Country Living

We had a big storm roll through on Friday. The persimmon tree, which was loaded with fruit, took a pretty big hit. The top of the tree is mostly gone. There are a couple of branches left above the split that should be cut off but I'd like to see if I can leave them on until the fruit ripens and then I'll just whack the top of the tree off, tar the stub and hope it survives. Persimmons are dioecious, meaning you need a male and a female for fruiting.  I planted two trees at the same time and whether it was just luck or the nursery new how to tell them apart, I ended up with one male and one female. The male is only about half the size of the female and since it is small and won't set fruit, probably won't be too susceptible to storm damage. 

The peach trees which were loaded with fruit last year did absolutely nothing this year. They were damaged last year and look pretty shaggy now. I think I'll be planting a few fruit trees next spring. 

Went to start the pickup the other night to take the garbage down and it wouldn't start. Fearing that it was something electronic, I had my neighbor come over to check it out. Apparently something crawled up on top of the gas tank and chewed a wire for the fuel pump in half. It was parked outside and I move it a couple of times a week so I didn't expect that. Anyway, we got it fixed - I at least helped - and it's running again. The joys of country living!

Worked on the Sportster a little bit over the weekend. I shimmed and double checked the end play on the cams. I dug out the ignition advance and found that the flyweights don't have any springs on them, so I need to get a pair of those. Also the generator has a bad thread on one of the mounting holes. Actually it's more like no thread on one of the holes. The thread is supposed to be a 5/16" fine thread and, of course, I've got a Heli-Coil set for 5/16" but it's for coarse, not fine thread. I could drill both holes out and go with the coarse thread but I hate to go non-standard on things. I could just do the one hole in coarse and leave one fine and that way someone down the road will be able to put the wrong bolt in the hole and strip the other side too. It's not like that doesn't happen every day. The end of the generator is a chunk of cast iron that's about an inch thick. I could take it apart, braze the hole shut and then re-drill and tap it as another option. As always, I'll come up with something.

I still need to machine up the spacers for the front engine mount and I need to pick up some wiring supplies. The footpeg brackets are clamped on with a 1/4" fine thread bolts. I ran a tap through those to chase the threads but I need to get a couple of Grade 8 bolts for when they go back on the bike. Moving forward. Maybe not fast but forward just the same.