Rust and 'Renches

So as the title suggests, I did some actual work on Cub tonight, finally. I've gotten my little area in the garage into some kind of condition that I can live with for the time being, in as much as I've got the space to put both bikes next to each other, I have a bit of table space to do work on, and there's enough open floor area for me to get down and actually work on things.

The title also suggests that Spare's entire exhaust system was rusted, which it was. Keep in mind, of course, that when I say "rusted," I really mean to say "my thumb punched through the muffler and about a pound and a half of rust flakes came raining out of the hole." I was shocked, needless to say.

Anyway, the first work I elected to do was to take a few things off of Spare, to start the process of identifying what parts are still usable and what parts are bound for the junkyard. The ignition switch is the key thing, so to speak, that I've been looking at for weeks now. I figure my first priority is to get the engine running, so having an ignition key would be nice. I've also started compiling a little wishlist of air filter system parts, which theoretically will be easy to get. Hooking up the fuel lines and what have you shouldn't be too difficult, but we'll find that out as we go I suppose. Plans are in motion, etc etc.

With the ignition switch off of Spare, I moved to the front leg shield on Cub, since it would get in the way of my work. Then the rear brake pedal return spring on Spare. Then the engine on Spare... Perhaps a bit ahead of myself, but at some point I think I might need to swap engine parts, so I thought I'd get a head start on it. Also, having the engine off the bike frees a lot of space to examine smaller components. It's surprisingly heavy for a 50cc engine, though I suppose that's in part because the transmission and starter system are integral. In any event, I think that I'll spend some time over the course of this project attempting to get Spare's engine cleaned up a bit. Running would be fantastic, but I know better than to hope for too much.

I think a small celebration is in order, since this constitutes the start of the interesting part of the project. Also:


That's Audrey, my girlfriend, sitting on Cub. Expect better quality and more detailed pictures as the project continues...

-The Proprietor

The pool cue in the corner

The course of cleaning out my friend David's garage is going to cross my path with a lot of unusual things, I think. For instance, when I went over today to do some work, I ran across a chainsaw in a plastic bag, a pool cue under a pile of blueprints, and a bunch of paintbrushes in the fridge... right. I've gotten the area around a work bench in the corner partly cleared- enough for me to start using the workbench for organizing the random spare parts that I've started this project out with. I've also cleared enough room around the fridge for me to actually get to it to stock it with PBR and sodas. Not that PBR constitutes the top end of the beer spectrum, of course, but when you're doing something like fixing up a '66 moped, you need to tailor your post-work beverage selections to be appropriate. I'll drink PBR at concerts and after working on bikes, and save the Wells Bombardier for when Henri and I are celebrating how awesome we'd be if we were both Daniel Craig.

In the meantime, I've specifically avoided working on Cub until I've gotten the garage into a mostly-functional state, for the sake of prioritizing. I have a nasty habit of dropping tasks when I start new ones, rather than incorporating them into part of a larger project... Of course, I'm aware that this means I'm blogging about cleaning a garage in a blog intended for motorcycle geekdom, but bear with me for a little while longer and hopefully it'll be worth the while. Tomorrow David and I are having a garage sale, and assuming even half the crap we have so far sells, we'll have freed up obscene amounts of space. Once the 400 ton CRT TV goes to the dump on Tuesday, I think I can cautiously start poking at lug nuts and tightening cables... but no promises yet. Incidentally, if anybody's interested in a yard sale in the Atlanta area, comment. We'll probably have at least one more...

-The Proprietor

Chapter One: The Beginning of the Beginning

A few thoughts on workspace in a major city:

There isn't much if you don't own a house. Unfortunately, the obvious follow up is, if you live in a big city, there aren't many houses. Even more unfortunately, the next step is that the houses there are tend to be expensive, and even then, the garages aren't terribly large or are still non-existent. Take, for instance, the area surrounding my apartment. There are beautiful craftsman houses with great gardens and gorgeous architecture... with practical and efficient cars sitting outside of them. Pity.

It's a good day, then, when you happen upon a house that's only about ten minutes away from you, has a three car garage, and is inhabited by an owner who likes you a lot and never uses it anyway. Jackpot, yeah? I'd say so. The only catches are that I have to help him build a workbench, and I have to help him organize the garage before I can use it. Works out anyway- I can't really use the garage unless there's space to do so. It's not even a terribly Herculian task, either. A lot of the clutter which is clogging his garage consists of tools, and a lot of those same tools are ones I can use for my various projects: shop vac, air compressor, chop saw, table saw, etc. So I happily agreed, got a key, and have occasionally been swinging by to check on my Cub(s) and my workspace.

Today I started to step it up a bit, when I noticed that my friend¹ had some sawhorses, some planks of wood, and a bunch of little things that could easily fetch some kind of decent price at the garage sale he's been thinking about having to help with the junk-clearing. I made a quick table and started grabbing. I found a violin, a Eureka bagless vacuum, what appear to be two reasonably good condition DVD players, and an older model flat panel computer monitor lying around on the top of the stuff. Hopefully at least a few more things will pop up, though I sense that most of it will wind up fetching a couple bucks at best. We'll see. Perhaps I'll add some junk of my own and share proceeds. Perhaps a bake sale is in order.

In any case, I didn't just spend the time looking at vacuums and screens- I did actually examine the bikes a bit more thoroughly than I've had a chance to so far. I discovered several things of interest, too. First, the bike in the better condition, which we'll call Cub, does not have working brakes of any kind because the front is out of adjustment, and the rear is missing a bolt that helps brace the assembly against the frame. The deteriorated frame, which we'll call Spare, actually has the bolt and washer. Similarly, the transmission doesn't shift properly on Cub but does on spare, Cub is missing a speedo and Spare has one, the headlight mount ring and lens for Cub are going to come off of Spare, and Spare has already donated her driver footpegs to the cause as well. It'll be nice to pull so many parts off of Spare to get Cub running again, since it'll ultimately save me a bit of cash. When I go to clean her up to resell later on, I'll probably replace a bunch of these parts anyway for appearances, but for bare-bones street legal status, I don't expect a huge bill. And just to get the engine turning won't be too difficult, I don't think.

That said, let's examine what needs to happen in the next couple of weeks:

1. Throw away all obvious garbage and unsellable junk in the garage.


2. Find and marshal all sellable junk into its own space.


3. Price and tag said junk


4. Organize tools and materials into their own separate areas and begin finding space for everything.


5. Move larger objects (work bench, table saw, shelving) around to suit my space needs and maintain an area for at least one car.


6. Plan and schedule a yard sale.

I think that my target date for the yard sale is... let's say the 20th. At least have a date set by then, and have all the arrangements made. Possibly tricky since I've got some other things that need to get done as well, but within my capabilities. Expect me to start posting pictures as soon as I've got my friend's permission to do so.

-The Proprietor

¹Since my goal is for this blog to reach people that potentially neither one of us knows, I'm not going to mention his name until I remember to ask if it's ok. You wouldn't want me blabbing about the condition of your garage to a bunch of strangers, right?

To begin with...

To begin with, I am not a mechanic. I am an engineer- an aerospace engineer to be precise. My interest does not stop at merely aviation, though that is definitely my driving passion. I've come to find that with very few exceptions if a thing is winged, wheeled, or watertight, I'm into it. So it's only natural for me to have an interest in cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycles, etc, right?

My girlfriend and I recently bought a project Honda Cub, which some of you will note is the most widely produced motor vehicle... well, the most widely produced consumer good, really... of all time. Great styling, peppy little four-stroke, three speed semi-automatic transmission, and a modest 200 miles to the gallon of fuel economy. It's actually in pretty good shape, but needs a few parts that have wandered off into the ethereal mist over the course of four decades, so I'm looking forward to a fairly straight-forward project (knocking on wood, of course).

Being the engineer that I am, I thought to myself, "why not chronicle the process of getting this thing running again? It'd be interesting to go back and look at it later, and I might have a few more projects to log later on." You're reading the result of that thought, needless to say. Ride-by-Night Garage is officially open- your friendly neighborhood novice motorcycle tinkerer bumbling his way through his first project. Now, first thing's first- get my workspace in order...