Pan - dead

My future with the pan -

As I said, the pan, when totally rebuilt - may perform as a stable motorcycle if all phases aligned. My history with the pan - I'd never be comfortable being more than 30 miles from home if it ran well. I'd likely spend more time fixing than riding. With the pan - my future with motorcycling was not what I sought where I could have this cool, old bike that I'd keep tuned up and road-hardened but rather it was to be shit. I'd not be comfortable on bike rides, going anywhere in Minneapolis, pure shit.

I can't do that. I'm out. The pan stayed in Canby and I hope will stay there forever. If the pan wasn't a family heirloom - I'd sell it to someone else who is comfortable dealing with this shit. So I've sunk almost 1 year & at least $7k into shit and it boils my blood to this day.

Maybe I'm not competent enough to support such a contraption.

Maybe this fits with the theme of my life - always fuck up the first attempt and nail it on the second. Maybe I should have attempted the pan as a second bike..

Lot's of maybe's and I can't even think of an entitlement to the hindsight.

The wife pressures me to sell it. Padre & I came to an agreement that he'd give me some money to adopt the bike - "just name the price" - but that feels like a cop-out; a low and shitty way of getting some money that no one owes me.

To this day - I don't know what's right to be done with the pan. FUCK OLD BIKES.

stuck

So the pan was still broken. The 4-spd trans needed to be rebuilt and with the pan and my luck combined - I probably find need to buy loads more shit to make that trans work. And even if rebuilt - I'd still have a marginally stable FUCKIN WENCH that may work if all phases align.

I left the pan in Canby with padre and left to think about my place in motorcycling.

fuckin wench

Some loose charging system troubleshooting lead me to believe the voltage relay wasn't working. I took things apart and they looked fine but it wasn't switching. Ordered a new switch and ignition coil, loaded the bike into the truck westward bound to Canby - where I could fix the charging and break-in the bike in western MN (nice & quiet). There was also a ride that weekend - the LTD ride. Padre & I fixed the charging with the new regulator, double-checked the ignition timing (adjust to a bit more retarded) and did some break-in riding. The engine sounded like an air-pump with the new ignition timing and seemed to be laboring more, but we thought to ride with it. The next day, the day of the LTD ride - we went to ready ourselves for departure when we found the pan - dead again. Some quick wiring troubleshooting found I was not de-energizing the voltage regulator coil and that was quickly draining my battery - very quickly (dead in minutes). We thought we'd just disconnect the coil wire whenever stopped and run without headlight for the day. It was a rainy day but we still - fuckin stupidly - charged onto the ride in Monte.

We arrived in Monte fine, parked and disconnected things. When the ride was set to roll - the pan fired right up and we set on our way. Things were looking ok - clouds were parting and sun was starting; winds were starting to become annoying though..

Padre was right behind me at the start of the ride but less than 5 miles out of Monte - he trailed off. I was flying solo. We rode from Monte to Marshall. Then heading out of Marshall - I noticed my clutch linkage had vibrated loose and I was having to force shifting (up & down). Rode for about 15 miles that way and then found an ace hardware to fix the missing bolt. I also grabbed some gas and one of the guys we were riding with stopped to help. We were heading northwest and directly into about a 20 mph wind - total suck - and playing catch-up. I kept an eye out for padre but he was no where. Called him a couple of times to see if he broke - no answer. Turns out his rear intake pushrod had worked loose so he pulled over, adjusted and took a short-cut to catch-up to the pack. His short-cut put him only 1 block away from where I had stopped to fix the bike - but he never saw me. He was riding with the pack.

Fixed - the pan and I played catch-up. I had no speedo but we (padre's friend and I) were passing cars and hammering on. The other guy I was losing me as he sped on and I didn't like pushing the pan that hard so I backed off - said to myself - I'm stoppin in Canby and not finishing the ride (+30 more miles). Soon thereafter - a gust of wind caught my breast pocket and ejected my cell phone - skidding on the road I decided to roll on and forget it for later - thought I should relatively keep up with this guy so no time to stop! About 4 miles from Canby - the pan started losing power - fast... The made some shitty noises and stopped. I coasted for a little bit but was still ~4 miles from Canby. I hopped off, turned things off, saw oil all over the rear cylinder, kicked the engine over a couple times to ensure it wasn't seized - and waited.

The wife and family was so excited to see me roll through Canby and they waited. I was stuck 4 miles from Canby. The whole pack had gone by without concern. Some random dude stopped and asked if I needed help - he gave me a ride to Canby.

I wanted to push the pan in the ditch - leave it there to burn. I was frustrated with myself, with the LTD ride that went way too fast (average about 65 mph on side-roads) and frustrated with the pan for failing again.

I rolled into Canby in this dudes truck - hopped out and walked to the wife and family. Head down - I had failed. We went to get my truck and go load the pan. Dropped the pan at padre's shop and just left it there to figure itself out. I was convinced it was a cursed bike that no longer wanted to be ridden.

weeks passed - Padre found some time between building trikes to tear the pan apart. I had melted the front piston a bit - probably due to detonation and over-heating (heavy load, advanced ignition timing, hot day). Ordered a new piston and cleaned up the rest - reassembled and refired the pan on a 4-day weekend.

I was still frustrated - 2/3 of the summer was wasted trying to get a bike suitable for riding and time was slipping fast - and the pan was still FUCKIN BROKEN. I was wasting vacation time - just so desperate to go ride but I was FUCKIN STUCK with a FUCKIN BROKEN PAN.

Rebuilt - the pan fired up and ran just like before. Padre & I did some clutch adjusting, nut & bolted the whole thing again and did some test riding. I took it to the highway first and it was running the same as before. I asked padre to highway ride it - which he did. He returned with some advice that would have potentially saved the pan from it's meltdown - at highway speed - run the carb choke 1/4 on - it really smooths the engine out. He used to have to do the same with the pan before he handed it over. I re-test rode it to feel the difference - SO DIFFERENT. The engine didn't even feel like it was working to move at highway speed with 1/4 choke on. I was pumped.

I was returning to the shop a little happier and then the wet grass leading to the entrance took my front wheel - down went the bike. The handle bar smashed a baseball sized dent in the gas-tank. Some dirt got jammed into places - but nothing else broke. I rolled the bike into the shop - without a word and said - wtf - fits the bike. DIRTY FUCKIN WENCH

Padre & I rechecked the clutch adjustment while running and saw the clutch hub moving a good 1/4" out of round. Shutdown the pan - grabbed the basked by hand and moved things - the transmission bearing for the output shaft was shot. I never touched that bearing - was shot from the start maybe or I had something too tight.. not sure.. but that straw broke me. I left speechless.

dirty wench

Padre showed up for a big patriot ride out of Fat Boys up north. The plan was to take the pan and his trike for the ride. The night he arrived - we got right to workin on the pan. A couple of kick's into attempted starting - he thought the timing was too retarded so I showed him the static timing and noodled the idea a bit. A couple beers later - we decided to time things by ear. Advanced the timing until we had something that'd start and then listen as it was running. Check the egt's during timing adjustment to see where the temperature was in the cylinder and eventually we had some happy compromise. I was constantly asking what he thought of the engine and all he could say was - sounds great!

The obvious next step was to attempt to drive the shit.

Midnight before the ride - we terrorized the neighborhood with some runs up and down the road. I was nervous to drive it but it was ok. Hit a couple of bumps and felt the rigid frame. My seat was resting on the fender (seat springs completely collapsed!). We rested.

The next morning - we got ready for the ride.

Double-check all fasteners and clean. We did another quick ride around the neighborhood to ensure everything was ok and then set off - FUCKIN BANZAI up HWY 169 headed for sister-in-law's where we meet with our group for the ride. Had to be there by 9:00A to get to the ride before check-in time.

What an intense experience of jumping onto an absolute nuts idea with little riding experience and hammering the pan up to 60 MPH. It seemed ok actually. Ran strong enough to keep up with traffic and stopped well enough to avoid accidents. The wife was in toe with padre in his trike and with my right-side only mirror, I lead and had my head on a swivel. Made it almost 2 miles from home when we rolled to a stop-light and the pan died...

Pulled off to the side of the road and checked & checked - found a dead battery. The charging system wasn't working. Checked the wiring and couldn't figure out why. Tried polarizing - nothing was working. Hopped on the back of padre's trike and ran back to the house to get my truck and battery charger; the wife stayed roadside with the pan! Contrary to what I expected - only a lil ol' couple stopped to ask her if she needed help.

Back at the pan - we charged the batter to 12V and proceeded to ride. We figured the system was discharging the whole time we had been running the bike (testing & all). Although we weren't sure why the system kept discharging - we proceeded to wife's sister's place. Rode for another 10 miles without issue. The firestone tires were a bit squirrelly on the ice-grooved roads. Made it to the stop-light just before wife's sis' place and the pan died again. Pull -ver & recharge. We were running out of time so we charged just enough to get it running and then rolled to her sisters. We asked some of the folks there if they had any ideas and none were had so the pan was parked in sis' garage in trade for a new Victory to ride (thanks bro' in law). As I got acquainted with the Victory - padre rolled the pan into sis' garage, parked it and hooked up a battery charger in hopes that we'd return to a bike with enough juice to ride back home. Then we all rode on.

ride...

After the ride - we returned to sis' place to hopefully revive the pan and head home. Instead - we returned to find the charger on and the key-switch on. Fried the ignition coil so pan = dead. Loaded it into the back of my truck, homeward bound.

I a way - I think the pan knew what was in store. The patriot ride was hot and slow, not too good for a pan. Considering the future events (you'll see), the pan wasn't ready. I was nervous about breaking in an engine when all I could hear was car noise.

We went back to do some more troubleshooting on why the charging system wasn't working...

wench?

After getting things running initially and doing some checks - some other folks wanted to see this bitch run. The wife came out with a camera, mother-out-law was visiting and slightly interested - so I thought - wtf - should start right? I think we were on our way to do something clean and family oriented. Turn things on - kick, kick, kick x 30. Again felt like the limp dick. I knew pans maybe hard starting when new but it wasn't even trying. Check spark = weak but ok, fuel = plentiful, compression - same as before. Kick some more. WOT - it finally started but was consistently damn hard. I still felt proud but it was starting to fade quickly.

After things started - I was pretty sweaty but still went with the family thing. I wasn't sure what to do about the starting - static timing checked fine. Maybe need some ears on the subject that have history with pans - so I recruited a visit from padre.

A new INTENSE.

So my last post was April 14, '09. I never intended to stop blogging the pan build but shit happens and I stopped. Maybe it's a winter thing..

A lot happened to the pan since last blog technical update.

• Engine - confidently built and installed
• Headers wrapped and an exhaust baffle installed ( later directed to be removed by padre - a good choice)
• Oil lines routed and filter located just behind the transmission.
• New clutch assembly installed (old one had stripped studs and couldn't hold axial loading) - got a good assembly with more modern 5 threaded studs vs. 3.
• Made a carb support that drops from the top engine mount.
• Rattle-can painted the fork / frame in a semi-gloss black.
• Painted fender, gas and oil tanks with the silver / green metallic color
• Mechanically assembled everything
• Then did some wiring fuckin fantastic wiring.
• Found lots of 20w50 oil and bought. Then read about pan ol' faithful's on 20w50 so found some 50w. Still started with the 20w50.

When all assembled and thought to be ready - I did some static ignition timing and think I got things relatively close to good. This was pretty tricky with the auto advance but how the hell can you actually tell. I tried starting roughly and nothing was happening. Fuel = ok. Spark seemed a little weak and compression didn't seem altogether that great. I don't have a compression gauge and went with the rule of thumb - remove the spark plug and hold your thumb over the spark hole - if you get a sharp pressure spike enough to pop - you should be fine (this is very subjective...). Spark on these machines I guess is weak when compared to modern ignitions so this was also subjectively troubleshot without finding an error. I decided to let the pan rest for a night (I think for time I'm already somewhere early June '09!).

The next day... must have been feeling lucky or something, but went out to try kickin' again. After the priming kicks and an initial start kick - the second start kick actually got the engine to bang a couple times. MY HEART WAS F'IN OFF THE CHARTS! Just two simple pops and I had adrenaline enough to challenge Kimbo in a ho-off. A couple of more tries (maybe 10 or so) and holding WOT - it actually started running with some stability. I was frantically checkin oil pressure (nearly 30psi cold, between 7 & 2 warm), looking for leaks, watching chain movement, listening to cylinders, checking temperatures (with the raytec I borrowed from padre in April!), listening to the geartrain and oil pump... SO FUCKIN INTENSE! This is my first attempt at an engine build and although mechanically simple - being my first firing solo - I was attentive to the smallest sounds. Everything seemed ok. It still started like a limp 80 year ol dick without Viagra but it started and that's miles ahead of where I expected (set the bar low...). I let it run for about 10 minutes and get some good temperature before the first shutdown. Even had enough time to snag a call to padre and let him listen into the whole business.

I can only image the this intensity is close to what's experienced when your first child is born. I quit for the day right then - on a good panhead note.