Radiator Flaps

When I came here last fall, I attended a Goldwing Road Riders Chapter meeting for breakfast..  At that meeting, there was a fellow that presented his air dam flaps for the side of goldwing motorcycles..

A little info here to help in understanding the problem...  Goldwings are water cooled, and have six cylinder engines about the same size as a Toyota Corolla car...  1.8 Liters..  They have radiators on each side of the front cowlings...  The air comes into the front behind the front tire and flows over the top of the engine compartment and then out thru these radiators...

The width of the cowling is supposed to keep the boiling hot air off of the rider.....   But, in the summer time you can't stand this air if it is 85 or more outside...

Various aftermarket suppliers have made plexiglass flaps to deflect this heat... I have never liked the looks of these flaps, and have resisted putting them on the bike....  But I have also boiled in city traffic...  If you sit still for more than a minute, the internal fan comes on and cools the radiators with the resulting adverse effect on you as a rider..

Club member Rik is in the advertising specialty business and had the idea to make thicker and heavier flaps... Using Baker Built hardware kits that were available in the aftermarket, he has this alternative that he sells from his home...

I ran onto Rik in the Valle Del Oro Country Store last week....  We went to his home on Monday to select the correct parts and pieces from his inventory and assembled and installed them over the last two days...

There are wings on each side, but they are identical with exception of a right and left side...  They still look like something added that doesn't belong... but perhaps those radiators won't cook me so bad..

They kind of look worse to the rider, as all the brackets and hardware are on the inside... but at least they are chrome..   It requires drilling 4, 5/8 ths inch holes in the plastic trim...  So taking them  back off would leave large unsightly damage, which makes them on there to stay...

This project has been off and on for the last several days...  Otherwise, we have just been hanging out and enjoying our warmer than the rest of the country's weather..

We barbecued some pork steaks and fried hash browns with cheese on the Webber grill Tuesday evening...  Since some folks don't care for food pictures when they can't pull up a chair and share, I'll leave it to your imagination..

Rick, we have a little webber Spirit 210 two burner house model here in Mesa... Its bigger than a Q but not by much in grilling surface...



Retired Rod

Cool in Kansas

I just looked and its 9 degrees in Kansas City at our South side Johnson County airport...  That's not far from my house.... Ewww, sure glad we are here in the warm state of Arizona...

But we did have Iowa on our mind..... or perhaps our plate....  As we got fired up this afternoon and went over to the Iowa Cafe..  This is one of the few places where you can get a good breaded tenderloin around here...

Iowa is noted for breaded tenderloins that are BIIIIIIG!  And I knew to only order the Junior size..  And it was three times the size of the bun it came served on...  I trimmed around the bun and ate the extra pieces first... with a fork...

Then the sandwich itself...  Licking the mustard from my fingers and eating a bag of traditional Lay's potato chips..  They brought about three diet sodas to go along with all of this...

My Hawkeye tire cover on the back of the Jeep looked quite at home outside in the parking lot... LOL

I spent the morning as Mr domestic cleaning up from the weekend...  We had a bunch of snacks in the TV room during that time, and Biscuit sheds long white hair as well...  If left without some attention, it would look like vagabonds lived here...

We then attacked the back patio area of the house with the pressure washer..  Its been three months since this was last done, and we have had a lot of winter and rainy dusty down pours since then...  It never rains for more than a couple of minutes, but it seems to rain mud during that time.... Just part of the desert...

I also power washed the gas grill inside and out...  It was never cleaned since last spring when we left...  It was more than nasty with desert dust and dirt...

It is now beginning to get into the mid to upper 70s during the afternoons, so outside grilling and even taking your breakfast outside in the morning to sit in the sun is now possible...  So we are cleaned up and ready for spring backyard activities...

February is usually very delightful here, much like late October and mid November...  Once it gets to March, it becomes air conditioner season when things get up into the upper 80s and beyond...

So all of that to explain that I am not missing the very cool conditions of Kansas...

Retired Rod

Boy's day out!

My friend Roger from Des Moines, not to be confused with Rich from Des Moines, called sometime last week saying that his wife had a girls day out planned and he was to be stranded....

Some background... Roger came out here by himself back in November, and stayed with me here for a few days...  He was looking at Real Estate down by Tucson...  And they came back at the first of the year renting a place from his wife's girl friend that now lives over in California... They never did purchase anything...

Since Tucson is more of a drive from out here in East Mesa, I only see him once in a while here in Arizona....  But..... this girls day out, was to be in Chandler...  So Rich and I went to get Roger at about 9 AM...

We had a boy's day out planned.....  The girls didn't seem to care...  Yeah I know...  none of my concern..

We started by going to North Scottsdale and a big Motorcycle dealership, that has all the brands in four different showrooms... Actual buildings with different addresses... but a common parking lot.  He told us they had everything except Yamaha...  I guess they didn't like the concept..  And Harley had to have a couple of businesses in between them and the rice burners..  And their salesmen had to have different colors on their shirts...

But we walked from Honda Goldwings to BMW touring bikes in a matter of moments..  The Harley's seem to be much more old school (dated) in their designs...  And so did the Goldwing for that matter..  We looked at Triumphs and Ducati and many others...

Next it was over to Dillon  reloading supplies for accessories for our ammunition reloading presses..  And then on to Twin Peaks Restaurant...... Uh, how do I tactfully describe that experience.   Let's see, short shorts and tank tops on waitresses.......  Yeah you get the picture.... I counted 40 big screen TV's in there as well...

I had a big burger with two patties and two cheeses and bacon and bar be que sauce.. Steak fries and a diet coke...  It was much better food than the Hooters fare that this place is in competition with...

From there we went back to our house out here in the East end of the valley and let Biscuit out for her duties...  We sat in the shade of the back patio and told lies for quite a while...

But then we went on to the Mesa Swap Meet with its many booths selling everything imaginable.  I think we were running out of gas by that time, and had to return Roger to Chandler...

Yep, a boy's day out....!

Retired Rod

Five guys and finding a friend at a swap meet...

Tow bars and the safety cables are usually quite safe....  But the coiled airplane style safety cables hook into the eyelets that are on the hitch and tow plate of the car and do assume that these items will not come off of their respective vehicles...

The hitch on the motor home is welded onto the frame of that vehicle....  These welds could crack, but having all of them crack enough to entirely drop the hitch seems beyond rare....  Now on the base plate end connected to the car, a set of cables is supplied on each side to further make sure that the base plate doesn't completely disconnect the towed car...

If all of the connecting bolts came completely loose, the base plate would come away from the frame, but the safety cables over the frame would limit the plate from falling off, more than a few inches..  In other words you still wouldn't have a complete disconnect...

The actual tow bar arms are reinforced with cables between the coach and the car's base plate... Having all of this fail all at once allowing the toad to go free seems almost impossible...  Of course you can never say never...

Rich and I have been rather lazy here, since his arrival... He has an hour's time zone change which messes up his internal clock..  So he is early to bed and earlier to rise than I am....  And we have enjoyed a leisurely breakfast...  Yesterday we were out to 5 guys for burgers and peanuts at lunch..

Then a trip to Ikea yielded us a new foot stool for a Po ang chair, that I already had... We went in the out doors to access the stock area bypassing all that long walk thru the warehouse areas...  We had an awful time assembling this stool once we arrived home...

Seems the hole drilled for one of the little fasteners was tilted and sticking the 4 inch long bolt into the wooden holes was so misaligned that the threads wouldn't start...  It took quite a bit of drill bit carving to get things to match up...  If it wasn't so far back over to Ikea, I would have taken the piece back...

This morning I went on the motor cycle over to Valle del Oro RV park and attended their Thursday Country Store Swap meet...   The place was swamped...  Not a parking spot anywhere... Hundreds of cars... I finally angled the motor cycle in between two parked cars...

I found my Bamboo socks lady right off, and purchased some new pairs...  Then just wandering, I found a fellow member of the Goldwing Club selling magnifier paper weights..  On the corner of his table was one of his air wings that go onto the motorcycles... I kind of wondered if he thought some of the RVers would know what they were...

I had to look at this fellow a moment to make sure he was the right guy, but it didn't take long to confirm we knew each other..  So rather than just purchase socks, I now have a set of these wings on order...

Let me explain a bit....  The Honda Goldwing is water cooled and has two radiators on each side of the cowling in front of your knees...  In the summer, overwhelmingly excessive heat pours out of these vents..  These new plastic deflectors channel the heat away from you as the rider...

I was really hot last summer when getting slowed down in nasty traffic... These come highly recommended...  They are much thicker in their plastic material and have very sturdy mounts...  I have my fingers crossed...

Retired Rod