Riley Ride

Grand Opening!

Jen and I took advantage of the holiday weekend by doing a little organizing that was long overdue. THE GARAGE!!! (Cue diabolical music and thunder clap)

The garage has mainly been a space to throw stuff for a long time. When we had two cars, we had to make sure there was a 'Honda-sized space' (HSS) in the pile to park in, but aside from that, not much thought has been given to it over the years. 2 years ago, I did a break-job on the Volvo in the HSS, and I'm sure there was still all kinds of toxic dust lurking in there. When we got rid of the Honda, the space just fell apart. Without any real need to maintain the HSS, stuff began to pile up with no regard for vehicular shapes. Things got sort of organized last summer when I excavated my motorcycle from the back, but it didn't last long, and was never clean to begin with. Therefore, four years after we moved here, we decided that the garage was going to become functional. Mainly because, after spending so much time at 'Pod Bay Motors™', I had developed a serious case of 'GARAGE ENVY'!!!

Monday morning it was off to IKEA to find some cheap shelves, and a shop stool. After a spot of lunch, we tore into the job. There was a cleaning, organizing and purging tornado for about 3-1/2 hours. At some point during the garage purge Jen got Riley's room completely clean and rearranged for maximum play-space! Once the Ikea shelves were built and a bunch of crap was relegated to the local landfill the organization started to come together. Without asking, J was able to identify the "Memorial Shelf of Unused Sports Equipment", and placed my fishing tackle box there. After a lung full of mold, dust and FSM-knows-what, we dragged the final bag of trash to the dumpster.

We are proud to present,

Pod Bay Motors East

Stay tuned for...
Future Plans For The Pod Bay:

• HEAT!
• Tunes (Pod Bay Docks with iPod)
  
• More Light (I'm sure there are some AR-5s around)
  
• Posters
• Guinness Tap! (Slightly more important than heat)
• Bike Lift
• Carburetor Rejet
• ...and much much more
  

MacGyver Move

Last night I went to pick up my bike at "Pod Bay Motors". She had been sitting in the Pod Bay overnight while the RTV that I used to plug the AIS spigots cured. Needless to say the AIS components seem to have disappeared from my bike, hmmmm. The RTV looked good, so I started it up and headed out to the safeway to pick up some milk. The bike starts to sputter and fail about a 1/4 mile down the road and my mind starts racing, "What did I forget?" I thought as the bike stalled completely on the side of the road. "Oh shit, I forgot to plug the vacuum spigot in the front cylinder intake manifold!" When I attempted to restart with some choke, she cranked like a sick-puppy but would not fire, that's when it hit me. "The petcock is 'OFF'!!!" DUH! She started on the third try after I turned the fuel supply back on. Of course she still had the open vacuum line and was running terrible, so I limped up to safeway and started thinking about what I can fix her with. Staring at the school supplies I found it! A package of slip-on pen grips and erasers, I also got some Krazy Glue™, just in case. The triangular purple slip on eraser fit over the vacuum line well, and the hose clamp almost made it around the thing! No Krazy Glue™ needed! I remember from grammar school that this type of 'aftermarket' eraser never really worked to fix mistakes, it was more like 3rd grade 'bling', or a replacement for the one that you already chewed off. As a vacuum cap, the little hunk of purple rubber works great!

Pod Bay Motors is happy to announce our weekly special!! Color Keyed Vacuum Caps©!!! Get Yellow, Blue, or 'Plumb Crazy' Purple!! Stock is limited so hurry in!

Riley Fix

Guess I should start calling this, "Monthly Riley." Anyway, last month Riley tripped and fell at day care, causing the skin on his forehead to split like a melon on Emeril Live, BAM! The doctor explained that stitches are the best option for a wound like this, so Riley took home four. Getting them in was no fun, J, myself, plus an orderly held him down while 'doc shaky-hands' sewed him up. They ended up looking rather good so, hey! Check it out!

Open the Pod Bay Door Please

Been spending a great deal of time doing motorcycle maintenance over the past couple of months. The old V-Star needed a great deal of work after sitting in the garage for 4 years. Anyhow, I have been doing all this work over at my friend Tom's garage because it is bigger than ours, and has a door to his kitchen. We have started calling the place, "The Pod Bay" so I whipped up a logo. Thought that I would share.

Since last summer we have:

Complete oil change and filter
Pulled both wheels and had new tires mounted
Spline lube (Pro Honda 60% Moly Paste)
Rear break shoes
Front break pads
Complete break fluid change
Final drive oil change
Valve lash adjust
Replace spark plugs
Air filter replace
Carburetor Synchronization
Idle adjustment

It's good to be riding again and the bike is running good after all the love that we have been giving it. Next we plan to re-jet the carbs, mod the air-box so that it is more free flowing and remove the ugly AIS components completely(de-Californicate). At some point I have to detail it as well. When it's looking better I will post some photos, but for now I have to replace the AE-35 long range antenna control module, my computer tells me it will fail within 72 hours.