Projects from THE COMPOUND

Tying up some loose ends before the upcoming Idaho adventure ride. Installed a hitch on Marc's car. Picked up the trailer we're borrowing for the trip. It'll need a quick once-over but looks sound. I also got around to installing my cheezy little gauge. It was an Amazon experiment (impulse buy) that cost under $40 so I figured I'd give it a shot. Once I deciphered the Chingrish directions to set the C/F scale and the ignition pulse per cycle, it worked pretty well. The tach is inductive and the only real down side was that the odd Honda M16 thread temp sender hole needed a spendy adapter. So now I have tach, temp, and hour meter with limit warnings. Not in the picture is a mt. bike phone holder just to the left so I can run a speedometer app if I feel like I need a speedo. I mostly just ride by feel and pace traffic.



We're planning to ride out toward Estacada tomorrow for a few hours. Oh, one more thing. Photobucket still sucks.

We ended up riding out to Ripplebrook along the Clackamas river. On the way back we took a few side spurs to take advantage of some gravel time. We found ourselves up at the Frog Lake Reservoir and went a few miles beyond where we found a group of abandoned buildings way down the bank in the valley. We located the road to get there but it was blocked to the point where we decided it would be better to walk than to ride.

There were 7 or 8 structures that hadn't been used in decades. We're assuming they were there for the construction of the pipeline/reservoir project in the '20s-'40s. They're pretty beat down now. Marc looks concerned.


When we got back to Marc's house in SE Portland we tinkered on the C-monster a bit and I swiped the kickstand off of his parts bike to replace the damaged one on Zero. No one fell down or broke down. It was another great day.

So here's the current standing; El Camino is pretty much done, Cutlass gone to Idaho, b*st*rd bike done enough, Reaper '35 on indefinite hold, Shotrod '35 sedan is still just a pile of parts, Goldwing fine for now. That basically just leaves the 510. I'm thinking maybe I'll throw a few hundred (hopefully not thousand) in that general direction. I'd like to get a set of tires for the stock wheels, clean up and detail the engine bay, change up the mirrors, do a carpet kit, relocate the battery, possibly pick up another engine to do the "secret cam" swap to, possibly finish the Maxima brakes/struts/coilovers.
Once I get back from the Idaho Adventure Ride, I'll start making a list and collecting parts. The goal will be minimal downtime since it's my main winter transportation. Still on the fence about whether to take it with me when I move to Idaho next year or just sell it. It's been a really fun car but I won't have room to store it inside.

Idaho Adventure was a success! Left Marc's after I got off work, met up with Jerod in Pendleton, and made it to Marsing base camp at about 1am Friday morning.

We got up Friday and, along with my dad, set out for Silver City. We trailered the 2 bikes and 2 quads to one of the trail heads and unloaded there.


Most of the trail would be considered double track (quad width) and there were stretches of one lane fire road. Unfortunately the BLM road crew was at work for a 8-10 mile section. They ran a ripper followed by a grader which basically took a good hard-packed road and destroyed it. Every fist sized rock was magically turned pointy side up and set in a soft bed of dirt. It was pretty slow going. It also resulted in my first flat tire.

After we did the trail repair and slipped in a new tube (glad I packed one) we were back to climbing. The thing that made me nervous was 2 small slits in the sidewall so I kept an eye on them. The C-monster's ignition switch crapped out just as we were rolling in to Silver City. We decided it was time for pie and coffee at the cafe. I was expecting more of a ghost town, and there is plenty of old abandoned stuff, but it's mostly seasonal tourist junk. Cool place nonetheless. I took no pics there but other guys did. We took a few minutes to bypass Marc's switch and were back on the trail. Just out of town we headed out on trail 300 when Marc encountered a rut that tossed him on the left side pretty hard
breaking off his mirror and foot peg. We helped him lift it up and he wrestled it to the top of the hill. Trail fix was to use a small box end wrench in place of the peg and bend the shifter with a long screwdriver. Then back at it.


Lots of great scenery. We summited at Bear Mountain 6700 feet and it was pretty steep in spots. There were some shale sections that were just too steep to go down. Marc proved that by dumping his bike another 4-5 times. His bars were pretty bent up at this point and his other peg was broken off. We just went off trail and switch backed to the bottom. The photo looking up doesn't really demonstrate accurately because I didn't have the camera level. If you look at the angle my dad is leaning in the background and the trees it gives a better reference. According to the topography lines on the map we dropped about 2000' in less than 2 miles. Steep!

There were also quite a few sections where the dried mud had been worked into a very fine dust (moon dust) with the consistency of powdered sugar. C-monster got dumped a few more times in that. Marc had a rough day. A couple miles from the trailer I got another flat and had to get towed out. Both bikes ran great. Got back to Marsing base camp and grilled up some burgers. Good day one.

Day two started out trying to gather parts. Being a holiday weekend, lots of bike shops were closed. We finally, accidentally, found a little indy shop that had pegs, bars and grips for Marc. I got a couple new tubes but came up empty handed for a replacement tire. We got back to camp Marsing and went to work. Jerod and Marc had the monster back together in short order. I put patches inside the tire where the slits were and put in a new tube then we loaded the bikes back on the trailer. Off to Owyhee Reservoir. We set up camp just below the dam and Marc and I decided to ride the twisty little road from the dam up to the state park at the end -- maybe 5 miles. Marc got stung by a bee.

Just as I pulled back in to camp I could feel something wasn't right. Jerod asks, "You wanna air that up?". Dammit! Another flat. By this time it was around 4pm so we parked the bikes, loaded into Jerod's pickup and climbed what looks to have been a road at one time to do some shooting.


After a few hundred rounds were expended we went back down the "trail", ate some dinner, drank some beverages, and hit the sack.

Day three I just left my bike on the trailer. Figured it wouldn't be fair for the other guys to wait on me if I continued to have tire trouble. Hitched a ride on the back of Jerod's Kodiak. Was supposed to just be a quick loop between breakfast and lunch. Began along the river then climbed the hills up to the plains.




Storm off in the distance...

We got lost. The map we had was 30 years old and we ended up in an area that Jerod had never been before. We got really low on fuel and finally just decided to give up on the map and just navigate by the power lines in the distance and heading downhill in the general direction of the lake. Luckily that worked out for us. We figured we covered about 75 miles and were gone about 6 hours. Once we finally got back to camp we packed up and headed back to Marsing. Cedar plank salmon for dinner.

Carnage tally:
Zero-
(4) tubes
(1) tire
(1) mirror
(1) front turn signal
(1) saddle bag mount strap
C-monster-
(2) foot pegs
(1) bent shifter
(1) set if bars w/grips
(1) mirror
(1) tail light
(2) tank dents
(1) ignition switch


Already making plans for next year.

My brother wrecked his black '36 pickup a few months ago. Once he got things straightened out with the insurance company he started the search for parts. We went south this morning and spent some money. My brother bought a pair of '36 fenders, a grille (not shown), a hood, inner fenders, and headlights. I bought a pair of '35 fenders and a passenger door.


The door I got is pretty straight, especially considering it's 80+ years, but more importantly -- really rust free. That's a rarity for these things.


He's planning to order a new chassis with a Mustang II, reuse the engine, transmission, rearend, do the body work, and give it a driver quality black repaint. Hope it doesn't take him 17 years to get as far as I did with mine.

Signed papers today. I now own a piece of Potadaho. Transition should take about a year.

I rode through Arco on my way to Sturgis several years ago. Some of the windiest I've ever ridden in.

Went on a tire binge. New Harley whitewalls for the Goldwing...

New heavier duty rear tire for Zero to replace the light weight knobby that kept failing...

Set of winter tires and wheels for the wagon...


I also came up with a new repop set of small hubcaps for the 15x7s that I made for it but they'll stay in the box until next spring.