Mixed up some 50:1 gas for the Alpine.  Pumped the straight gas out of the tank of my Bearcat and refilled the tank with 100:1 "season starter" mix.  Getting my gear together to do the first ride of the season tomorrow and the inaugural ride of the Alpine.

As I‘m currently renovating my chalet (since I bought it in 2019) I did some plumbing works. I installed some  new stainless water pipes for cold and hot water from the water heater.

Had first proper lesson on the bass today, didn't do too bad, plenty of practising for next week, though 

I'm extremely proud of her.! 

 

Had first proper lesson on the bass today, didn't do too bad, plenty of practising for next week, though 

Keep it up! I've heard Mark King needs an assistant.

Come here and get a 

  ...

Fixed the electric start on the Alpine today.  The starter cranked over really slowly, and if it was cold enough, wouldn't work at all.  First suspect was the battery.  It had a small 4-wheeler battery installed, with foam stuffed into the space on either side in the battery well.  Those batteries just don't have the output at the cold temperatures that snowmobiles operate at.  I stole the 1-year-old battery out of the Bearcat, because it looked like it was the right size.  After removing the excess foam, the battery dropped right in like a perfect fit.  One issue though, is that the positive terminal was nearly touching the belt guard.  I flipped the battery around and that solved that problem.  The positive cable had no trouble reaching, but the negative wouldn't reach.  I would need a longer cable.  I pulled the battery out, connected the cables and attempted to start.  Same problem with the engine turning over very slowly.  Also noticed smoke coming up from the point where the negative cable was bolted to the chassis.  Seems there's an extra resistor in the circuit.  Went to the parts store to get another snowmobile battery and another negative battery cable.  When I got back, I decided to find a different point to connect the chassis ground.  Found an easy to access motor mount bolt and used that.  When I tried the starter, it spun over quickly like it should have, and there was no smoke, at least until the engine fired over (2-stroke).

I spent most of the night in my Metal Halide lit garage. It took me a while but I finally achieved an oil change on my motorcycle, by myself.
Not engine work, but still something I'm proud of accomplishing.

Always good when you can do something yourself that you'd otherwise have to pay somebody to do for you. Sadly, I'm a mechanical ignoramus, so I'm hopeless with things like that

Don't have a garage either, so nowhere to do the job even if I could 

I spent most of the night in my Metal Halide lit garage. It took me a while but I finally achieved an oil change on my motorcycle, by myself.
Not engine work, but still something I'm proud of accomplishing.

More difficult than you'd think it should be huh?  On my V-Star 650, draining and refilling the oil isn't so bad.  The oil filter on the other hand, is buried inside the engine.  The 1100 is even worse, because part of the exhaust has to come off too!  I have a filter relocation kit I'm going to install next time I do an oil change.

@Rommie, I highly agree, which makes the situation I'm dealing with regarding my Mazda 3 that much worse, mentally.
@Icefoglights, the oil filter with mine is located right next to the oil drain plug. The main hassle for me was removing the fairing.
The other main hassle was pouring the oil in, since I didn't have a funnel.
Today I tried to take care of an issue I'm having with my Mazda 3... coolant. There is a coolant leak somewhere at the bottom of the engine.
Coolant is the word of the day for me... my Mazda, Genesis and Daytona are all very low in coolant, with my Mazda's coolant leaking.
I'm in the process of putting coolant in the Genesis though, thinking about flushing out the small remaining old coolant first. I'll be doing
the same for my bike, once I find the compatible coolant for it.

Did some work on the snowmachines.  On the Arctic Cat, I had been wanting to install a tachometer.  It was an option that mine didn't come with.  Instead, there was just a black plastic blank.  Tracked down the right one on eBay, but when I went to install it, it was a loose fit.  Checked the speedometer, and there was a rubber cushion ring that I needed to find.  Tracked down an NOS cushion ring and finally got the tach installed.

For the Alpine, this one is slightly lighting related.  The headlight didn't work.  The hi/lo beam switch was mounted to the handlebars and had been broken.  I couldn't find a replacement, but I did find an NOS hi/lo beam switch for a different model that was dash mounted instead of handlebar mounted.  There was an empty hole in the dash where a tether safety switch had been removed.  I bored out the hole and rerouted the wires to the new location.  Currently only the high beam works, but the low beam filament showed no continuity, so I have a new bulb on order.

My car has the speedo and tacho arranged like this. Although personally I prefer the speedo on the left, but this seems the more common arrangement 

Now I had to look 

Of all of the vehicles that I've had that had a tach, one had the tach on the left and speedo in the middle.  One had the tach on the right and the speedo in the middle.  The other three had both the speedo and tach centered, with the tach on the left and speedo on the right.