Weekend Projects

Some just don't like being annoyed when the sun is shining. I think the expression says "leave me alone". This is our "inherited" cat. My son and daughter in-law had her when they moved in with us and when they moved out, no cats allowed. So she is here for a while and spends most of the day in the cat tree looking annoyed.

The first project of the day was replacing the drain on the kitchen sink. I haven't been able to find a functional replacement strainer so the easiest thing to do was replace the whole assembly. Fortunately, it took all of 10 minutes. I like those kind of projects.

Todays second project was re-fastening the heat-activated velcro patch into the new Roadcrafter. It had come loose after a month or so and Aerostitch sent instructions on how to refasten it using a iron set to 400°F. I was a bit leery to hold the iron in the same place as instructed for 20 sec as I thought that the Gore-Tex would melt or something. As a result, the first couple of attempts didn't work and the Velcro patch wouldn't stay in place. I had assumed dry, i.e. no steam, but after looking on the Velcro web site, the instructions were a little more explicit. Set the iron to "Cotton" and use steam. When I did this, the patch stayed in place. Hopefully, it'll stay. I don't think it's worth the trouble to send it back.

Here are two more projects waiting in the wings. One is a set of Spiegler braided stainless steel front brake lines. I figure that the bike is now 31 years old and it's would probably be a good idea to replace at least the front brake lines. I rely on the front brake a lot as the rear simply locks up and slides. It doesn't really contribute much to stopping the bike.

The item in the upper right is a six position fuse block. I will be using this to eliminate all of the fused leads attached to the battery terminals and will use one of the relays to provide switched power instead of always on. I'm also debating on whether to run wires from inside the headlight shell to the fuse block to eliminate the need to remove the headlight when the tail lights aren't working. The circuits to be used are:

• Heated gear outlet
• GPS/Tank bag SAE outlet
• Top box power socket
• Stock Powerlet socket
• Stock Ignition circuit (ignition, turn signals, horn, brake light, gauges)
• Stock tail light circuit (tail, parking, dash lighting)

The last two will not be run through the relay. I use the top box power socket to recharge my devices and regularly use the Powerlet socket for the battery tender.