Good News/Bad News

Although I'll leave the ride report to Douglas, I will fill you guys in on something that happened at the outset of the ride. As you know from a previous blog, I had purchased a set of trackday take-offs from Ocelot on the ZRXOA and had them mounted up on the ZRX with the intent of surprising Douglas by showing up riding "mean-green". Bike has been running superb since I got the coil issue addressed and was excited to be back on the Rex with a chance to get it back in the twisties! Leaving Tulsa Saturday morning it was a little cool so the bike was running even better. I got about 100 miles north of Tulsa when I pulled over to the side of the road to check my map and to my great dismay, I was soon enveloped in a choking cloud of blue (oil) smoke emanating from my tailpipe! What to do now? First instinct was to turn around and head home so as not to get caught out on the road with a disabled bike. I called the wife to let her know I was returning and also called Dick who reinforced my decision not to push the bike any further than I needed to. Called/texted Douglas to let him know my plan and headed back to Tulsa. Once back on the road, I noticed the bike wasn't really burning oil at speed and was still running great. Since I was so close to Douglas, less than 30 miles, I stopped, texted him I was on my way, turned around and continued on to Big Brutus. Met up with Douglas at Big Brutus and was pretty bummed about what was happening. Douglas was very positive about the whole situation and suggested we ride back to Tulsa, get my Fizzy and continue on our trip which is what we ended up doing. Trip turned out wonderful but I knew rear tire on my Fizzy wasn't up to the task but had little choice other than to take it given the pickle we were in.

As for the ZRX, she starts/runs fine with no obvious noises. Bike puffs blue smoke at idle and partial throttle and throttle blips. If I idle it up to 5K, the smoke eventually clears up almost completely and there is very little noticeable smoke at speed. I initially thought it might be a valve guide/seal but when decelerating using engine braking, the smoke doesn't seem to get worse as one would expect given the vacuum this maneuver is creating. I had a valve guide/seal go on my manual transmission Z-28 and whenever I would engine brake, it would pull all the oil down the valve stem and smoke like a sum-bitch. In any case, I don't plan on messing with the ZRX before the rally and will look at it over the winter. At Dick's direction I'll start by pulling plugs to see if it's isolated to one cylinder or affecting them all. Hopefully, it's just a valve job and not a ring issue although I suppose a scored cylinder might mean it's 1224 time! Maybe this is a great thing in disguise! Any thoughts appreciated and ask any questions you might have.

Yikes!

This is what my rear tire looked like after getting home! Once again, I pushed my rear tire to the limit and almost didn't make it home. Turns out the Diablo is a steel-belted tire which is probably what allowed it to last as long as it did. After getting to the motel Sunday night, it was obvious the tire was done but there were no chords showing. By the time we got to Yellville, Monday morning, things were looking grim and I was dreading every mile home from that point on. More on the trip later.

I Wanna Park Under That!

So, you take a quick look at these pics and you might crap your pants thinking that perhaps the Corobra has met its untimely demise. Never fear, she runs strong as ever.
I took these pics this morning. I was heading in to see the doctor and low and behold, right up front in an otherwise crowded parking lot, two open spaces right there next to this behemoth truck. Big surprise! My guess is people got one look at this thing and decided they wouldn't be so lucky as to get a door ding on this day, but rather would get a side window busted out instead!
My FIRST thought was: "I wanna park UNDER that." Am I the only one who thinks this way? And I got it under there a pretty good ways. If I'd had a Come-Along in the car, I might have tried to winch it up on the Corobra's back and carried the thing away...just like I carried Chuck up that hill in the back parking lot of the Swiss Holiday. Just like that big barge that sinks and then picks stuff up from underneath.

New Mexico Trip

God I love New Mexico !! Wonder why I ever left....

John McEnroe vs. Novak Djokovic U.S Open 2009

Ran across this accidentally and thought it was pretty funny. I grew up playing racket sports and followed tennis enthusiastically in my youth. The battles between Jimmy Connors and young McEnroe still stand out in my mind as some of the best tennis ever played. Although I don't follow much now, I do try and keep up with who the current players are, Djokovic being one of them. I guess he is quite the jokester and pulled this little stunt after running through an opponent in the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open. Priceless stuff!

The Butterly Effect

Just enjoying the yard and getting pics of the dogs when this little guy showed up! He looked pretty beat up but seemd to be operating normally. Took 75 pics in about 5 minutes and these are some of the better ones. Enjoy and I'll be happy to send full-res images if you e-mail me with a request.

Happy Birthday Little Buddy!

Enjoyed it my little man!

New Shoes for the ZRX

In order to attend the Fall Rally on the ZRX, I would need new tires for the ZRX. Cash is tight so I decided to give ocelot's Track Day take-offs a shot. Tires shipped 09/02/09 and arrived yesterday at 09/09/09. I didn't actually know they had been dropped on the porch until this morning when I tracked them through UPS. In any case, the tires have beat my expectations on all levels. It honestly looks like my tires have about 20 laps on the track and I got the guy who didn't even take them to the edge. I know where I will be buying my tires in the near future and would recommend them to all of you as well! Time to get the Harbor Freight tire changer figured out!

MotoCam Mount Trois

Here are a couple of quick pics of my latest camera amount on the ZRX. Tried a helmet cam and it worked really well from an anti-vibration standpoint but the constant head movement was nauseating. One can never say I don't look both ways... at least 4 times before crossing traffic! In any case, this was a quick mock-up using 16g tin, final version would be in aluminum plating on the order of 3/32" or 1/8". Let me know what you think, maybe some drawbacks I haven't thought of. Also, the helmet cam video I reference above is still on my FTP if you care to watch. Use a puke-bag and don't say I didn't warn you!

Front 3/4 shot. Using mounting points on the radiator.



Rear 3/4 shot...



Detail shot of mount...



View from cockpit. Quick glance will now show if camera is in record mode so there are no more "I'm sorry, I thought it was on" moments...




Front view. Mounting points are confirmed vertical but camera plate is missing lower velcro mount making camera appear off-axis. I have confidence final install will be vertical...



Front view detail showing missing velcro...



Detail from above. I'll make final version slightly longer to capture more of the mounting plate...

"The Fix"

There is nothing like one of my "super scrambles" to clear the cobwebs in the morning!

The ingredients. A little pit ham, fresh tomtoes, avacado, mushrooms, cilantro and cheese...



The eggs. A little MSG, salt, pepper, paprika and red pepper flakes.



Looking good!



Eureka! A little salt and pepper and fresh cilantro to top it off.

From the Hillbilly Garage....

I attached this to a thread I started years ago on the ZRXOA board. It's the pipe trick I use when installing the back wheel.

Happy Birthday!!!

To the guy who can ride circles around us all, who can fix whatever it is with what's in the toolkit under the seat, and who will ride it no matter how bad it's been crashed.
It's always fun riding with you, Joe B.
Here's to many more years to come!!!

Happy birthday, compadre!!!

Passion For Your Hobby

Was trolling the FZ1OA this evening, just looking for something fun and ran across the below video. This guy(CopperDawg) is well-known on the Fizzy board and makes custom parts for the Fizzy. Very expensive custom parts that is! Sure would have been nice to have something like this as a reference when I was first getting into modding the ZRX. The guy obviously has a passion for his bike and it really comes through in his video. Douglas, maybe you could produce something like this. Of course you might have to spruce up that hillbilly garage of yours to give your video any credibility! LOL...

She's 40!

Well, the ZRX flipped 40K on the way to work today, woohoo! I miscalculated and got caught on the freeway as it happened so close will have to do. Ironic that I achieve this milestone just as I am having a rekindling of my passion for the ZRX and it is nice to see her come this far and still be something to look at. There are a lot of things I like about the Fizzy, it's razor sharp handling being at the very top of the list but I just feel more "right" on the ZRX. We'll see what happens with the Fizzy but I'm fairly confident now that I could never get rid of the ZRX. Thanks to all of you for your support as I went through this time of crisis and thanks to those of you who whispered words of wisdom to me as I was contemplating the unthinkable!