And ruin this perfectly good thread with offtopic nonsense? NEVER!
Well, OK cause I am waiting for some electrons to finish up moving.
Once upon a time, there was dis guy from the east coast who rode all the way across the US of A on a motorcycle. One of the very painful aspects of the trip was getting about 13 miles to the gallon in SD (due to unbelievable headwinds ALL the way) and short- tanking because of it. So with grit, determination, $11 in materials and Chet's unwavering help (and the extremely generous use of his garage and machine shop- thanks Chet!), those two fellas proceeded to do a surprising (ly bad) job of whittlin' a 5 gallon plastic fuel jug, some rubber tubing, a few brass fittings and various washers, O-rings, quick dry epoxy ("This stuff will stop any leak"..... sure it will) into a weapon of mass destruction. Truly it was remarkable.... in the speed at which it spewed forth gasoline from multiple points. After several re-works, a trip through the lathe with the tank fitting, quite a few bad words strung together in new and exciting forms- Viola! A perfect set up! Aux. tank strapped to the passenger seat (with some nylon belting, string and a bungee cord IRRC), our hero kissed Chet goodbye and raced off to the nearest fuel station to fill said aux. tank and bask in the happiness of almost unlimited range. But what really happened was that he ended up basking in the every widening pond of gasoline under his feet. Hmmmm. At first it seemed like something might be leaking but upon closer examination, everything was leaking and not just a little either. So, back to Chet's house to try and spiff up that mess.... and of course, escape the scene of the crime and leave it to the EPA Superfund.
Back at Chet's place, we found out where it went wrong and corrected it. Whew, that was close. Again 'dat guy' rides off into the sunset with a shiny new fuel tank on the bike ready to ride to the other coast. Have you ever noticed that you can get the words "WHEN SUDDENLY" into just about any sentence in the English language? Well.... dat guy was staying at his son and daughter- in- law's apartment whist (Limey word, just for you Jim) on the west coast and rode happily from Chet's to the gas station, fueled everything up, than rode to his son's apartment and parked for the night. Got up the next day, went outside to the bike for some reason or other WHEN SUDDENLY, the stench of gasoline filled his nostrils. Gee, could it be his bike? Nah, no way, it was just some cosmic coincidence.... but upon further examination, it did seem that the large gasoline soaked asphalt spot was directly under his motorcycle. Several emotions now: fear, terror, embarrassment, fear, shock, amazement, and a sudden need to escape the scene.
So our intrepid guy rides off (carefully 'cause the ground really was very slippery) in search of some way to address this.... situation. He ended up at a local Auto Zone, with his son (driving a car and bringing tools), pulling the fuel tank off the bike. Lots of paper towels trying to mop things up, a new store- bought container to drain the bike's fuel tank into and some disassembly. Ah, there is the problem: the O-ring on the inside of the fitting is all cut up from something: stick a new O-ring in there and re-fill the tank (partially) with fuel and get ready to bask in the goodness of a non- leaking fuel tank. WHEN SUDDENLY it was leaking again.... and the new O-ring turned out to be cut up like the last one. ?? Bear in mind that all during this entire escapade, I... er, I mean 'that guy' is going back and forth into the store to buy tools, O-rings, washers, etc., etc. and each time I enter the place, I smell more and more like a Chevron refinery. (note: the manager of the store came out to see what I was going (of course) and was absolutely great about it- he just asked me that when I was done if I had spilled anything that did NOT evaporate to let them know so they could clean it up- KUDOS Auto Zone). Upon further examination, it was the nasty burr left inside the fuel tank from the step drill that was eating the O-rings and causing the leak. As the guy with the bike did not have anything to take care of that, he used two fiber washers with a healthy helping of silicone seal and Viola! again- it did not leak.
Happily Ever After. The End.
So you should make the effort to go to Chet's house and add a temporary auxiliary fuel tank 'cause I gots to tells ya', it is the most exciting two days you could possibly have with a motorcycle. By the way, I am of course not blaming ANY of this on Chet, I did the work and it was all my fault of course. But Chet did come up with the soundbite that summed up the whole project: when we were done (the first time, not the seventh time) and were standing there looking at the monstrosity that it was, I said something like 'As bad as that looks, I do not think there is anything actually illegal there'. To which Chet responded: 'Yeah, they haven't gotten around to making every bad idea illegal..... yet.'
Brian
Brian, I am 1200.8 miles South of Chet's. Not making the trip this week!
Do tell...auxiliary tank?? I have one plumbed for the C10 that I used in the three day Utard 1088 a few years ago. Made for 11 gallons of goodness at a time. Do tell!
saxman
