Ray Jardine's 2011-Moto-Prudhoe

Day 40

July 31, 2011: Marina to Home

25 hours on the road

Big Sur

A field of strawberries.

Highway 1 led past beautiful beaches, one after the other.

South of Ventura.

From Dana Point it was time to go home - so I started riding the slab. I followed 5 to Oceanside, then not liking that headed east to 15. In San Diego I got on 8, and stayed on that for the remainder of the night.

No sleep for me tonight. I stopped here to eat a snack.

I drove all night to keep the engine cool. The daytime temps in Arizona might have made the radiator boil over. The haul road had clogged and the radiator core with mud-sluge, and ruined it; so I had to nurse the bike to get it home.

A beautiful Arizona sunrise welcomes me home.

Dogs are amazing. She can't see my face, but knows without a doubt who I am.

After six weeks on the road, I'm home!

Day's mileage: 837 mi

Epilog

The haul road damaged the radiator grille, plugging it up with dura-mud and scale. This is what it looks like even after repeated high-pressure washings. It barely got me home.

The bike is a mess but will clean up nicely.

I'm going after those valves. And changing spark pugs.

Good to have a shop (my garage) to work in.even though the garage is not insulated very well, so the temp is 92 degrees.

The top-end looks pretty clean.

Checking the valve clearances. They didn't need adjusting, even though I have put over 24,000 miles on the engine.

Torquing the valve cover back on.

New radiator going in. And of course the bike gets a new air filter.

I like to do my own wrenching where possible, rather than relying on a pro to do the work. This is my first season of motorcycle work, but I have rebuilt five car engines from the ground up (three VW's in the old days and two V8's), plus a Perkins 108 diesel (on our sailboat, Suka).

The engine is back together and running fine. I still have much work to do on the bike to get it back up to Ray-Way standards :) I'm having fun, I like these kind of projects.

Burrs in the clutch cable. The bike gets a new one of those. Amazing the difference in the shifting - now smooth as silk.

Back from a test ride, it runs great!

Now to get at those front forks. The Haul Road ruined the oil seals.

My method of depressing the spring retainer to get at the snap ring.

On my shop floor: A front fork from the inside out.

While I had the front brakes off, I took the brake pads off for close inspection. Remarkably, the pads still have most of their life left, even though I have never changed them. They are the original items when the bike was new, four years ago. So I cleaned the pads and calipers, lubed the slider pin, and put everything back together.