The Mule lives...

It's alive!

I finished up with the last of the initial repairs on the Mule. The rear brake pads, and the air box to carb hoses installation. The rear brake fluid was clear as the Mississippi river, with no mud! Flushed the fluid until she was runnin' clear, everything worked as it should.

Then as any good test pilot does...

I'm off on a 50 mile ride putting her through the moves, she actually did quite well. Went out onto 76 East so I could get up to speed, cruises fine @ 75-80 mph pulling 5-6000 rpm's. That is until the Mule spits the tach cable out. I pull over on an off ramp, do a once over to make sure she ain't bleedin', and re-attach the cable on a very hot engine with no tools...

Note to self:

If you're going on a test drive take some basic tools, baling wire and duct tape, ya dumb ass...

Start up again, tach is working great, oops no tach again. Well seeing as this problem won't go away, time to return to base. 

Overall the performance was good other than the position of the handle bars. They are made for midgets not gorilla like armed people such as myself! My throttle hand kept going to sleep because of the awkward position. Consider a clock dial, my hands were @ 10 & 2 o'clock (imagine holding a car steering wheel) pointing down at about a 150 degree angle... The position will be perfect for our senior 3 wheel instructor, just great. I am a 3 & 9 type rider, 95-100 degree all day long. Oh well we will see what the future holds for the Mule's bar...

Interesting thing about the bike, or maybe it is my age coming out. 

This bike was considered a top tier bagger/cruiser in it's day. I would not last on a all day trip on this bike by itself.  I have not ridden a bike that was this touchy to wind, road grooves and general stability at speed in a long time. 

I mean like you fart and the mule twitches. With the hack on the Mule, the ride will become much more pleasant, or so I hope. 

The bike is heavy enough just does not even come close to the Super Tanker II in the comfort arena.

"Super Tanker II"

My thought is the wheel base difference. The Mule is a heavy bike, coming in just over 600 lbs, but still compared to the 850 lbs Super Tanker II? Going to measure and see.

When I got back to the garage I let it idle to see what the oil temp would do. On my test ride she was consistently under 200 F (high 80's ambient) with the air flowing, good, but as soon as I would slow or come to a stop BEHIND THE EVER PRESENT LINE OF SEMI's in Colorado at a stop light, she would climb to 250. At idle after a long hard ride the temp was about 260 F. Concern. Will take a serious look at installing an oil cooler.

Moved it into the garage shut her down and went to get the hack (sidecar) out of the shed for the installation process. Everything was going fine right up to the point I can't find the F'n mounting bolts. Heck I can't even remember where I put them, so I spend 1/2 hour grinding the gears of memory, looking everywhere I can think of and finally off to the hardware store I go...

$30 bucks later the Mule is whole again. I then check all mountings again, air up the tire, wire the lights for the hack and off on test ride #2 of the day. Just around the neighborhood, (little tired and sore from test ride #1, no ballast) and the old Mule does very well. I am excited. Today once I have the ballast for the hack, I will try and get the rig out on the highway to see what happens. I talked with my sidecar guru and he his hopefully coming by on Monday to test ride the Mule and sign off on her, at least that is what I hope & pray...

I now feel a lot better about the build and how the restoration of the Mule is going. I still have 8 days to repair the tach, fix some wiring issues, install the hack windscreen and luggage rack (for advertising) and have my mechanic check her over and then ride, ride, ride, my Mule.

W