Bandit updates

First off, a sincere “thank you” to those friends of Jim who added comments to the blog over the past week. He really touched a lot of lives, didn’t he?

From the “Learn From My Mistakes” file:

• If you’re 20 pounds underweight, you may wish to reconsider the timing of having that custom suit made. Eventually, you’ll get that metabolism thing straightened out; you’ll start working out; you’ll get back up to your normal ‘n’ healthy weight/size again. And then you’ll wonder why your leather pants are cutting off all the circulation below your waist. You will spend your entire life at Helimot (which, OK, you do anyway), getting the pants re-altered.
• You may think that riding the mechanical bull at the redneck county fair will use the same muscles as motorcycling, but you’ll be wrong. Ow ow.
• Remember when you moved and you put a few motorcycle parts into a box? You know, the box that you didn’t label because you’ll remember where you put it (and the parts inside it)? You’re never seeing those parts again.

Expanding on that last point, I finally went ahead and ordered a pair of Napolean mirrors for the Bandit. I wanted to get some anyway, and I’m slowly coming to grips with the fact that the Bandit’s original mirrors are in the Bermuda Triangle.

I have faith that the Bandit will be roadworthy again, maybe even before the earth falls into the sun. Its current issue is some nasty-ass fouled plugs. I ordered some new ones (from www.sparkplugs.com — I swear, everything has a domain name these days), and we’ll see how that goes.

I cleaned out the carbs (again) in the hopes of getting rid of its nasty tendency to poot out brown smoke at high RPMs. When I went to start the bike and test the carbs, it wouldn’t start. Because I’m stupid, I kept trying to start it, thereby simultaneously running down the battery, flooding the engine, and fouling the plugs. It’s really a miracle that I’m able to feed and dress myself.

I should get on Peter’s case to help me paint the bike while it’s apart anyway. I don’t think it helps anything that I get it running well, and then have it sit for months at a time while we sand/paint/sand/paint all the plastics.

I’m also going to institute a new policy of Thou Shalt Remove Thy Gas Tank And Take It Outside Before Power-Sanding Thy Gas Tank. I’m sick of cleaning pink paint powder out of every nook and cranny of the bike. That crap was inside the airbox and intake manifolds.