[MD] The Art in Motorcycle Repair

[Dan Glover]

"To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of 
quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one follows Dynamic 
Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free." (Robert Pirsig, 
LILA)



Hello everyone

A building in the town where I live came up for sale early last year. I put 
in an offer on it, back then, but the owner turned me down flat. He didn't 
even counter. I got the sense that he thought I was trying to take advantage 
of him since I'm a Realtor. But I really wasn't. In early January of this 
year though, he called me wondering if I was still interested in buying his 
place. We came to a meeting of the minds and the building is now mine. It is 
down the street from where I live, right down the alley.

The building is solid brick three layers thick and over a hundred years old. 
The downtown section has faded ever since the Interstate went through a few 
miles to the east back in the middle '70s. Hell, the whole town has faded 
for that matter. The town used to be on the main drag between two large 
cities. It was actually a thriving little burg at one time. Back then, I'm 
told by old-timers still living here, there were a couple grocery stores, a 
clinic, a number of bars, a butcher shop (in the building I bought), a drug 
store, over a half dozen churches, and several other businesses. There were 
schools here too. Now they bus the few kids left living here a dozen miles 
to the nearest city.

All that's left is the post office. Well, to tell the truth, they closed 
down the building that housed the post office last year. Something about the 
heating system spewing noxious gases into the air making it dangerous to 
inhabit the building. Now there is a big white and blue truck that comes and 
parks in front of the old post office. It says: Post Office On Wheels. They 
don't sell stamps anymore and they won't weigh your packages for you either. 
You go to the truck and pick up your mail through a slip hole at the bottom 
of the window. If you want to buy stamps you have to drive 6 miles to the 
next nearest town.

All the downtown buildings are shuttered, turned into residences, or burned 
down and never replaced. There are many vacant lots with weeds growing 
through cracked crumbing concrete that used to serve as floors in the stores 
where people came and shopped. There used to be factories on the outskirts 
of the town, foundries and assembly plants with big warehouses to store all 
the goods that they once manufactured here. Generation after generation 
lived here and loved here and worked here and died here. Now the town itself 
is dying. It is the way of things, I suppose.

When I'm feeling adventurous I weasel through a break in the wire fence to 
wander among the ruins, exploring the cavernous insides of the old 
factories. They are walled off into little nooks and crannies with stairways 
going nowhere. Upstairs, broken windows allow the wind to blow into the 
buildings stirring up dust devils that dance across the rotting wooden 
planks that serve as a most treacherous sort of flooring. They creak and 
bounce when you walk across the floor. Best to watch your step there as that 
first drop's a doozy.

I feel like an archeologist who has stumbled upon a long lost ancient city. 
Some of the buildings still have old fading signs pinned on their sides and 
rusting machinery hulking in shadows. You can see daylight coming through 
the roofs. All the old factory buildings are dilapidated and empty now save 
for the pigeons roosting there, leaving their white droppings running down 
the walls and settling in piles. Broken loading docks sit waiting for trucks 
that will never arrive. If I am in there at dusk and I don't look directly 
at them it seems like I can see the ghosts of workers still laboring there 
in the twilight.

I bought a home in the residential part of town almost 3 years ago as the 
prices of real estate in this depressed area are very low compared to other 
areas in the state. I was able to pay cash for my home which allows me the 
luxury of no longer having a mortage payment hanging over my head. A house 
farther east would cost 3 times what I paid. It is rather amazing how that 
has freed up time to Dynamically do what I want instead of statically doing 
what I have to do in order to survive... to cover that nut every month.

The drawback is that a person has to drive twenty five or thirty miles to 
get anywhere. There is no work here. I've been selling real estate in a town 
thirty miles away, running myself ragged showing houses all over the place, 
and it seemed like all I was doing was making money to put into the gas 
tank, keep a decent vehicle on the road, and pay my dry cleaning bills. I'm 
still selling real estate but I can see no reason why I can't sell out of my 
home office instead of driving thirty miles one way. Especially if I can get 
another stream of income coming in here in town to go along with my 
publishing, eBay, and consulting businesses.

I've always wanted to own a bar or a motorcycle repair shop. I quit drinking 
some years ago and the desire to own a bar has faded. But a motorcycle 
repair shop... now that is something I'm still interested in. So after 
closing on it, for the last month I've been fixing up the old place that I 
bought, outfitting it with tools and lifts (hydralic and air), and gearing 
up for business. I managed to acquire a complete set of motorcycle repair 
manuals on CD at eBay for a good price, and a good used air compressor. I 
already had most of the tools I need. I opened for business last week.

I tore down and reassembled my first Harley. I've rebuilt several of my own 
bikes in the past but they were rice burners. And they were mine. I found 
there is a world of difference working on your own bike versus working on 
someone else's bike. If you tear apart your own bike and run into a gumption 
trap like a stripped allen head, hey, just leave it for another day when 
you're feeling up to tackling it. When someone is depending on you to finish 
their bike when you said you would, those gumption traps have to be tackled 
head on, right now. Not next week or next month. Now.

A gnarly old biker dude wearing a worn black leather jacket that said 
"Hell's Henchmen" across the back in blood red lettering found his way to 
the shop by following the directional signs I put up out on the highway. He 
needed some work done on his '82 Sportster. The pushrod tubes were leaking 
oil and the bike was running rough; it wouldn't hardly stay idling when he 
came to a stop, and it wanted to backfire when he got on it. I took it out 
for a ride and I saw what he meant. You had to keep the choke on or the bike 
would die on you. It wasn't much fun to ride like that.

The bike was dirty. The owner obviously wasn't a neat freak. To find the oil 
leaks I put a catch pan under it and sprayed brake cleaner on the engine to 
wash down the accumulated grime. I happened to have it idling at half choke 
while cleaning it and the bike killed right away when I sprayed cleaner on 
the baffles. That seemed to mean something but I wasn't sure what. But I did 
see the oil leaking out the the bottom of the pushrod tubes. That didn't 
seem a good thing. I could see where the tubes were bent, like someone might 
have been prying on them with a screwdriver in an effort to stop the leaks.

I decided a trip to the Harley store in the next county was in order. I 
explained my problem to the kid behind the counter (okay, he wasn't really a 
kid but anyone under 30 seems like a kid to me these days). He listened 
attentively and then told me that the bike killing when I cleaned it was 
indicative that it needed new base gaskets. The pushrod tubes leaking meant 
the seals at the bottom were shot. The rough idling probably meant the 
carburetor needed re-jetting. He seemed to know what he was talking about so 
I bought what he told me I needed and went back to the shop to get started.

I didn't know what to charge so I looked in the book. The book tells what a 
"real" mechanic should charge. I called him up and quoted the old biker dude 
a price that he seemed happy with. It ended up that I put so much time into 
the bike that I didn't make any money on the job. But that's okay. I figure 
the experience will stand me in good stead whereas I would probably just 
spend any extra money I might have charged in a day or two. And I know it is 
pretty common these days to gouge the customer... to tell them a price and 
then say: hey, guess what? It's going to be more. But I don't want to run a 
business like that. I never have and there's no reason to start now.

After I had the engine all in pieces on the table in front of me I suddenly 
found myself wondering why on earth the owner of the bike had put so much 
faith in me when I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know if I could 
get the engine back together. And if I did somehow manage to get it 
together, I seriously doubted if it would run, much less run right. What did 
I know about motorcycle repair? Absolutely nothing. I had to ask the kid 
behind the counter at the Harley store what to do. What if he was just a 
poser too?

So rather than stopping work late that afternoon I felt compelled to 
continue as I knew I would never be able to sleep that night knowing of the 
task that lay in front of me the next day. I had visions of a long line of 
motorcycles, all belonging to the Hell's Henchmen biker gang, roaring into 
town looking for me because I had screwed up their leader's bike. Of course 
I had no way of knowing if the owner of the bike really did belong to the 
Hell's Henchmen or if he was the leader. My mind was working overtime.

I knew that I couldn't my best work when I was as unsettled as all that. I 
pulled down the straw mat that I have hanging on the wall (so the mice don't 
chew on it; Horatio and Hamlet, the twin tiger-striped cats I keep in the 
shop, aren't doing their job) and sat in zazen for a half hour. I followed 
my breathing as my mind cleared. Then I disappeared. When I rose from 
sitting I just put the bike back together. I didn't think about doing it... 
I just did it. Actually I wasn't there any longer. The bike assembled 
itself. That's not really right either. So for the sake of clarity I'll say 
that I did it. Otherwise I know it doesn't make sense.

The really cool part came after the bike was back together. I couldn't even 
make myself wait to put on the gas tank. Instead, once I got the engine 
together, the carb assembled, and the muffler on, I filled an empty bottle 
with gas, stuck a tube in the top, turned the bottle upside down, and ran 
the tube to the line going to the carb. I turned on the key, opened the gas 
cock, gave the throttle a flip, choked it a bit, hit the ignition button, 
and it started right up.

It sounded good... it sounded very good. I revved the engine. It sounded 
really, really good. Great response, no sign of any leaks, and no backfiring 
or rough idling. I grabbed the droplight to double checked for leaks. 
Nothing. I revved it again. I couldn't believe how good it sounded! Strong 
and throaty. I let the gas run out of the bottle and shut it down. After 
putting on the gas tank and adding some finishing touches like waxing and 
wiping down all the metal to get the fingerprints off, the bike was ready.

I looked out the window. It was dark. I thought, oh, it must be around 8 or 
9pm... but no... it was 2am! I hadn't eaten a thing all day or even taken a 
break since my zazen. I was totally engaged in working on that old Harley. 
Time had no meaning. The space between me and my work ceased to exist. I 
remember I had the same feeling years ago when I was deeply engaged in my 
work on LILA'S CHILD. Time and space just disappeared. There was no 
separation between "it" and "me". I guess that is where art lies. I don't 
know for sure though.

For I found that there is definitely a fine art to working on a bike. Oh 
sure, you can read the manuals and look at diagrams for reassurance. But 
there is a feel that goes into staggering the rings just so by sliding them 
into plade with a fingernail, putting on the ring compressor (carefully so 
you don't tear the gaskets), setting it at just the correct tightness and 
just the right placement, and guiding the base over the piston rings with a 
little twist so that everything slides together just right that no amount of 
reading can tell you and no diagram can show you. It either works or it 
doesn't. Period.

The book tells how many foot/pounds to torque the head bolts but the torque 
wrench I have must not be quite right because the bolts didn't feel tight 
enough when I did it by the book. I'm sure if I'd left them that way the 
bolts would have shaken loose and the gaskets would have leaked. Those old 
Harleys do like to rattle. I put down the book and torqued the bolts by 
feel. It just felt right when I was done. And it was. I had that feeling 
when I worked on my own bikes and I remembered it. Or rather my body 
remembered, I guess. I don't really know. I just know the bike started up 
and sounded great.

I was greasy and filthy. My hands hurt. My back ached. My legs were sore. I 
felt weak from hunger. My mouth tasted like something had died in it. I knew 
that I'd worked three times longer than a "real" mechanic would have worked 
doing the same job. But I felt good, really good. I fed the cats, locked up 
the shop, walked the block down the alley to my home, took a long hot 
shower, had a bite, crawled into bed, and slept. No dreams, just a really 
good sleep.

The next morning, late morning, I called the biker dude and told him: come 
get it, your bike is ready. You should have seen his face when he saw his 
clean machine sitting there. I had moved it into the sunshine so he could 
see how it sparkled. He said he couldn't believe it was the same bike. He 
took it out for a ride and came back smiling. I have a feeling I will be 
getting some good referrals from the old boy.

Thank you for reading,

Dan