I miss my Dad

Today would have been his birthday. For the last I don’t know how many years, he’d always come up over his birthday and hang out with us for what was initially a week, then turned into two most years.

So I’m sad today. I really feel his absence from my life today. It is better than it used to be because I no longer feel paralyzed by it like I did before. It is still strong enough to be a little bit of a drag on my motivation to do stuff, like getting the materials to frame the shed this weekend. Part of me just wants to punt the shed until the middle of August from a scheduling point of view. But I really want to get it up and get stuff moved over and out of my garage so I have more space to work.

I ordered the parts so I can start putting the carbs back together. I’m missing a part from each one (as I’m trying to keep parts together). I hope it runs when I get everything assembled :). This is kind of the biggest, most involved engine project I’ve done so far. Carburetors are ingenious devices, as an amazing amalgam of fiddly bits to work together across the RPM range. It is no wonder they can be a little finicky, though.

There is a part of me that really wants to try to fuel inject it over the winter, but it won’t be a cheap project. And I don’t know that it is really worth putting the money into it. Although I like the bike, I don’t know if this is a long term bike for me or not. If I can get it back on the road soon, I can get more miles under my belt and maybe have a better idea before winter downtime. The controller (microsquirt, probably) is the most expensive part of the upgrade. I’m a little concerned about finding throttle bodies small enough to work, although I could probably get some restrictor plates whipped up along with the mounting adapters. I’d be excited about the programming part of it, but I’d be a little leery of getting all the mechanical/airflow stuff sorted out correctly. Probably be easier to save up for a newer bike, but not as much of an accomplishment.