10/25/12 New Shop!

This Tuesday marked the official beginning of my new shop. Jordan and my new home is in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. As I hinted at in a previous post, we are building our shop out of shipping containers. Tuesday morning I drove over to the yard and watched a beautiful sunrise over our new view.

We had our storage POD and our two containers delivered to our space behind this beautiful building right on the water. Unfortunately, our containers came in substantially worse cosmetic shape than we were expecting, so we're going to have to paint them soon.

The first one was positioned with a precision and skill I didn't even know was possible. The second was lined up with a forklift to be parallel to the first.

This shop will be somewhat less automotive oriented than the first, but we should still be able to get a car in there for the odd work. Here is a possible layout, though we may not cut the entire wall between the containers.

Power is being connected today and we will be pressure washing and painting Saturday. Stay tuned for more updates.

I also found a great deal on a leather motorcycle suit. Idly browsing craigslist, I found this awesome Kushitani Dragon 2 piece suit for $100. I was a little worried about it fitting right, but when I went to try it on it was perfect! I've only ridden in it once so far, but it feels great. Kushitani is supposed to be one of the best brands and I can see why. The leather is supple and soft and the finish is great. I may upgrade the back protector to something more substantial, but other than that I am very happy with it.

W.W. SBSS (BNYSS?)

10/18/12 Armoring Up

I've always known that in order to ride safely I needed to wear my gear. I've pretty much always (with a couple obvious exceptions) worn my gloves, armored leather jacket, and some sort of boot in addition to the required helmet. Unfortunately, this leaves a couple of notable gaps in my protective armor.

Firstly, I finally bit the bullet and upgraded from my trusty Doc Marten's to a pair of proper riding boots. The Icon Super Duty 4's should give me a bit more impact protection, especially at the ankle, than the single layer of leather in the Doc's. They don't look half bad either and should go unnoticed with jeans or khakis.

Second, the pair of summer short gloves I've been wearing for a few years are starting to show some signs of wear. Because I've looking at a well reviewed but somewhat sketchy site for a budget full leather suit, I figured that trying them out on something small like gloves would be a good idea. I picked up these pretty heavily armored gloves. If the quality turns out to be good, maybe a $200 suit is in my future...

The last and most difficult area is pants. While I plan on getting a full leather riding suit for the ultimate protection on long rides, I needed something in the middle for when I’m just riding around the city. As Wes at HFL has indicated, vanity can often get in the way of proper protection, but I’m convinced I can improve upon the current offerings in both style and safety.

Jeans, no matter how rugged, will never be as safe as a dedicated motorcycle pant. The problem is that dedicated motorcycle pants with abrasion resistant fabrics and integral armor tend to be very ugly. No one has ever brought a girl home from a bar while wearing these.

The new crop of 'riding jeans' typically add thicker denim and kevlar backing in certain areas, but with no armor and relatively loose-fitting styles. The added protection is marginal, so they somehow manage to still look stupid.

To get around this, I've decided to adapt a pair of Carhartt canvas pants. These are heavy grade construction and work pants. The 12oz canvas is much more abrasion resistant than denim, and all the seams are triple stitched for strength. Carhartt has a great reputation for durability and these are built to last forever. I opted for the double front pants for an additional layer of protection as well as the flannel lining for riding in the cold. I'll likely have to order an unlined pair for the summer months, but I'll deal with that later. A surprising side benefit is now that Carhartt has realized that hipsters are ironically wearing construction gear, they're actually in style.  

Another benefit of the double front pants is that a convenient pocket is created for knee armor. I ordered the Icon Field Armor knee armor to slip into the pocket. 

Overall I think this could be a great solution. The pants are simple, tough and even with the armor will be relatively discrete and comfortable on and off the bike. Even buying the pants and armor separately, they are cheaper than pretty much all of the current offerings, and I believe they will be a big step above kevlar jeans. Stay tuned for reviews of the boots, gloves and pants. 

-W.W. SBSS

8/18/12 Saturday Stroll

Went for a walk this morning before heading to do some car stuff. Luckily I've been reunited with AY's old DSLR.

Plus a hint of what's to come with my car.

6/26/12 Why We Ride

Season of the Bike

There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind's big hands squeeze the heat out of my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops don't even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from the skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and forehead streaked with blood, but that's just an illusion, just the misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds. 

Despite this, it's hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life you’re changed forever. The letters "MC" are stamped on your driver’s license right next to your sex and weight as if "motorcycle" was just another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition. But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and rainstorms are paid in full because a summer is worth any price. 

A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets. 

On a motorcycle I know I'm alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of light that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pana-Vision and than IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music. It's like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind's roar. But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree- smells and flower- smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it’s as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane. 

Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy. I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes over half a dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn't trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride one of the best things I've done. 

Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride. 

- Dave Karlotski.

6/18/12 Massive Transition Period Update

I need to apologize for not updating this sooner. I guess I got a bit disheartened when we lost the shop in the Bronx and didn't want to write about it. Now, however, the next space is in the works (likely in Brooklyn) so I'm in a good mood again. I'll write about the new space when some of the details are ironed out, but in the meantime I need to catch up on the past few months.

When I last posted, I was finishing up some details on the car to get it road-worthy by the time the shop was to close. Coincidentally, I was signed up for a track day at Lime Rock around the same time. There were numerous little things that had to be done on the car to get it to pass the tech inspection at the track, namely I had to button up my fuel system, properly mount my battery, and figure out my seat belt situation.

T-2 days till Lime Rock:

 The fuel system was easy enough, I borrowed a gas cap from CB and reused the gas cap base from my car. I just needed to block off some vent hoses and tighten some hose clamps. On a run to the parts store, however I realized that the sound I thought was my alternator belt being loose was actually the water pump bearing failing. Luckily, I had just bought a spare engine (it was an L24, that the owner thought was an L28, but I took it anyway because it was just rebuilt). I hopped in the Miata and scavenged the pump from that motor and started installing it on my car. Around the same time CB came over with a buddy and they installed my gas cap/base.

I also needed to install my seat belts. The car came with seatbelts, but I didn't have a complete set. The ones from my old car were junk, and I couldn't use the racing harness I bought from CB because the track had a rule that the driver and passenger have to use the same equipment. I picked up a set of rear belts from a 240sx very cheap, and wrestled with my car for an hour or so to get them in.

T-1 day till Lime Rock:

CB had been struggling with clutch issues with his car for the past couple of weeks, and with one day left he was still having issues. I went to his house late and helped him put the trans back in his car for what we hoped would be the last time.

Lime Rock travel day:
We decided to drive up to Lime Rock the on Sunday for our Monday trackday. We had a connection with a local B&B and it was certainly the better way to do the trip.

That morning we had an early wrenching session to check the last issues that might pop up with the cars. I was tightening a hose clamp on my gas tank when the fuel return spout broke from its weld. This resulted in a  slow but noticeable fuel leak when stationary, and a substantial one when the engine was running. Panicking, we drained the tank and I drove to an auto parts store with CB. Twenty minutes and a tube of JB weld later we were in business.

JR also showed up with a proper battery tie down for me that he stole from his turbo car. About as long as I remember I had been using bungees and ratchet straps to hold my battery, and that would apparently not pass tech...

My left rear wheel bearing was still making a slight noise, but I checked the tightness of the stub axle nut and all seemed well so I just tried to ignore it.

It was a rainy drive up to CT. With the exception of an actual squealing alternator belt when the lights and wipers were on, the car performed perfectly on the drive. This was shocking to me considering that the car had driven about 20 miles in the past 35 years.

In the morning, it was frosty cold. The chokeless 240z started hard, but did start. We made a quick fuel run then got to the track just as the safety meeting was ending, in true Top Gear style. My car flew through tech and I was soon waiting for my instructed session to start.

After I had borrowed a helmet from JR, my instructor and I set up our helmet-talkies and headed out to the track. I have to admit I was a bit nervous, but it definitely helped to have an instructor in the car. I don't think there was any way I could have figured out the line on my own, but he did a good job of showing me when to turn in, where to aim and when to get on the gas. After a few laps I was starting to feel comfortable and getting on the car a bit harder. To my surprise, it performed shockingly well. Somehow, despite my eyeball alignment, it handled easily and controllably as as you approached the limit of grip. Once I stiffened up the illuminas, it even transitioned from corner to corner very flat and stably.

In my third session out, my instructor was pushing me to go faster and faster. I was actually passing the other cars on the track (mostly Porsche's as it was a PCA event), though many would retake me on the long front straight as I don't have very much power. Just as I was doing really well and going pretty quickly...I spun.

My instructor didn't see anything I had done wrong and seemed to be as surprised as I was about the spin. After a quick drive through of the pit lane to talk with the controllers about it, I was back on track. It took a couple of laps to get the confidence to go hard through that particular turn, but eventually it came back. The only damage to the car was a lost center cap to one of my wheels.

Unfortunately my spin did direct the attention of the corner workers to my car, and I was black flagged for some reason. It turns out my brake lights hadn't been working (this was probably true the whole weekend, but no one noticed until after I spun). In between sessions I did some electrical detective work to determine the cause of the fault and was ready in time for my last session, which went well and without incident.

In addition to Porsches, there was our club and some other serious iron. All in all, I really enjoyed the day and I definitely have the track bug. I also have the bug for more power, as doing all the work to pass a car in the bends, just to have him walk by me on the straights was frustrating to say the least. I think there is a 1JZ-GTE in my future...

Pretty much immediately after this event, the boys and I moved out of the shop. JB got a PODS storage unit and we loaded whatever we could in there. The rest of it went to my mom's house in Newark, including the 240z. It was a sad day indeed.

As a result, all work that I needed to do on my motorcycle has taken place in AY's building with the help of KY. I had been having an intermittent stumbling issue with the bike that I couldn't track down. It seemed to break up at higher speeds and when turning, so I assumed it was a fuel issue. In fact, I thought was was the same water-in-the-tank issue that I had before. One afternoon, I hopped on the bike to go fix it. Once I got there, I drained the tank, cleaned the tank and front plug drain tubes, and drained the float bowls. This did nothing. A later day, rode over again so I could swap the spark plugs. One the ride over it was running great.  I figured I should do the plugs anyway because they were past due. Did all the work and....it started stumbling again. Frustrated, I ordered new coils for the bike while I was away on vacation. Once I got back, I went to install them when I noticed that the bike stumbled when I turned the handle bars, even when I was stationary. I investigated and saw that the wire I had run to the tachometer of the Vapor gauge had been rubbed raw and was occasionally coming into contact with the frame...when the wind would push it back or when the handle bars were turned. I taped up the wire, re routed it and was back in business. Sometimes it's the simple things...

Around the same time KY was solving an issue with his friend's BMW Z3. This guy had bought 19's for his small car along with a set of lowering springs. As you might expect, it now rubbed it's tires pretty much everywhere. Even after removing the inner fender and massaging the hood (which is also a fender on these cars) it still didn't have enough clearance. The solution was to add a spacer between the upper spring perch and the body. Spacers were cut from 3/8" plastic and inserted, along with longer studs to clear the longer distance. This did the trick and the car can now brave the pothole-ridden streets of NYC without fear.

The only other time I've had my Z on the road since losing the shop was, unfortunately, for a pretty sad reason. One of the members of the New York Z club, Tommy Sullivan, passed away in early May when his house burned down, claiming the lives of his wife and two daughters as well. Tommy was able to get his son, Tommy Jr., out before going back into the blaze to try to save the rest of his family. In order to remember our friend and try to raise some money for his son, the local Z clubs did a cruise and sold T-shirts and stickers. It was a great day, and a memorial Tommy would have loved.

I know it's been a long time, but a new shop in is in the works so expect more regular updates soon!

- W.W. SBSS

1/23/12 In with the New

There has been some shuffling of the bikes in the shop recently. For one, there is now a cute little Peugeot 103 moped in the shop. I am fixing some small issues (and possibly modifying it to hit 50mph from it's current top speed of 20 or so) for a friend.

Yesterday a guy came by to look at the CB650 and put down a deposit. I'll be delivering the bike to him tomorrow. It's a bit sad to see it and the 700 go, but it makes room for a new project to be named shortly...

On Saturday it snowed for the first real time this season. This made the city very pretty, even the subway was improved by the flurry.

This also gave me an opportunity to behave like a child in the snow on the moped. All in the name of 'testing'.

I also installed sound deadening in the floor of the Z. I still have to do the cargo area and possibly the doors. and rear fenders. I also have to install my heat insulation on top of it. The interior is coming together though.

-W.W. SBSS

1/5/12 Culling the Herd

In order to focus my attention a bit, I've sold the CB700sc. I had the bike listed for a few weeks, and finally someone followed through and actually saw the bike. We haggled a bit, a deposit was put down and the new owner will be picking it up some time next week. It'll be nice to have it gone, honestly. I was starting to feel bad about ignoring it in the corner of the shop, and it's always nice to have a little cash to throw at the Z. 

I also had the CB650 listed, but I've recently decided to keep it. A.D., much to the chagrin of her mother, has decided to get her motorcycle licence. As a result, we may be building the 650 up for her. This gives me a much needed excuse to keep it. 

I'm still buttoning up odds and ends on the SV, as well as waiting on my new front fender. I spent fair amount of time trying to tuck the bulk of wiring that used to be in the fairing into the frame. I finally got it set so that it isn't a huge pain to get the airbox to seat properly. It looks like I'm gonna have to run the speedometer pickup to the rear wheel, as there is no way to make it look good on the front. This means extending the wires and making a mount for the pickup. I'll try to take care of that this weekend. The front end is looking good though.

I also painted my front crossmember with POR-15 finally. I love this stuff. It looks good and is incredibly tough. If there were a need to have this car sandblasted I would do the whole chassis with it. 

-W.W. SBSS

11/28/11 Coming Clean

OK, I got in a minor motorcycle accident in September. I hadn't mentioned this on the blog because I didn't want to worry my mom, but the hospital bill was sent to her house, so the cat is sorta out of the bag...

It was a silly accident. I was between a dentist appointment and getting full dental scan. The scanning facility was 5 blocks away and I needed to move the bike across the street for street cleaning anyway, so I decided to ride. Because of the short distance, I decided to forgo my usual riding gear for only the second time in 2 years of motorcycle ownership. This was stupid.

I was riding down 73rd between Columbus and Amsterdam, and there was a schoolbus parked on the right side of the road. As I approached, the bus threw out the stop sign. Trying to be a good samaritan, I attempted to stop before the bus, despite the fact that I was pretty much right up on it. The hard braking, combined with the torn up and potholed  surface of the block, caused me to lock up the front wheel and go down. It was a pretty low speed accident, ~20-30 mph, but it was enough for the bike to bang into something and bend the front fork. I wasn't very injured, only a sprained ankle and some light scrapes. If I were wearing my boots and my jacket I literally would have had no injuries at all, none.

I picked up the bike, parked it, and walked home. After a while I decided it would be best to get my ankle checked out, just to make sure it wasn't broken. I took a cab with A.D. to the hospital and got an X-ray to confirm my ankle was just sprained. I was in and out in less than an hour, which is a credit to Mt. Sinai. The moral of the story is ALWAYS WEAR YOUR GEAR. ALWAYS. EVEN IF YOU'RE ONLY GOING A SHORT DISTANCE.

In any case, I used the damage to the bike as an excuse to do a suspension and brake upgrade. I got a smoking deal on a used '06 GSXR600 forks and started collecting the other parts necessary to put it on my bike. Right now I have the forks mounted. Lookin' good.

In other news, I saw this awesome Ducati 999 on the street the other day. It's been streetfightered out a bit, with the fairing and rear seat removed, but I think it looks great. 

This was a less awesome Ducati sighting. It seems someone knocked over this row of bikes the other day, The Duc had some damage, which is unfortunate, because it was a very clean bike that I had been admiring for a few months. This is why we can't have nice things. 

In Z news, two major things happened this weekend. First, my frame rails arrived! I started prepping the floor for their installation, but this will be a reasonably long process, as undercoating is somewhat tough to remove. Stay tuned for updates on that.

Second, a member of the HybridZ forum posted that he had some parts he wanted to get rid of but didn't want to ship. Luckily he was pretty local to me, so I was able to score some great free stuff. First was an intake manifold and two carbs for a triple carb setup for a Z. Complete working sets of these go for $1000-$1500, so this was a total score for free, despite the rough shape of the carbs.

Second, he had two 5speed transmissions for the Z. All in all not a bad haul for a few hours of driving!

-W.W. SBSS

9/23/11 Waterlogged

The SV650 is a great bike. It's versatile, reliable, cheap to buy and cheap to run. It has one HUGE weakness though: water. More specifically, rain.

Lately my bike has been less and less tolerant of rain. Usually this means it turns itself into the dreaded SV325. An SV325 is and SV650 that is running on one of its two cylinders. This problem is fairly common, hence the name. This is usually caused by water getting into the deep spark plug socket of the front cylinder and drowning the connection to the front plug. Up until a month ago, I could just ride it until the water dried up and then my bike would come back to life again, like coughing out a cold.

Recently, it has been slow to come back to life. I figured I had run it on one cylinder too long and fouled the front plug, so I removed it. Looking at the plug, there was certainly grime on it, but it wasn't typical engine grime, it was to dry and dusty looking. Shining the flashlight into the plug hole I saw this.

Apparently the front wheel had kicked up a substantial amount of road grit up into the front cylinder. There is a drain hole down there for the water and grit to drain out, but it must have clogged. Because I had inevitably gotten grit and grime into the front cylinder by removing the plug, I took a step back and thought about how I was going to fix this without damaging my engine.

The next day, I made an extension for the shopvac out of a vaccum hose and very successfully removed all visible grit. I then cranked the engine for a while with the plug out and the vacuum running in an attempt to get anything that had fallen into the cylinder.

Satisfied that I had done all that could be done, I put the bike back together and started it up, hoping for all to be well.

But it wasn't.

It ran on one cylinder still, for a while, then on two, but poorly. The bike barely idled, and when revved it would die. I lifted the front of the tank to see that the carbs looked ok, and after about 30 seconds, it started to run well again.

Convinced that it just had to clear its throat, I dropped the tank back down, and started to get ready to test it out....when it started running like shit again. Then the gears started turning in my head. It ran well with the tank up, which raised the sump of the tank. Sounds like water might be in the tank.

I opened the gas cap, and the little hole that water is supposed to drain through was, again, clogged with grime. This causes the water to pool around the cap seal and find its way into the tank.

I cleared the drain, then pulled the tank so I could drain it, and sure enough there was a ton of water in there. you can see the denser, clearer water sitting at the bottom of this bottle. Before dumping the tank, I drained about half a liter of water from it.

I haven't put everything back together yet, but I am confident that the problem will FINALLY be solved.

Fingers crossed




-W.W. SBSS