Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Yuma AZ.- Gold Wings - Suzukis and Williams Wrenches

We are thankful to be in Arizona for the Winter months again. We miss Family in montana but we don't miss the cold weather. We'll be driving to Las Vegas to catch a plane to MT. for Christmas later in the week....then we have the annual Airhead Beemers Club "Last Chance Rendezvous" in the Anza Borrego Desert over New Years.
So far we've had a great wind down here in AZ. I brought down an old dead Suzuki GS850G with me from MT. Took me all of about an hour to get it into running order, then a couple days cleaning and fine tuning things before I listed it for sale. It sold within a week for $900.00.
 
This old 1980 honda GL 1100 Gold Wing belongs to an aquaintance here in the Foothills. Kind of a "Mad Max" looking thing in its' present state. All the brake system is toast so I'm rebuilding everything....master cylinders and all calipers. ....good practice in case I ever need to rebuild my own.
 
 
Installed a new rear tire on my Gold wing the other day. Planned on farming out the installation but the local shops want from $70.00 - $80.00 to change a tire. Can't bring myself to pay someone to do it when I can do it myself....but tire changing sucks!
My Wing has an issue with "popping" through the exhaust when idling and decellerating. Can't seem to pin point what the problen is. Performed a compression check today and all is well...140 psi - 145 psi on all cylinders. Changed plugs....checked the "Air Valve" which is a gold wing item I've never heard of before. Checked valve settings...checked for intake leaks...all that's left is timing and carb settings. hopefully I can figure it out before too long.
 
The 1979 Suzuki GS850G. Actually a pretty decent old bike. Only showed 18k miles. I picked it up in Billings real cheap last October as a non running derelict.

 
Went to a Flea Market a couple weeks ago.....saw this old set of "Williams" wrenches which were a fine looking set of vintage  tools. I knew they had to be something special so offered $5.50 for them as the sticker said $6.00. Got them home and after some research found that they were the same serial numbers / sizes specified for WW2 Jeep Tool kits. Pretty hard to find in this condition and as an original set. From a mechanics point of view, the wrenches are fat and cumbersome, I wouldn't care to use them. Put them on EBay and a new proud owner paid $80.00 for them to add to his WW2 collection. I need to find more old screaming deals like this!

 
We've had a couple of storms in the past week....in fact it's raining out as I post this. We usually get 3 - 4 rain storms each Winter....this is number 2 so we're half way there for the season.
The mountain view from my roof top "sun deck" this evening.


Gila Mtns.

Gila Mtns.