One sad day in February

After my last February post a really sad thing happened. Megan left me! :o( Well me and PACLAND. She left for a very good reason (more on that in a bit), but it was still very sad to see her go.

It was such an amazing blessing to get to work along side my wonderful cousin and friend. It is definitely not the same at work without her! I'm asked almost everyday, "When is Megan coming back?" I'm still trying desperately to fill the very large shoes she left behind.

Here are a few pics of Megan's time at PACALND.

Thank you Megan for being an amazing co-worker and an even better friend! I love you!

It's been how long!!!

Oh my! It's the middle of April, Ryan's blogged twice and I haven't blogged since the beginning of February!!!

Bare with me for a bit, there are so many wonderful things that have happened since February

I'm going to take a few steps back in time and try to cover them all!

Old Machinery

1974 kind of old.

Older than I am kind of old.

I'm talking about a particular motorcycle that everyone I know has seen or heard of at one time or another.  It's the Honda CL350 Scrambler that Pop bought new off the showroom floor for $800 back in 1974.  The bike itself was made late 1973 and that's the model year for parts so tack another year of old on there.

This machine is special to me.  When clean and running it's in as pristine a condition as a 36 year old machine can be, it's complete and all stock, in a way it's still with it's original owner, it has only 6,139 miles on it, the license plate is the long gone blue Oregon plate, and it's now deemed 'vintage'.  Does this mean I qualify for 'vintage' status?  

I remember riding around on it as a young kid with Pop at the controls.  I was small enough that I had to ride IN FRONT of him, holding the handlebar crossbar that was just above the gauges.  Safe it was not...but times were much simpler back then.

Through the years this motorcycle has been used, not used, stored, brought back to life, put back to rest, and on and on.  When I was home from college one summer, Pop brought up the idea of passing the bike to me for use around the college campus.  Sounded good to me!  Ever since then the motorcycle has been in my care and I've pretty much failed it.  When I graduated college I took the motorcycle back home and parked it because I didn't have a secure or covered place to store it.  That was 10 years ago.

Tired of seeing this cool old bike slowly rot, I finally took action.  2 months ago Pop and I loaded it up and I hauled it home to Everett so I can try to bring it back to life once again.  This is the first of probably many posts about refurbishing the old machine.  The hope is to fire up the engine and give Pop the chance to ride it again, just as he did back when it was brand new.

The real problem areas for bringing this thing back from the grave are the carburetors and gas tank.  The tank rusted inside and the carburetors are filled with varnish and gunk from gas turning bad and evaporating inside them. This is what I'm up against:

The fuel bowl on the left is the one I cleaned.  On the right is the untouched one as it came off the carburetor.  These are just the bowls that sit below the carburetors.  The insides of both carbs are gummed up with varnish, completely locking in place all moving parts.  It could have been much worse so I was happy to see that time had not done too much damage. 

The gas tank looks great on the outside after a wash, polish, and a coat of good wax....

...but the inside is another story.  I'm holding a new gas cap for comparison.  The old cap is rusted pretty good.  On a positive note, the gas tank still had a half tank of 10 year old fuel in it so there are no holes to deal with.  Let me just say...fuel that old STINKS!

I've only just started this project so more, much more, will be happening.  Wait until I post pictures of the REST of the bike.  I was sad as we heaved and pushed it into my pickup - knowing how good it once looked and then seeing it in the current, sorry state that it is.

It'll live on, that's my goal.

-Leigh

When bored, build something!

The last time (and ONLY time so far) I posted on here was for the project of ripping apart the front steps of the house to make way for new ones.  I've been roundly criticized for never following up on that post so here is a picture of the tear down and how everything turned out.

Now, on to the new!  The steps happened last July, 8 months ago.  Not one to idle for very long, I was feeling the itch to build again.  Usually that involves a call to Pop to see if he wants to help. This time was no different and neither was the result.  He promptly declared "name a weekend and I'll be up."  I think he enjoys these projects as much as I do.

The project list around THIS old house is long and seems to have new things added faster than I can pick off listed jobs.  Tiffany will be the first to say that's because I don't actually FOLLOW the list, instead adding what I want at any given time.  Umm...she's right.  So, following my 'm.o.' this build wasn't really on the list but we need more room in the house and we need a freezer so that means stuff in the shop has to get moved somewhere else.  Where else?  How about...to the new yard shed!

My first thought was to go small, just big enough to store yard tools, getting them out of the shop to make room for a freezer and shelves.  I built a decent floor structure and had it all ready in the yard but thought it looked kinda dinky and weak.  I also began to realize it would be nice to store this, and that, and oh yeah what about that too in there.  I stopped at that point to reconsider my options.  I think it was a case of my inner man reminding me "go big or go home."  Well, I was already home so that left me only one option right?  Go big.

Try #1 was a shed footprint of 5 feet wide by 2 feet deep.  Sad, I know.  Try #2 after Pop chimed in and said "needs to be bigger!" was a decided shed footprint of 8 feet wide by 6 feet deep.  His inner man is clearly much more seasoned than mine.

I like having Pop around.  In my efforts to keep costs at a minimum, I wanted small.  He insisted larger.  I didn't want to bother with, or pay for, a window.  Notice the window opening?Another Pop win.  

Here's how it stands at the moment.  Yep, to the left of the blue barrel you can see the corner of my pathetic first attempt at a shed floor. 

Progress has slowed considerably since Pop left.  I work on it when I can, excited about the next project which will be building shelves and racks inside the new shed.  Hmm...I can hear Tiffany's voice saying "that is NOT on the list!"