The Drama Continues

[ademarzi]

After spending the night in Gallup I left this morning for Meteor Crater, and after doing the tourist thing I aimed for the Grand Canyon.

At about 20 miles east of Flagstaff a part of the suspension of the Nugget separated from the frame, causing the tire to wedge against the edge of the wheelwell. I noticed it almost right away and pulled over. A quick looksie revealed that one of the trailing arms had come off the cross bar that it was connected to.

Realizing that there was no quick fix, I called BMW MOA road service and they sent a truck to carry the Nugget to Flagstaff. I booked into a motel, and pulled the Anonimous book out. On the second try I connected with Roger, who referrred me to Frank who has a welding shop in town and who is an avid GS rider, having just returned from Prudhome(Spelling?) Bay, a total of 9K miles.

I called Frank and he was very sympathetic to my problem and suggested that we meet tomorrow at the motel's parking lot at 7 am and take the trailer to his shop. I still can't believe that he would sacrifice a Sunday to help a fellow rider!

I am humbled by the generosity and willingness to help of this BMW community.

I was planning to get back by Sunday night, but that is questionable now. It will be another 10K mile trip just like the one in '71, but this one hes giving quite a bit of drama.

As I mentioned somewhere else, I am counting my blessings that the only drama has been about physical material things that can be fixed or replaced, while my body, soul and spirit remain strong and at peace.

Life is good!:D

[amarider]

I hope they can get you back on the road AL - Good Luck.

[ademarzi]

Thanks, John.

I am hopeful to be able to be on the road again tomorrow. If not then I'll "hafta check the sights!"

[deputy5211]

God to hear that you were not injured. Hopefully they'll get your rig fixed and you can be back on your way.

[ademarzi]

Thanks Tony.

[ademarzi]

I met with Roger at 7 am, we lifted the Nugget onto his truck and took it to his shop.

It took a while to figure how to work on the trailer, and in the end we decided to put it on its side, leaving its belly for inspection. What we found out was that the rod that acted as the hinge of the swing arm had its weld tack broken, Roger also noticed that the tube that was the other component of the hinge, had a crack. This crack seemed to be old and not part of the trouble. So Roger welded the hinge rod and the tube. While doing that I noticed that the one bolt that held the tongue of the trailer to the chasis had fallen out when we turned the Nugget on its side. Apparently, the nut that held it and the clevis pin that secured the nut were gone. I have even to think what had happened if the tongue had detached from the trailer while riding at speed. So Roger found nut and pin to replace the ones lost. While Roger was finding the nut and pin in his shop, I noticed that the brackets that held the sway bar was loose and bent. So, Roger grinded the old bolts, because when we tried to tighten them one of them snapped, and replaced them with hardened bolts and nuts. When that was all finished, we righted the Nugget up, replaced the contents of the trailer, and we pumped the suspension up. Well . . . the suspension leaked. oger got some soapy water to find the leak. We found a couple of the couplers were a bit loose, but that did not cure the problem. Roger suggested that we replace the tubing, since there was no apparent leak at all the junctions. He made a call to the local Napa store, which had the tubing I made a quick trip to get it and replaced the old ones.

While I was gone, Roger had raised the Nugget with the winches in his shop which made it much easier to work. We tested it out before routing the tubing and it held! So we rerouted the tubing, tied it up, and when we tested it, it was leaking again! We used soapy water again and what we found was the connector of the foot pump that I used was leaking, once that was corrected the trailer was judged by Roger "As good as old".

When I asked for what I could do for compensation, he replied that it would feel as sin to take any remuneration. He also said that when he made that trip I mentioned at the begining of this thread, one of the bikes had quite a bit of problems, and that help always materialized. He also said something to the effect of creating good Karma.

Well he has earned a prominent place in the pantheon of wonderful people that have touched my life.

I offered to have him and his wife join me for lunch, he accepted, but his wife could not. We had great time exchanging stories about bikes and rides we have taken over the years.

As is, I'll have time to ride to the Grand Canyon without the Nugget, since I could not get out of paying for another night at the motel, and be back, do some laundry, go to bed early and rise and ride early tomorrow.

God willing, I maybe back sometime Monday, unless I get the urge to get home late Sunday, we will see.

As soon as I can, I will re-size some of the photos and attach them.

[ademarzi]

Here is a link to the photos I promised.

http://alvarodemarzi.smugmug.com/gallery/3301449#183454031

I will add comments when I get home.

[Dell]

Thanks for keeping us apprised, Al. I have come to the conclusion that mechanical problems can be part of the adventure and in the process of solving them you often meet new people and have a nice story to tell.

[ademarzi]

Dell, you are so right.

This trip has served to confirm what I experienced over three decades ago, that the beauty of this country, and more important, the true generosity and kindness of the people in this great country still exists, regardless of the apparent divisions that have been "manufactured" by the politicians and media alike in the past couple of decades.

As it turned out, when I started Sunday moning, after gassing and pumping the suspension, after about 30 miles I felt a wiggle, and when I looked in the rear view mirror I noticed that the suspension had collapsed. I pumped it up again and returned to Flagstaff. I felt that it was time to throw-in the towel and perhaps I should try to ship the Nugget home. I have faculty meetings starting on thursday August 16, so I was running out of time. I went back to Frank's shop. BTW I kept calling Frank, Roger and he never corrected me, so when I apologized to him he acted perplexed, saying that he did not notice. :o A Class One act.

I called several freight companies, and the least expensive (after a 45% discount) was about $750!

When Frank heard that he offered to put a couple of blocks that would prevent the tires from touching the wheelwell if the air leaked out. As he put it, it will take you home and then you can deal with it. So he had one of his employees, Jim, tack-weld the blocks. As he did so some of the sparks from the welding put a hole in one of the air lines, but fortunately when we installed the air lines the day before, we cut them with extra length, so it was a simple matter of cutting the part that had the whole in it, and reattach it. We pumped it up, and the pressure held. As a matter of fact it held until I got home! This morning it was fully pressurized.

So at 12:30 Flagstaff time I set for home, this time by the fastest route, which meant I-40 to US-93 to Vegas, US-95 to I-80 through Reno to my home. I am not sure of the mileage (rough guess is about 800 miles), but I got home by 2:30 Pacific time. There were a lot of small towns that have speed traps and, as one trucker told me, they will ticket you for going 1 mph over the limit, a slight exageration, I think, but I was not going to find out if it was true or not. It is better to prevent than to lament.

The total mileage for the trip ended up being 10,580 miles.

Today it has been trying to catch up with rest (what's that?) and slowly unpack and get re-oriented with "sedentary" life. In the next few weeks I am hoping to catch up with my web site which has been woefully neglected. There are lots and lots of pictures to go through and chose to post up, and a lot of writing to go with the pictures. To those of you who have been trying to follow events of this trip I deeply apologize, but I will finish it. I have a trove of pictures to sort through and place in sequence and to post them. It will be as doing the trip all over again.

For those of you who might be interested the link is:

www.alvarodemarzi.smugmug.com (http://www.alvarodemarzi.smugmug.com)

Blessings,

[amarider]

:beer: Cheers and welcome back :beer::thumb:

[ademarzi]

Thanks, it feels good to be back.

We will lift a couple :beer: :beer: to travelling on two wheels when we meet tomorrow.

[Dan-A]

Dell, you are so right.

This trip has served to confirm what I experienced over three decades ago, that the beauty of this country, and more important, the true generosity and kindness of the people in this great country still exists, regardless of the apparent divisions that have been "manufactured" by the politicians and media alike in the past couple of decades.



When I went to the Red River Round Up I noticed how much of America is still out there. Lot's of open space, and many very good people. It is a refreshing reality check that restores one's faith.

Welcome home.