At the United Sidecar Association National Rally - Friday

 I arrived yesterday in Hotchkiss, CO where the Delta County Fairgrounds were hosting the annual rally for the United Sidecar Association.

I wasn't feeling well due to the side effects of getting the second Shingle shot right after barely recovering from covid infection so no pics for Thursday.

I was feeling better when I woke on Friday.

Scarlett and CCjon's rig

CCjon is the current president of the USCA

Local native guide: Rich, generously guided us to a secret locals viewing spot for the Gunnison Gorge area.  Here's some views both along the way and at the site itself:

The view along Fruitland Mesa Road

The sights and colors of the viewpoint itself:

A pano shot with my Pixel 4a's phone:

After a while, we retraced our route back to pavement, and three of us stopped here to wait for John and Jo who were riding sweep at this time.  As we waited, I got a picture of our guide, Rich.  Those two big mountains are Mt Lamborn and Landsend Peak.

After a few minutes, no appearance by John and Jo.  Dan K. turned his rig around and headed back to check on them.

After some more minutes, Rich and I decided to head back to see what was going on.  We arrived about a mile back to find John busily replacing his pusher tire.  The tire had experienced a flat upon impacting a large rock (that's the theory) and John was putting on the spare tire/wheel.

Dan K's bottle jack came in handy and Rich and I helpfully kibitzed while John did all the work!  ;)

Jo and their dog Morley waiting in the shade of a nearby tree, they were the smart ones.

Once John finished up, we all headed back to the picture point from before and this time I got all three rigs in the picture:

We all made it back to Hotchkiss with no further issues.  John and Jo peeled off as we approached the campsite and Rich, DanK and I continued on a short ways to a burger joint for a late lunch.

I'll be posting more pics of sidecar rigs as I find them, there's plenty here at the rally.  I just want the more "unusual" or unique rigs this time around:

Jack Daniels collector edition, #47 of 150

An R1150RT Rig for sale, used to belong to CCjon

Dana's Rokon motorcycle, now with a small sidecar.

A California Uralista's Geo LE Ural Patrol

After a Chili Dinner provided by the rally organizers, a band played and there was an Ice Cream Social event as well.  Fed and watered, we listened to the band while seated at picnic tables positioned all over the fairground's grassy area.

Riding stories were told, jokes shared, new people met and socialized with, in all a good time was had by this curmudgeon.

Night fell, the day's hot temperatures cooled down and the mosquitoes came out, so by 9PM I was headed for the VRRV!

Bought a Replacement Camera: Sony A6000

Last month, in a sad demonstration of how careless I can be, I managed to leave my Sony A5000 Camera on a park bench in Minnesota: LINK

That camera was actually a replacement for the Sony A5000 which went up in the fire that caused the loss of Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol Sidecar Rig with the R80 BMW engine: LINK back in November of 2020.

I'd debated just sticking with the camera that comes with my smartphone, a Pixel 4a.  It shoots very nice photos for the most part, does great with panorama situations and for most of the pictures I shoot, would have been fine.

It does, however, not do a great job in low lighting, sunset shots are just "OK", and for long distance objects, it doesn't work.

I decided today, after some soul-searching, to buy a used Sony A6000 camera from a private seller here in the Metro Denver area.  I like the Sony interface, their APS-C sensor and I still had a recently purchased 55-210mm telephoto lens that would work with the A6000.

What with the upcoming trip to Hawaii, the US Sidecar Association's National Rally in Hotchkiss, CO in a few days, I figured the time was right.

The camera is in great shape as you can see in the above pic.  Its shutter count was 461 when I bought it, so its barely used.  It's got some improvements over the A5000 I lost:

• 24 Megapixel sensor vice 20 on the A5000
• Dedicated electronic viewfinder 
• Electronic sensor cleaning option
• A more tilt able monitor screen

It comes with a standalone battery charger with two extra batteries and a small camera case as well.

No real learning curve with using this camera as the UI is 90% the same as the one on the A5000.

Now if only I can manage to hold onto this camera and keep it working.....

For shots which require more powerful zoom capabilities, I have the Nikon Coolpix S9900 that CCjon of Riding The Horizon generously gave to me.  It's got a 30X Optical zoom, and its digital option is actually better IMHO than the one on the Sony HX-80 I previously replaced the first A5000 with; and which recently gave up the ghost.  (I'm apparently hard on cameras)

On the home front, Martha continues to recuperate from Covid-19 with only mild symptoms.  Patrick, aka Thing One, has reported an impacted molar and so its off to the dentist I go with him tomorrow morning hopefully.  Finally, I got my second Shingles shot today at the VA clinic, my upper arm is sore and stiff.

I'm thinking all this will probably delay my departure for the sidecar rally. 

We'll see how tomorrow goes I guess.

Testing an Air Conditioning Option for the VRRV and Removing the Old Carburetor from the Sammy

Saturday, July 2

Busy day today for me.  While Martha continues to recuperate from her so far mild Covid symptoms, I kept busy out in the garage.

First was testing whether the office AC unit Martha had purchased years ago to cool down my home office would work with the Harbor Freight 2000 Watt Generator.  

It does!  The small AC unit pulls 8 Amps and the generator is rated up to 13 Amps.  That said, there's no running the generator in Econo mode, it runs at full performance mode.  I ran it for about 4 hours, using about 1/2 of the 1 Gallon gas tank.

It's an 8000 BTU unit and it did "OK".  The temperature outside was 93°F (33.8°C), the inside thermometer showed 85°F (29.4°C) and the AC unit's thermometer reported betwee 79-80°F (26.1-26.6°C).  It felt comfortable inside in these temperature conditions.  Not cold, by any measure, but comfortable.

Yes, I can always run the onboard AC unit (15,000 BTU) with the onboard 4KW Generator.  This option though, uses perhaps .5-.7 gallons of gas/hour.  Given present gasoline prices, I'm seeking more cheaper/efficient options.

In the afternoon, I got it into my head to do some more troubleshooting of the old carburetor on the Sammy.  Trying this and that, I moved onto trying to access the fuel bowl to check for contaminants.  

Note:  The stock carburetor, has been described by MikeW, the Sammy Guru, as "a nightmare".  

I got to a point where there was no turning back, I couldn't easily put things back together and had still failed to remove the top half of the carburetor in order to access the fuel bowl!  Dammit.

So, I went ahead and removed the old stock carburetor!  

No worries, this move had been in the plan since I'd previously ordered a Toyota 3k Carburetor and Installation Kit from Certified Machine.  

They sell carburetors that they've gone over and tuned before shipping to the customer.  They even mount it on their rolling test Samurai to ensure its working fine.  

Their install kit contains all the hardware and parts I'll need to mount the new carburetor, a manual choke cable kit, and plugs for all the vacuum lines involved with the old carburetor that are no longer needed.  

In other words,  a simpler and known reliable carburetor model with no EGR crap!  

Never, ever, buy a late 80s carbureted car that was configured for California.  Worst of all worlds in terms of simplicity in their efforts to pass emissions.

Here's what the Toyota 3K looks like:

The new carburetor will have a manual choke vs the sometimes iffy thermal choke used by the old stock carburetor.  Certified Machine says it'll pass emissions testing just fine.

Here's views of the old Hitachi carburetor, cleaned up (somewhat) for comparison:

Starboard side

Front side

Rear side

Port Side

Top side

Bottom side

Various bits (mostly EGR related)

that were attached to the carburetor

Took me about 2-3 hours, closer to 2, to remove the stock carburetor once I decided to do so.  Here's the engine without the overly complicated stock carburetor:

The holes for the carburetor mount are

now filled with shop towels to prevent 

any crud from falling inside.

I'm still awaiting shipping confirmation from Certified Machine, I think the 4th of July Weekend will delay shipment till next week but that's OK.  It would be nice to install the new carb before flying off to Hawaii but it can also wait till the end of the month when we return from there.

I'll spend time tomorrow cleaning up the area around the carburetor mount/intake manifold.

Update: the AC option explored in this post won't work for the VRRV.

Home again, now Martha's got the Rona

Another long day of driving, starting at 7:30 AM CST and getting home by 4:30 PM (gaining an hour when we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone).  So figure 10 hours on the road, with stops for gas and lunch.

Martha had been exhibiting itchy hives yesterday, but we thought it was an allergic reaction to the grass cutting ops that had occurred the day after we set up camp at the Rolling Hills COE campground.  Some dizziness as well and some swelling of joints.

So, we decided to cut the trip short and left this morning instead of Saturday morning.

Turns out, Martha is positive for Covid-19.  Sigh.  So, we got her the same antiviral meds that I got back in Wisconsin tonight and she's in Covid jail for the next ten days.  Good news is that her symptoms, so far, are very mild, unlike mine which were more flu-like.

Here's a pie chart of the expenses for this camping trip.  Not surprisingly, fuel costs dominated.  It worked out to $67.31/day.  

Miles driven: 2696