Out Walking

This morning brought moderate temperatures and a slight breeze. After church, I wasn't felling very well (medication related) and experience has shown that exercise usually helps so I headed down the road. After about 5 miles, I was feeling much better. This is the same lake that was still ice covered on Mother's Day. I was originally thinking about going for a ride but thought I really needed some physical activity.

This is Creamers Field, a former dairy farm now turned into a migratory wildfowl refuge. Lots of ponds beyond the fields and during Spring and Fall, there are lots of birds passing through. I ended up walking about eight miles before getting picked up at a bagel shop. The other reason for a walk was to see if I would be able to finish a 10K. I signed up for the Midnight Sun Run which is held near the Summer Solstice with the race starting at 10:30PM at the university. It's been a while since I walked over five miles and just wanted to make sure I would be able to finish.

I hope that everyone is having a good and safe weekend.

Miserably Warm

Wasn't it just a few weeks back that we still had ice on the lakes? For those used to warm weather this isn't anything to write home about but for me, it is HOT! I passed this temperature sign while walking back to my office and even though it was only a short 2½ mile walk, I was roasting and ready to collapse by the time I arrived. Later in the afternoon, I took the bike out to run a couple of errands and as long as you were moving it wasn't too bad. When stopped for signals, you can really feel the heat coming off of the cylinders. Still no issues with the front master cylinder. The parts still haven't arrived anyway. I've managed to put in more than a few miles so far this month.

I hope that we get some rain soon as the fire danger is really high. According to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, the amount of dry fuel is at an all time high though the number of fires and acreage burned is less this year than last. Mostly due to more snow and wetter ground at depth.

Northern Tier Spring Meeting

This morning, after a general meeting, we all came out to the Homestake gold mine in Lead, SD. We had a series of presentations by the Sanford science staff explaining what they were trying to do if they get continued funding. The Homestead mine goes down to about 8000' underground, has 375 miles of tunnels and has been converted to a large science laboratory. When the site was turned over from being an operational gold mine the mine had water to ~4000' level. It is still in the process of being pumped out and needs to go through quite a bit of treatment to lower the temperature and get rid of the iron and arsenic.

They are in the process of outfitting the 4850' level as the Sanford Underground Lab with quite a bit of construction going on including expanding rooms, running adequate power and data down the shafts, installing clean rooms and lining all of the walls with a spray on concrete to contain any dirt or pebbles falling from the ceiling. Some of the "rooms" they are planning to build would be able to house Mt. Rushmore. These are much larger than the chambers needed to support the gold mining activity. This is the top of the one (of two) of the elevator shafts taking workers and equipment down to the 4850' level. There is another shaft that starts at the 4850' level and goes down to the 8000' level. There, the plans are to build DUSEL or the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory at the 8000' level. There is a desire to extend the lab down another 8000'. Many in the group were hoping to be able to go down into the mine but it just wasn't in the cards. I'm told that that was the original plan until a short time ago. There was a lot of water in the mine from recent heavy rains plus a lot of construction underground. Those in charge thought it would be better not to have a bunch of tourists underground.

This is a shot inside the building shown above at the top of the Yates shaft. The cables supporting the elevator cars are about 1½ inches in diameter and wind around these huge drums in the next building. There are two elevators in this particular shaft which is still not in use yet. Normally, it takes about 15 minutes to make the trip to the 4850' level but the elevators are capable of going up to 40 mph making for a much speedier thrill ride.

This is a small scale test version of one of the initial big science experiments to go down into the 4850' level. One of the reasons for going underground is to minimize the background from all of the other particles from the sun. The dirt and rock shields out most of the particles (just letting neutrinos through since they don't interact with anything) from reaching the experiment. It is being assembled and tested on the surface before being disassembled and taken down the elevator to be reassembled in one of the large vaults. The physicist leading the tour said it is much easier to identify and resolve problems on the surface. If you are down there and you forgot a tool or a fitting it is over a 30 minute ride to retrieve it.

One of the two giant winches used to raise and lower the cage. It isn't that the cage is so heavy but it's the weight of 5000' of 1½" of cable. The winches are driven by DC motors for better control. In the next room were the DC generators being driven by AC motors. One of the engineers mentioned that power down in the mine is pretty unreliable since all of the infrastructure is simply bolted to the walls of the tunnels.

Mt. Rushmore & Crazy Horse

I left Fairbanks Saturday morning for Deadwood, SD. Due to mechanical issues in Seattle, I missed my connection in Denver and ended up staying overnight courtesy of Alaska Airlines. I arrived in Rapid City, SD, this morning and was met by a wonderful, informative hotel shuttle driver who has 5 Harleys ranging in age from a 1936 model to 1964. We passed through Sturgis and he had a lot of comments about the rally. It was pouring rain the entire 50 mile trip to the hotel so I'm glad that I didn't really try to hard to rent a bike. After checking in, I ran into a colleague who was thinking of heading south to Mt. Rushmore since he had never been there before. It was a relatively short trip down and definitely worth the time.

The Presidential trail headed towards the base of the monument looked pretty short and had some good views of the monument. This was from a small cave with a opening with a view. I learned that there is now a small cavern within the monument that was completed in 1998 that is used to house some valuable artifacts. I didn't know that before. On the trail, there were also several exhibits such as the artists workshop. Due to all of the stairs, it ended up being a cardio intensive walk. Plus it sort of drizzled most of the way.

After leaving Mt. Rushmore, we stopped at the Crazy Horse exhibit. It is a lot more touristy but has an incredible variety of native American artwork and jewelry. It is definitely worth visiting. They had some beautiful motorcycles on display both in the gift shop as well as the museum section.

Still Riding and a Nike+ Milestone

This mornings ride in was a bit damp but there was a nice view of the Alaska Range to the south though it wasn't as brightly lit by the time I got to work. I have been able to ride everyday the last week and a half which felt pretty good. And everyday, except today, has been one of those clear, blue sky days though it has been starting to get a it warm in the afternoon. Most days after work, I have been taking the "scenic route" which winds through the Goldstream Valley before circling back home. In this case "scenic" refers to the lack of businesses and most of the houses and cabins set away from the road along little dirt roads rather than any grand viewpoints.

Still no leaking from the front master cylinder. I just received an email that the parts have been shipped from A&S BMW though I may just wait until it starts to leak again before putting it on. Re-torqued the heads and adjusted the valves the other evening a few hundred miles later than I had initially planned. Very little adjustment required though I did make a point of reducing the clearance on the rocker arm. There is no spec and the recommended technique is "to adjust the rocker blocks by squeezing them towards each other for zero ENDplay (just oil film movement)."  A pretty straightforward procedure and fairly typical of just about all airhead maintenance.

No riding for the next several days as I have a meeting in Deadwood, SD, which isn't an easy place to fly into. It is just down the road from Sturgis maybe that would be an interesting place to visit.

A small milestone was passing 4,000 miles of walking/running on the Nike+ site. I just started uploading my activity again after a long break. The non-replaceable battery in the sensor ran out and it was a while until I got around to picking up a new transmitter. I really need to start getting out and exercising some more. A year ago, I was averaging over fifty miles per week. Now, it's less than fifty miles per month.

Friday Evening - On my way home, I noticed that we have a forest/brush fire. According to the reports, it is in the hills north of Goldstream Valley. This is along the road that I commonly ride. What a way to start the summer. The wind was blowing pretty strong from the south which probably isn't helping the crews fighting the fire. As you can see, the rain and clouds didn't last very long...

First BMW "Group Ride"

This afternoon, the very loosely organized group of BMW riders met at the College Coffeehouse before riding out to the Monderosa Bar & Grill near Nenana. This is the same place I went to last week with the riding group from church. About twenty bikes showed up for the ride though some just came for coffee. I think about half of the bikes were airheads with most of the rest being GS models. Only one bike was two up and this, to me, is significant because it was a G650GS. That's the single cylinder model. There were other marques represented including Honda, Harley Davidson, Triumph and Royal Enfield. This photo is the parking lot at the Monderosa showing about half of the bikes. No nice, neat rows of bikes that show up on a lot of other blogs. I think this group has an strong aversion to organization and structure. Even though it was a "group ride", on the trip out, I was passed by one R1200GS but otherwise didn't see anyone else until I arrived. And there is essentially only one road to get there.

On the way back, I stopped at one of my favorite viewpoints overlooking the Tanana River valley with the Alaska Range in the distance. It was a pretty clear day and considerably warmer than last week. No more ice on the lakes around town and no one on the ride was cold. I didn't even bother with the jacket liner and was wishing I had a pair of mesh pants. It is always entertaining to talk to the other riders especially those riding the same model that I have. Speaking of which, still no significant leaking from the front master cylinder. Though, there was a weird vibration at about 65 mph for maybe five miles today. Maybe reduced power but it was kind of hard to tell since there were a lot of hills. On the way back, no vibration.

As you may notice, the leaves have not come out yet. There are a few mosquitoes out and with these temperatures, the leaves should be out in a couple of day.

Saturday started out with a 5K walk/run at the University followed by a couple of errands. The afternoon ended with a wedding. The bride was one of my students when I was teaching the CCNP courses for our Cisco Academy. An outdoor wedding followed by a reception at the curling club.

Front Master Cylinder Repair

I lost a couple of posts due to the still unexplained Blogger outage. Here is combination of the two lost posts.

Update: The lost posts reappeared automagically but the comments are missing, Thank you to all who comments were lost...

On Tuesday evening, I took apart the leaking front master cylinder from my '83 BMW airhead to see where it was leaking from and discovered that the previous owner had used clear epoxy to glue the fluid reservoir to the master cylinder. The brake fluid had pretty much dissolved the epoxy making a real mess of everything with a lot of "gunk" floating around in the brake fluid. Since BMW does not seem to sell a rebuild kit for this particular model of master cylinder, I went ahead and ordered from A&S BMW a replacement. I thought about going to the local dealer but the previous owner had purchased a rebuild kit and they sold him the kit for the under tank master cylinder. That is one listed on the microfiche for the 81-84 R100RT but if you look under "Steering", they show the correct part as part of the right handgrip. Weird.

Here is the piston and, as you can see, there is no rust on the spring but the rubber parts are pretty worn out evidenced by the small cracks at the sealing edge of the cup. As Mike pointed out in one of the lost comments, after 28 years a little wear should be expected. The rubber seal near the middle of the piston is supposed to keep out water and dirt and it fits pretty loose within the cylinder. After finding out that A&S does not have the part in stock and that it may be weeks before getting it in, I decided to temporarily repair the master cylinder and get the bike back on the road.

On Wednesday evening, I used a very sharp knife followed by a very fine abrasive pad to clean the glue out of the opening for the fluid reservoir until it was smooth and the old O-ring (yes, I know that it is supposed to be replaced every time the reservoir is removed) should seal just fine. I also ran the pad up and down the bore and got a really fine crosshatch pattern. Basically just cleaned things up really well. There was one place where you could tell that the rubber cup on the piston rests and this procedure removed that little ridge.  Cleaned up the master cylinder and piston with alcohol, lubricated the piston and O-ring with clean brake fluid and reassembled everything. Installed the master cylinder on the bike and poured in some brake fluid to check for leaks. None so far! Bled the air out of the system and the lever felt solid again. I used the lever to bleed the brakes as it works better than the hand vacuum pump so this meant that the piston got used a lot. At this point there was a tiny drop of fluid which looks like it may have came out of the piston end. Filled up the reservoir to the "Max" line. cleaned up everything, and put some clean paper towels under the master cylinder. This morning, no leaks so I went ahead and rode into work. I put down some rags on the fairing glove box to catch any leaks and now I'll just have to wait and see. At least it looks like I may be able to still get out and ride until the parts arrive. Gotta love the simplicity of these old bikes. I don't think I would be so willing to tear into anything current.

Friday morning - The good news is so far, essentially no leaks. There was a small drop yesterday morning but since then, nothing. No problem waiting for the parts to arrive as the bike is still on the road.

Back On the Road?

Yesterday evening, I used a very sharp knife followed by a very fine abrasive pad to clean the glue out of the opening for the fluid reservoir until it was smooth and the old O-ring (yes, I know that it is supposed to be replaced every time the reservoir is removed) should seal just fine. I also ran the pad up and down the bore and got a really fine crosshatch pattern. Basically just cleaned things up really well. There was one place where you could tell that the rubber cup on the piston rests and this procedure removed that little ridge.  Cleaned up the master cylinder and piston with alcohol, lubricated the piston and O-ring with clean brake fluid and reassembled everything. Installed the master cylinder on the bike and poured in some brake fluid to check for leaks. None so far! Bled the air out of the system and the lever felt solid again. I used the lever to bleed the brakes as it works better than the hand vacuum pump so this meant that the piston got used a lot. At this point there was a tiny drop of fluid which looks like it may have came out of the piston end. Filled up the reservoir to the "Max" line. cleaned up everything, and put some clean paper towels under the master cylinder. This morning, no leaks so I went ahead and rode into work. I put down some rags on the fairing glove box to catch any leaks and now I'll just have to wait and see. At least it looks like I may be able to still get out and ride until the parts arrive. Gotta love the simplicity of these old bikes. I don't think I would be so willing to tear into anything current.

Leaking Front Master Cylinder

Yesterday evening, I disassembled the front brake master cylinder from my '83 BMW airhead to try and determine where it was leaking. There was some brake fluid where the piston shaft sticks out towards the brake lever as well as some coming out from between the plastic fluid reservoir and the master cylinder. After removing the internal snap-ring and pulling out the piston, a whole lot of "gunk" came out with the brake fluid. Even though I have been changing the fluid every year since I purchased the bike, there was still stuff floating around (the brake fluid itself was not discolored). I also decided to pull off the plastic fluid reservoir from the master cylinder to check on the condition of the O-ring and discovered the source of all of the "gunk". The reservoir should have come off easily after removing the single screw as there should have only been the friction from the O-ring holding it together. Apparently, the previous owner had used some sort of glue to seal the reservoir to the master cylinder instead of just relying on the O-ring. The glue has deteriorated over time and little flakes of it went into the brake fluid. There is still some traces of the yellow glue that looks like clear epoxy stuck to the sides of the large opening where the reservoir fits as well as some that has been washed into the cavity to the right by leaking brake fluid. This picture is after initial cleaning with alcohol.

The master cylinder bore was actually in pretty good shape with no trace of rust or pitting in the cylinder or the spring. The rubber cup is a bit worn and if you look really carefully, you can see very small cracks along it's edge. The rubber seal located midpoint on the piston has worn enough such that it no longer effectively seals out dirt and water from getting into the master cylinder from the brake lever. BMW does not sell a rebuild kit for this model and you have to purchase the entire assembly ($$$). I guess then I don't need to try and clean off the traces of glue. I've ordered a new cylinder and piston assembly, O-ring and gasket from the A&S BMW online store but have no idea how long it will take to get here. I've never ordered parts from them before so we'll see how it goes. When I had purchased the bike, there was a rebuild kit in the top box along with a receipt showing that it was purchased from the local dealer. Unfortunately, it was for the wrong model. When I looked on the online fiche to get part numbers, when I went to the model and year of my bike then went to the "brake" section, it showed the wrong master cylinder. The rebuild kit the dealer sold him was for this master cylinder. But when I went to the "steering" section, I was able to find and order the correct parts as they were listed as part of the right hand control. Weird...

I will probably finish cleaning things up and reassemble the master cylinder using the old parts and see how much it leaks while I wait for the new parts too arrive.

So again, I am seeing the value of the "spare bike". My wonderful wife signed up the the MSF BRC class for the first weekend in June. Over the weekend, we looked a bit at bikes and scooters but she wants to see how the class goes before making any sort of purchase. And we discovered that there were very few places in town that sold riding gear in any color except black or some fluorescent color with Yamaha all over it. My thinking was thinking that if she goes through the class, then she would be a safer passenger even if she never decides to get a bike or scooter. Dan Bateman even mentioned this in his most recent post (May 9, 2011) so I feel better about my request for her to take the class.

Mother's Day Ride

This morning, it was a chilly 30°F but the cloudless sky promised warmer temperatures by afternoon. The lake shown is along my commute and, as you can see, the ice is almost completely melted. Only another week or so. A small group of us from church rode west towards Nenana to the Monderosa Bar & Grill for lunch. The small size of the group was probably due to it being Mother's Day. My only instruction from home was to be back in time to make dinner for the family. The bike ran fine but when I returned, I noticed a couple of drops of brake fluid below the front master cylinder. There is still plenty of fluid but I guess I need to do some troubleshooting on the system. Afternoon temperatures got up into the low fifties (F) so it was a wonderful ride though a couple of the other riders without windshields were feeling pretty chilled by the time they arrived at the Monderosa. It was a diverse group comprised of a Harley, Goldwing, V-Star and my airhead BMW. I only saw two other bikes out today besides our small group. Since this was basically my first real ride of the year, I opted to ride by myself instead of with the group. I wanted the luxury of having the whole lane especially since I didn't know the condition of the road and prefer not having someone following me. Plus, the rest of the group were much more experienced riders all who preferred a higher average speed than I. They needed to stop for gas on the way out of town so the timing worked out perfectly. We all pulled into the Monderosa parking lot at about the same time. No food shot of my Mondo Jalapeno Burger since I didn't think of it until it was all gone. Now, I need to re-torque the heads and figure out where the brake fluid is leaking from.

Next Sunday, the very loosely organized BMW group in Fairbanks is trying to put together some sort of ride. This is a different group than the Airheads and exists only as an email list. Suggested destinations are all over the map ranging from 30 to 300 miles (this is just for lunch!) but will probably end up being the same destination as todays ride. Fortunately, their burgers are wonderful.

Re-assembly & First Ride of the Year

I missed out on the ABCD challenge. I know it's a lame excuse but there were too many things to do on Sunday since I've been out of town so much lately. Plus there were no human shutter releases available. It was a busy day for everyone at home.

Shiny, clean left cylinder head

On Tuesday evening, I finally had an opportunity to install the heads on my '83 R100RT and it was a pretty straight forward process. Anytime you pull the heads you might as well replace the "O" rings that seal the cylinders to the crank case. It is also a good time to replace the pushrod tube seals since they tend to get hard and brittle with age and heat. The easiest way is to put the pistons at top dead center then carefully pull the cylinders until you can get to the snap rings holding the wrist pins in place. Remove one of the snap rings and push out the wrist pin until the connecting rod is free. Then pull the cylinder off leaving the piston in place inside the cylinder.

Right cylinder connecting rod

The cylinder must have been off before since there is red RTV (silicone sealer) on the pushrod seals. This wouldn't have been done at the factory and is not recommended. This must have been done by the previous owner to take care of an oil leak. Cleaned up all traces of the RTV and simply used some assembly lube to help ease the new rubber parts in place. Put the cylinder back on followed by a new head gasket and the head. If you look carefully at the first picture, you will notice that the head gasket isn't symmetric. The exhaust pushrod tube is a little farther from center due to the exhaust valve being slightly larger than the intake valve. Put in the pushrods, reassemble the rocker arm assemblies taking care to allow just a little bit of side to side play on on the rocker arms when installing the rocker mounting blocks. Torque the head bolts to 24 ft-lbs in three steps in a star pattern doing each cylinder when it is top dead center compression stroke.

Left cylinder

Adjusted the valves, replaced the tupperware (lowers were removed earlier to get better access to the cylinder), re-installed the carbs and exhaust using plenty of high temperature anti-seize on the aluminum exhaust nuts. Put in the spark plugs with more anti-seize, turned on the gas petcocks and fired it up. It started up immediately on the first revolution and had that familiar BMW airhead sewing machine sound suggesting to me that the valves were adjusted properly. After letting it warm up and checking for oil leaks, I cleaned up the tools and headed to bed. Too tired for even a short test ride.

Tomorrow I'll check all the fluids, air up the tires and finally take my first ride of the year. This is the first time I've ever torn into a motorcycle engine. The Airhead tech days we started having this last winter were a great opportunity to see what was involved. One of the members needed to replace the push rod tube seals on her '95 R100RT. I still need to replace the fork boots but that involves dis-assembling the forks. Another evening perhaps.

Wednesday - This afternoon, I finally went on my first ride of the year. By noon, it has warmed up to about 50°F from an overnight low in the high 20s. After adding a bit of air to the tires, I took off to get a fresh tank of gas. There is still an incredible amount of gravel and sand in every intersection. Even the end of our subdivision road was gravel from edge to edge. The university has been thatching the grassy areas and flinging all the dead grass and dirt onto the roads. Lots of road hazards. I still managed to get in about fifty miles before stopping at the gas station. Here I noticed that the front master cylinder was leaking a bit. I guess I didn't tighten down the cover screws which hold the reservoir to the master cylinder. Tightened it up and it looks good. I guess I'll need to keep an eye on it. The engine ran well and after maybe a hundred miles, I'll re-torque the heads and adjust the valves. Then again at about 500 miles.

As usual, I feel like I need a bit of low speed practice again and all the gravel means slow going through the turns.