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Two and a half years of exceeding frustration owning a trike that has nickel-and-dimed me half to death while rarely being roadworthy, has been invaluable in reinforcing two incredibly valuable lifelong lessons: patience and perseverance.

Though Hossy is not "ship shape" I accept the idea that she likely never will be. She is, however, as road worthy as I can get her for now. With this in mind I will abandon my usual close-by bounces around town and the county roads, and will hit the open path this weekend on a 400 mile day trip to gather with other retired military, with whom I had served for many years, both here and abroad.

Time to toss caution to the wind, exercise some faith in God and in my machine, and put some respectable miles behind me so that I may raise a toast with brothers and sisters. This "Old Crow" member of the (unofficial) "Semi-Old Farts Battalion" shall gather with the new blood. They are always worth the risk.

I realize I intentionally made the title kind of "Sad Sack" sounding (for those who remember the term and possibly even the comic book character) and it does have a bit of a negative element. Not intended to be a gripe at all. Looking forward to the trip!

Trip completed. Approximately 7 hours of road time overall. 14 hour day trip. Excellent visit with many old friends.

Hoss is down for more minor repairs now.

Glad you made it and had a great time. What repairs are needed now? Were they old ones or trip related?

V8Bikers wrote:Glad you made it and had a great time. What repairs are needed now? Were they old ones or trip related?

A mix of both:

- Front wheel balance weights fell off again; Need to try out those balance beads
- Front brake piston is sticking and slightly dragging on right side rotor; No discoloration, warps or sparks, thankfully; Slightly warmer than left rotor after stop
- Rear left LED turn signal stopped working
- Rear license frame illumination and third brake light stopped working (two different circuits)
- Left rear body hinge broke (again), repair weld split; Lower portion of the bottom half of the hinge fell onto freeway somewhere, top portion of lower half is still connected to the pivot
- New coolant leak on top of intake manifold (looks like the thermostat housing again, but hard to say for sure)
- Oil and coolant oozing from the rear of the cylinder heads again; Fortunately no coolant in crank case
- Tachometer needle is bouncing again at speed; Works fine at idle and when moving through the gears

Third brake light and license plate light power is restored (wire connector had shaken loose on the trip).

Cold weld has been applied as a band-aid fix to attach what's left of the broken lower portion of the custom hinge to the body. It's curing now. If that works I'll do the same with the other side before the lower half of that hinge splits. It's already on the way out from fatigue. Will have figure out something more permanent at a later date. Cash flow is too dry.

That's it for now. 115* F is too hot to keep tinkering. Doing these inspections and repairs in small bite-sized chunks. Trike will keep sitting.

After more than a year, I finally got past my irritation at the seemingly endless stream of Hoss problems and got off my lazy hump to resume repairs and nit-picky little upgrades. I hope to have the trike rolling again by Thanksgiving or early December. Most of the prep work is completed.

Hang in there. You know it'll be well worth it.
I think it should be stated that you are the
forth or fifth owner of your trike and that it
spent time on Florida's coast where it was
subject to lots of salt air conditions and keep
outside under a plastic cover.

Paul H

Paul H wrote:Hang in there. You know it'll be well worth it.
I think it should be stated that you are the
forth or fifth owner of your trike and that it
spent time on Florida's coast where it was
subject to lots of salt air conditions and keep
outside under a plastic cover.

Paul H

And then it was kept uncovered outside in the California desert for a while. Every fuel line was dry rotted and leaking, not to mention other sun-beaten stuff when I bought it back in '14. It's been living in a garage and nickel-and-diming me ever since, but repairs are becoming fewer and further between. I can't wait to hear that roar and feel that torque again!