So this guy walks into a chat room

[Cookie]

I just picked those bags up on Ebay from a Harley. I think the mounting is a little earlier in this thread, I ran a couple aluminum pieces down to the muffler with a pipe hanger for an adapter.
As long as the bags aren't too big fitting is fairly easy. They do keep me from wearing a backpack, usually this bike goes on small stuff errands, Trader Joes for wine and a couple of steaks and veggies, etc. Today I had to bring the paperwork I did at home to work. Little stuff fits pretty well. The flex lets you put stuff in without moving the blinkers which I don't want to do.
Today I rode her to work and the low speed running is much improved. She always buzzed up well, even with the tired points and plugs, but idle and just off the line is much better. I also got lucky since I stayed dry on the way in and it rained after I got here.
I'll be fitting a Dyna to the newest LTD too, it is always removable for origninality but they seem to pencil out. It's a bit more than twice the price of a points plate but should never need replacement. Fitting is little more trouble than setting up points and you only have to do it once.

[Cookie]

I finally got around to changing the oil again today, other than a wash up and polish this one is probably ready to ride for quite some time.

[sunnbobb]

This has to be the longest running thread. and i still laugh everytime i see the headline..

[Cookie]

It has been really handy, when I can't remember what I've done I can look it up. Did you ever say to yourself something like "I soldered the wires on the stator on that one didn't I?', with one of the threads on a bike you can find out. You can also find out when.

[Cookie]

Yellow has picked up enough miles to need a bit of service. The front tire now has to be replaced and at the same time I'm going to put one more shim in the neck and slightly lighter fork oil. I'm not getting any damping effect in the neck bearings and I've decided the front is a tiny bit too harsh. Once I get them worked out to suit me I often leave a bike that way for the rest of my ownership.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Maybe it's some where in this thread.... but what would putting one more shim in the neck do? Allow you to add more pre-load to the bearings to take up some slop??

[Cookie]

Yup,
I made the error of just buying a couple bearings of the right size. This means that seals and the basic set up is a crap shoot. You really want to get within about a millimeter of the stock stack height to get good adjustment range. After it settled in a bit I did not have enough adjustment for the preload I like. This is livable but you can get a little shake when backing off with hands off the bars, which I only do in testing. Since I had to wait for the tire I got what I wanted for a shim from my friend Rudy who has an automatic tranny shop. I put this shim under the bottom neck bearing on the triple tree. That way if I want to add later I can easily go on the top. I have a little adjustment left so I think I won't need to do that.
The wise old fish just bought an All Balls kit which comes with shims, seals, and directions, now I know.

[Cookie]

So after the test ride out to Alice's for a couple beers, which took forever to get since apparently I'm not the only one who thought of running a bike or sports cars to Alice's on a nice day, the front end is far closer to what I like. I have pretty much balanced front and rear suspension at this point so it is pretty neutral, if it does not loosen up over the next few days this is a setup I can live with.
This bike shows me again why it is my favorite rider, everything works very well, the bars are right, and is is just enough lower than my LTDs to be a bit more comfortable.
Probably no surprise but the new front tire seems to have a bit more bite in a corner.

[Fred Camper]

So the front tire is 100-90-19 but what brand?
And how much lower is Yellow than stock, like maybe 3/4ths of an inch?

[Cookie]

IRC Durotour, I bought one set and liked them because they seem to not be bothered by freeway grooves as much as some tires.
When I measured my LTD it is only about a half inch higher than yellow, but it just makes the difference for me on a comfortable flat footing at a traffic light. I'm 5'8" tall but my legs aren't all that long.
http://www.revzilla.com/product/irc-dur ... ront-tires

[Cookie]

By the way, I just rode it to the store and it occurs to me I picked up some height between a 3mm spacer and the new tire.

[Cookie]

Yellow bike has finally acted up a bit. The idle has gone off getting worse suddenly when I was about to ride it home from work. The first thing I did was check the plugs, switching them due to reports of bad NGKs lately.
As soon as she revs past idle the skip is gone.
The intake manifold for number three was staying cool for way too long last night. I checked spark with a spark pen and the wires all look about the same.
I rode the LTD in today and she is working well so no real problem.
It acts like a plugged idle jet in number three so I'll test a bit more and then pull the rack.
This may be a chance to test the 75 rack I just got back from Jack in San Jose to see how that came out.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Never a dull moment eh cookie

[Cookie]

However, this is exactly why I like a spare runner. If you are commuting on an old bike something will go wrong sometime.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Spoken like a true Lucas owner...
PS my Union Jack is still hanging on the garage wall