Well, I cut my trip a little short because the weather generally SUCKED! I left on the east side of that massive wall of rain that stretched from Ohio to central Texas and then more just kept coming. I completely changed my route to try to avoid the early cold front and the rain and ended up in Big Bend Park in Texas. My farthest point west was actually El Capitan in southeastern New Mexico. That was great and so was Big Bend. The total trip was around 3700 miles in 7 days. I left a little town SW of Tyler Texas on Wednesday morning and rode 1060 miles back to my house in under 19 hours. I didn't keep good enough records for the Iron Butt thing, but I know I did it.

Here's the breakdown of mechanical issues along the route...
- Toe shifter came loose and when I pulled and inspected it was pretty stripped. The gears look very worn both on the shaft and the shifter. So, I switched the tow and heel, turned them over (which is much easier because you can actually get at the allen bolts to tighten them now) and it held up fine the rest of the trip.
- Had to tighten the exhaust flanges a couple times, they just have a tendency to loosen on my bike. When it seems to be popping at all, I just give them a couple turns and everything is fine.
- Got some questionable gas but threw in some seafoam and everything was back to normal.
- Had a really weird charging issue. Had been runnning hard and everything was fine at 13.2 or so volts, then looked down and only had about 10. I pulled over to check my grounds and pulled the plug from the regulator to the stator. It looked as if some of the rubber had melted around one of the male terminals. I cleaned it up, took a small allen wrench and rooted around inside the female end, put it back together and had about 12.2V. I figured that would get me home so I took off riding. Slowly, over about 50 miles the guage kept going up until I was back at 13.2V for the remaining 500 miles or so of the trip. Maybe I purchased a cheap stator when I replaced it last year? Strange, but it seems to be fine again now.

Other than that, the old bike ran awesome. Ran in the 70's around Texas and still got over 40mpg. It handled the altitude changes ok until I got up above 5000 feet and then it was definitely running rich. I wasn't up there long or I would have changed out the main jet. Pulled the plugs in New Mexico and both were burning beautifully.

One note on the camping... a friend encouraged me to get this Hennessy Hammock - see pic below - it is AWESOME! no more waking up sore and no more carting around air matresses and stuff. It is a bit interesting getting in and out of, but you get the hang of it after a few times. It is very comfortable to sleep in and packs up really small. All you need it two sturdy post-like objects and you can rest easy all night.

Here's a few of my favorite pic's. Wish the weather had cooperated, but it was great to be out there. At one point, running on a back road in Oklahoma, I came over a ridge and there was a group of about 40 horses running along the highway in a huge pasture. That was really cool, to be riding along side them - definitely my favorite memory.


http://i537.photobucket.com/albums/f...1/SANY0783.jpg
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http://i537.photobucket.com/albums/f...1/SANY0809.jpg
http://i537.photobucket.com/albums/f...1/SANY0821.jpg
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looks like fun, little too far for me though especially solo.

nice pics.

 

You've got the best of both worlds- modern "Dark Custom" styling, only with a better engine, tranny and frame.
Bad weather is part of it, isn't it? Sounds like you managed to avoid enough of it to have a good time. I had to ride across half of South Dakota in steady rain this August, but in one spot where it wasn't raining (much) I stumbled across kind of a mini Monument Valley, on a road I'd never been on before. You just have to get out there and not worry about the weather til you have to. Good pics.

 

mjunk1,

thanks for sharing your adventure. i enjoyed looking at the pics. i did a trip to the Grand Canyon this June and it was a blast. Had good weather in june. I am ready to go again.

Later.............

paco

 

Problem with many aftermarket parts is quality, especially rubber pieces. It just got hot from use and funky from water. When you get time, clean the plug/socket really good and smear dielectric grease on and into it good and it'll be fine for a long time. I figure your battery was real good but being discharged for some time, took it a while to come back up, voltage wise.

Glad you had a good tune-up ride, Mjunk. I was watching the weather and figured you'd stay south. And Big Bend is not a consolation ride from here, by any means!

I wouldn't be too concerned with any Iron Butt piece of paper - there's only one person in the world who really matters... when it comes to keeping score.

 

Great pictures. Thanks for posting.

 

That was a good ride.Can`t always be the one who decides the route,eh?