The Mule at ready

Well, I got the wiring sorted out on the Green Mule today. There's a big pile of wires sitting by the bike, I took off my ad-hoc relay kit for the headlights that never seemed to give any improvement for some reason (I think my ground wasn't good enough), I took off all the GPS wiring (for two different GPS'es!), the brackets for handlebar-mounted windshield and GPS, and I got all the cruise control wiring sorted out I hope (still need to test it). The fuel tank is bone dry empty and clean (it's plastic so no worries about rust), the float bowl is empty, it's waiting for fresh gas. I took the lowering links off the back and lubricated the needle bearings and put the original dogbones back on, and put the front forks back at their regular position.

The only thing left to do, really, is to change that frackin' fork seal. Now, there's a number of ways to do this, but I'm going to try to take the shortcut way. I'm going to take the fork leg off, remove the boot and then the C-clip that holds in the fork seal, and then put some air into the fork leg. The old fork seal ought to pop right on out at that point, then I can slide it off the end of the fork, slide the new one in, and push it right on down to where it needs to be. The "canonical" way is to disassemble the fork and use a seal remover, but that requires a looooooong extension to unbolt the bolt at the bottom of the fork tube that keeps the fork tube from escaping from the fork lower, and it's a general PITA all the way around. But anyhow, once that's done, I'll be ready to list it on Craigslist for sale -- hopefully just as the warm weather arrives and people's minds turn to thoughts of dual-sport bikes :-).

-- Badtux the Motorcyclin' Penguin

Antennae

Communications are important when you're far from civilization. So my Jeep has four antennas on it. The satellite radio antenna is hidden under the padding for my roll bar. The AM/FM antenna is on the right front fender. Then here, on the back of my Jeep, are a CB (11 meter) antenna, and an amateur radio 2m/70cm antenna. Not visible is the FRS/GMSR antenna, which is fixed onto the "walkie talkie" that it came on and clips to the headrest in my Jeep, or the internal antenna of the SPOT satellite messenger, or of my iPhone (which, however, is mostly an inert lump if I'm away from pavement).

The AM/FM antenna and satellite antenna came with the Jeep, so let's talk about the CB and ham radio antennas. The CB antenna is a Firestik wire-wound fiberglass antenna that someone gave me. I mounted it on the center brake light housing on a Firestik spring through-hole mount, by drilling a hole in the brake light housing for the stud of the spring mount. I then ran the coax alongside the brake light wiring to inside the rear tailgate of the Jeep, made a semi-loop inside to allow opening and closing the tailgate, and from there along the seam of the tailgate doorsill, protected by a lot of duct tape. Once I reached the driver's side of the Jeep I then ran it alongside the existing wiring until it got to under the dash, where it hooks into the junction box of my CB radio. From the junction box I then ran the CB handset's wiring across the interior bottom of the dashboard (on the frame structure for the bar that keeps you from sliding under the dash if you're not belted and the airbag goes off, part of the federally-required airbag system), then inside the center console on top of the driveshaft tunnel, then it comes out under my seat, from whence it can be stashed alongside my seat or hooked on the dashboard microphone hook depending on whether I want that big heavy handset and coil wire hanging around (if I'm not on the trail and thus don't need the CB, it lives alongside my seat).

So anyhow, that's my CB setup. It shouldn't work, the textbooks say. Up there on the plastic brake light housing it doesn't have a good enough ground, they say, and it's too far above the tub of the Jeep for the tub of the Jeep to serve as a good ground plane (remember, the roof of my Jeep is fiberglass -- it's basically transparent to radio waves). But the 10 gauge wire running down to a ring connector slipped over one of the brake light housing mounting bolts appears to give enough ground for it to work, I hear fine on the trail, and talk good enough, and has fairly low SWR. So it works as good as the cheesy freebie antenna will ever work, I suppose, and good enough for the communicating I do with it.

Which brings us to the ham radio antenna. Now, one thing a lot of people have a problem with is the idea of putting holes into their nice purty vehicle. I've had the mount that I use for the ham radio antenna for, like, forever, but I had that same problem back when the Jeep was new. Not anymore. I put a Rock-It Parts CB Antenna Mounting Plate between the driver's side tail light and the body of the Jeep. This required drilling two holes into the body of the Jeep for supporting the top part of the bracket (the template for doing this came with the bracket), which raises the antenna up to above the level of the body of the Jeep to prevent reflected waves from messing things up and allows using the tub of the Jeep as an (asymmetric) ground plane (remember, my roof is either fiberglass or cloth depending on whether I have the hard-top or convertible top on, both will attenuate radio waves but do not reflect them). I then spaced the tail light out from the bracket a bit to give more room to get the antenna wire down into the hole for the tail light wires.

The next thing to add was the actual mount. I used a Diamond C101. I had to drill out the hole in the CB mount to be big enough for the UHF connectors and I did not have a big enough drill bit, so I went over to Cheap Chinese Tool Place and bought 2 Piece Titanium Nitride Coated M2 High Speed Steel Step Drill Bit Set for my drill, which did the job of reaming that hole out nicely. I just kept going up one step until the mount fit through it! I could then put the antenna onto the mount. I chose a Diamond NR77HA antenna. I wanted a 2m/70cm antenna because those are the two frequencies most used by repeaters (the 2m for local repeaters, the 70cm for interconnected repeaters), and the longest antenna that could still be protected by the roof of my Jeep from being whacked by brush, and the vibration of offroad driving also was a factor limiting me to about 40 inches of total length. Size matters with antennas (unlike with, err, other pointy things), but like with all good things too big is just too big. This was the best size I found for my Jeep.

Once I had the mount mounted in the hole, there came the job of running the supplied coax into the Jeep. I just looped it on the *inside* of the tail light and ran it through the existing hole behind the tail light. I protected it with plastic wire loom to protect it from anything that might abrade the coax. There is a rubber grommet where the existing wiring passes into the tub of the Jeep, I poked a new hole through it and pulled the coax through the new hole into the Jeep, then ran it alongside the existing wiring to the front of the Jeep, adding a mini-UHF to UHF converter and coupler to extend the wiring enough to get to the antenna location. Then I tested the antenna system by using an SMA-to-UHF converter to attach it to my VX-8 portable radio, used a local repeater's signal test function late at night (when nobody is using that repeater, which is 20 miles from my apartment), and found that it gives approximately twice the transmitted power as even the long Diamond SHR940 HT antenna on my VX-8.

The next thing to add will be a mobile 2M/70cm radio. I am looking at the Kenwood TM-D710A, which has some nice features. It will output 50 watts, unlike the 5 watts of my little Yaesu VX-8, and will make long-distance communications within line-of-sight much more reliable in the desert areas where I travel. The big issue is money, but that should be resolved shortly for reasons I won't say more about here. Once I am finished with that, my Jeep's communication systems will be pretty much finished, and I can then move on to other mods to the Jeep. More as that unfolds...

-- Badtux the Radio Penguin

End of an era

Last night I started the process of preparing my 2002 Kawasaki KLR 650 for sale. Given the fact that I can't stand on the pegs and really will never be able to trust my left leg to hold up again when doing so even after it's finished healing, having a dirt-ready motorcycle just doesn't seem like a reasonable thing right now. The trusty KLR has been a reliable steed and I'm not feeling good about selling it. I just don't trust the machinery that operates it anymore when it comes to offroading, and my V-Strom is a much better on-road motorcycle.

One part of this process is removing whatever accessories have value once removed, because accessories really don't add anything to the value of the bike at sale. I took out the Brake! LED tail light / brake light module and put the old-style filament tail light back in. I also put the license sticker on it and started going over the bike looking for problems that I need to solve. In the process I discovered a puddle of ATF on my right wheel. Yeppers, my right fork seal is leaking (I use Mobil 1 synthetic ATF in my forks, which about an 8W fork oil but easier to find and a lot cheaper than "fork oil"). Sigh. So I'll have to fix that before I can sell it. Luckily fork seals are cheap! Over the next few days I'll clean up the bike to make it showroom shiny (yeah right, it's a KLR!) and repair any other problems I find and remove any other accessories that I can sell separately without hurting the resale value of the bike (e.g., the hand guards, skid plate, and engine guards go with the bike, because I'm selling it as a rugged desert cruiser, but the relay kit for the headlights comes off as do the GPS power cables and the GPS RAM mount).

And so the process of simplifying my life begins...

-- Badtux the Saddened Penguin

A bad joke

This isn't mine, just passing it along. Don't have much else for this blog because this month's been a waste -- haven't been able to walk worth a flip for most of it due to injury, so my motorcycles are lurking unhappily in the garage and the Jeep is getting tired of the trek to work and back every day not getting any raw beef thrown its way.

So...

A gynecologist had become fed up with malpractice insurance and HMO paperwork and was burned out. Hoping to try another career where skillful hands would be beneficial, he decided to become a mechanic. He went to the local technical college, signed up for evening classes, attended diligently, and learned all he could. When the time for the practical exam approached, the gynecologist prepared carefully for weeks and completed the exam with tremendous skill. When the results came back, he was surprised to find that he had obtained a score of 150%.

Fearing an error, he called the instructor, saying, "I don't want to appear ungrateful for such an outstanding result, but I wonder if there is an error in the grade."

The instructor said, "During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly, which was worth 50% of the total mark. "You put the engine back together again perfectly, which is also worth 50% of the mark."

After a pause, the instructor added, "I gave you an extra 50% because you did it all through the tailpipe, which I've never seen done in my entire career."

-- Badtux the Easily-amused Penguin

Trabant!

East Germany's national car was the Trabant, a cramped and woefully obsolete atrocity with a maximum speed of 62mph that was suspended on transverse coach springs (no shock absorbers) and powered by a 600cc 2-stroke engine that smoked (and sounded) like a chainsaw engine. The only advanced feature of the Trabant was its front-engine front-wheel-drive layout, in an era (the early 50's) when most cars had a rear-engine rear-wheel-drive layout. Here is an example of a Trabant in action, trying to tow a dead Czech 4x4 out of a yard:

Heh!

-- Badtux the Auto Penguin

The Two-story Outhouse Principle

The average GM assembly line worker makes $27/hour, the average Toyota assembly line worker makes $25/hour (but with profit sharing and overtime, the average GM worker makes $29/hour and the average Toyota worker makes $31/hour). So clearly the wages of line workers are not the problem with competitiveness. But the "corporate culture" of the United States cannot assign blame to management and government policies because that violates the hierarchical principal underlying all large organizations, the most sacred of which is "sh*t falls downwards". That is, no executive in American corporate (or governmental) culture today will ever admit that blame lies in flawed management decisions. That conflicts with the culture of arrogance. Rather, all blame will automatically be passed downward until it reaches the level of people unable to pass the blame further down even if said people have nothing to do with the decisions that led to the current problems -- line workers, in the case of Big 3 auto makers.

-- Badtux the Auto Penguin

Trip update

The Silver Demon worked perfectly on this trip. Granted, I didn't do any hard-core offroading -- I didn't even need to disconnect my sway bars. But it was just reliable as dirt. Which is pretty much what you expect from a design that is as simple as dirt.

I'm going to eventually put a long-arm suspension system and some big-ass tires on the beasty, but that'll wait until it's paid off. Until then, its current configuration -- a Jeep on the cheap -- does everything I need, if not necessarily everything that I want.

-- Badtux the Jeeping Penguin