Goodbye, CB750, Goodbye

The CB750 is no more.

Having decided that spending more money on this bike wasn't what I wanted to do (thanks one and all for your advice), I moved it on this morning.

I've got about a half-dozen high-value parts (or hopefully high value parts) that I'll try to sell on ebay or craigslist, but the rest went to the transfer station this morning.

No regrets. It was a very fun project two winters ago when I started it, and if buying a house and moving and money hadn't gotten in the way, I do think I would have finished. I learned a lot, both about the mechanical and monitary sides of motorcycle restoration, and I still know what I want next time.

If nothing else, my land looks a lot bigger and cleaner!

An Electric (and ebay) Update

I know my electric usage is of import to really no one but me, but I did get the first fully post-CFL conversion bill today, and daily consumption dropped another 8.6%, to 26.5 Kwh per day. I know that's still not great, but we recently learned that the heater in our hot tub is going out and drawing 33 amps when it kicks in. It's still under warranty and on order, so we may see even more of a drop (hopefully) when it's replaced.

To compare to last year, before CFLs and before I insulated the spa: 37.9 Kwh/day to 26.5, and $240 to $140. I like this year's better.

As for the ebay update, I decided to sell off the Honda as parts and save up for a late-70s, early-80s BMW R-series. First piece got listed yesterday and sold today - my first ebay sale.

Spanky likes melted snow, too!

As you know, Spanky likes the snow.

He also likes to swim. We took the dogs up to this little lake outside Arnold the other day, just to let him paddle around. (Idgie, of course, treats the lake much the way she treats the snow.)

Anyway, it was fun.

A Deconstructed Dilemma

So I have a dilemma.

Actually, I have a motorcycle in pieces and I'm not sure what to do about it. Remember the history: I bought this non-running 1978 Honda CB750 a couple of years ago for $250 with the idea of tearing it all down (done) and rebuilding it in the cafe-racer style. (What I really, really want is a BMW R90S.)

Here is my dilemma. The bike had 48,000 miles on it and a frozen cylinder. (Piston rusted in place.) It had also been dropped fairly hard at one point. One of the engine mounts was broken off, and when I opened the block there was one small loose metal chip inside. So I can't know for sure what's straight.

I know the rest of what's wrong with the engine. The cam is worn beyond spec, as are the valve seats. As open as the engine is, it makes sense to replace the main bearings. All in all, with the cam, head work, bearings, gaskets, rings and piston, I'm looking at $1,000-plus in the engine.

Then there's the rest of what needs to be done to the bike. Most of it I'd do myself and that's more than half of the fun. And all of the learning. And another $1,000.

I've spent time and a little money (but not really too much) getting it this far. I stalled because once I commit to the engine, I have to go all the way and I haven't really seen the logic in that yet.

And I still want a motorcycle to tool around on. Especially as the weather gets nice, going out for a spin on some of our winding back roads would be great fun.

So what should I do? Bite the bullet and keep going? Sell off what I can on ebay and try again later on a different bike? Buy something running that would be worth restoring if I wanted to down the road? Buy a beater for less than $2,000 and call it a win? Get over it and buy golf clubs?

Advice is appreciated. (Smart-alec comments are anticipated...)

Bad Movies 2, Good Movies 1

Not been too much happening lately, except dancing to an ever-changing tune called by the local First 5 bureaucrats. And since there are only so many words like incompetent, asinine and infuriating, it would be a short blog if I only wrote about that. (I did make one of them whine to her supervisor, though, because I talked mean to her...)

But I was able to watch a few movies this week, so I'll do reviews.

Children of Men - (Or, Please Kill Me Now & End This Needless Suffering)


This one surprised me. I had been looking forward to it, and I don't need happy stories or even happy endings to enjoy a movie. But Jesus Christ on a stick, this is just suicide-inspiring. Michael Caine kills his wife and dog and he's the most likeable character in the movie.

You have been warned.

Spider Man 3 -- (Wake me, and Toby McGuire, when it's over...)

Snuck into this free, so I wasn't overcharged. Didn't expect great shakes from Spidey 3, and got about what I expected. There are some good sequences, but mostly I was bored. All three villains were far more interesting than the purported protagonist, and the great inner conflict within Peter Parker boiled down to whether to wear his hair down over his forehead (bad Spidey) or combed neatly back (good Spidey.) Toby mailed it in.

Hot Fuzz (Or, When Good Zombies Get Guns)

This is the buddy-cop-movie spoof by the guys who did "Shawn of the Dead." (And if you haven't seen Shawn of the Dead, check it out. It's one of the best and funniest parodies ever.) (And it's not Scary Movie 2 slapstick scenes thrown together, either. It's has a legit narrative.)

This isn't as funny as Shawn because they stayed true to the buddy-cop genre and traded laugh-out-loud funny for clever. And it's very clever. It's the best of the three by far, and they get extra credit for pulling off a perfect - perfect - Point Break homage.

I Sing the Usage Electric

Sorry for the Bad Bradbury reference...

Today I continued my quest for electric power savings. First, I read the meter, hoping to see a big reduction even over last month and was disappointed. Depending on whether or not I count today in the math, I either show a reduction in daily kilowatt usage of 0.7% (not counting today) or 4.9% if I do count today. Since I did this about 9 a.m., I suspect the former is a more accurate figure.

I'd hoped for much better.

I my garage, (This Land) I'd installed three 8-foot fluorescent fixtures shortly after we moved in, two on the workshop side and one on the office side. I wired the one on the office side in series with an existing 4-foot fixture that's right over my desk. The short fixture worked weakly for a few days then never lit up again. Bad ballast, maybe? As the other lights are plenty bright, and I actually prefer it out, I never worried about it.

But was it drawing power?

So today I did a little experiment. I timed one spin of the dial on the meter with the lights off. 43 seconds. I timed it again with the lights on. 22 seconds. The garage lights speed the dial up by 21 seconds.

Then I unwired the old fixture and timed it again with the lights on. 31 seconds. This time the lights only speeded the dial by 12 seconds.

Now, as Diane was up and there were lights on upstairs and I can't be absolutely certain that exactly the sames lights were on or off upstairs when I did my experiment, I know these results could be meaningless. I did not control for all variables. (I could throw all the breakers but the garage light circuit, but Diane probably wouldn't appreciate it...)

But I think the same lights were on upstairs all three times, so I think my results might well matter. What the hell, if there are any savings at all from unwiring a light fixture that produced no light it's a good thing.