Have you ever taught others how to prepare? (light, gun, gardening)

[countryboy73]

Green bikes ARE faster. Mine is red.... And Japanese.... Ah, well. The things we do for reliable gas-sipping transportation. Love the hawgs, though.

You right about one thing. You AIN"T pretty! Good thing it ain't required for being useful.... Pretty or no, you could be teaching a thing or two, if there were folks close by who would listen. What are the chances of that, though?

[Mac_Muz]

Originally Posted by countryboy73

Green bikes ARE faster. Mine is red.... And Japanese.... Ah, well. The things we do for reliable gas-sipping transportation. Love the hawgs, though.

You right about one thing. You AIN"T pretty! Good thing it ain't required for being useful.... Pretty or no, you could be teaching a thing or two, if there were folks close by who would listen. What are the chances of that, though?

LOL That isn't a Harley ya know. Try Nomad.. the Queen of the Road they are both Nomads. I have it set to 42/46 MPG, but once had it set for 46/48, don't want to break 50...

I run a car tire on the rear for more traction and that eats apx 2 MPGs.

I am a x foreign car tech kind of gear head. That bike runs on the old Bosche D jet system which i learned in 1968 on the 122 Amazon Volvo car. That is a open loop system...

This is my 2nd one since some criminal liked my 01 better than i did in W.Va. I wasn't in a very good mood that day.

You would get on good with sis in law #3, she says I can only be useful as bad example. I am 11 years older than my Bride and her mother used to call me 'The cradle robber'.

In case you don't know it, I have a bad reputation and I intend to keep it!

[countryboy73]

Well, I feel foolish. Like the RADIATOR plainly visible on the red one would be on a Harley- well, until last year, anyway... So is the big cow as reliable as my Honda CX500? I hate the ride quality, but the thing fires up and goes every time, needs very little in the way of maintenance, and gets 50+ mpg. Hard on the posterior when going very far, though. Horrible seat design. I want a nice cruiser. Buddy of mine has a HD 1200 Sportster Low. SWEET ride, fits me to a T. But my other friend has a 1200 Sportster, too, and actually logs a lot of miles. I have helped him fix the thing three times in a row now when he rode down to visit. He's a hard-core "former" outlaw biker(the real deal, not the wannabes), and keeps talking about trading the Sportster in on a Honda. Kinda takes the shine off HD, for me at least. I ride a lot, and got no room for bikes that require a fighter jet maintenance program to stay functional. Seems the HD dealers these days have lost the old coolness in favor of profit, as well. Not to mention every yuppie with the credit is riding these days. Too bad, I love the rumble...

[Mac_Muz]

So is the big cow as reliable ? Naw I still have to put gas and oil in it........ tires too..... it's a 06 i have been riding since June 06 when i bought it used with 1,314 miles on it and that battery has been nuthin' but original. Thar's no tellin when i will need a new one.

Oh grease it needs grease..... tires, oil, gas, and grease....... And year before last, i was almost stranded by it.
I rode to the south west corner of the state to buy a hand held gps off a guy on Craigs list. When i got there i hung my jacket on the amber lamps and turned on the switch by mistake and walked off to spend the next 3 hours talking to the guy about the gps since i didn't know what one was.

After all that time and buying the gps i went back to the bike and got on thinking i was going to go home... Wrong.

I hit the start button and it went click...... Oh oh looked at my volt meter and it said something like 7 volts.

Then I saw the green led that tells me them amber lamps are ON....... I shut those off and at the time i was still smoking butts. So being so frustrated as i was i just lit up.
That blasted volt meter jumped to show the battery recovery rate and in the time it took to have that smoke the reading was 12.4 dcv..... I snubbed the butt, told my Angel to hop on and we rode that bike home!

These bikes are some wicked reliable. Not fast but super dependable. They will haul a trailer and be 2 up right over the big horns and never know you were going up hill.

The problems some people have is these bikes don't handle well at low speeds like parking lot speeds. These weigh about 100 pounds more than a Road King. They are longer and they ware wider too. You can put 2 in the garage for a road king cost.

I had the 1500 in 01 and this one is a 1600, same engine slightly longer stroke is how you get the more cc's Same power IMO, but maybe the 1500 spun up quicker shorter rod by 5 mm.

Both have 2 over drives which can be a problem if you don't know that... in 5th OD at 70 mph it still sounds as if you should shift up... Most people including me allow these engines to lug. I just sort of lean back on my Angel and let the scenery slip by.

At 61 i ain't got nuthin to prove trust me... I have known a few 1%ers.. worked with some worked for some. I just be polite and so do they.. I have no such ambition. I won't be in any club that would have me biker or not.

[countryboy73]

What RPMs you turning at 70? Mine turns about 6500, drives me nuts. I like the sound of that Nomad. Awesome gas mileage for such a big motor, heavy bike. As long as I can put both feet on the ground, the weight ain't a problem.

Never been a club or gang or group guy myself, either. Never really saw the point, most guys that need a club or gang seem to need it because either they have enemies that require a man having friends, or they are one of those poor souls who need others to give them an identity. I have made a few enemies, generally by standing up for friends(maybe I could have picked better friends), but none that I feel I need a posse to protect me from. Most of the club guys I know were into some pretty wild stuff at one time or another, and it made good sense(I guess) to run with a group during such activities. Lot of them are your age now and still hang out with other guys they know from back in the day, but none are out there pounding the streets like they used to. A body gets tired of hard living after a while, I guess. None of the "1%ers" I know have ever been rude or confrontational. Its always the wannabes that seem to think they have something to prove. It's that way in any part of life though. those who can, know they can. Those who know they can't, or don't know that they can, feel the need to convince everyone that they can. World would be a lot better place if we were all comfortable in our own skins.

[Arkansas Mac]

Originally Posted by Mac_Muz

So is the big cow as reliable ? Naw I still have to put gas and oil in it........ tires too..... it's a 06 i have been riding since June 06 when i bought it used with 1,314 miles on it and that battery has been nuthin' but original. Thar's no tellin when i will need a new one.

Oh grease it needs grease..... tires, oil, gas, and grease....... And year before last, i was almost stranded by it.
I rode to the south west corner of the state to buy a hand held gps off a guy on Craigs list. When i got there i hung my jacket on the amber lamps and turned on the switch by mistake and walked off to spend the next 3 hours talking to the guy about the gps since i didn't know what one was.

After all that time and buying the gps i went back to the bike and got on thinking i was going to go home... Wrong.

I hit the start button and it went click...... Oh oh looked at my volt meter and it said something like 7 volts.

Then I saw the green led that tells me them amber lamps are ON....... I shut those off and at the time i was still smoking butts. So being so frustrated as i was i just lit up.
That blasted volt meter jumped to show the battery recovery rate and in the time it took to have that smoke the reading was 12.4 dcv..... I snubbed the butt, told my Angel to hop on and we rode that bike home!

These bikes are some wicked reliable. Not fast but super dependable. They will haul a trailer and be 2 up right over the big horns and never know you were going up hill.

The problems some people have is these bikes don't handle well at low speeds like parking lot speeds. These weigh about 100 pounds more than a Road King. They are longer and they ware wider too. You can put 2 in the garage for a road king cost.

I had the 1500 in 01 and this one is a 1600, same engine slightly longer stroke is how you get the more cc's Same power IMO, but maybe the 1500 spun up quicker shorter rod by 5 mm.

Both have 2 over drives which can be a problem if you don't know that... in 5th OD at 70 mph it still sounds as if you should shift up... Most people including me allow these engines to lug. I just sort of lean back on my Angel and let the scenery slip by.

At 61 i ain't got nuthin to prove trust me... I have known a few 1%ers.. worked with some worked for some. I just be polite and so do they.. I have no such ambition. I won't be in any club that would have me biker or not.

Very interesting read.

Thanks for sharing !

[Mac_Muz]

Ar Mac, I got no reason to think that battery will cause me any problem this year either. It might comin' on 7 years old now.

This is a gel sealed battery OEM and the one thing I do is run a auto float anti sulfation pulse charger rated at 14 dcv at 1.25 AMPS.

Last year I saw the first sign of the battery wearing down as a drop in static voltage. For all the years before last that was 12.80 dcv standing. In other words if I removed the charger and then hit the start button quick and let go the main head lamp would come ON. If i wanted i could turn on one or both sets of passing lamps.

Main High beam is 110 watts a Snowmobile lamp
Amber lamps are 35 watts each 70 combined
White passing lamps on the lowers ar 55 watts each 110 combined
(my passing lamps are wired to their own circuits so I can have light with out the engine running.)

That is something of a load if i run all those lamps at once with out the engine and I don't as a rule but I do a s a load test.

In less than 30 seconds I will see the battery reading drop to be under 9 dcv. Turn all that off and the key switch too and that battery recovers fast.. So long as it does it can take a charge and hold it and also carry a load.

It still does but now it reads 12.60 and so has lost a bit of it's ability.

You guys might like to know there is 2 charging systems on this bike (just Nomads, not classics or meanies)
I am not sure about the 1700's. Don't have one.

But the 1500 and 1600 Nomads both have 2 stators and 2 rec / regs. I have never heard of one failing yet. It will be Hell to pay when one dies.

These make 40+ amps the book says 44. These also charge at idle speed which seems odd to me and i can't explain it.

The alt ratio is 1:1. Used good bikes like this are middling easy to find now.

Nomads have a rev limiter and wicked long rods so you can't hit that RPM I fiorget off hand what the top rpm is you can hit, but if you bounce off that limiters a few times you learn to quit doing that, but I would suggest anyone hit that limter a few times knowing you will. It's a bit violent.

Nomads don't come with a tach. I just added one. I still am in mud season, there is still road salt out there, and it's been mostly raw and colder. Road Salt stops me from riding on nicer days over winter when I see a few riders....

I just don't do road salt rides ever.. I can wait. I like riding but it isn't my whole reason to live. I hunt fish hike climb, shoot flinters to brass, ski snow shoe, look for work find work and do work, yadda yadda What i try to not do is make the bike be any part of work.


This season the bike gets a new ft tire I want the Avon Cobra in the stock size. This is a softer sticky tire that I know will wear out faster than the Dunlop 251F I have on there now.

The rear end will get torn down to lube the swing arm, drive shaft, rear wheel hub (compound wheel, has moving parts) and the rubber drive shaft boot will be replaced. I think that rubber contains some of Nancy Pelosi old facial flesh as it is cracking up and all dried out looking..

The same Car Tire a Dunlop Sp 5000 195/60 R 16 will go back on..... It's not coming off the wheel I just need to removed the wheel to access the swing arm. I have a lift and way more than enough tools and can get paid to this too. It will take me a whole day for the rear end, and in part because I am fussy in cleaning off old grease.

This counts all the bearings. There are 2 on the top shock towers too. That's right needle bearings there. And some more delay in installing a draw bar because this year i will pull a small trailer. That is because of this slack economy The Killing of America, and the desire for me to go camping and spend less at the friggin pumps.

I have no idea WHY........ When we went 2 up to Cal and back making 20,000 miles about enough to cross the USA a bunch of times. That 01 bike pulled a trailer then too, and it made no difference in miles per gallon I could see. maybe it's my laid back easy wrist, or maybe the bike just has that much low end grunt.

It has tons of grunt.... no top end power. I sort of consider it the Freightliner of all bikes.

Before you freak out on the car tire... Well as a lad I used to ride then too. Most bikes then had square profile tires. AND Nomads have a wide foot print side ways on with lots of hard parts.
You just can't lean a Nomad over enough to get up on the sidewalls.

You will be damned tryin' ta' drag a knee and if you do that knee ain't tatched to yo body any more!

Never even think to put a foot out if yer going down! I went down and thought about that on a gravel road. The trailer hopped the hitch somehow on a BLM road.

I didn't put a foot out either, and if i had I would have a leg where my lungs still are I did manage to catch my elbow in my ribs and break 3. That made life on Pine Ridge interesting.

At the time i didn't know the trailer hopped loose and I couldn't reason why i was suffering a tank slapper from the rear, but that was what it was. Then and now i still can't understand what happened to the hitch. It had been locked on for 3 days before, and after it has never done that again and i made no adjustment or repair.

I guess the worst thing there is about Nomads besides being slow off the line, but these are heavy touring bikes not bar hoppers, is getting the blasted things out of your system.

Each Fall I say that's IT gonna sell it and get a little lighter bike..... Each Spring i say screw that idea, I ain't got enough of Nomad yet O let the harley guys say what they say and I still don't have a HD mickey mouse watch. In fact i carry a tool set that just fits HD since everyone else is metric. LOL

[Mac_Muz]

Oops

[preplikeme]

Every single person that I've tried to train has just called me nuts and a "conspiracy theorist" so I stopped.

[MTSilvertip]

Originally Posted by preplikeme

Every single person that I've tried to train has just called me nuts and a "conspiracy theorist" so I stopped.

Just like everything else, if it is their idea they will move heaven and earth to learn. If you try to teach them when they don't care or have little intrest, they want nothing to do with it.

Kind of human nature I guess. That is why we MAKE kids go to school, we don't have to fight them off at the door.

My stuff is not advertised, it is just what I do and folks know it so they come to me with questions. For instance I guess I just gained an apprentice blacksmith yesterday.

Friend of mine bought one of my knives and his 15 year old son is so factinated by it he wants to learn. So my friend asked me about lessons, I told him, "sure, no problem". Yesterday he comes to me asking if this could be a summer job for his kid because I have been swamped with orders. I don't want the liabilty, so I told him that once the kid learns how to do it, if he wants to make knives, I will sell them and the kid can have the money minus the cost of materials.

Dad is beside himself, the kid is wetting his pants to get started, but I don't have the extra time to start lessons for another month.

ANYway, The kid will learn valuable skills, learn about the relationship between his work and his returns, and really stand out from the rest of the kids in his school because he will be the only one that can do this stuff.

If it is their idea.....