The Long Road to Redemption
________________________________
From:
"A. Toma"
To:
Black Echo
Subject:
A true story about redemption
Sent:
Thu, 08 Jan 2004
First off, I LOVE your site!! I
was beginning to think that I was alone!
Part 1: Decent into madness
I finally had the cash to get a bike when I was 21 (two weeks before my 22nd
B-day). I had read all there was, talked to
people, and it was clear:
Get a Harley (little did I know, eh? Young and foolish.).
I had always been into cars and hotrods, built
a few death trap street racers out of old Detroit
iron, run demolition derbies, etc. I
was no mechanical fool.
It was a new, 0 miles HD Sportster XL883. I had got
the smaller one with plans of big bore kit , hot rodding it,
etc. The first thing to go wrong was the paint
faded with the first long days of Summer.
The dealer response?
"You didn't use Harley-Davidson(tm) wax."
Then in order to keep my (worthless) warranty I had to have the stealership do the oil change. $120 for oil, filter and primary oil change (I'll get back to the supposed primary oil change.) The front head started leaking between rocker box and head. Stealership response, "It is just the oil breather."
I didn't know that it breathed through the
rocker box.
MY riding season that year was cut short due to an
unrelated incident, but not before I managed to do over
4000 kilometers on that expensive oil change.
Spring rolls around, and over winter I had the bike painted (XR750 orange
if you must know). When the tank was taken off
to be sent for painting I discovered very fine grit in the tank.
The fuel strainer was almost plugged too. Great,
now I have got that shit getting into my motor. Time
to do the oil change and Oh! No oil in primary? To top
it off, those morons at the stealership used Red-never-coming-apart-again
Loctite on damn near everything. More cursing and
swearing. MY cost for an oil change: less than $40 WITH OIL FILTER AND PRIMARY
OIL. Maybe now I'll get some riding time in but
wouldn't you know it, the oil light starts
flickering. WTF? I have less than 5000 kilometers on
this Goddamned thing.
I cut open old oil filter: it's
full of sand sized metal chunks. I check the
oil bucket: same thing. Any
way, I finally replaced the oil sending unit
and went through another friggin' oil change.
Now the Sportster doesn't like to stay in 3rd gear and
when it does it is really scary sounding. The front
head oil leak is getting worse too.
I also noticed that rear tail light vibrated loose
and cracked. I replaced that.
The so-called self-canceling signal lights
don't work either. I usually
have to reach around and smack a rear blinker for it to come on (I never did
find the loose connection).
It was about then that I started
noticing that a lot of cars were almost
running me over at stop lights.
Why? I looked into it and finallyy found out
that the brake light switch on the front brake was
defective and staying on ALL THE TIME. Well, I
fixed that by removing the switch and using the
rear brake switch to turn on stop lamp. Also, I had
various parts drop off to by this time (refelectors,
brake lever, mirrors etc.).
When asked how I liked my "hog" I told people it was a piece of shit and I was getting rid of the Goddamn piece if shit. This was met by horror and insults from people. WTF? I want to ride not stare at it! The big Summer trip up to go drag racing was now upon me. 600 miles in one day. By the time I got in that night I had lost the headlight, 2 signal lights and another Goddamn tailight lens. The front head was now pouring oil out like an Exxon tanker. A H.O.G member asked me why my bike was so oily. I told him it was an oil leaking piece of shit and the fucking Motor Company really should send a truck, pick it up and give me a refund on my purchase price. More insults and horrified looks. Anyways, I also got my ass kicked all weekend long at the drag strip from cars to fucking 125c.c dirt bikes.
Now I was pissed.
When I got home, I went to a Triumph dealer.
Also, by the end of the riding season I
was buying 1157 bulbs in bulk as the bike would not go
100 kilometers without a bulb breaking. Broke another taillight lens too,
go figure.
Part 2: A major revelation
Biking didn't have to be a fight against man and machine. It was possible to
have comfort, handling, brakes, PERFORMANCE, all the
good stuff. Or rather, all the things my piece of shit Harley didn't have. I
again did a mini tear down in winter (15,000
kilometers on the bike now) and what I found was SHOCKING! The front head was
leaking as a result of:
1) A missing rubber umbrella seal inside (hot oil getting on weakened sealing surface).
and
2) The bolts (4) that hold the rocker box to head could not be tightened down due to poor machining on the head.
I had only 1 bolt that was actually
sealing anything. The bolts too had to be replaced. One was bent and the other
two had almost no threads on them. I started to wonder
too, what else is like this? Do I run the risk of the tranny seizing up because
of inferior machining and assembly? 3rd gear now
had to be held in place for a second so it wouldn't pop out
as it had started doing with startling
frequency. Also, I was getting more and more paranoid
too. I had been getting in the habit of cutting open oil filters and the metal
chunks were there EVERY TIME! They were all problems I had NEVER
encountered before be it a Caterpillar bulldozer or an
old car we were putting into a demolition derby. And this piece
of shit two wheeled tractor was NEW! As the
bike was being prepared to get traded off, I noticed that the shifter peg was
cracked. $75 to replace it, and that one broke too!! There
was a huge piece of slag in it so I took it
back to the stealership I got it from and was again put down, called stupid and
told I didn't know what I was doing. I very loudly and
rudely told the jack-ass behind the the counter,
"First off, I have been to trade school for heavy duty mechanics!
Secondly, what kind of place you running here anyways? You sell me
inferior junk that breaks because of an obvious flaw
and now there is no warranty on the part? This is ridiculous!! I am not leaving
until I get a replacement!" Luckily the owner was
selling a new $30,000 rolling tractor to some dumb yuppie and they could quite
easily hear me. At the end of the day I got my new
part, free of charge. Like it would have been at ANY
OTHER PLACE!
Part 3: Redemption
It was April
2000 and the Harley was history. In its place a new shiny red Triumph
ThunderBird Sport. I spent the Summer baiting Harley
idiots into impromptu street races and winning every
time. With almost the same c.c as the old 883 (the
Triumph was 885 c.c.'s), it was no
slouch. I returned to the drag strip
after a very comfortable 6000 mile day (unlike the
hell it was on the Sportster!) and mopped the floor with every Harley at the
races that year. One question
remains to this day: HOW THE HELL DID MY HEAD GET SO FAR UP MY ASS AS TO
BUY A HARLEY IN THE FIRST PLACE????
It is something I have to live with to this day. Needless to say I try
and spread the anti-Harley gospel where ever I go.
The final word? MOTORCYCLES DON'T
HAVE TO BE LIKE THAT!!!! They can be FUN!!!
Cheers!
Uncle Ernie
PS the red Triumph was totaled little more than a year later by the classic left
turn guy ("Sorry, didn't see ya!) I walked away but
had to replace the red 99 with a white and orange 2000 TBS.