Parts ordered, changed and arranged

February 6, 2008 - Wednesday

I ordered the air filter cover, the seat cover and the front shield on Monday, and picked up a box of brake pads and a lastunabhängige Blinkerrelais - don't ask me what the translation is for that; all I know is you plug it in and you can have LED blinkers - while I was at it. The brake pads cost 156.-, and that's just for the fron wheel. The relais was another 50.- something. I remember seeing a relais in Polo for about half that. Oh well. The one I got is made in Germany, not Taiwan. Quality costs. Florian royally chewed me out for my "excessive expenditures" - he ddn't say that, but that was the idea - and said I could have gotten cheaper brake pads if I bothered to look, and it was crazy to spend that much on a relais... I retorted that I'd heard all about the cheaper brake pads that held for 4000 km and ruined the brake disc, and that cheaper didn't make something better in my eyes. Then I asked him whether he'd make time to help me mount all this stuff on of these evenings. In a typical brotherly fashion he acted very persecuted and sighed that he was the only person who could do anything around here, and that he was already fixing the 50, so why didn't I ask Kevin? Turns out I didn't have to - Kev promptly offered when I told him, later on in MSN, that Florian was being fussy. (It doesn't mean anything. Florian can complain, but he always helps, he always gets the work done. Which is why he can get away with his grousing.) We'd already planned to meet up after work on Tuesday to go to the workplace of Michi and ask about prices for coloring the plastic parts I ordered. But yesterday I did some searching and found a whole bunch of airbrushers within 30 km radius. I finally settled on Raphaela Mundwiler, in Dübendorf, and gave her a call. She's done several othermotorcycle projects, her airbrushing looks clean and professional, and, best of all, she published price guidelines on her website. A tank cover - air filter cover in my case - starts at 800.- To play it safe I'll calculate on investing 2500.- on the airbrushing job. (That's about 80% of my monthly wage. There, I've said it once. Now I never want to think about it again.) Anyway, I called Frau Mundwiler and asked whether it made sense to have the parts base-coated black before giving them to her to airbrush. She said it would be double work; that she'd have to go over them again anyway. So, when Kevin and I met up yesterday evening, I told him we didn't need to to go to the painter. He said that was fine; it left us more time to work on the bike. It took time, that's for sure. We parked the Buell in his garage. He'd remembered to pick up some inch tools at his workplace, or we couldn't have done much at all on the Beastie. He loosened to two big screws that held the brake saddle - some terms I'm taking directly from the German, so I don't know if they're technically correct - and played around with the saddle for a while, trying to figure out how to get it out from around the brake disc. (The front disc on the Buell is attached to the rims, instead of to the hub, and the brake saddle clamps from inside.) I scratched the Lok-Tight out of the screws, polished up the Beastie a bit and watched as Kevin worked on the brake saddle. I suggested we go look for advice on the internet, which we eventually did. None of it made much sense t me, but Kevin read something about a pin and positioning screw, so we went back down to the garage and he knocked out the central pin in the saddle. The was the missing piece; with that pin gone, he was able to remove the brake pads without taking out the whole saddle. We cleaned the screws, he mounted the new brake pads, screwed the saddle back in place, pumped the brake, and then said we had to let the bike sit for about two hours to let the Lok-Tight dry. We hosed down both bikes before heading upstairs to the apartment. His mom had come home from work in the meantime, and she made us supper. She'd brought home a DVD player which Kevin installed, and after dinner he and I watched a Knight Rider movie, Soul Survivor. He couldn't believe I'd never watched the cult show. I laughed so hard at the tuckering little Studebaker... Kevin has a whole bunch of the Knight Rider DVDs. No doubt there'll be plenty of opportunity to watch the rest. Around 2130 hours Kevin figured the Lok-Tight would be dry, so we went back down to the garage and checked the screws and the brakes again. They were fine, so I geared up, thanked him for his time and work, and we said goodbye. We didn't get around to mounting the LED blinkers, and I forgotten to pack the reflector strips for the wheels, so there's work yet to be done on the bike. But it sure is making progress...