HEAD TRIPS AND HEAD GASKETS

In 1980, I rode out to Maine. The story needs a little background, so here goes!

BELL HELMETS AND BUBBLE GOGGLES!

Mark and I have been friends for many years. He has always been a mechanic of some kind, a shade tree mechanic, a helicopter mechanic, a building mechanic, or a food plant mechanic. He’s one of those guys that know how things work, why they work, and how they should be assembled to work right.

He was working as the plant manager of a small food processing plant, keeping the machines maintained and humming along, despite the interference of the plant owner, and with the help of his crew, which consisted of one guy, John.

Mark had become enamored with Japanese motorcycles in the 70s, and renounced his old high-maintenance Harley ways, never to look back. He had gone through countless motorcycles, because every year, sometimes twice a year, last years model of Japanese engineering excellence was made obsolete and replaced with a new and improved wonder of engineering.

Anyway, by 1980, he had progressed thru increased number of cylinders, water-cooling, and was now into shaft drives, and was on his second or third Gold Wing. His helper, John was also the owner of a Gold Wing.



Now John was about as straight as they come. But love, as they say, is blind. He was in love with a young lady from California who was his exact opposite, and they got married. His honeymoon was going to be a ride out east, with a stop at the honeymoon center of the world, the Poconos. Then to Maine and down the coast, and back home.



Mark and his wife Paulette were riding along, and somehow I got invited also. It seemed like a lot of people on one honeymoon, but a ride is a ride, and I hadn’t been out east for years.



Kathy was a nice girl, but was not the type that you would think would hit it off with John. She was recently divorced from a guy in California, a member of the large club out in those parts called the Hells Angles. Kathy had some ink, including F**K YOU tattooed on the knuckles of one hand, and I don’t think I ever heard John swear.



But love is love, you can’t argue with that, and I was riding along on their honeymoon.



We set out one beautiful summer morning, beat our way thru the Chicago expressways, and headed east on the Indiana Tollway. I ran out of gas somewhere in the middle of the state, having left the petcock on reserve instead of putting it back on main when gassing up. Luckily, I was able to beg a little gasoline from a Tollway maintenance shed, and we were on our way again pretty quickly.

READY TO RIDE!

We made it into Ohio, and as is usual in that state, hit some violent thunderstorms. We waited out the lightning in tollway oasis, and by the time it let up, we decided to look for a motel. We got one in Milan, Ohio, found some dinner, and looked around the town, the boyhood home of Thomas Edison.

THE GROUP OF DROWNED RATS UNDER AN OVERPASS IN OHIO.

The next day was clear and beautiful, so we continued across Ohio. We stopped for lunch somewhere in the eastern end of the state, and found a little Mexican restaurant. Apparently John and Kathy had been ‘discussing’ the route the night before, instead of honeymooning. John wanted to veer north, through New York, to cut some time from getting to Maine, and Kathy was still set on the honeymoon delights offered by the Poconos.



The argument in the little Mexican restaurant got pretty loud and heated, but it was finally agreed (by everyone but Kathy, who kept yelling “I want to go to the #$%@*&! Poconos!!) the honeymoon would be in Niagara Falls instead of the Pocono Mountains.

JOHN BREAKING THE LAW.

CROSSING THE BRIDGE NEAR NIAGARA FALLS.

Gas and food stops from then on alternated between silence and loud arguing by the honeymoon couple, as we rode around Lake Erie and into Niagara Falls. Anyway, we got the happy couple registered into a hotel overlooking the falls, and then the rest of us rode back out of town and found some cheaper digs.

MADE IT TO NIAGARA FALLS!

US/CANADA CUSTOMS

VIEW NEAR THE FALLS.

THE VIEW FROM THE HONEYMOON SUITE.

Now, the sub-plot. The Harley had a couple of innovations. One was a new type crankcase breather, a check valve that kept the area under the pistons in a vacuum. This check valve arrangement was noisy, so I had finally taken it off and thrown it away. It quieted the bike a lot. The noise from the check valve working sounded like the valve train about to let go, so I was pretty happy when the racket was gone.

What I didn’t realize was that the vacuum in the lower end was about all except for gravity that pulled the oil out of the heads and back into the sump. Without it, the rocker arm area would fill with oil, and the pressure from the oil pump would finally force its way from the oil passage in the barrels out thru the head gasket, and make me think I had blown a head gasket. This blown head gasket deal was driving me nuts. I would pull the heads, inspect the surfaces and not see anything wrong, and a couple thousand miles later, be leaking oil from the head gaskets again.

Anyway, blowing some oil wasn’t the end of the world, but I didn’t want to get stranded somewhere on the east coast, either. I wanted to replace those head gaskets before too long, but didn’t especially want to start wrenching on my bike too much in full view of a couple of Gold Wing riders.

CAUGHT WORKING ON MY BIKE BY A GOLD WINGER WITH A CAMERA!

So, we picked up John and Kathy in Niagara Falls in the morning, and headed east again. Things still had not returned to a state of marital bliss yet, and the alternating silences and arguments were continuing. As we approached Syracuse, I had an idea: Canada! I could escape to Canada!

CRUISING THROUGH PENNSYLVANIA OR NEW YORK.

I pulled over and the others followed. I explained that I wanted to pick up some head gaskets, and had always wanted to ride through Canada. How about if I split off and cut through Canada, picked up the gaskets, and met them in Maine? That way I wouldn’t be holding them up.

TRYING IN VAIN TO FIND SOME OIL LEAKING FROM A GOLD WING

We set up a meeting point at the lighthouse on Mt Desert Island, they continued down the NY State Thruway, and I headed north to Canada, the argument-free zone.

I crossed the St Lawrence at the Thousand Islands, and rode along the river toward Montreal. It was starting to get dark, and the area should have been named Million Bugs rather than Thousand Islands. I had to stop at a couple of rest areas to wash my face shield, it had gotten to the point where the dead bugs completely obscured my vision. I stopped outside Montreal and got a campground, set up my little tent, and went to sleep.

I finally found the Harley dealer in Montreal, after giving a few locals some laughs with my high-school French. I picked up a set of head gaskets and changed them in the parking lot, and headed toward Quebec City. One of my favorite books as a child was “Mystery in Old Quebec”, and I wasn’t going to get this close without seeing some parts of the city. I camped pretty close to the city.

In Quebec City, I rode around the old section of the city, curious as various gendarmes on foot would shout at me in French, but I was not curious enough to stop. During a later trip to the city, I noticed signs saying that motorcycles were not allowed, so that, along with straight pipes, was probably the cause of their excitement.

I needed to get to Maine to meet the others the following day, so I pushed south out of Quebec City toward the USA. I crossed back into the USA at a little customs shed somewhere in the great north woods of Maine.

Two bored custom agents manned the border crossing. I provided an afternoon’s entertainment for them. They had me empty everything off the bike, went carefully through my clothes and camping gear, laughing and telling me how many motorcycle riders got killed hitting moose in that area. They said it was extremely dangerous at dusk, and held me there until the sun went down.

I rode through the night until I came to civilization again, and got a room. The next morning it was foggy, but I needed to be on Mt Desert Island at noon to meet the others, so I set off through the fog. I thought that since I had been lucky enough the night before not hitting a moose, I would probably nail one in the fog. But there were no moose that morning, the fog finally lifted, and I made my way out to the island, found the lighthouse, and met the others.

They had been up north at Campobello, and followed US 1 back down the coast. They were a little disappointed, expecting it to hug the coast like 101 in California, but US 1 is not really a coastal route. We exchanged trip stories, and headed to the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound for lunch.

Paulette wanted to stop for a burger somewhere, she wanted no part of eating ‘those big bugs’, but John would have none of that. Things apparently were still a little tense on the honeymoon. I decided at lunch to let the others continue on their ride down the coast, while I would stay on the island and camp for the following week.

After everyone had lunch, except for Paulette, we went our separate ways. Paulette was pretty unhappy that John wouldn’t stop at even a McDonalds so she could get something to eat. She did, however, get John back for causing her to go hungry that day, much later. At work, someone was stealing the dessert from the lunch Paulette packed for Mark every day. Mark suspected John. Finally, one day, Paulette made brownies for Mark’s dessert, but replaced the chocolate in the recipe with Ex-Lax. John spent that afternoon in the toilet, and Mark’s lunch was not bothered again.

I had a great time on Mt. Desert Island. There are a number of nice roads on the island, and I had fun exploring them. The summer and permanent residents probably wanted to shoot me, because I would run the curvy roads in low gears at high RPMs, playing Kenny Roberts.

I discovered the Halls Quarry Campground on this trip, and stayed there a number of times over the years. I mostly ate at the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound, which has become another tradition over later trips.

I bummed around the roads and the national park until I thought I would not make it back to work when my vacation was over, and split west at the latest possible time. I kind of thought I could make it through New York state the first day, but got caught up in the roads in Vermont and upstate New York. I finally regained my senses in the middle of the night in the middle of New York state, got a room, and blasted home on the super-slab the following day. New York to Illinois on a Sportster made a long day, but I did show up for work on time!