The Zipsicle

Friday I was off work early so it seemed the perfect time to bleed the brakes on the Wing with my new “One Person Brake Bleeder” from Griott’s Garage. The Goldwing has a very specific proceedure to follow when bleeding the brakes and it took me an hour or so to complete the job being as it was my first time. The fluid that came out of the anti-dive valve when I bled it was almost black and had small bits of crud in it so the bike was definitely due for new fluid. As it turns out I didn’t get a chance to test drive it to see how it felt after bleeding and flushing the brake fluid…

The brake bleeding job went so well that I thought I’d go ahead and install the REG Risers for the handlebars. I got the left side on just fine but, when I went to do the right side I managed to drop a nut deep down into the bowels of the engine! Dang nut! There’s almost no way to see down in there so I began to tear the bike apart to see if I could find the wayward nut (should have just gone into the house and looked in the mirror then got in the car and headed to the hardware store and purchased another nut! ). I removed the shelter and the air filter then removed the throttle body inlets and pulled up on the lower air filter box so I could try and look underneath it. No nut to be found but I did manage to pull the two breather hoses off the bottom of the box which meant I now had to disassemble and lift the front of the gas tank to be able to get at the two hoses underneath the cover to reattach them where the belonged. Shoot! Got that done, said to heck with the nut (which is what I should have done in the first place) and began to reassemble the bike. Got it all back togther and found that I’d forgotten to install a few pieces early in the process. Dang it, again! By this time I’d had enough so it’ll have to wait for further disassembly…

Saturday I couldn’t get back to work on the bike as I’d promised Jax I would work on assembling the greenhouse kit I’d gotten her for her birthday. It took us all day but the finished product looks like it will work pretty well for what she wants which is a place to grow some tomato and green pepper plants. Here’s a picture:

New greenhouse