Scooter Update

The Red One.  The Every Shade of Red One.  Old Sol has worked its magic on this little beauty....

This fact only helped....the fact that it from our local, now defunct dealer.  We're still 388 but we're no longer 612; those are the olden days.

I've bought parts from the local shop over the years but never a bike.  My brother's 1970 Honda came from there and dad bought numerous bikes from the establishment.

The day I saw it/picked it up, I witnessed a cold start and the P.O. rode it outside and around to the back of the trailer.  All lights and electrics worked.

"Front brake is frozen...."  That's a problem for me since 95% of my braking is exclusively done up front.  An extremely difficult to find front brake cable was found, modifications on both ends where the cable has its hookups were made.

New tires mounted by Marty at GoMoto Minnesota.

This new part was just about mandatory....

A valiant attempt was made at repairing the digital clock but the battery terminals/cover were just too far gone so I'll have to use the sun and stars to note the time.

New clutch dogs were purchased.....there were some on the shop shelf, new replacements for the Helix.  At Coffee Show n Tell one morning I brought old and these New parts in and my fellow coffee drinkers noted, something that I had assumed and missed, "...hey, these aren't the same....".  We've got some very sharp-eyed Saturday morning drinkers.

These are the correct ones.

New rollers...I like the pink ones.

New O-rings and seals.

This one almost as elusive as that front brake cable was.

OEM shocks on these models are noted as notoriously poor....these modified replacements for a 350 Scrambler.

Hanger Bushings....these were horribly worn and would have made navigating the banked turns at Daytona almost impossible.  "New" ones were obtained from a salvage motor along with some other accessories kindly obtained from Marty.

Numerous body panels validated the many commuting miles that this machine has seen.

Thanks to the Video Tube, I learned how and actually repaired some body panels.

It isn't clean and hasn't been cleaned.  I don't want there to be a single ounce of confusion about this possibly being a poorly executed Restoration.  There's now oil where it belongs (the throttle cables/twist grip required Samson's strength) and grease where it belongs....plus a little more of each scattered throughout.

A new sparking plug....

As all of my associates know, nothing on two wheels can be in my garage (or on the road) without an SAE pigtail, some of them more elegantly installed than others.....but they've all got one.

And finally, the thing that makes it go.  No more heartache, no more broken chains for this machine!!!

As mentioned the other day, I'm in central Iowa all week, working.  I was seriously in need of some vegetables this evening.  All of you sharing this blog with me are the second component here, the book I'm going to sit down with right now about motorcycling in remote Canada the first.

Some Predecessors

This has been mentioned before, in fact, mentioned more than once in my Blog.  Family records and photos have been kept by my grandparents and my parents, their cousins, relatives, some of the relatives very distant.  Detailed family trees with parents, children, birth dates, deaths, marriage dates and sometimes other dates as well.

I've known that all of these records were in existence but it wasn't until we started packing and combining everything for our house remodel that the extent of these records were finally easy to appreciate since they haven't always been in one place, something I worked hard at gathering and then boxing.  Now, especially so while temporarily in the apartment, items are being cataloged, scanned and some, now shared.

So far I've focused on the Cooper side of the Cooper side.

The oldest Cooper I've found at this point.....

My paternal grandfather's mother's side, the Hulburt's....

Isaac Cooper, my great great grandfather.  He came from CT, spent time in PA and then settled near Sparta, Wisconsin.  Using copies of old plat books, I've located the farm that he and his wife, Elizabeth Cooper (Decker) worked and have stopped there for a photo.  That property butts up against the current Fort McCoy.

Elizabeth and Isaac Cooper (someone flipped the names).

Isaac and Elizabeth had 8 children, one of whom was Albert, my great grandfather.  The young Albert, the late 1860's.

Albert and Hattie Cooper (Hulburt) as young marrieds in 1887.

John P. Cooper was one of Albert's brothers.....

Emery Cooper was also one of Albert's brothers.  He and his wife farmed in Gettysburg, SD.

I remember very well sitting next to my grandfather, Allen, one of Albert's sons.  We'd often sit on the davenport and Gramp would share photo albums, stories he'd written, train schedules.....he was fascinated with trains and the railroads.  He'd spent many miles and a lot of time "riding the rails, bumming out West".  One of our relatives, a more distant cousin was named Birge Haviland and Birge was someone that I heard a lot about.  Birge was an Engineer for the Rock Island, a very prestigious position at the time, certainly one highly esteemed by my grandfather.

Here's a photo of the Birge Haviland family.....Birge on the top row in the middle.  One of Birge's sons, Holmes, is in the next row down, he and his wife the first ones in that row, their youngest daughter in their lap.  The little girls in the front row are their daughters Ruth and Elizabeth.

This photo, looking like a publicity photo to me, is of the young woman Ruth, after she had married Dale Seitz in what looks obviously like a pilot's uniform.  It made me very curious since I don't remember ever hearing anything about any of the Haviland's other than Birge and Holmes.

An Internet search ensued....and I learned a great deal about The Ninety-Nines, Inc.  An organization still going strong, it was named for the first 99 chartered women pilots.  The group started in 1929 and Ruth had married Dale Seitz, also a pilot....

In some familiar company....

My great grandmother Hattie....

I'm not sure about this, other than it's Hattie.....might be their first farm house?

Later, their farm on Poor Farm Road....

Hattie, her two sisters and Peach, Hattie's pet cow.

I'm still working on my grandmother's side, the Beard/Jones family.  Their history from Cardiff, Wales and Oskaloosa, Iowa and later Vananda, Montana.

But first, a scooter update this week.  I'm out of town all week and will Post an update on the scooter project from my motel room.

Red Wing Happnin's

A couple of weeks ago (already) a big event in our town that borders my almost-favorite state to the east.  The Eisenhower Bridge, commemorated by Ike himself in November 1960 is being replaced by a new bridge.  Rumors are that our new link across the river is being named though as far as I know, nothing is official yet.  In my history of machinist chores, I worked with a fellow that just happened to be in the National Guard that day in November, serving as one of the crowd control soldiers.  I've seen a large almost panorama view of that day and studied it quite hard but didn't see my Journeyman friend's face anywhere.

The recent big event was the center span was lowered down onto barges in the flowing river, the metal to be 'harvested' for scrap.

We've been driving over the bridge since the end of last year, completion due sometime this Spring.

Speaking of Spring, it is once again time for the Big Turn Music Festival.  Happening over the Feb 21-22 weekend,  it's a colossal gathering of musical talent spread out in numerous venues all over town.  The exact numbers are, 209 bands performing in 23 different locations.  $70 wristbands buy you 2 day access to any and all, $40 wristbands available for one day enjoyment.

I stopped by one location and saw this....only a sample, just a sample.

I've been busy on the scooter when I can, two new tires should be mounted on wheels and ready to be picked up Saturday.  Aggressively shod, the machine should be ready for most any conditions and quite likely better at some degree of flotation than the Himalayan was.

As long as I've mentioned mechanic type work, I need to share what Mike brought to last Saturday's coffee for our Show N Tell session.  There's simply no way to share with you how proud he is of his TWO new wrenches!!  You're looking at 300mm of Pittsburgh Heavy Duty here....times 2!!

On to other things,  I've been practicing my Dry Baking over my alcohol stoves now that I'm sometimes feeding myself in the shop while wrenching.  Recipes are being tried....some good, others well....  I am improving though.  No Top Chef contender yet through March but by Spring when my wheels start turning, it just may be another story.

Saturday night into Sunday, we had 7+ inches of the romantic kind of snow....Vermont...wool coats....not the wicked wet stuff that still finds a way to blow and drift.  I went down to the farm, was the 2nd set of tracks on our road.

Then on Monday I was down in Winona, along the Mississippi River for some software work at one of our customers.  On the way back to the office, some quite beautiful Ice Fog.

 Now on to the important house stuff.....the septic tank was dealt with.

Visible progress and I mean that which we could document was slow for a number of days; compound, some tape, compound and sand over and over again.  Believe you me, Peg and I remember and we (I) wasn't the perfectionist that contractor Todd is.

Things are picking up now though....

Coming, some very old photos of folks I'm connected to, never knew and some of their stories to share.