While Keith and I straighten out the shed and garage I found quite a few Pc800 and St1100 parts so I decided it would be a good idea to find a couple of bikes to fix up.
I stated searching the interweb and found two PC 800’s with low miles one was in Las Vegas and the other in South Dakota near Mount Rushmore.
I was bidding on the Las Vegas bike on EBay and of course I had to fly the day the auction was ending and I lost it over $25.00. Some guy waited till the last second and outbid my auto bids and I was in the air when it ended so I could not counter. Errrrr.
It would have been a good bike as it only had 6700 miles on it.
The other bike has 25,000 but the plastic panels on the left side have been damaged but it’s a real low price so I decided to buy it.
It’s a 15 hour drive but even at that and the cost of transporting it should still be worth it.
I mentioned it to my dad and he was in for the trip and TJ also decided to ride along so I won’t get bored and I’ll have extra hands for loading.
Last year we trailered the Goldwing from Idaho Falls with my dad’s Mercedes SUV and it got really low miles per gallon so I decided to put a hitch on one of my cars. After reading the installation instructions for both vehicles I decided the Volvo would be easier. I ordered the hitch on Wednesday and it arrived on Friday afternoon.
We have been rebuilding my fathers 1984 Mercedes diesel and we were just finishing putting the turbo charger back together when the hitch arrived.
I was having trouble with the rear bumper cover when I enlisted my sons help and when the hitch arrived Keith said we may have taken the bumper off by mistake.
The hitch actually was really simple to bolt on and the wiring was a breeze once we saw everything and them it into position. The wiring was easy as well so the whole job only took an hour and a half.
The fellow selling the bike wanted a deposit and would only hold it until Sunday so we decided we would leave the next morning which is Saturday and the U.S. Memorial Day long weekend.
I picked up my dad at 06:00 and went back to my house to get TJ and after a quick stop at McDonald’s we were off for our first stop of Babb Montana to see Lorraine at Kinek Point to pickup some parts that I had ordered online and had shipped there. I bought three different steering head and bearing tools that were custom-made by this fellow in San Diego at DHS Racing for the Honda Goldwing 1800.
I also ordered a pair of headlight bulbs and some bar ends.
I’ve been experiencing the dreaded steering wobble on this 2007 Goldwing that we bought last year and decided I would change the steering head bearings as suggested by everyone to see if that corrects it.
We arrive at Babb Mt at 09:00 exactly three hours after leaving home even with a Tim Hortons stop in Fort MacLeod. I filled up with gas and we were off. As we started to climb the hills just south of Babb and the village of St Mary’s the Volvo started to run rough.
TJ has been experiencing a rough idle and hard started occasionally over the last month but once she let it run awhile it would clear up.
We stopped in Browning at the NAPA store and put in some injection cleaner and gas line anti freeze to see if that would clear it up. Nope.
We roll into Great Falls and immediately went to O’Reilly’s parts store to borrow some tools to diagnose this problem.
We had brought some tools along and after pulling the first spark plug and doing a compression check I knew we were in trouble. No compression in the first cylinder. Now at this point we should have turned around and went home.
We discussed the opinions and decided that we could have Keith bring another vehicle down and take this thing back or we could rent a truck and continue on. Well after a few phone calls and a visit to Hertz at the airport we rented a truck. The Hertz lady Carol gave me a real good low rate and told us we could park the Volvo and trailer in their lot I was convinced we had favor and that we should continue on.
The truck we rented was really nice and despite the constant rain the drive went really quick. We stayed in Buffalo Wy due to our delays in Great Falls. We did have some trouble finding a room as their was a soccer tournament and reunion on in town but we managed to get a log cabin which was different.
The beds were small and made a squeaking noise when you turned but our greatest disappointment was that we could not get the hockey game. We tried the local tv, the Internet and our Game Center subscription but no, we couldn’t find it. Finally TJ found it on the radio on Internet and it was over. Errr
We woke up at 05:00 to the sound of raining hitting the roof. It’s a sound that brings back memories of summers at the cottage. It always sounds so nice even if you didn’t sleep half the night.
The visa machine didn’t work for the front desk last night and there is no sign of life so I left a note that I would call or stop back in to pay my bill and we set off for breakfast. My dad likes the McDonalds big breakfast so we stopped there and then took off for South Dakota.
We arrive in Hot Springs at 10:00 and I knock on the door to find out its empty and under renovation, humm possible wrong GPS address I put in. Yep I put in north instead of south.
Well I didn’t have much more success at the next house either as the seller is not there either. He owns the house but the lady who rents it says the bikes are in the garage but that she would have to text him to see where he is.
This kind lady gets Jess on the phone and then hands me her phone and Jess (the seller) says he can’t be there for an hour. I hate how some people treat buyers, often making us feel we are inconveniencing them by buying their stuff.
We decide to scope out the town for a loading location that would allow a ride into the back of the truck instead of a steep loading ramps situation. We find a building with a wheel chair ramp that had an open area on one end that we could back up to and ride the bike on after lifting the front end a bit.
We find a little bakery with very bad coffee and cinnamon rolls to kill some time until the seller shows up.
When we arrive back at the house we see the garage open exposing a mess of old bikes and parts all over the floor and a beat up Honda PC 800 out front. Of course it looks a lot worse than the pictures but it runs real smooth and has the potential to be a real nice Pacific Coast.
The seller wanted to tell me all about his racing and rebuilding experiences and all I wanted to do was get the heck out of there.
I mentioned about the loading ramp but Jess was convinced he could load it right there over some uneven cement blocks that were in the way and up the steep ramps and after two attempts he decided to ride the bike over to the loading area we had found.
Well, Jess didn’t like the ramp we had picked out and right then I decided this guy is not that bright. He didn’t like the small gap between the ramp and the tailgate. This is where we had to lift the front wheel onto the tailgate and then a good push and it was in the wheel chock. “Oh that was easy stated the brain surgeon from Hot Springs”.
After getting it strapped in, doing the title transfer and bill of sale I realized we needed to check for the VIN Sticker. We had to undo all the straps and pull it out of the chock and then remove a small panel near the steering head to finally gone the sticker. Without this sticker I would not be able to import this bike so I need to get at it.
The next problem was the sellers bill of sale and title sign over information. He was convinced he was going to use a different address than what was on the title and it’s been our painful experience that when you do this the folks at the border reject your paperwork.
It took a little bit of persuasion to get him to fill out a new bill of sale and he still used a different address on the back of the title. What a piece of work, yes we should have turned around in Great Falls.
Our next order of business was to send this information to the border but where will we find a fax machine. Well we tried a motel but he wouldn’t do it and then we tried the visitors information centre and no she didn’t have one. We finally went to the police station which was one police officer and when he tried to fax it was rejected.
I phoned the border to find out that Customs was not excepting faxes any more and that I would have to email the information. Well in this back hills town there was no public internet anywhere. We tried all over but could not find anywhere so we drove to Rapid City and got on McDonalds wifi to find out that the export procedures had changed and that we must use a broker or filing service to get a new file number which is required. Yes , I should have turned around in Great Falls.
Well, it’s the Memorial long weekend so everything is closed, including the company that can do our filing and get this new number that’s required. Yikes what a mess. The filing company replies to my email and can help us for a small fee but not till Tuesday. Errrr.
We arrive in Great Falls and after a quick recon of the airport area we decided to unload the bike in the ditch in front of the rental compound where we parked the Volvo. It worked perfect, the bike rolled off easily and after TJ managed to climb into the truck which was on a really steep angle we drove up out of the ditch and onto the trailer in no time.
Due to arriving two hours after my return time for the rental which I never even thought about, I’m charged another day but since the windshield cracked and she wasn’t going to charge me for the repairs I was somewhat happy.
We got a room at the Inn where we usually stay and after a few calls we find out that Boston Pizza is playing the game so we head over for supper and a Chicago loss to Anaheim. Ah what a disappointment to be scored on in the first minute of overtime.
We all slept in and started our morning with some McDonalds coffee and Wheat Montana :
Look at the size of these things.
We are still having trouble with the customs paperwork due to the long weekend so we ask Lorraine at Kinek if we can leave the bike and trailer for a week and of course she says yes. She’s really kind and always helpful. We slide the trailer between two buildings to get it out of sight and we head up the road to the border when I realize I left the key in the bike so I quickly turn around.
There was no lineup at the border so we quickly pass through and make our next stop in Claresholm for dinner and a coffee at Timmy’s.
Well we started out to get two bikes and ended at home with no bikes. Next week after the bike clears and some of our orders reach Kinek Point we’ll go down for another run to get at least one.
3rd Wheel Rides With Dad 