Jay’s Life

So, I fixed my bike last night. Pulled off the fuel cock, and learned that there was a tear in the fuel line in addition to the piece that wasn’t supposed to come off.

The first removal went perfectly fine, no fuel spillage or anything. Put the new part on, which has a much larger switch for changing the fuel settings between PRI-ON-RES. Unfortunately I overlooked the two washers that are required for the two bolts that hold on the fuel cock. So, it started to leak a bit.

I repeated my steps of siphoning out all the gas and running the bike on reserve till it died and tried removing the bolts again, which resulted in a considerable spill, hence the firemen reference in the title and their presence at my home. No flames, just needed some help cleaning up the fuel.

Found the washers I needed on the old part, removed the entire gas tank and installed it fresh. New fuel line too. Everything seems to be running quite well now. No leaking no added smell of gas other than what was already there from last night.

Bikes are fun.

I’ve had more than a few problems with my used 1980 Suzuki GS400. Everything from missing return springs on the rear brake pedal to the recent constant leaking fuel cock.

But today on my ride, the engine died and I figured I needed to flip to reserve. I did and no luck. I looked down to see if the loose fuel line was too loose, nope. The problem seemed to be that the carbourator had in fact fallen off the engine block. Apparently I was missing two hose clamps, that I have since installed.

The new fuel cock arrives next week. I think THEN I’ll have all the parts I’m supposed to have.

Motorcycles are fun.

Success! I installed my very first toilet. Low flow, Peel gives me back $100 of it’s purchase price. Only took an hour.

Tip to others. Put a rag in the empty toilet once you install it, while you’re putting the tank on and hooking up the water. Makes for a more pleasant experience.

I ran into my 11th Grade science teacher today at lunch. It was nice to see her again and talk about where I was and what I’d done since graduating. Good to see you again Mrs. Coules.

I moved the blog to a new server and said goodbye to MovableType. It just wasn’t working for me. So far I like this new software, and I must say, since I have such a horrible server connection, moving the server is so much better.

This is the first time in over 10 years, that a personal server in my home hasn’t been hosting my content. I’m a bit sad, but I guess it’s for the best.

The site is in a horrible state. My upgrade to MovableType 4.0 has left a slew of problems. My old templates are broken, which is unfortunate as Sean Jackson put so much work into them. I’m using the default templates for now. I may have to export and recreate my site.

My hope is to find some time to get this all sorted out and working again. The main reason for the upgrade was to fix comments, but they seem to be experiencing problems as well.

Today we bought our first house together. We thankfuly don’t have to move since we bought the house we love in. YAY!!!!

Last day of riding, and we totaled 500 km over the 3 days. We rode up to the Church Key Brewery and got a couple of jugs of beer each. Then headed on down to the Black Oak Savannah where my Mom is doing her surveys and conservation work. It’s pretty amazing how many different types of grass and plants can live in a single square meter. Equally amazing is the 80 plus species of birds that call the area home. I’m pretty sure I need to buy my own bike now, maybe a Suzuki Bandit. We’ll see.