Trying To Come To Grips

I posted, earlier, about the Grip Ace system that I installed on my bike. My initial enthusiasm has waned, somewhat. I had a problem with the keypad, so I returned it to them. They repaired it and sent it back in a timely fashion. Now, it has failed again. I have considered returning it to them, and I may, to be fixed again. I will, however, not be putting it back on the bike. As my focus was always to simplify things, this adds a component that seems likely to give me further problems. Secondly, the keypad has no feel to it. The buttons are difficult to find and identify by touch and are impossible to use with gloves. So, wiser and poorer, I will relegate the Grip Ace to the Big Box O' Prototypes to rest, along side of sprockets, chains, a swing arm, several shifters and numerous bell cranks and widgets.

Skip Church, Go To Biker Show.....What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Today, I rode to the Hells Angels bike show, about 30 miles from the house. All did not go as well as hoped or expected. The first problem was with the swing arm mounts. The first arm that I build had two tabs on each side that sandwiched the bearing. When I built the current one, I put tabs on the inside only. What happened was, the bearings, being spherical on the outside diameter, twisted in their housings and the entire swing arm pulled in towards the front of the bike. I will have to add tabs on the outside, like I had in the first place. Not a huge deal, but a bit of a drag. The second thing was the bike quit running about 1 mile from my in laws house. It was getting fuel, so it had to be electrical. All of the fuses were fine. Note to self, put a test light in the toolbox. I ran a hot wire from the fuse panel to the distributor and it fired up. I pulled the wire off to kill the engine and it kept running. After that it started normally, without the hot wire. Very odd. I did notice the cap was arcing, so it is probably junk. Tomorrow, I'll check things out. The only bright spot in this little fiasco was that it took about 90 seconds to pull the seat and tank. The quick release tank mounts paid for themselves. I just wish it hadn't been so soon.