The final ride...

I took the bike out for one final ride today, rode out around the airport. It's a shame I didn't do that sooner. There is a cool place to sit and watch the planes fly over. (Ok, it's in a cemetery, but who cares?) As I was riding back, snow began falling as if to say, get it home, laddie... you've had your summer fun.

So, I took the tank off, drained the gas into a couple of 2 liter bottles (hey, there was a lot of crud in the bottom of that tank. No WAY was I going to re-use it). Not sure what I am going to do with it. I made the mistake of bringing the tank into the house to take it apart... hey! It's cole outside! Well, I quickly took it back outside, since the house smells like 92octane hi test fuel. Anyhow, I removed the gas cap, the petcock and the fuel sensor (not sure of it's true name) and set it all aside, waiting for it to air out. You have no idea how much I wanted to get started on stripping that tank. The doubts began to set in... "What if there are a couple of nice days? What if it warms up and I miss out on riding?" Yeah, I'm done for the year.

So now, the color. I've really been considering painting it black... but since I have all of the burgundy/cherry red/garnet red paint, I guess that's what I'm going with. I've already spent a lot of money on things for the bike. No sense spending more.


I thought about taking some pics of me disassembling the tank, but am going to wait until I am ready to start stripping it. I think everyone who has a bike out there can figure out what everything looks like. The petcock is a weird looking piece of machinery... I handled that with kid gloves! They're hard to find, and rebuild kits are expensive and rarely work to expectation, according to everyone who has done it.

I'll post some pics tomorrow.