About Me

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Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada
I am 36 years old and have dreamed of having a motorcycle since I had my first ride on one when I was 16. This will be my third season riding. First full season with my dream ride "Freya" 1998 Honda Valkyrie. Looking forward to many memorable rides this season including a Meet in the Middle in Cheyenne Wyomming with the Women Who ride, raising money for Breast Cancer along the way.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Start of the Journey

Sunday Nov 16th
Time to start work on the bike. Mark and I have a day off together so we headed down to Glenn's to work on the bike, but first we had to clean up the shop. I made a rack to hang up the tires on the wall and we cleaned off the workbench.

Mark and I finally get to work on the bike.

We decide to start with the easy stuff the windshield goes first then the mirrors, cause they always get in the way. Next we tackle the saddlebags and the seat, those are easy I've taken those off may times. The sidecovers and gastank come off without any trouble, I had those off a month before due to a leak in the gastank. Next is the engine guard, no issues there I put them on myself. Now we start getting into the more difficult stuff and we start to slow down, at this point I am thinking I should have brought my camera but at least Mark has his phone with camera in it. The headlight comes off Ok but the wiring inside puts up a fight. But Mark and I wrangle it apart meanwhile he tells me that it will be Ok putting it back together because the wires are color coded and the clips can only go back together one way, I sure hope he's right.
We tackle the speedometer next, that was easy in comparisson. The horn and fork emblem come off with no effort at all.












That's pretty much all the easy stuff from the front end so we start working from the back. The rear section comes off in one piece I had that off once before when I took the sissy bar off and tried to clean the grab bars. the two inner fender pieces came off relatively easy.






Then it was a fight to get the battery and battery box out, one of the connectors was practically fused together, Mark thinks maybe something over heated and the rectifier couldn't handle it because the battery is almost dry. Going to have to get a new rectifier and battery.







The most difficult task was the removal of the carbs, we had to disengage the throttle and the choke cables and they didn't want to let go. There sure isn't much room to get the fingers inbetween the engine and the carbs. But we managed finally.


The last thing we did was remove the air box which was a breeze in comparison, and at this point I am thinking it isn't going back on I am seriously considering four individual air filters instead.

All in all a good start!


Glenn calls tonight and I answer the phone, he jokingly says to me "Someone broke into my garage and raped your bike, haha

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