Mandatory Fall Cleaning
Like all great traditions of modern society, there is a time and place for everything, or so I’ve recently discovered while forced into an impromptu spring-cleaning session here in the fall. Before digging into the fruits of such labor, first a little background. I’ve lived in my modest but cozy abode since 2003 and in that time have managed to delay the inevitable at least half a dozen times.
I’ve known that our single first-floor bathroom was in need of a major overhaul since, well shortly after having unpacked my boxes from the moving truck, via an odd dripping sound emanating from the basement whenever somebody decided to do something as rash as say turn on a faucet. Worse still was that thanks to a botched hot water tank installation and ensuing flood last fall, even the floor tiles of my bathroom decided to rebel by curling up on the edges regardless of countless applications of Liquid Nails, tile cement, and even Super-Glue. Side note: if you haven’t stubbed your toe on a sharp lifted tile corner while fumbling for the light switch ninety-nine days in a row, you simply cannot fathom the degree in which I dreaded the inevitable remodeling.
Turning motos was out of the question when our Rambling Man had to clean out his basement filled with various relics from an addiction to two wheels.
Long story short, I finally ran out of excuses to postpone the work a few weeks ago (not that my fiancé or sore toes are complaining) and reluctantly began the process of gutting out our only privy in preparation of its complete makeover. Now if you find yourself wondering what in the world all of this has to do with motorcycling, I’m just getting to that (and no we weren’t bought out by Plumbing-USA.com). See an integral aspect of said remodeling, as I feared, suspected, but ignored, involved the complete tear down and rebuild of the pipes zigzagging throughout my basement and, not being riders themselves, the gentlemen hired for the job weren’t overly appreciative of the limited space in which they had to work thanks to boxes of spare parts littered throughout by yours truly.
I was asked kindly (something to the effect of, get rid of this junk or we’ll do it for you) to tidy the place up a bit. Considering the boxes were all but rotted through and contained literally countless rare gems of motorcycling throughout the ages, I found myself oddly compliant. The following day a dumpster was delivered squarely in my driveway to accommodate the refuse I was charged with disposing of. To spare you the tedium of a part-by-part replay, I’ll highlight a few of the gems I unearthed in a cloud of dust like something out an Indiana Jones film.
4-stroke Piston circa 1986
Why I decided to hold onto this is truly the bigger mystery here, considering I can’t even be certain what it came out of (and it appears quite scored at that). What is interesting however is that pistons have certainly changed shape throughout the past 20 years! While this relic is shaped to resemble a can of spray paint with rings, my CRF450R’s piston looks much more like a metallic pancake in comparison. I decided to keep it for this reason alone.
Pile of rust later identified as a spark plug
Does anyone remember the mid to late 1990s when, due to a split in the electrode, companies were claiming performance increases by running their spark plugs? I sure do and despite the fact that scientific testing debunked such claims many times over, I still have one Splitfire spark plug left over from those old days onboard my Kawasaki KX250. With a little cleanup on the grinder, I was able to restore it to near original condition (well at least to shortly after my two-stroke fouled it initially). Couldn’t possibly throw that piece of history away!
Several Pipes
Sure you could just throw away old pipes, but it's still good!
As is so often the habit of any performance enthusiast (or wannabe as the case may be) one of my first mods to any bike is often to swap out the stock exhaust system in favor of something lighter, more free flowing, or just plain louder. It turns out that while I have managed to successfully rid myself of countless bikes throughout the years, somehow my collection of stock exhaust systems has lingered on in a sort of graveyard of twisted metal piping.
The unmistakable conch shape of several two-stroke pipes was found intermingled in a tangle of straight-pipes, rusted headers, and even a 4-into1 setup from an old Honda 400F. I’m a believer in the theory that should the right deal come along, I wouldn’t hesitate to repurchase any one of the countless machines I’ve owned throughout the years. If that’s the case, any one of these pipes could come in handy.
Oil Lines
How these things found their way onto my basement shelves is anybody’s guess but after a few days of intense Internet research, I’ve managed to associate them with the Harley-Davidson Shovelhead motor. Even stranger still is the fact that I’ve never owned an H-D.
Of course there were other finds scattered throughout of equal character; glass jars filled with washers, a bucket of torn grips, a few cross bar pads in almost usable condition, air filter elements, torn tubes, ignition boxes, even a brand-new, never-opened brake lever with a part number just faded enough to make cross referencing it impossible. As any mechanic will attest, you won’t find yourself in need of any such things until the moment they’ve been discarded.
After much rearranging, cardboard box updating, and careful stacking, I had the basement clear enough for the plumbers to do their thing. Unfortunately it turns out the dumpster rental place charges the same even when the thing’s completely empty when they come to pick it up.
