Key West Trip

November 24, 2009 by Rick Thompson

I didnâ€™t post daily on this trip. It was a pretty short trip and my computer was very flaky and would not stay running long. So I just saved all my pictures and posted everything in one big post instead.

I managed to get the bike put back together a few days before we left and put 150 miles on it so I figured it was as good as new and went for it. The trip was 2350 miles total. We spent 5 days on the road. It should have been 4 days but we stopped a few hours from home due to the weather and not actually being in that much of a hurry.

First day we didnâ€™t make good time. I had a flat when the new back tire I put on the day before decided to come apart. We eventually got it to a gas station with the help of some nice people where we called around and asked about getting a tire. The closest place was a Harley Davidson shop in Wytheville. I called them and they said they have nothing that will fit a jap bike and to go away. So I figure I would never buy anything from a place that retarded and called someone else. I called Mark 4 Honda and they said come right on over and they will make something work for me one way or another to keep us on the road. So after getting the bike hauled there by a nice preacher guy, they had it fixed in about 30 minutes with a new tire and tube. Canâ€™t beat service like that. It was even reasonably priced.

The rest of the day went without problems and we made it to about 30 miles from the Florida border before calling it a day.

Day 2

Made it to Key west about 9:30. Going through Florida I noticed one thing that wasnâ€™t quite right with my bike. When holding a constant speed over 80mph or so it would get oil all over the air filter and run all over everything on the back of the bike after dripping out of the air box. The crankcase vent hose was not put back in properly. I was supposed to run it up under the gas tank then down to the air box. I couldnâ€™t remember what hose it was when putting the bike back together so I used the wrong hose and ran a short hose straight to the airbox from the crankcase. So any fast engine speed will spray oil up that hose and into the air box and make a mess. It was not a problem anywhere except Florida since normal speed there seems to be about 90. It was easier to just add oil every now and then and wait and fix it later. So I just tossed a few bottles of oil in the saddle bags and kept going.

Day 3

We are doing the tourist type stuff this day. Other than the valve core on my front tire is bad and it started to leak air on me. I didnâ€™t know what was wrong with it at the time so I just replaced the tube. I kept the old one for a spare.