This is a drain plug with a very mangled sealing washer. You cannot see it in this picture, but it is very thin, much thinner that it should be, and, as you can see in this picture, a lot bigger then when it was new.

How do drain plug washers grow that much bigger you ask?

Well, for example, if somebody cranks the drain plug tight like they took a double portion of steroids that morning with no regards to the gentle needs of an innocent oil drain plug.

Commonly you would think that changing the oil is something that the aspiring hobby mechanic should have no problem doing.

Not so.

I have seen anything from filling the engine to the top of the filler plug, which would result major drag and no power or non start of the engine, to tightening the drain plug until the lead washer squeezes out on the side, which is the picture you can admire here.

I put a fresh washer next to it to demonstrate just how much this drain plug was tightened. I know, the fear of loosing your oil plug and subsequently the oil over your rear tire with resulting self made oil slick and/or engine damage from oil pressure loss, is grand.

But really people. If the drain washer starts oozing out of the sides of the drain plug like a toothpaste out of the tube, wouldn't you care to think that something is actually WRONG?

The owner of the motorcycle that was accompanied by this squeezy here was lucky, since nothing more happened.

But I have seen it that the engine cases were cracked from asserting too much pressure on the little threads. In which case: you need to take the oil pan off and weld it.

Expensive and a lot of work.

Or: You don't have an oil pan, which older bikes or singles don't typically have, and then you are kinda SOL and either need to live with a leaky pan or do some labor intensive JB weld job every time you change the oil.

So if you are an aspiring mechanic: In your own interest. Do yourself a favor and buy a torque wrench.

Hopefully this doesn't remind you of your refrigerator after coming back from a 4 week vacation and having forgotten to throw away that food, but if it does, there are similarities.

It's organic matter from a tire emergency fix, called Slime, molded after sitting in the tire for 2 years.

This picture was taken with my cell phone since the battery was dead on my good camera, so it's a little fuzzy, but *I swear* the color was just like that.

Slime is always a pain for the mechanic, since it is, as the name implies, slimy, and has to be removed before a new tire can be mounted.

This bike came in the morning, before I had coffee, and the mechanic wasn't very happy about this either needless to say...

So if there are no plugs handy, and you have to use Slime, would you pretty please come in soon after that and have you tire changed, please, before it molds? It is a temporary fix after all, and not recommended for highway use. Also, once there is Slime in the tire, or Fix-a-Flat for that matter, it can't be safely plugged anymore, and you need a new tire for sure.

It also might be cheaper to have the bike towed to the shop than having to pay the mechanic to clean it up.

But hey, I guess stuff like this comes with the territory. Good thing it wasn't Monday morning though...

Don't mess with this man

I encountered this man east of Reno, just before the sun was down, on a recent road trip that I took on my recently purchased "couch", an 04 FZ1.

Despite the stern look on his face though, he was very nice and posed for the camera...

Ok, so he is not some red neck yahoo trying to chase me off his property, although that almost did happen to us a couple weeks ago on another trip.

It's Joe at the Supermoto races that were held at Reno Fernley this weekend, and the reason he is holding that gun is because he just got done starting off the 1 hour Supermoto team endurance race.

The start was done LeMans style which was refreshingly old school (is that an oxymoron?) and very exciting to watch. Here is a video of it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2I6NBVNx9YM

Make sure you turn up the volume. Sounds like a stampede when everybody running toward their bikes that are leaned against the wall, then jumping on them, kick starting the bike and then taking off like bats out of hell. Fun!

Brave Travelers

You all have read these great travel stories by brave people that we admire for doing it, and you dream about doing it yourselves, but never do.

See, there is always an excuse: no time, can't get off work, don't have the right bike, since what you *really* need is a BMW R100GS, KLR650, Harley, Goldwing, Big Tourer of any make or an Enduros bike, right?

But not Michael Lohr, seen in this picture: he has a 2006 Suzuki GZ250, and he just drove it up from San Diego past San Francisco and is now on the way back. He says he needs to take a break every 50 miles, but hey, he's on vacation, so no rush, and he is definitely having fun, so that's what's it all about!

So whatever you have, don't let yourself prevent from a road trip. Everything is possible, you just need the right mind set.

And there is a good amount of people doing it, seems like it's getting more and more, and some come by here, for an oil change, new tire or repair to keep going, and it's always fun to talk to travelers.

I have a soft spot for traveling. After all, that's what I was doing when I fell in love with San Francisco, and got "stuck" here, meeting a good man and opening my own business.

That's what I love about traveling. You just never know what's going to happen. Finding the sweet spot. The Serendipity Factor. I love the serendipity factor.

My next adventure: Mexico over Christmas. 4 weeks of going where the weather suits me. Too cold? Drive closer to the coast. Too warm? Let's go to the mountains.

I'll be sure to make lots of pictures to share with you. And if you know of a great hidden away place to go in Mexico, let me know? Thanks!

Air Filter Issue

What's smiling at you here is a Kawasaki air filter that is rotten. The missing portion was probably sucked into the engine.

Since that missing smile chunk is so warm and fuzzy it'll just burn and do not too much harm, but if you get into the dusties, with a smile like that, the dust is going the past of least resistance, right through that hole, and into your engine.

So washable air filters are pretty great as long as they last, but eventually they rot.

And paper air filters? They usually don't rot like that, unless a mouse gets to it (and I have seen that, but don't have a picture of it) and they can't be serviced, so when they clog, they look like this:

Another nice one from my bad bad air filter collection: you can see nicely how your air filter should and should not look like....pictures do speak more that words...

So no more words. This is a short one. Until next time...

Burning Man and Laguna Seca

Here is a little quiz for you: where was this picture taken? Burning Man or Laguna Seca?

This picture could've been taken at either event: The hats, the funny hair, the beer cozies, the ear-to-ear grins, the blue sky.

What else, let's see: friends, fun, lots of (loud) events, making sure you drink enough water, heat, wind, camping out, sharing a common interest.

The races at Laguna Seca though have a couple added bonuses, for me anyway: you get to see the fastest guys on motorcycles in the world, and: it's right in our back yard.

And, thanks to Mike and Danielle, Arne and Michelle and Jim and Milli, all I have to do is get on my motorcycle with my tent and sleeping bag and show up to the best organized camp ever with everything and enjoy myself. And I did have a great time, thanks you guys!

One great thing that happened is Marco Melandri getting on the podium despite a foot injury. He just overcame the obstacles and kicked butt. It ain't over until the fat lady sings, and she didn't sing yet! Go Melandri, never give up!

And I picked him on the podium in the pre-race bet and won a t-shirt that Arne and Michelle got at the MotoGP race at Valencia. Yeehaa!

Time to smell the roses

This picture here is the aftermath of yet another motorcycle overheating fest at the MotoGP at Laguna Seca this year.

When I heard it'll be in the 70s for this year's MotoGP at Laguna I was relieved. Not only for my own comfort but for all those poor bikes that had relentlessly overheated last year trying to get into the track.

But I was wrong.

It was pleasant for us humans (although it did get pretty chilly camping at night). The bikes however, if you got caught with the coming-to-the-track-at-8.30am- crowd, had a hard time once again.

Although it was cool, being stopped in traffic is hard on any bike. All newer bikes are liquid cooled and made for speed, so going slow or not going at all gets even the coolest running bike into the red.

On many modern motorcycles the fan never comes on under normal operation (i.e. on the gas, and getting air flow cooling through the radiator), so when it does, a little bit of corrosion makes the fan stick a little initially. This makes the dedicated 30A fan fuse blow, and then results in a non-operating fan and an overheating bike.

My bike circled between 220F and 225F, which is totally borderline. I was glad I checked the fan operation before I left by letting it run and monitoring the temperature until the fan comes on (or not, in which case you need to check out why).

Still, I thought that was a little hot and I was prepared to switch my bike off at any sign of fluid leakage.

Unfortunately, a lot of people were unaware of their bikes leaking. There was one poor motorcycle that got kicked even though it was down already - literally: it leaked coolant AND was already obscured in cooling fluid smoke, kept dying, and the owner still tried to re-start the bike every time it died.

And although I usually don't exercise empathy for inanimate objects, even motorcycles, THAT made my heart hurt. Argh!

That's the time when you evaluate how much it is worth to you to not miss first practice in the morning. Is it about $2000 or more? Which is what it costs to get rebuild the engine or even swap one that you got form ebay.

Time to smell the roses (or the smell of overheating motorcycles...as long as it is not yours...) since there was no way for ALL of us to bypass traffic, since traffic consisted solely of motorcycles with the same problem.

In any other situation, the solution is to (safely) split lanes and keep the bike moving. After all, that is why the lane splitting law was adapted in California, not to keep cool bikers moving, but to keep hot bikes cooled down.

But at Laguna - yet another overheating mayhem, but apart from that it was a great and very fun weekend, and I can't wait until next year, and now I am writing another blog that deals with all the fun times we had...

Cheers!