I have to admit, I've been waiting for this change in the weather for WEEKS! And FINALLY Mother Nature has gotten off her ass and decided to warm up a bit - here's a 'Before' and "After'...here's February 4th...
...and here's February 18th - MUCH better!
Of course, it's all still muddy and yucky, but I'll take that over snow any day, especially all that former 'snowcrete' we had. At least I can now get the cars out and back in without being afraid of massive tire damage.
Speaking of damage, I pulled my vapor blaster buckets out to try to get the huge chunks of ice out of them, but they wouldn't budge; and rather than pulling out those ice bergs that were in them I took advantage of the warmer temps to try to get them to thaw out a bit.
Those big blocks of ice are heavier than they look, and besides, there is a whole bunch of glass bead media in the bottoms of them frozen to the bottom of the ice block that I did not want to lose, so I took a big bucket of hot water and filled them up with that to expedite the thawing process. They're coming along; hopefully I'll be able to pound out or otherwise flatten the bottom of the pump bucket that the ice pushed out and not have any leaks, but I'm not holding my breath.
On another more hopeful note, I DID see this sign of spring...! Crocuses! ("Crocii...? Croki?? What's the plural of 'Crocus'...??)
The crocuses in the front yard are starting to raise their little heads above the frozen tundra. I love it, it means spring can't be far behind - which is good, because I now have to turn my attention to getting this 1972 JDM CB500 I've been working on back together!
This is pretty much where I left it when it got too cold. I ordered some new rings which should be here next week, and then I guess it's 'back to it'. I really want to get this thing reassembled. I still have some vapor blasting to do to freshen up the parts and then put the top end on, get the engine back in the frame (always fun, especially working alone) and get her back on two wheels and go from there.
There's still tons of work to be done though; I have to check out the wiring harness, the control switches, refill the forks, see if I get spark and set the timing, etc. etc., and replace the spark advance, which some gorilla in the past (not me) had tried to crank over and sheared off the little locating teeth - a little pricy 'Ooopsie.'
I still have to clean, de-rust and paint the tank, replace the neutral switch rotor, and any number of things that an old bike needs, but I'll be sure to relay any and all of that hot restoration action as I get into it. Stay tuned!
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