From Rags to Riches

It took two or three times of removing the engine from the frame on that old Honda Twin but I finally made it to the road. As with anything mechanical, whenever there is too much stress on something and you make repairs, that which was stressed becomes sensitive.

What did I learn from that?

Don’t put undue stresses on the weakest link. It will break down again.

Does that mean that it will never be the same again? Yeah, unless you design around it. I work on very large and intricate machinery today. The cranes I maintain have to lift heavy loads over people’s heads and it must make repeated lifts over and over again without a rest. Some of our cranes don’t get any down time for several days. So when something breaks or cracks we design a repair around it. This involves fabricating supports or replacing parts with stronger materials.

It is not unlike racing. The first cars and bikes used for racing were mostly stock until something wore out or broke prematurely. The racing crew or engine builders would have a new part machined out of billet or start over and design a new part that would not show weaknesses under such stresses. Today there is nothing similar in design between a production automobile and those used by NASCAR or found on the drag strip. That is not necessarily true for motorcycles if you have seen the new 1000RR models.

What about that little Honda twin I rebuilt back in Germany in 1973? What was stressed too much that needed to be either replaced or well cared for?

The carburetors were my main problem. If it wasn’t for the constant velocity carburetors that Honda chose for that motor I might still have that bike today. They gave me lots of trouble and I was always pulling them off the engine and trying to unstick the slides.

CV (Constant velocity) carburetors have a choke butterfly and a throttle butterfly just like any other carburetor but they have one major difference from those found elsewhere. That difference is the slides. The slides are operated by vacuum over gravity in such a way as to balance at a point where the venturi of the carburetor is automatically adjusted for the right amount of air flow for any given throttle setting based on the load of the engine. It is a wonderful idea and can be found on lots of Japanese and English motorcycles and cars.

My slides were sticky. I cleaned and cleaned, I honed the bores the slides rode in, I buffed the slide pistons, but there were times that the slides would just not move off the idle spot.

How did I stress them too much?

I don’t know but in trying to get them to work they became very touchy and I found myself waiting for the slides to rise more than once, just so I could get going. Other than that my Honda was a workhorse. I not only became a part of the motorcycle scene at Bitburg AB, but I got to travel throughout Europe on the weekends.


I was on top of the world so to speak. I had the freedom of Steppenwolf; I was Born to be Wild!

I had a sleeping bag and gas stamps so I could go where I wanted to and Munich (Munchen) was my favorite. On one such trip I decided to try for Nuremberg (Nurnburg) from Munich. I found myself in a parking lot. Don’t think the Autobahn is always 100+ MPH for I have been stuck. In Germany it is against the law to pass on the right and I had never heard of lane splitting. Then, along came three Germans on BMWs right between the cars.

One on them slowed to my speed and waved me to join them.

“Come along” he urged, “Come along.”

“Don’t be stuck with the autos, you are on a motorcycle.” He urged me.

I could almost hear his accent just in the way he waved me to join up.

I did, but I was very uncomfortable in doing so at first. I thought it is their country and what the hell we are all in this together. Right?

Then it hit me.

I was not like these other guys.

They looked so comfortable on their BMWs, riding between the cars like this on the Autobahn. I was so uncomfortable on my Honda. I had been in the saddle for over 24 hours, except for a few hours in a rest stop (Restplatz) sleeping on the ground, and my butt hurt.

That is when I decided I needed to modify my saddle and get rid of that weak spot.

Thanks to my sister Carol who later helped me make a custom seat.

I guess it is no surprise that now I ride a BMW RT model with a very large and wide saddle.