HD's are not for me.

A new friend brought his Harley 2002 Road King (850# touring bike) over to my house to service it. I can't find the oil filter, but the owners manual says there is one SOMEWHERE!??
This has a 2nd generation older style engine. But it looks like it was designed in 1902, not late 1990's. It is way low to the ground but the owner is height challenged and needs it lowered 1-2" more. The handlebars are way out to the sides, great for leverage, but I road a 50's Harley and they were the same, don't they ever update? Not a lick of oil was ever put on any lever, rod or pivot. So everything squeaked. But the pipes are so loud you'd never hear that.
The saddle bags cover pivots weird but they don't fall off, surprising for an American made product. I had to get my American (English) tools out. Back to the crappy inch system. Harley's are still not using metric, which is way easier to use because everything is a whole number, in mm's.
It's a beautiful black bike, but shows every speck of dirt. They use 3 hidden screws for every 1 the Japs use. The Japs use the KISS system. Keep It Simple S........
I like the Harley's belt drive but 4 of 5 of my bikes have a drive shaft which is even better. Never needs replacing, belts should be replaced every 30-50k miles. I'm sure from Harley it is over $100 plus installation of $2-300.
It uses 20w-50 wt oil. Ancient heavy oil, which went out on Jap bikes back in the 80's. Not very energy conserving. Some oils now are 0w-20 wts., very thin. Harley's still leak oil, and the oil is so black when changed at 2000 miles looks like 10,000 on Jap bikes!
To say the least I'm NOT impressed. They are super expensive new ($15-35k), do hold up their value well (Why, I'll never figure out), are an American Icon, sell at least 50% of bikes sold in the US. They still do not have a good reliability reputation. In my opinion are 1900's butt ugly.
Oh Ya. It vibrates so bad they have to put in special rubber dampners in it so your hands and feet don't hurt or go to sleep in just a few miles.
Now that bike in the picture, is cheap ($5500 new, $2000 now), is reliable (will go 150k miles) with minimal work, fast (12 sec. qtr. mile, 145 mph), smooth (almost no vibration), was stylish in the early 1990's and still gets good comments, weighs 200 lbs less and gets 40-55 mpg (friend's HD gets only 38). The Suzuki has the same load capacity as a HD, has 100 hp vs 60 in a HD (so it walks away from HD's up hill) , handles as good or better on the twisties. Why have a Harley??? I have 5 bikes for the price of 1 Harley......

Part 2 "Would you out up with this?"

Found my old financial advisor who now works at Wells Fargo. Met with him 2 1/2 weeks ago after a 1 1/2 week delay setting up a meeting. Finally got tired of his delays and called Wachovia. Left a message with Mildred's consultant. He doesn't call back. Called Wachovia about 3:45 pm Friday and set up appointment with a different consultant for Tuesday 10 am.
At 4:10 pm on Friday, (who calls that late?), Mildred's guy calls, I told him forget it, too late. At 4:20 the first guy finally calls after 2 1/2 weeks says, he set up an appointment, guess what time on Tuesday, I tell him forget it, too late.
I called my present financial company I'm trying to drop. I talked to a young girl, with 0 (ZERO) knowledge, asking for a new advisor in Denver in our time zone. She calls the advisor that just ticked me off, the guy that did not call me for 2 1/2 weeks. She says, he will get me someone in Denver, which I asked for in the first place. I asked when I might get a call back, she doesn't know. I say to her "your company is on their way out".
Part 3 soon, in just 2 1/2 weeks.......... In the mean time we are losing money not invested.
Pic has nothing to do with this topic except it's retired like me. SR-71 Blackbird. Fastest plane ever.

I'm good

I can fix 90% of most broken things. My philosophy is: "If it is broken and you fix it, your ahead. If it is broken and you can't fix it, no loss" I've saved at least $100,000 doing things myself. That indirectly goes into the bank, not in someone else's pocket.
I don't feel sorry, if you don't even try. "But what if I make it worse?" I've heard so many, too many times. It's broke, what you got to lose?
You know how many things there are in this house, broken? ZERO. If I can't fix it it goes in the garbage. Threw out a 25+ year timer today. I tried.
That goes for replacing it. If it is necessary, I buy another, but I hate retail prices. Ebay has saved me $2-4000. 182 items bought so far. And you have to know pricing. The cruise control on the RV keeps accelerating, not safe. I tried 3 times to fix it. It's gone now. So onto Ebay. Found another used one for $3 MORE than a new one. BS.
So what did I do? I put in a manual one that holds the throttle steady. $10. AND it saves gas because a normal "hold the same speed" cruise control wastes gas in hilly country. Where do we live? Not out on the Permian Basin or the flat lands of the Midwest.
Today a friend came by. His EGR, A/C was not working, plus his wife was getting headaches. He described the problem. We hooked up a diagnostic tester I had ($100) and a vacuum gauge. The code readout said the EGR was not getting sufficient vacuum. The vacuum gauge confirmed it. Traced it down to a a melted vacuum line running against the hot exhaust. In 1/2 hr. it was fixed. Friend was amazed I did it so fast. He's suppose to buy us lunch next week. I'll remind him.
HONEY DO's, what are those? Rarely does Linda ask me to fix something. Oh, today he brought me a heart shaped "do-ma-thingy". It had a broken leg.
Get out there and fix something now!!!
But sometimes I get tired of hearing "Chuck, would you please (you finish the sentence)".
Pic: Oh! ya! She does not need any fixing...........................................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7th trip

On the spur of the moment, bored, wanting to do something, nothing on TV, we went camping for the 7th time since we bought it in May. This time to a new destination, Ft. Stockton. Don't waste your time or gas. The reconstructed Ft. Stockton is there, as well as many older historic buildings. It took us about 3 hours to do everything. Hard to tell it is on flat desert land. Many trees. Population 8,000 Elevation 2800' Gas$2.59 at every station. A ton of motels, 6 RV parks. We stayed at what we thought was the best one SE of but in town. Nothing to write home about...
By noon we were looking for more to do. We headed east on I-10 to a non-existent winery and dinosaur tracks we never found. Still bored we went back to the RV and watch 3 episodes of Twilight Zone, which I slept through most of 3rd one. HO HUM.
The good news everything is getting better on the RV.
But we ran into headwinds both ways. 14.8 mpg overall, I was hoping for 15.5, we could get NEXT time if it doesn't get windy. Near the 2nd picnic area on Montana the winds were so high I could only get to 55 mph, downhill.
The other thing about west Texas is it's boring country, sagebrush only, no trees. But you can see for miles and miles of miles and miles. Oh ya, make sure you got a reliable vehicle and GAS! We drove 200 miles home with only one station and it was closed at the Dell City junction. I took this different way home, which on a map looks out of the way, but was only 6 miles further. If you go to Dallas I-10 drops way south at Sierra Blanca and Van Horn then loops back north at the I-10/20 split.
Well, we came home Tues afternoon and we're bored again Wed., so I did a few minor jobs, there is always something to do on the RV.
Looks like the rainy season finally hit us. Normally the rain stops mid Sept. Every season this year is 1-3 months late/off cycle.
Next trip Dallas, and South Padre Island. Return via Rio Grande.
Best news was we only spent $122 on everything! And know where NOT to go again. But we're running out of places within 200 miles, 1/2 day drive. In NM it was raining everywhere so Texas was our choice. We do love TEXAS.

Not much happening

Finished most of the projects on the RV. After the 15th will do a few more in preparation for our trip to East Texas later this year. Next week may go to NM ghost towns and Rio Grande wildlife areas. Got to watch for rain in mid NM, raining there a lot.
Found my old Financial Advisor who worked at one of the largest financial institutions in the USA. They fired him, now I'm firing them, if all the details work out. Local service is what I want and could do it with the same company there locally, if we ever moved. Good riddens to poor service. More later after we transition. This is an open to all forum so details withheld.
Rain here, heck no, were 2" below our average. Rains everywhere around but not in the city. Getting cooler, but still near 90 mid afternoon. My friend in Indy asked me if we got the sweatshirts out.
Yes that's an aircraft engine in a motorcycle. Ya, he can ride it around the block is all, it's only for show.
Finally getting to new TV programs, summer TV sucks. We won't pay for Cable or Satellite TV. Too many commercials, (pay for commercials?), too many repeat programs, too few channels we like, and pay for channels I don't watch?, money spent on "Pay for TV" could be used for vacations, things to do and more productive things could be done, like talk, read, research, look for projects... Savings is $360-750 per year!!!
Oh, ya, RED BOX is $1 per movie, Hollywood and BlockBuster are $4. Go where?

Would you put up with this?

Poor service from a very large financial institution? First they closed the local office in El Paso. Now all transactions have to be done via internet or phone. They kept the Midland office open. Aren't they like 1/4 our size? I'm passed over to a Minn. Mn office out of my time zone. The Advisor returns calls days later. Sometimes answers his emails. I ask for a Denver office advisor but get a Phoenix one which is only 1/2 the year on our same time. Now he's not returning calls or answering his emails. How far is MN and AZ from us? How can I get face to face communications?
I started using their Advisor Service with a fee of about 1% of my gross investments but in a year they go up on that 40%. I dropped it immediately, their response was it was only .4% more! Ya, several hundred dollars more.
Their own mutual funds pay out less than the market and their CD's are 3/4 or less than I can get by shopping around. Their CD's are paying a whopping 1-2%. Isn't inflation like 6-8+%?
I found their ex-employee they fired, when they closed the local office.. Also taking names of more local investment firms.
Who you using?