I can see clearly now.

Well, yes, I have ordered some new glasses, but that's not what this is about. A few weeks ago a rock flew up and smacked the windshield on our truck. We didn't notice any damage for a few days and then we found an inch-long crack at the right edge of the glass. Over a period of about a week, it grew to several inches.

That truck is 10 years old and has 125,000 miles on it, but it's a Toyota and I expect to keep it a long time. Even with a $200 deductable, I figure it's worth it. I guess the old windshield had a few knicks and scratches, because the view is much better now.
Howard

adding a link???

I'm going to try to find a way to post a link on my blog using the following line:

http://www.blogarama.com/" title="The Blog Directory">Blogarama

I think that is something called html, so I'm going to start by clicking "EditHTML" but I'm not expecting too much.
Howard

Theme parks

I've been to a lot of theme parks over the years. My favorite is Dollywood. It's not the largest by any means, but it's only a little over an hour from home. However, that's not the main reason I like it. Dollywood teaches history, geography, and handcrafts. Yesterday, we saw wagons and carriages being built the old-fashioned way. We saw a Russion circus and visited a shop where hand made muscial instruments are made. There is also a blacksmith shop, and a 1950's hamburger shop called Red's Diner.

And what would a theme park be without rides? Dollywood has roller coasters that only the foolhardy can ride. They also have kiddie rides and everything in betweeen. A bunch of rides are new this year. There is an eagle sanctuary with dozens of bald eagles that are considered "unreleaseable" because they have been injured or have been in captivity for too long. You can go for a ride behind an antique railroad steam engine, see a magic show or attend a wide variety of musical shows.

There is all kinds of food available and I have never eaten anything that wasn't great. Considering that I have held a season pass for about 15 years, I think I qualify as an expert on Dollywood food.

Another reason to like Dollywood is the very reason that it is there. Dolly grew up poor in that area. It was a poverty pocket with high unemployment and low wages even for those who found work. So Dolly created a tourist attraction that turned Pigeon Forge into a boom town. I am sure there are people there who miss the way it was 30 or 40 years ago, but life is better for most of the people there. Business is good, not just at Dollywood, but at tourist oriented businesses all over the area. Dollywood is only the centerpiece. Dolly is know throughout the region for her support of education.

It's a beautiful park with shade trees and running water. Music actually comes from the rocks in the flower gardens. Go in June or later to see the flowers.
Howard

I don't believe it.

I saw a manhole cover the other day with this wording on it:
"Sanitary Sewer"
I have my doubts.

a timely quote

"I feel like I just got held up by a gas station."
--Dagwood Bumstead (Yes, that Dagwood.)

still looking for scooters

I didn't buy a scooter at last week's scooter meet. Do you have one to sell? I'm looking for unrestored scooters in any condition from just dandy to complete junk. I like Cushmans best, but I always seriously consider other brands. The catch is that I like the old ones best. I also buy mini bikes, motor bikes, and light motorcycles if they are old enough, but I have no interest in big motorcycles or dirt bikes. I also buy Maytag gasoline engines and I'm looking for a Briggs and Stratton, 1.5 hp, upright cylinder, with a kick starter. It has to have a kick starter.

So take a look in the garage, the barn, the shed, the basement, the attic, or out in the woods. Don't let it rust away. Contact me though "comments" on this site.
Howard

booking cruises

We always book cruises at the last minute. It's cheaper that way, but sometimes you miss out. Last night my wife found a great deal on a cruise. This morning, she tried to book it, but it was sold out. Maybe next week.

We book through www.altotravel.com
We get great service from laura@altotravel.com
And why not? She's our daughter.
Howard

new scooter pictures

Some new scooter pictures from the SECC Spring Meet 2005 are already posted at www.southeasterncushmanclub.com . The one's I took are still in the mail, but I hope to see some of them within a few days.
Howard

mini ball

The other day, my 10 year-old grand daughter picked up a mini ball. That's a Civil War era bullet. She lives in an area where a number of skirmishes were fought. The bullet looks like about .58 caliber and does not appear to have been fired. There is no distortion at all.
Howard

Maytag gas motor

I guess I'm ready to tune up my Maytag Multimotor. I had trouble getting the flywheel off this 58-year-old gasoline washing machine motor, but by using a clutch-removal tool designed for a Cushman Husky engine, the flywheel came off easily. What I'm looking at is a condenser, a coil and some breaker points. I have a spare condenser, but no coil.

I'm not sure which spark plugs to use, so I guess I need to do a little internet research. I say plugs, plural, because the model 72 Maytag is a two-cylinder, horizonally opposed engine. The cylinders are tiny and it puts out a whopping 5/8 of a horsepower. It's a two cycle with a fuel/oil ratio of 16 to 1, so I'm expecting a lot of smoke.

So what use is there for a fractional horsepower gas motor? If you lived in a house with no electric power, you could use it to operate a washing machine, or to pump a little water, but in the modern world, it's a fairly useless machine. I tried to get it operating in time for the spring scooter meet in Georgia, but that stubborn flywheel prevented that. I figure if you fire up a noisy putt putt that lays down a thick smoke screen, you can attract a crowd at a scooter meet.

To understand that you have to know a little about the kind of people who collect vintage motor scooters like Cushmans. Generally, we are old coots who have loved machinery for a lifetime, and to us, the sound and smell of an old engine is like a picnic in the park. How many machines do you have that still work at 58 years of age?

Maybe you have grandma's sewing machine, or grandpa's Model A Ford, but machines tend to wear out in less than half a century. But if you see a cloud of bluish smoke at a scooter meet, it might be a Maytag.

clean up time

When I get back from a scooter meet, the shop is always a mess. I unload the trailer and roll the scoots back into the shop, do a few repair jobs, put away my tools and the cleanup box, and then I look around and say, "I've gotta clean up this mess." I guess I pull out a lot of stuff looking for things. There is alway a little Georgia mud falling off the scooters.

Right now, one end of the shop is polluted by potted plants that stayed in there over the winter. They drop leaves all over the place and sweeping them up is futile. There is also a lizard that came in for the winter. He is only a problem when I find him unexpectedly. I know he's harmless, but reptiles always make me jump.

And then there are all of those unfinished projects like the little red wagon. It's ready to reassemble, but the parts are in the way sometimes. I need to make myself finish that.

Maybe after the plants go outside in a few weeks. . . .
Howard

Chow at the scooter meet

Riding a motor scooter makes you hungry, so we sampled a lot of different kinds of food in Cochran. We tried Mexican food, Italian food, fast food, junk food, and Good Old Southern Cooking food. Southern food means certain dishes like okra, battered and fried, chicken, battered and fried, pork chops, battered and fried, and just about anything else battered and fried. Ham usually means country ham. Corn bread is made without sugar, but if you order tea it will be sweet, unless you ask for it unsweetened. Green beans are cooked with a little ham, bacon, or side meat. Mac and cheese is almost always available, and meat us cooked done unless you order it otherwise. At breakfast, you get grits with your eggs, and the coffee is always perfect.
Howard

Back from the scooter meet

I just returned home from the SECC Spring meet in Cochran, Georgia. After pulling a trailer 360 miles right through Atlanta, I must admit to being a little tired, but it was a fun meet.

The weather, always a concern to scooterists, was a mixed bag of hot, cold, wet, dry, windy and calm. That's normal in March.

I took the Eagle and the Pacemaker. Neither was running very well, but with a parts vendor on the lot and a number of excellent Cushman mechanics running around, both are now running better. The people I see at SECC meets are all old friends now. This was my 21st consective SECC meet, including spring and fall meets, since before the turn of the century.

Spring was a little later than usual in Cochran, but blooms were beginning to appear. I heard the meet will be a couple of weeks later in 2006, so maybe we will hit there when Cochran is in its blooming peak. The people there always make the Cushman folks feel welcome.

I took a few pictures which I plan to send to Gene for possible use on the club web site. Look for them, along with Gene's pictures, at www.southeasterncushmanclub.com It might be a few days because I plan to send them on a CD via snail mail.
Howard

Running the Dips

They might not be there anymore, but back in the 50's there was a set of "dips" on a side street out in Old Hickory. The dips were a couple of deep revines, side by side, with a street crossing both of them at a right angle. You were driving along on a flat street when suddenly, you would plunge down into the first dip. It was like falling off a mountain at anything over 30 mph. You hit the bottom and up you went to the "hump" in the middle, then right back down again into the second dip. At the bottom of the dips you were slammed down into your seat and you felt like you weighed a ton. At the top of the hump, you raised up out of your seat, only to be slammed back down again. Some people claimed that their car went airborne at speeds over 45 mph, but I did it a 50 once and most of the wheels stayed on or near the ground.

Dangerous? You bet. But we were just dumb kids. One night, as I topped the hump, I saw red lights starting down the first dip. (Police used red lights then. Maybe blue lights hadn't been invented yet.) As I came up out of the second dip the red lights were climbing the hump at a high rate of speed. As soon as the red lights dropped into the second dip, I turned right down a side street and turned out my lights. It worked. In my mirror I saw him continue straight ahead.

There were some accidents there and the speed limit was lowered from 30 to 20. My guess is that by now they have filled them in and put a flat street on top of the fill. How in the world did we ever manage to survive dumb stuff like that?
Howard

Identifying 50- and 60-series Cushmans

OK, you have found a barn fresh Cushman. It has the classic Cushman body, but you don't know how to tell which model it is. The differences seem subtle at first, but they are very different scooters. The 50-series model years were 1946 to 1948. The 60-series were from 1949 to 1956. Look for these differences:

Early 50-series had pencil springs in front. Barrel springs were used from mid-1947 until 1956, so if it has pencil springs, it's a 1946 or early 1947.

Look at the kick stand. The 50 series used a flat, straight kickstand with a steel pad on the end. The 60-series had a round kickstand with a curve near the end, but without the pad.

The 50-series had a smaller tail light with a metal guard around it. The 60-seris had a larger one without the guard.

The body of the 50-series goes straight down on the sides, but the 60-series flares out and is several inches wider at the bottom.

The 50-series has a two-piece block Husky engine. They call it that because the cast iron oil sump on the bottom is attached by bolts. The 60-series used several different versions of one piece block Huskys. They had a flat sheetmetal oil pan bolted to the bottom. It was more prone to oil leaks, but more powerful.

Eight-inch or six-inch wheels are found on 50-series and 7.75 inch wheels are on the 60-series. The six-inch wheel has a fat tire.

The 50-series Cushmans have a Permalite generator mounted on the right side of the engine. The 60-series has lighting coils in the magneto.

On the rear of the frame, a 60-series will have a curved brace between the tops of the rear springs. There is no brace on the 50-series. That part was probably put there to reduce flexing and prevent cracks in the frame.

The 50 series fuel tank is mounted on the back of the engine. The 60-series fuel tank is in the same location, but it is mounted on the body.

Both series had some models with a transmission and some without. The quick way to tell the difference is to look for a clutch pedal. The single speed scooters were the model 52 and the model 62. Some 60-series Cushmans had Varimatic transmissions and some had the two-speed.
Howard

kill! kill!

I just installed a kill switch on my 1953 Cushman model 62 . It's a safety thing. If the throttle sticks, and they usually stick in the wide open position, I will be able to kill the engine with a flip of my left thumb. I can do it with letting go of the grip.

Back in the Cushman era, 1936 to 1965, manufacturers were not required to put a kill switch on the handlebar. Cushman put a button on the engine's air shroud. You had to reach under the seat, find the button and hold it in until the engine stopped. It worked fine if the engine was at idle. But with an automatic clutch, and the throttle stuck on wide open, you aren't likely to get it stopped. Your best bet was to hit something soft and cheap.

This problem became obvious when a member of our club had a TSWO* incident. He was riding a Cushman Eagle with a Vanguard engine. The Vanguard is not the original engine. It has about twice the power of the most powerful Cushman engine. He hit a trailer. Fortunately he recovered and I suppose by now the scooter has been repaired. A kill switch would have saved him a lot of pain, money, and trouble.

Some of the stock kill buttons on the engine are easier to reach than others, but you still have to take your had off the handle bar to do it. Eagles and some Highlanders are easy because the engine sits out in the open. On a model 52, 54, 62, or 64 with the full body, they provide a slot that you can reach through, and you have a fair chance of finding the button, but on some Allstates and some Highlanders it is all but impossible to reach unless you get off the scooter. If you are sitting on the seat, it sinks down enough to block the opening in the body under the seat.

I won't know if my improvised kill switch will work until I get the gas leak in the carburetor fixed, but I am confident that it will. If it does, I still have some other scooters that need one. Even the ones with an ignition switch up front need a kill switch, because you might loose control of a runaway scooter if you take one hand off the handlebars.
Howard
*Throttle Stuck Wide Open

Electrical systems give me a jolt.

Electrical systems confuse me. I think the problem is that I can’t see those little electrons racing around through those conductors. If I have a problem with a sprocket chain, I can see what is wrong and usually I have it fixed in a few minutes. I can see gasoline dripping or cracks in cast iron parts. If the brakes won’t brake or the clutch won’t clutch, I can usually find the problem just by looking. But electrical problems are invisible. Things just sit there looking normal, but not working. An non-functioning electrical part looks just like a functioning one.

Most of my scooters have six volt systems. Well, by actual count, all of them but one. Six volts is not enough juice for a car. It took car makers a long time to figure that out. But shouldn’t it be enough for a scooter? Nope. If you add any accessories, you are probably going to be short on electricity. Besides, it’s hard to find anything that works on six volts anymore.

People talk about amps, volts, and watts like they know them personally. But have they ever even seen one? They can’t even talk about them without slipping into math mode, and who can understand that?

From what I’ve heard, a scooter can get electricity from a number of sources. Some have a battery that makes electricity from chemical energy. Others use magnetic gadgets like generators and alternators. They may also have a magneto, which is a dandy device for firing spark plugs, but it’s not good for much else. Most Cushmans have an extra coil or two inside the magneto to power the lights, but only the ones with electric starters have batteries. My Eagle has an electrical system somewhat like a car. That’s the one that has 12 volts, a sealed beam headlight, a lawn mower battery, and even a brake light. Cushman scooters never came with turn signals. I guess in the Cushman era, hand signals worked OK.

My ’47 Cushman has a high beam and a low beam. The lights are powered by a 6-volt Permalite generator and there is little chance that the high beam would blind anybody. It never had a brake light, but that would have been more useful than a dimmer switch. At idle, it takes a really dark night to tell if the headlight is even on. I’m thinking of adding a battery powered brake light. There is one available that lights up some LED’s when you hit the brake, but it isn’t wired in to the scooter’s own electrical system. It might keep me from getting run over.
Howard

archives

I notice that my early posts back in Februrary are already in the archives. To see that part, just look over on the right and scroll down about a page. Click '"Archives." I suppose it archives stuff once a month.
Howard

Carburetor blues

I'm glad our car and truck both have fuel injection. Carburetors are nothing but trouble. If you have an engine with a carburetor, and won't run, or won't run right, chances are it's the carburetor. When I bought my Silver Eagle, it came with two spare carbs. I should have seen that as a bad sign. Sure enough, the worst problems I've had were carburetor problems.

I have four Cushmans with complete and running(sometimes) Husky engines. The older ones use the Tillotson ML carb and the newer ones use the MT. It's very hard to read the model numbers on these carbs when they are on the scooter, so I have learned to look at the shape of the float chamber.

Speaking of floats, I have pretty much determined that the leaky MT on my 60-series has a stuck float. Either that, or the float has a hole in it. So this afternoon, for the umpteenth time, I'm going to yank the body off and see if I can get the top off the bowl without removing the carb from the engine.

I used to have an old Snapper lawn mower with an 8 hp B&S engine. The float valve would stick and it would drain all of the gas down into the crankcase. Getting the valve out and cleaning it up would fix the problem, but then I had to change the diluted oil. I suppose the inside of the crankcase was reasonably clean after that. I wish I had a dime for everytime that happened. I hated to part with that old mower, but that carb was good riddence.

Next, I'm going to complain about ignition systems.
Howard

Another new website!

I followed a link on the CCOA site and found a site that appears to be an on-line scooter museum. Lots of great pictures of scooters that you probably haven't seen.

http://scooter.lst1090.org/

Howard

A new website!

The new Cushman Club of America website is up and running.

www.cushmanclubofamerica.com

It was done by my friend, Gene who also did the one for our regional club, the Southeastern Cushman Club.

www.southeasterncushmanclub.com

And if that isn't enough for you, go to Jim's Cushman site.

www.hobbytech.com

Early birds are flying to Scooter Week

I know the scooter meet in Cochran, Georgia doesn't start until March 14, but some members of the Southeastern Cushman Club are already there. We plan to go down when it is in full swing, but will probably not stay the whole week. It doesn't seem like spring until we get to Cochran.
Howard

Road trip

We just got back from Middle Tennessee. It's about 150 miles one way. Too cold for a scooter so we took the Toyota. I saw my classified ads in the Rutherford Reader, a little classified paper down in Murfreesboro. "Wanted, scooters. . . , " and "Wanted, washing machine engines. . . " No calls yet, but a year or so ago I ran one there and got two calls that netted two parts scooters, both Cushmans.
Howard

for souped up Cushmans

I just checked out some performance parts for Cushman motor scooters at www.fastcushman.com . On that site you will see some stuff that you can use to make a Cushman go faster than they were ever intended to go. Going faster on a motor scooter is not for me, but some people ride them in traffic and they need to keep up. Motor scooters appeal to me because they are slow.

On page 4 of that site, I saw reproduction hubs that will work on an Eagle. As far as I know, there are no exact reproduction hubs available, so those after-market hubs are a good alternative. They probably work better than the originals. Most Cushman parts are reproduced so carefully you can't tell them from NOS. Fenders and wheels are good examples.

You often hear that the best way to make a scooter go faster is to lose weight. Usually, that means the rider, but your scooter can lose weight by replacing cast iron or steel parts with aluminum. You can get those at the site mentioned above.

No, they didn't pay me to say that.
Howard

undercoated scooter

I took the body off my 60-series Cushman to work on a fuel leak. The part of the body underneath the trunk has been undercoated. The only rust on the scooter is under the undercoating. They used to sell undercoating as a rust preventative. Ha!
Howard

snow

March 1, 2005 -- About half an inch of snow fell in the early morning hours today. That's typical of the snows we have had lately. If we got three inches it would be the snow of the century, considering that we haven't had more than 2.5 inches since the 1990's.
Howard