special operating force. Finally their expertise in electronic warfare was truly visionary. The problem they've experienced in recent years is the damage they have done to blowing the greatest coverup in history. The first major revelation was the Admiral Wilson notes. The second took place when the Nimitz Carrier Group discovered the "Tic-Tacs" off the East Coast of California. In a nutshell the Admiral Wilson notes showed that Dr. Stephen Greer was correct! There were private aerospace agencies operating without legal oversight. While a Deputy operating on the Joint Chief's of Staff Wilson tried to contact one of these agencies and his attempt revealed two things. The first was that he would not be "Read In" because he did not have a "Need to Know." This showed that there were "Deep State" entities operating outside the Oversight Loop. Money was being appropriated for projects that were so black that only those with the "Secret Handshake" knew they even existed. The second revelation was that these private agencies were involved in the back engineering of ET hardware and worse still, that the effort was proceeding with "Agonizing Slowness." If Bob Lazar ever found redemption it was at the hands of Admiral Wilson. The second major revelation came from four Navy seamen on the Nimitz carrier group. These four were insiders on the Tic-Toc incident. The came forward together and blew the lid off any hopes of covering up incident. For the first time there was a "Smoking Gun" showing that the Navy had encountered an alien presence that demonstrated capabilities far beyond anything our defense forces could manage. As a result the American Public got to see the gun camera footage that such alien craft actually exist. Despite the "Word smithing" (Changing UFO to Unidentified Arial Phenomena (UAP)) the words mean the same thing. It is reminiscent of President Clinton's famous words, "... well that depends on what the definition of IS, is." Like Clinton, if the Gatekeepers could have lied their way out of the Admiral Wilson and the Tic-Toc revelations they would have. Since they couldn't the strategy was to suck it up and put the best shade of lipstick on the irrefutable evidence that UFOs exist. The ETs have been around a long time, and we have been successful in retrieving and attempting to back engineer crashed alien hardware. For seventy-five years Americans have been kept in the dark as to what was really going on because knowledge is power. The nation that figures out how these craft operate will essentially rule the planet. The Nation that figures out Anti Gravity, first will have a power that makes the Atomic Bomb look like a cracker ball. And that's what this is all about! Imagine the frustration the past seventy-five years, knowing the extraterrestrials exist, having their crashed technology and not being able to figure it out? A big part has to do with security. We have not had the "First Team" working the problem. It is more important for the gatekeepers to keep the outside world in the dark than in figuring out how the technology operates. If you haven't listened to Bob Lazar, then search his name and listen to his interviews. Before he got caught he was in the hanger with an alien craft, "The Sports Model" and crawling atop the anti-gravity drive. Still, Lazar is but one tree. There are many more such as the two big ones described above. There is a whole forest of credible observers each providing their unique perspectives on the coverup. There is a veritable forest of truth staring us right in the face. For God's Sake America, WAKE UP! Don't get suckered into fixating on just one piece of evidence. The three letter agencies can take any one incident and make a rabbit look like a donkey. Step back and see the totality of what's been going on. There have been monumental events taking place kept from the public eye, evidence which is vital to the interests of each and every one of us. The GATEKEEPERS have had three quarters of a century to figure things out and are still no closer to the answers than when the whole coverup started in 1947 at Roswell New Mexico. It's time we fired these incompetents and handed over the baton to a new generation of scientists. |
| If you ever feel unmotivated to write go back and read an essay or short story you wrote earlier. I guarantee that if you do you'll see an unwritten something or the other crying out. "Birth Me, Birth me." That something from the earlier context is pleading with you to give it expression. I took a piece written several years ago, "The Precious Princess" and submitted it last month to a WDC contest. I had to change some things to to satisfy the prompt, and those changes made it a better work. Every day I would go back and "Tweak" this or that. One of the things I resolved to do was work on "resonance." Many who write have no clue what resonance is all about. Since the advent of "Free verse" it is becoming less common. It is the "heartbeat" of a work and almost invisible when at work. Last night on "Utube" I saw this video on Damascus Steel. These guys were trying to figure out how to make it. The art and science has been lost to antiquity. I remember thinking that this is a good analogy to the type of poetry that Kipling Wrote, a skill that is all but lost in modern times. If you read "Gunga Din" you'll understand what I mean. Just as a metallurgist looks in wonder at a Damascus steel sword, I look in wonder at what old Rudyard wrote, and my jaw drops open in sheer amazement. The sad fact is that it got too hard to write and so the state of the art devolved into what we see today. Anyway, I'm drifting off topic. Go back to something you wrote earlier and therein you'll see the inspiration you're looking for. It's like wondering about a path you might have once taken. It is right there in your earlier material. Just go back and take it. |
| In the evening, I wind down by playing Sudoku. To me the game is a three dimensional model. It uses a base nine grid and has an X axis, a Y axis and a central core. Each axis and the core must contain nine unique symbols in each dimension and that symbol can occur only once. I love the game because it demonstrates, over and over, the fixed nature of a three dimensional universe, where when one symbol changes, then everything else must follow, maintaining a strict equilibrium. Think about it, isn't this the way life is? Isn't everything in life interconnected? For every smile there's a tear For every joy there's a sorrow For every good an evil For every victory a defeat For every light a darkness For every up there's a down For every step forward, one backward For every pleasure a pain For every fragrance a stench You know, one doesn't have to use numbers in a Sudoku puzzle. Any nine symbols will serve. If I were to come up with symbols for the above, they would be like coins, whose faces would flip randomly, for better or worse. Thus I could interpret my day, staring into the matrix, like reading tarot carrots, before yawning, getting comfortable and trying to get a good night's sleep. |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
