Final preparations

I took today off work to make final preparations for the Cannonball.   Last night, I ran a hard wire from the GPS holder to the bluetooth unit in the back of the bike.  This allows me to hear the GPS inside my helmet, wirelessly.  Dave and I also mounted three new tires on rims, last night.  I put one of those tires on the scooter, since the rear tire was in need of replacing.

I took the bike for a test ride this afternoon around Cayuga lake.  The ride went pretty smoothly.  I'm still having problems with the SR-10 bluetooth unit which pipes the GPS and FRS radios into my helmet.  Those functions work fine, but it is also supposed to connect to my phone, and allow me to field cell phone calls through my helmet.  The bluetooth unit does not remain connected to the phone reliably, so if I don't use the phone within the first few minutes, I lose the connection.  I think I'll just have to live with it.  The GPS and FRS capabilities are great to have!

The bike overheated and had a soft seize on Monday night.  I dug into it a bit today.  The spark plug was badly fouled, so I was running too rich.  I adjusted the jetting before my run this afternoon, and checked my plug afterward.  It was much better.  I think the seize was simply because I ran the bike at wide open throttle in third, as I climbed a hill, for almost 2 miles.  It just got too hot.  Well, if it hurts when I do that, I guess I know the answer!  I won't do that.  Even with leaner jetting today (which would tend to make the bike run hotter), it ran comfortably at about 380 degrees all the way around the lake.  The temperature peaked at 428 degrees, after a long downhill in which the RPMs got up to over 7000 (and I was going 72mph).  Not surprisingly, the engine got hot running that fast! heh.

Here's a picture of the bike I took on Monday.  This is the configuration I'll be using for the Cannonball.  It's pretty back-heavy with the spare fuel tank in the back, so I'm keeping my tools, and an extra iron bar (Honest!  A big heavy iron bar!) in the glovebox, to help keep the nose down.  It's a wheelie machine if I gun it!

The auxiliary tank is now working well.  I have a switch up front, and when the main tank under the seat gets low, I can turn on a pump, and it fills the tank for me from the auxiliary tank.  I have to guess at it, though, since there is no gas gauge on this bike.  I know the pump runs at about 1/2 gallon per minute, so that gives me an estimate of how long to run the pump when I knew I need to top up the tank.  I ran the pump twice, today, while riding around Cayuga.  The net result was that I did not have to stop for refueling.  The tank extends my range from 50-60 miles to 150 miles.

This evening, I started boxing up tools and parts to take in the trailer.  Tomorrow I'll load up and pack my clothes.  The bike is as good as it's going to get for Cannonball.  Now i just need to pack all my other stuff, and deal with technology issues.  I need to program my routes into the GPSes and work out some tests for videos.