A Buddhist Still Life... balance

"I'm not sure of what it all means yet... I'm not sure of much of anything these days. Maybe that's why I talk so much." -- Narrator in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (early in his Chautauqua)

Meditation: Greening Bodhi with dried cactus blossoms

Classical vs(?) Romantic: I am about 20 percent into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It is one of several reads I am currently indulging in, choosing to crack the cover of my Kindle only while eating my cereal in the morning. [I am also savoring the newest volumes of two graphic novels that came in the mail recently and have just started a biography of John Peel.] In Zen, I have arrived at a philosophical section where the Narrator has begun expressing his ideas contrasting "classical" and "romantic" types of personalities. The "romantic" is exemplified by  the narrator's friend John, whom he describes as a conflicted (and perhaps lost) motorcycle rider who relies heavily on technology—while seemingly wanting to reject any need to understand the machines he hopes to operate properly. The narrator presents himself as more "classical," relying on his rational/logical problem-solving skills to keep his old bike in good repair. I am, in part, drawn to the narrator who loves to tinker and rely on his wits. He seems quiet and introspective, while at the same time claims he talks too much. I identify with that. I often describe myself as a "Pooh" trapped in a "Tigger." I have bought into the narrator's critique of John, yet worry that the narrator is missing how important it is to find a balance between both of the two personalities, a little classical to temper the romantic, a little romance to temper the classic. Balance is the key to a clean mind; logical and emotional; planning/preparing and remaining in the moment; analysis and experience...

Finding my balance: So this weekend I have been seeking my own sort of balance to address not knowing "what it all means yet." I do know that remaining in the moment is just so much nicer than trying to remain in a past moment or anticipate next moments. Balance came this weekend by getting my hands dirty...

First lilac buds over freshly tilled garden.

Getting my hands dirty, Part 1: Placing ones hands deep into rich soil after removing the top layer of rotting fall leaves feels almost as good as the warm shower one takes to get the sweat and dirt of a hard day's work off. What is it about prepping the ground for plants that is so satisfying? Prep work usually makes me cringe. (I love to just jump in and get things done.) For instance, painting prep is what keeps me from painting whenever I can avoid it. I'd rather just hit a canvas and go, adjusting as I will, hoping for something that looks like I feel inside. But prepping a room for paining, doing trim, after masking the electrical covers, etc. pushes my ability to remain patient. I can sit on a bench and watch the sun glisten on the lake for an afternoon, but I have no patience for preping a room to paint. And yet... getting the ground ready to receive plants feels much different. The crazy-garden-ladies [mentors of my first attempts to grow my own food] from Cambridge back in 1997 told me, "take care of the soil and the plants will take care of themselves." It has been one of the most important pieces of wisdom I have ever received. Prepping the soil doesn't even feel like prep work per say. It feels like the only real work of planting. Once I do my part, the plants will do theirs. I'll stick around and offer help when needed; the soil is my responsibility; the growing is theirs...

So phase one of soil prep is done. The lilacs are just starting to bloom by the way. The scent will be drifting across the lawn soon. The soil in their partial shade has been tilled and the rotting leaves await replacement as a top cover once my daughter and I pick our spring planting at the end of the month. I dug in the new dirt a little after the tilling was finished; my hands got dirty; my mind cleared...

'74 Honda CB 360: Opening the engine on frame. 

Getting my hands dirty, Part 2: The Honda has been sitting for months. When I last posted about Joe (my '74 Honda CB360 for those who have not been following my posts regularly) I described restoring the tank and surrounding parts. I have not finished writing my adventures-of-the-dual-carbs yet, but I have to spoil the next few posts on the bike blog by saying that I have gotten the bike to run, and have done a lap around the block. Oh my goodness! Never has 20 miles an hour felt so glorious as making Joe go. But the compression dropped off as things loosened up in that engine that hasn't run for over a decade. So my mentor and I have decided to take a look at the pistons and rings. I am not willing to describe the start of this adventure yet either, but I bring it up because "balance" this weekend came in part through successfully removing my tank without spilling a drop of gas, opening up the breather cover, and understandingly pulling apart the spark advancer and contact breaker assembly. This is not a big deal at all for anyone who knows how to turn wrench on a motorcycle. It's almost as rudimentary as changing a light switch for an electrician, or unclogging a sink drain for a plumber. But for me it was a first, and I knew what I was doing as I did it; And my hands got dirty; And my mind cleared...

Tank to transit system... and authentic sound...

The insides looked like turn of the century sewer pipe.

"Be it no concern, point of no return- Go forward in reverse - This I will recall - Every time I fall - I'm free - Setting forth in the universe - Out here realigned - A planet out of sight - Nature drunk and high - Oh I'm free - I'm free..." --Eddie Vedder:
I want to hear the engine on my 1974 Honda CB360 run. There's no need for gears, brakes, and lights at this point. I just need first to hear it choke a bit, perhaps to growl, and if I am lucky... purr. It will be a first step, a hopeful step, to move me to where I can feel the wind in my hair...

"An injured lion still wants to roar." --Randy Pausch: There is something lovely (some would say "sexy", but I am not sure I concur) about the sound of a well tuned engine. It's the sound of metal moving/clicking in a synched rhythm that makes for a complicatedly layered sound experience. It does not need to be loud for me, just rhythmic, harmonic...

Fakery: Good engine noise holds such an allure for some that new, more efficient (and still powerful), quieter engines have sound "piped" in for the driver to hear:

Fake engine noise has become one of the auto industry’s dirty little secrets, with automakers from BMW to Volkswagen turning to a sound-boosting bag of tricks. Without them, today’s more fuel-efficient engines would sound far quieter and, automakers worry, seemingly less powerful, potentially pushing buyers away. 

Softer-sounding engines are actually a positive symbol of just how far engines and gas economy have progressed. But automakers say they resort to artifice because they understand a key car-buyer paradox: Drivers want all the force and fuel savings of a newer, better engine — but the classic sound of an old gas-guzzler. 

“Enhanced” engine songs have become the signature of eerily quiet electrics such as the Toyota Prius. But the fakery is increasingly finding its way into beefy trucks and muscle cars, long revered for their iconic growl. 

For the 2015 Mustang EcoBoost, Ford sound engineers and developers worked on an “Active Noise Control” system that amplifies the engine’s purr through the car speakers. Afterward, the automaker surveyed members of Mustang fan clubs on which processed “sound concepts” they most enjoyed. --Washington Post

Scrubbed clean of almost all internal corrosion.

Analog, not digital: When my CB360 runs, the sound will be authentic. It will not be deep like a Harley; it's a small-guy bike. It should sound and feel exactly like the time it is from, the early '70s. Attitude will trump muscle and feel like Steve McQueen looks in The Great Escape. The sound will speak to me in slap/tap/click. And I will listen patiently... Once we get it to run, then we can attend to the niceties of shifting, and stopping, and seeing in the dark...

Someday...: Therefore, eventually, I will need the pistons to move and compress, and plugs to spark brightly, and fuel to be mixed properly with the right amounts of air. But before we attend to all this (and it is in the works already in Kevin's garage) I need to establish the most simple of elements, a reservoir to hold my fuel and a transit system to deliver the fuel to the carburetor (where the cool stuff starts happening)...

Plastic Liner Product

“ANYTHING will burn with enough gasoline and dynamite.” ― Robert A. Heinlein: The 2.9 gallon fuel tank was filled with rotten gas and gobs of flakey rust when I brought it home. The long story of cleaning the tank takes place over weeks of treatment with different acids, abrasives, shaking, sloshing, and back-wrenching tank gyrations. It is about frustration and a worry that "no tank" means "no bike" and therefore a dream deferred. A new tank can run hundred of dollars (not a number range to be uttered near the "project bike" budget-meisters).  The shorter story of cleaning the tank goes like this: after several vinegar soaks with sheet rock screws for shaking agitation, "Iron Out" with pea gravel as an agitator and funny looking lint-trap brushes for scrubbing, and an unknown "etcher" chemical that most likely causes cancer if ingested (only in California though), the tank came clean. The end. 

Clean Kreem: We finished the tank clean-up and restoration process with repeated applications of a plastic lining product called Kreem. Impervious to all fuels and man-made products except Methyl-ethyl-death, the Kreem liner should keep my 42 year old dented fuel tank doing its job well for the rest of the bike's life. The total cost of all acids, chemicals, and liners came in under $75. Add to that a new gas-cap gasket to replace the completely rotten old one and... hope restored.

Dirty Petcock

"That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains." --Steve Jobs: The second part of the tank clean up was to address the petcock (fuel cock) valve that drops from the underside of the tank, allowing fuel to be pulled from the tank to the carburetors. It is a simple device with two intakes, one for regular operation, and one for low-fuel "reserve" operation. The latter is a screened tube that offers an initial filter to keep any tank-junk from getting into the combustion system. There is a second, finer filter that treats all fuel leaving these two inlets before moving through separate fuel lines to the dual-carbs. Not a complicated device, but essential that it can filter the fuel and allow it to flow properly. This was a job for a can of parts cleaner solvent. 

The 350 and 360 parts both clean but with no reserve filter.

Oh, to be clean: There's nothing like taking a long soaking bath in something that strips away all the gunk that years of use and neglect can cause... The same can be said of motorcycle parts. Parts cleaner solvent made quick work of all the rust, grime, caked fuel... everything... including any "shine" that was left on the metal. And the old part still looks aged, but no longer gross. Simple and functioning. Beautiful...

Old is sometimes better than new: In addition to my CB360 (blue) tank, I have a CB350 (orange) tank that is locked shut, and filled with more shellack and rust than air. Thus I have two petcocks and hoped between the two of them I might get one really nice restored one. A new fuel valve of this type costs $35. So if I am able to get the old ones happy, I save a little money to put toward rubber or cables, and I keep the 1974 look on one more part on this bike...

Clean, working, filtered petcock.

A little creative thinking: The reserve level filter was completely destroyed in the cleaning process. It is part of the unibody construction on the original so there are no spare parts out there. I scoured the interwebs for makeshift push-in plastic strainers that might work... to no avail. Small engine fuel filters that had nipples the right size were too bulbous above. I needed a straight line with mesh construction. The answer lay in a roll pin hammered into the old filter hole and a need for something to keep the gunk from getting into the fuel line. Kevin, my primary guide in this bike repair, helped with a small circular mesh screen that he artfully folded to cap over the roll pin. A little solder and my filter was all set. $10 of new fuel line and eventually an inline filter for added protection and the tank-to-carburetor part of the project is done. No profound symbolism here. No deep understanding of life beyond the simple, clean need to bring fuel from a reservoir to power the machine that takes the man down the road to keep wind in his hair. Onward to the moving parts...

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

And so I acquired a motorcycle...

“The Master says: At 15, I set my heart on learning. At 30 I know where I stand (my character has been formed). At 40, I have no more doubts, at 50, I know the will of Heaven, at 60 my ears are attuned (i.e. my moral sense is well-developed), at 70, I follow my heart’s desire without crossing the line (without breaking moral principles).” --Master Kung

I have no more doubts: So I am in my 40s and I still have doubts, a lot of doubts. I may be behind on Confucius' time table toward the wisdom achieved with old age, but I am making progress. I feel I am touching upon the territory where wisdom lies, but understanding it is still a ways off. By understanding I mean engaging the wisdom I have in my life beyond a mere intellectual knowledge of it. Such is the life of reflection and getting older I guess...

1974 Honda CB360: Dormant but not dead.

I know the will of Heaven: And so in December I acquired a motorcycle... I am a computer nerd with a long love of sci-fy and a new found love of graphic novels. I am a game player who has been on one video game system or another since Pong was eating cathode ray tube TVs. I love to take things apart and try to put them back together, but I have never learned to turn a wrench on anything other than to adjust the brakes on my 10 speed Raleigh Technium 440 in high school. When I moved from the city to the country in '99 I had never started a generator or run a chain saw. My dad's lawn mower and weed whacker were the only small engines I had ever used and had no clue how to service them. I joined a fire department after 9/11/01(where we use a lot of motorized tools) and had to explain how I could be so experienced at cleaning up a hacked computer but didn't understand what a choke was. It's been a steep learning curve. And so in December 2015 I acquired a 1974 Honda CB360 (and a partner CB350 in parts for parts) motorcycle that has been sitting in a garage for over a decade. God knows how long it has been since it actually ran. I'm told this is what people call a "project bike"...

CB350 in parts in the dirt floor garage with a leaky roof.

My ears are attuned: I know what I do not know! A month ago I knew nothing about four stroke engines, drum brakes, dual carburetors, or alternators. I didn't know that master cylinders have slaves, and I would have thought a trochoid oil pump was a made-up term to make people like me feel they should not even question other statements such as if the boots need replacing or if the suspension is adequate for 150 pounds. I knew I needed guidance before engaging in this journey. I sought council from many, and have read online forum threads, and I have downloaded manuals. I have talked to students who have become experts and I purchased Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (to be started as soon as I finish Heller's Catch-22). I've lined up a team and dove right in despite the dropping temperatures and the prospect of working in an unheated dirt floor garage with no tools...

Naked without it's Rusty Gas Tank and Ripped Unhinged Seat

I follow my heart’s desire without crossing the line: And the planets aligned... and fortune found me... and the gremlins were warded off... A friend offered me better garage space with tools and guidance... My wife has encouraged me to find my way to my dreams and bought me some guardian bells to ward off the evils that can harm motorcycles and their riders... My father even called me from his New Year's festivities with advice from his friend on gas tank restoration. And so I am embarking on an adventure and am learning something new. I have guides to help me, fans to cheer me on, and I have a life-long desire to ride a motorcycle... to make me want to breath life back into a piece of dead parts from 1974... to eventually ride cooly up the street on something tinkered with and valued despite its dents and rust. New parts added to an old frame with an engine at the heart which still has all the goods despite being neglected for far too long. How's that for a metaphor?...

Guardian Bell, Joe's (?) Space Shuttle Keychain, 1974 CB360 Key

At 15, I set my heart on learning: When I was 15 I had not yet set my heart on anything much beyond my own appetite and ego. I was able to set my heart upon learning several years later while in college, when I also found my best friend (and later wife)... I have been learning since... and growing... and have grown proud of my progress as a learner. By the time I was in my early 30s I had started a family with roots and perhaps knew where I should be standing even when I wasn't fully sure of where I stood... So although I still have doubts in my early 40s, perhaps I am not too far behind Master Kung's timetable... the bike is just a project... the bike is just a metaphor... the bike is just a dream... But for keeps I am listening for the will of Heaven, attuning my ears, and readying myself to follow my heart's desire...