O/T: A Punch In The Gut

[Mike M]

The body has all the rust out, but it actually needs some new upholstry.

Mike M

[Leon]

Well at younger ages the part we need to protect, our brains, is not always located in our heads. A lot of women will attest to that face in that we often think with our ..... ;~)

[Larry Jaques]

Smartarses.

-- It is easier to fool people than it is to convince people that they have been fooled. --Mark Twain

[Steve Turner]

[Dave]

How much would a Sportster weight? No bike is light and neither is a Sportster. Must have been several people or some type of hoist or winch to drag it onto a pickup.

Man, I'd go nuts if I caught anyone pulling that crap on me. You must have been pissed for a hell of a long time.

[Dave]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:33:28 +0100, Stuart

Must have been a hell of a big helmet too.

LMAO!

[Swingman]

I don't recall exactly, maybe 500+ pounds? Three young, healthy guys could lift it into a pickup, especially with some adrenalin flowing, and the incentive was there.

I'm still pissed ... they'd do well to never confess.

[Dave]

Any local suspects? Do you figure it's long gone down Mexico way?

[Swingman]

Police never got anything on it at all. Probably arrived the next afternoon, 28 years ago ... Mexico is only a five or six hour drive.

[Robatoy]

I bought a Husky 250 after I wore out my CZ/Jawa 125 dirt bike to the point I left it behind in Holland. The 400 was WAY more bike than I needed to have fun, even though it wasn't that much more expensive. My love affair with road bikes ( a Honda 750/4 ) ended when my first daughter was born in 1980. I felt, at the time, that I needed to stay alive.

I have looked at them again and again, in fact just in the last month,

3 bikes went up for sale: a 750 Yamaha Vtwin, a 1974 900cc BMW and a nice Sportster, not sure of the details, but nice-looking. That Sportster sold in a couple of days.

The two two-seater sportscars came up for sale in the same area where I walk my dog: A Miata, not sure of the age, but I passed the second I realized there was no airbag preventing the steering column from impaling me. The second car was a TR250, also no airbag, but al least life would end with a gorgeous Italian custom wood-grained steering wheel in my ribs. I had a 1967 GT6 Triumph which I bought new and that was a love/hate relationship. Even just a forecast of rain would make it hard to start, or when Mrs Jones boiled her noodles 3 minutes too long the damn thing would wet-out on me and she lived 3 blocks away.

I think I am done with 'sports' motorized vehicles.

[Larry Blanchard]

The BMW sounds like a nice "vintage" bike. That's a whole different world. I belong to a vintage group and some of the guys have garages full of old European bikes. I'm partial to street singles myself - I'd love to have an Ariel Red Hunter or a Vincent Comet, or even a Panther. Maybe my wife will win the lottery one of these days :-).

[Larry Jaques]

Funny how little things like kids will change things.

Yep, ah reckon so. Mrs. Jones brought out the Prince of Darkness in the Trumpet, eh?

I've been very happy with my vehicles lately. Fuel injection is a Godsend, vastly different than the old days. Remember crossing a street back in carbureted days? When the engine was cold, you'd wonder if it would stall on you when your vehicle was right in the middle of the road. I used to tune up my vehicles every several thousand miles. Now they run for years and years without any need for maintenance, other than oil changes.

Still, I miss my old '70 AMC Javelin. After my rebuild, installing a mild cam, it had 425hp and 450ft/lb of torque. The Borg Warner close- ratio T-10 tranny was good for those busy times of getting up to speed in several seconds. That thing had a Rottenchester carb which never gave me any trouble except once, when it stuck WFO. Scary.

-- However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -- Sir Winston Churchill

[Robatoy]

That BMW could have been had for $ 3500.00. It was mint. Purred like a kitten. I found it 'too tall' for me. COG up that high made it feel funny. And here I thought flat boxers' big selling point was a low COG. I guess not when applied to bikes if you mount the engine up that high for cornering clearance. Those cylinders are way out there. Add the crash bars and it feels like you're flying a plane. Still....nice machine.

[Puckdropper]

Mike M wrote in news: [e-mail]:

How do you like that Kubota tractor? (Sorry if this is a few days old, yesterday I found out my skid steer has a couple leaks that will be uneconomical to fix.)

I'm looking at my options and trying to figure out what will be best in the long run.

Puckdropper

[Mike M]

I like it a lot. I replaced an old 47 Case VAI with it. The Case is older the 3 point hitches so I couldn't do much with it but tow and drag. The Kubota is B3200 so I think's its the biggest of the B series. The 4 cylinder seems to have more vibration then the 3 cylinder but has a 5' bucket instead of a 4'. My neighbor has a B26 and I'm about 10" wider, higher and longer. The backhoe is well thought out as it goes on and off in about 10 minutes. The seat swivels around so you have lots of leg room in either direction. The only con I can think of isn't won't load a standard dump truck. I have a dump trailer so it is fine for that. The backhoe is strong and has a mechanical thumb so you can place rocks with it. They have a 4 year zero percent financing so you can get a new one pretty reasonable. I made a large down payment so my payments are less then it would cost to rent one for a day. So far I've only had one minor problem. I bent a mount for a safety switch of course I was a 1/2 mile from home. It was a crowbar repair once I had the tool I needed. Nuetral position sensor so it wouldn't start. Probably did the initial bend going thru slash piles. My neighbor just got his B26 w/o backhoe and I think it was about 14K and there are always used ones out there. Although 2009 when I was looking at used all the used one were pre crash purchased and they wanted about as much as the new one.

Mike M

[Puckdropper]

Mike M wrote in news: [e-mail]:

They've got a package deal going with the L3800 or L3200 (5 hp is the only difference) which seems to have similar specs to yours. The engines are different sizes, but similar horsepower. How does yours do in soft wet grass? I had to pick and choose my days for skid steer work at times, as it wouldn't take much time for the wheels to sink in and get stuck. (No tracks.)

Is the backhoe limited in height like the loader bucket? With the mechanical thumb, it could be useful for tearing down my sister's

1-story garage. (We knew the garage needed to be replaced when she bought the place.)

It looks like tractors with loaders are running between $8,000 and $12,000 used in my area, with the $10,000 - $12,500 range being most common. New doesn't seem to be all that much more, maybe around 25%. Over the life of a machine, that's not all that much. The've got 0% for

60 months and a couple of rebates on the L-series tractors (that expire this month), so it will be interesting to see how it compares to a used one.

Puckdropper

[Mike M]

The L series is a little heavier which can be a plus, go to Kubota's web site and you can compare all the specs as most of the components are engineered for the equipment they are on. That's why I have the excavtor as well as it takes care of most of want the backhoe doesn't, and it has a hydraulic thumb. But even then I've had to rent a bigger excavator for some of the really big stumps. Last one I hauled away was over 2 tons. I'm in Western Washington so you can imagine the mud here in the winter. With a backhoe you can almost always push yourself out of a problem. If you get the agricultural tires you get good traction, 4WD and doesn't tear the grass up if its not too wet. The tractor is about 3500lbs vs over 4 tons for the excavator and that weight makes a bigger difference then the HP. I wish I had it 20 years ago I would probably have fewer aches and pains. Put a hot tub up on the deck by myself with the loader. You'll be amazed how much easier the tasks will be with a reliable well build piece of equipment. Of course that's a comon theme here.

Mike M

[Puckdropper]

Mike M wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I'm hoping that the tractor will be the right tool for the job more often than the skid steer. The skid steer was so sensitive to the ground underneath that leveling/grading was difficult and so tall that getting it in somewhere would also be difficult.

I'll add agricultural tires to the list of things to ask about.

Thanks for the conversation, it was good to chat with someone who's got something similar to what I'm looking at.

Puckdropper