It was born in the last quarter of the Internal Combustion Century...

"Each machine has its own, unique personality which probably could be defined as the intuitive sum total of everything you know and feel about it": We love to anthropomorphize our means of conveyance... give them names, attribute quirky characteristics to them, talk to them as if they can actually hear us... It's human to look for the humanness in other things around us, in the things we make sometimes in part of our own image. And it is in our mechanical machines that we invest so much of our efforts. It's hard not to be a little in awe of the simple complexities of our machines that were born of our cleverness and desire to create. Somewhere between the horse drawn cart and the self driving cars of today lies my 1974 Honda CB360. In my head it rolls, it conveys, it consumes, it breaths... It does have electronic components, but no circuit boards. It does have gears, and I have to shift them. It might move forward, but only if I roll the throttle and giggle a little at how cool that feels... All the "thinking" done in the engine is mechanical. It is just complex enough that I am overwhelmed by my 170 page shop manual and all the systems it describes, and just simple enough that wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, and hammers will be most of the tools I need to make it run again...

No, my motorcycle doesn't have a name yet. I do not talk to it, nor does it have the ability to exhibit any personality traits as it sits dormant and noiseless. But I have found myself telling people that I wish to "breathe life" back into... (why do I keep thinking "her"?). The keychain that arrived with the bike was from the owner before the owner that I obtained the bike from. (Its history will be looked into if I can get it running.) That keychain from the 80s that accompanied the bike reads "Joe". Maybe my bike's name can be Joe. We'll have to wait and see...

"We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone": So I have a support team helping me, and videos on-line, and books on the shelf, and pages and pages and pages of shop manual... but at the center of this project is my friend Kevin. It's Kevin's garage, Kevin's tools, Kevin's patience, and Kevin's knowhow that is making my project feel possible... probable. I take direction from Kevin. I have relied on Kevin tremendously already. He clearly is the master-wrench in this relationship, and I his novice-apprentice. We get to talk while we turn our wrenches. We get to find the moment that lies between what happened and what might yet be. The moments just are, and for that I am grateful for them. For that I am grateful for Kevin. "Where do we start?" Answer: the engine. If we can't get the engine to run, there is no reason to invest in chains, pads, wiring, shocks, rubber, etc. Let's not worry about those things until we tackle the engine first. Start with the heart of the machine...

So I removed the seat (and made note that the lock needed to be fixed, and maybe a new cover for the cushion), removed the petcock (which had rock-hard cracked and brittle hosing and needed a serious cleaning), and pulled the gas tank (which smelled of shellac and was crazy-flakey with rust). I took off the air filters, loosened the battery cage, and removed the carburetors. All stripped of these parts, my motorcycle looks bare and kinda cool nonetheless. I was eager to play with replacing and repairing these parts, but we had to start with the engine...

"A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself": Kevin has the gauge one uses to check for the pressure created when the piston pushes up in the cylinder. If there is no compression, the seals (or worse) are broken and the engine would need to be opened and worked on. With a good compression test, we could bypass work on the engine and move on to other parts of the bike. The good news was that we got a 150 psi test in the right cylinder. The shop manual says a compression of 170 psi is perfect. 150 will do. The bad news was that we found that the left spark plug was the wrong size and the threads were stripped. No spark then no ignition. No ignition then no heartbeat. No heartbeat then no life... I felt a splash of anxiety rise and a little hope lost as I imagined my inexpensive project either spilling into costs I could not justify, or ending prematurely... Kevin quietly took over, patiently explained his processing, and for the next hour and some, carefully worked a properly sized plug in and out of the damaged threaded hole... successfully!

To have a combustive moment in the engine there needs to be a properly portioned mix of air (O2) and Fuel (C8H18) compressed and sparked. The fuel drops from the tank through the petcock (a valve and strainer) to the carburetors. Air is pulled in through the air filters to the carburetors, and the mix passes into the cylinder where the spark plug lights off the mix. The explosive force is captured by parts in the engine to drive the chain, which rotates the tires, and moves the man down the road with wind in his hair and a smile on his face...

So by the end of the first week or so we had the dirty petcock in the parts bath for cleaning, the tank filled with acidic vinegar to start removing rust and shellac, carburetor rebuild kits ordered and on their way, and new plugs in an engine that had whispered just a little at 150 psi...


Quotes from Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values