Captainkirk's Duster project

Chapter 22

“Distant Light”

“I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve….”
Admiral Yamamoto, on hearing the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor

Like the first rays of sunlight venturing bravely forth at the end of the cold, dark night, I began to see something, hear something, feel something. I had that bike spread all over the garage in a heartbeat, going where I didn'’t think I had the guts to go; deep into the cam case. First off came the airbox, followed by the exhaust, fuel tank, bodywork, then I dove headlong into the engine. Like Marie Antoinette; off with it’s carb! Rockerbox covers, push rods, ignition box and pickups, then on to the cam cover, boys! Soon all four cams and lifters lay in my oily palms. I stood back and surveyed the carnage.
Was I clinically insane? I had just taken the stuff dreams are made of, financed to the hilt, and scattered the remains all over my garage like a raccoon in a dumpster on Saturday night!
Oh well. No turning back now.
Once I’'d leapt this mental hurdle, I found my pace and settled in. I bled down the lifters and began scraping gaskets and cleaning parts. Soon the new cams lay nestled in their spots, timed, clearances checked, and slathered in white lithium grease like vanilla frosting on some weird aluminum birthday cake. New gaskets and seals all around-…nothing second best here. Was the cam timing right? I checked and re-checked it; yup, right on. I cautiously reassembled the cam case.
The ignition unit was a snap; a simple Deutsch plug connection and a couple of screws. That was easy. The carb took a little bit of engineering to finagle the enrichener, fuel lines, bowl drain line and VOES switch. Common sense prevailed here. The throttle cable Ty Wraps had to be cut and the cable re-routed to the other side of the frame as the entry angle was different. The air filter kit also took some engineering to get the PCV vent lines set up properly. Finally, the exhaust. The race kit instructions were pretty explicit and all the hardware was actually there. I reassembled the rocker boxes and she lay complete, and ready for the tank and bodywork.
I don'’t mind telling you I was just a wee bit nervous. If I roached this thing, I would be kicking my own *** for weeks to come. I lowered the lift down to floor level and turned on the fuel petcock. No leaks; a good sign.
I opened the garage door about halfway and grabbed a fire bottle. Drawing a deep breath, I cracked the throttle and immediately smelled gas. Good…..accelerator pump working…...switched the key to “on”, gritted my teeth, squinched my eyes, and tapped the starter button…. click-thunk-hmmmmmm! I released it. What the…..?
Cam timing off? Valve train assembled wrong? Naw, couldn'’t be. I know my own work better than that.
I tapped it again……..click-thunk-hmmmm………RAR…RARR…..RARRR….
The motor exploded into life …three times as loud as it had been before… and three times as lumpy on the idle. It sounded BITCHIN’!!! The whole garage shook as it filled with thunder and lightning and I stood there reveling in the sensation. I could smell the new gaskets burning in and the pungent ripe exhaust smell, feel the shaking vibes running through my right hand as it curled around the throttle and feel the exhaust pulses assaulting my eardrums. I sucked it all in, relishing the victory. And somewhere far off, deep within the bowels of a dark, dank cave, a sleeping dragon'’s eyes flickered open and he raised his head, shaking off two decades of deep, restless slumber.


Some people take days or even weeks thinking up clever names for their pet machine. It wasn'’t hard to hang a name on the li'’l red minx or The Duke; their personality traits were readily apparent after a short time. In the case of the Buell, however, post- metamorphosis, it strolled right up and introduced itself to me; “Hello, Captain, I’'m Buellosaurus Rex”.
Indeed. Now, “Tyrannosaurus Rex” in Latin translates as '“Terrible Lizard'”. Buellosaurus Rex would translate roughly to “terrible Buell”, or something to that effect. I was not about to dispute his choice of moniker. B.Rex fit; B.Rex it was.
And the similarities between a T.Rex and a B.Rex were soon apparent…..on the first post-morph shakedown ride. Gone were any scattered fragments of good manners and civility that might have been; this was now a hooligan bike bent on frightening small children and animals, and eating them if it could catch them.
There was a slight “dead zone” down low now, between two and three thousand RPM. It used to pull strong from about 2000 on up, a strong, gradual increase in torque, up to 5000 or so, where it leveled out. Now, the train began pulling at about three thousand, and switched on violently at 4000, pulling like a Clydesdale right up to redline (about 6,800), where I would have a close encounter with the rev-limiter built in to the race ignition unit.
WOW!
What a rush!
You could now pounce on this thing off the lights and blow through 90 before hitting fourth gear…, with fifth still waiting in the wings…..and never hit the throttle stop. In fact, it wasn'’t until mid season the following year I actually did put it against the stop. It just wasn’'t necessary. Besides, it scared the living crap out of me. And all the time there was this unearthly thundering howl in your ears that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Rolling Thunder, I call it. Whacking the throttle had now become somewhat akin to poking a grizzly bear in the butt with a sharp, pointed stick…. And nearly as dangerous.
I had to re-learn the lost art of “curbing my enthusiasm.” This was like riding an electric-blue powder keg.
Oh, it wasn'’t all wine and roses. …I had a fair amount of jetting to address, but one of the beautiful things about the HSR series Mikuni is that the main jet is accessible without removing the float bowl; simply by removing the hex drain plug at the bottom of the bowl. A couple of jetting experiments and I was in the ballpark, anyway.
And what of that poor Seca? Was it doomed to the back of my garage now, until some poor slob rescued it, overthrown by yet another Buell?
Hell no. It became my daily summertime driver; my “work” horse. It’s on my lift as I write this, getting new shoes.
But, I had other, more serious problems to contend with. A particular dragon had been awakened; a sleeping giant of incredible stature. I knew it, I could sense it, feel it in the thunder and lightning that day in the garage. He had been sleeping for over two decades. Now he was awake…. And ravenous.