Since I am reasonably certain I’ll have my new seat next week one day, I’ve gone ahead and committed to riding the F650 to Gillette, Wyoming for the national MOA rally.

I worked yesterday on the side case rig I’m fabricating to hold two Coleman coolers (one on each side). I kind of got sidetracked and began disassembling the electrical stuff on the 1150 to put it on the F650. That meant taking the tank off the 1150 yet again to get to the wiring for the GPS and the XM radio. I got that done and began hooking them up to the F650. I got the GPS wired direct to the battery since I want to keep it on all the time, unless I turn it off at the unit itself. However, the XM needed to be a “Key-on” wiring set-up. I located the black/gray tail light wire at a bundle up by the fuse box and decided to tap into that one. This morning I got up and went to Radio Shack for a connector to accomplish this task. I got home and clipped the connector onto the black/gray wire and put the male spade connector on the radio power wire, attached the ground wire to a frame screw and went to turn on the key to check it out.

Here’s the connection…

Which did not work! Now I have this …

Attached to this…

Because I left this…

On overnight! DRATS! I hate it when that happens.

Now back to the side case contraption for a while. I hope I get it all together so I’ll have time to pack for the trip.

Yesterday afternoon about 4:00 I got a call from the seat upholsterer and she asked me to come in this morning and try the new seat before they cover it. It seemed like it would be a rather useless endeavor unless I could sit on it while it was on the bike itself. However, to ride the bike over to the location would mean creating some kind of ’seat’ to ride over there on… This is the result.

It wasn’t all that bad. But I know it can’t be good for the electric components situated under the seat, so I didn’t go for any rides after the task.

The seat should be done by next Thursday…down to the wire since I’m leaving for Gillette on the 13th.

Well, the clock is ticking down to Sunday the 13th of July, which is the day I’m departing for the wilds of Wyoming for the annual national BMW MOA rally in Gillette. That is, if everything falls into place. Let me explain.

I would really like to take the big R1150R out there since it has proven itself in terms of comfort and reliability. However, it has 74,000 miles on it and is due a final drive bearing replacement. The parts are on order but they may not arrive in time! I also am preparing to take the F650GS since it is practically brand new and many others have done long rides on it and to me that sort of proves it can be done in relative comfort and reliability. The comfort part may be what messes up that idea.

I could not tolerate the stock seat. Therefore I took the seat to a local upholsterer-Gotcha Covered-and they are taking their sweet time getting it done. The other part of this equation resolved itself to day when this package was delivered to my doorstep.

The box held that new side case rack I ordered from Happy Trails a few weeks ago. After reading the instructions and checking the package, I proceeded to install them. These babies went on pretty much as outlined in the instructions, with one small glitch…not with the racks, but with the bike. As I went to remove the bolts holding the rear fender support, it found them to have been installed with red Loctite making them really stubborn to remove. But I got’em out okay and continued.

They look fine…of course!

And are very sturdy feeling, having three mounting points with a rear bumper across the back.

Now I have to come up with some bags to attach to these racks so I can carry stuff to Wyoming!

I had seen someone…another rider…use a popular game token glued onto his GPSr ‘arrows’ toggle to make it easier for him to move the cursor around with his gloved hands. This idea struck me as something possibly useful when applied to the tiny buttons on my small digital camera.

Last night I searched for the appropriate item to glue on top of the buttons for this purpose. What I found eventually was a hard rubber ceramic tile spacer which I cut into two tiny oblong pieces and super glued them down to the power button and the shutter release button. The buttons were so slick and shiney I thought they needed some roughing up to help with glue adhesion, so I used the point of a utility knife to scratch a criss-cross pattern of lines into both buttons then glued the little rubber nubbins into place.

Now I can hang the camera around my neck when traveling through some scenic area and it will make it so much easier to just lift the camera and find the buttons to turn it on and shoot a picture…all with my gloves still on me hands!

I’m really bored. It’s a cloudy day and hopefully it will rain some more. The garden needs it. All other animal and human beings also need it here in Georgia since there continues to be a drought. With those necessary requirements fulfilled, and having the required DOT 4 brake fluid found at the local NAPA dealership yesterday, I proceeded to bleed the brakes on the little F650GS. The bike only has about 1600 miles on it but it’s almost 1 1/2 years old now and the brake fluid needs to be changed once a year.

Following the directions from the Chain Gang FAQs I got some protective plastic under the front master cylinder and opened her up. After soaking up all the fluid in the master cylinder I poured some brand new fresh fluid into the reservoir and moved over to the other side of the bike to attach my Mity Vac vacuum bleeder tool. This little gadget makes the brake bleeding much easier, but I have some issues with it.
The little adapters supplied with the kit lack one which fits over the BMW bleed nipple tightly and because of that I had to hold it on with my left hand while pumping up the vacuum with my right hand then lay down the pump and still holding the adapter onto the nipple I had to turn the nipple open using an open end 11mm wrench. Once the vacuum goes down I tighten the nipple back up and repeat the pumping routine.
Silly me never thought I was getting so low on fluid up in the master cylinder reservoir until I heard the dreaded “sucking” noise as air was drawn into the system from the top! Boy did I feel stupid.

So I filled it up good and noticed some air leaking back up through the fluid. At this point I decided to just lock the brake handle down and let the air naturally bleed up and out overnight. The lines weren’t really that bad anyway on the front. Not dark at all. Lesson learned.

The rear brake went much easier…and was much dirtier! After loosening the retaining bracket for the little round master cylinder to have access to the cylinder cup for refilling, I once again soaked up all the dirty stuff in the master cylinder with a paper shop towel. I then refilled it with good stuff and moved to the other side.

I could see the fluid reservoir underneath the frame of the bike as I bled it this time, but I still had to do the “pump-bleeder open-bleeder closed-pump again” routine while I watched the new fluid in the reservoir as it went down. This gave me ample warning to get up and move around to the other side to refill the reservoir.

I continued this process until the fluid looked clear and fresh coming out. I locked down the bleeder, put the rubber boot cover back over it. Replaced the plastic reservoir on the right side and it was done.

This is what the old fluid looked like which came out of the rear system.

Now I just have to wait until tomorrow to finish off the front, giving it plenty of time for the air to move up to the high point and out through the master cylinder.

Then it was time for a Calzone and a Heinekin!

I did go out and move the bikes around to get started on the F650 brake bleed…Then I discovered I didn’t have any fresh DOT 4 fluid.

Then I cleaned up the ‘farting room’ some…threw out trash…cut up some cardboard boxes for school next year…cleaned out my ESOL notebook which was on the floor…put some big pieces of composite board leftover from my railroad layout project in the back room…

Then I found out this little bit of information.
17

My the internet is so useful.

So far I’ve only managed to order a side case rack from Happy Trails…like this one…

And I have the stock seat at a local seat upholsterer to be redone. I just got word that the rack is on the way and should arrive next Tuesday. That should give me plenty of time to create some kind of side bag system. I’m thinking seriously about using these…two of them…maybe one red and one blue just to be patriotic.

I’ll have to use some good ole American ingenuity to get them attached to the racks so they will stay as I travel along bumpy roads and highways. That may be a challenge.

I need to phone my seat people and see how they’re coming along with the seat. I was supposed to have heard something last week. Hmmm?

I’d been putting off going down to south Alabama to visit Bud, my Dad, but things worked out this week for me to take the ride. I knew it would be a hot one, but it cooled off a little from the week before so it turned out to be not so bad. I took off about 11AM on Monday and made it rather swiftly along the I-85/I-65 corridor from Atlanta to Atmore by around 4PM his time. I found him doing what he usually does…

…and you can guess where the TV is located. He has a Ford F-150 truck which he meticulously maintains for what purpose is anybody’s guess, since he can’t see well enough to drive very far away from his house. I think he said he drives to Church, to the store, and to the pharmacy sometimes. Generally he just waits for one of his sons to come around and drive him places. So that’s what we did.

I took him over to my brother’s house for dinner on Monday night and then we drove up to the Poarch Creek Indian reservation senior center for lunch on Tuesday. There we met some of his buddies and ‘girlfriends’ and ate lunch after which most of them played BINGO.

After visiting with the folks there we mosied back up to Atmore and stopped in to visit my other brother as he shelled peas and beans from his garden.

They invited us back for dinner to eat some of the fresh stuff out of the garden, including field peas, cornbread, and fried squash.

We drove home and napped for a while before heading back for dinner, which was, by-the-way, the best groceries I’ve had so far this summer. I liked the peas so much I went to the local feed and seed and bought me some seeds to plant once I got back home.

I know they must have thought me the foreign city folk visitor when I purchased a whopping 45 cents worth of seeds!

The ride back this morning began as a cool one since I started out at 5AM local time in Atmore. I told Pop goodbye and headed up I-65, joining I-85 in Montgomery. Once I got into Georgia I took US Hwy 27 north to I-20 to avoid the construction on 85 going into Atlanta. It added about 30 miles on the trip but was well worth the extra time to save possibly an hour of sitting in traffic on the interstate.

Today I’m tired…But I may ride again tomorrow to head north toward Virginia. We’ll see.

The last two days have been busy ones riding/driving 50 miles across town to visit grandchildren. My daughter who lives in Virginia came down to visit. She is staying at my other daughter’s home over in Lawrenceville and that’s where I had to go.

Jenny and I drove over there Friday evening and ate a chili dog dinner with them all while taking photos and catching up on hugs and stories, while watching them engage in the antics that children engage in, making me tired just watching them. There are 4. The one daughter has 7 year old twins and the other daughter has two girls 4 and 2. The two year old is the one in the swing.

The little red head is a fireball and never tires. They let her sit in the bouncy seat and spin forever

..

…She doesn’t get dizzy. So they say.

The 4 year old was elsewhere engaged in other things at the time. Today I get a break and tomorrow they head on down to Florida to visit other family members.

I got up pretty early yesterday morning and started taking the radiator off the truck. It required all these proprietary parts to be removed…plastic grille…air pollution line retainer and the oil dipstick holder thingy. After removing the radiator and determined that I was going to buy a new one, my neighbor came over as I was cleaning it, and noticed immediately that it was still in like new shape with water flowing through it as its supposed to. At that point I decided to go ahead and take off the water pump and replace it. I almost stripped a nut holding the fan/fan clutch assembly onto the pulley which was attached to the water pump housing.

At that point I stopped and went to sears for a better wrench. One can always use a better wrench, or at least another wrench. I needed the 6 flat box end 12mm and all I had was one of those multi-flat types which was stripping the corners off the nut. As soon as I returned with it the nuts came right off as well as the water pump. Then it got too hot to work any longer. I DID manage a trip to Auto Zone for new belts and a new water pump. That set me back another $138.

This morning I got up early again and installed the new water pump and belts. I have attached the radiator temporarily for testing purposes and as soon as the gasket RTV seal cures, I’ll take it out to see if it overheats after the new water pump. WHEW!

Right now I’m waiting for Jenny to return so we can go see my Grandkids and daughters over in Lawrenceville.