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TWT Maintenace Day in Huntsville 01/24/04

Tourmeister

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Howdy,

If you just wanna see the pics, go here:
http://twtex.com/linkfiles/012404-maintday/

:tab Well, despite some rather nasty weather, we had a great turnout and got a lot of work done. Will and Paul arrived Friday night, John and Debbie Saturday morning, Pete, Kim, Christopher, and Anika (sp?) arrived around 11:00am and then Raul, Sandra and the angelic twins around 1:30pm. The garaged was packed!

-Will Bird using the magic WD-40 to break a bolt loose on the Triumph Trophy 1200.

-The not so pretty view from the front porch.

-Will inspects his rear brake after reinstalling the rear tire while John gives us the standard Adventure Rider salute.

-Paul's Sprint RS gets new brake pads front and rear.

-The Deadweight Club (Deb, Beth and Kim -left to right) keeping Will's front tire and forks off the ground while he and John change the tire and remount it.

-Oh the sacrifices made for the sake of bike maintenance...

-Will pondering the cleaning of his front brake rotors.

-Paul gingerly and patiently bleeds the front brakes on the RS. He doesn't know how lucky he is that he's not bleeding a VFR's linked brakes!

-John prepares to set off on his South of the Border tour to Baja...

-And away he goes!!

-Kim supervising while Pete delicately cuts on his brake and clutch reservoirs so he can install the new Heli-Bars.

-Too many Chiefs for the job... loosen this... tighten that... no no, over here!!!

-New tires and Heli-Bars, Pete is ready to ride!! ... to the trailer. :roll:

-Am I straight?

-Anika looks on wondering of the goof on the bike is really her dad?

-Pete subtly trying to get Kim to like his bike so he can ride her new BMW all the time.

-The Russo family... Anika, Kim, Pete and Silent Christopher.

-Raul, Sandra and the twins

-Beth gets in some quality time with the twins. -- Unbelievably cute aren't they!?

:tab Brian Duelm and his wife Stephanie dropped in for a while to visit on their way to points farther South. Beth headed to McKenzie's BBQ to get lunch for everyone. Not long after lunch, Pete, Kim and the yung'uns had to get on back to McKinney so Christopher could make it to a party. Thanks to Dad, he was already going to be fashionably late :roll: It seems that Paul was given the wrong brake pads by the shop so we have to crusie back down to FM 1960, an hour each way, to pick up the correct pads. Will finally gets his bike back together after totally tearing down the front brakes, rebuilding them and bleeding the whole mess. Paul and I take off for the shop. Raul and Sandra leave shortly after we do.


:tab Paul and I get back to find everyone vegged out in the living room. I convince them to help me swap the rear shocks on the VFR 800's. Since we are selling mine, I want to move the Ohlins rear shock onto Beth's bike. Shouldn't be too hard now should it??

-That hose has to go where? Can I remember that? where's the camera?

-Will and your's truly testing the limits of our grunt facotrs! Hey that's my finger!!!

-They didn't take all that off to get it in there, so how the heck does it come out!!??

-John can only supervise for so long before he has to jump in and get dirty.

-How many dweebs does it take to pull a rear shock out of a VFR?

-Will likes the VFR so much he starts getting a little friendly with it... has he been in the Tequila early?

-Beth and Abbey fight over who gets to sit on Paul's RS while watching us struggle with the VFR.

-Having lost the fight with Beth, she moves on to Will, he's an easy mark!

-Well, maybe not so easy after all. She settles for Debbie's GS500.

:tab We struggled for some time with the shock on the 01 VFR. I called Patrick for some advice. His boys at the shop installed it for me. "Will it come out the top?", "No?", "How about the bottom?", "They got it in there, so it has to come out somehow!" Finally, after a little knucklebusting, John hits upon the brilliant idea of lifting the swingarm and the shock drops right out without the slightest hassle. Simply amazing :hail

:tab I am anxious to get started on putting the shock in the 98 VFR because I'm thinking once we do dinner and everyone has a few drinks, the working motivation will be zapped and I'll be left trying to do it on my own later. Amidst protestations that I will get all the help that I need, I get out voted and we go get dinner. They hold true to their word and when we get back, it's back to the garage floor.

-Debbie lending a helping hand.

-John "supervising" again.

-Is it tight yet?? My neck is killing me!!

-Paul's method is to just whack it with the mallet... Will's is to win it over with a little TLC :eek:

-What was that torque value again??

:tab Some time around midnight we finish getting both bikes reassembled. Job done! What a great feeling to have accomplished so much today! Where's the Tequila? It's time to do some Bon voyage toasting for John as he prepares to leave the country for a few months and head to points South on the PigZilla. Around 2:00am we knock off to dream of the beautiful day to come on the morrow. After a cold rainy day, it is supposed to get up into the 70's and be perfectly clear on Sunday. I can't wait to test out the 98 VFR with all the goodies on it!

Adios,
 
Achim said:
...It seems you had some fun besides all the work.

If you want to know the truth of the matter...

- we did a little work in between the fun stuff! :mrgreen: :wink:
 
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