Was a very relaxing weekend for me, something I have been looking forward to. You guys may remember my CJ sidecar motorcycle 
No doubt it’s a fifty looking ride but it does have 2 main problems first… being 1930’s technology it vapor locked terribly here in Florida in the summer plus being lippen hot and worrying if the motor would stop it was always a little on the scary side riding it when it was hot. Second…. I’m sorry but going somewhere is always speculative… you can only run 45mph for 5-10 minutes before the thing may just vapor lock anyway! Why… because it can mainly but driving 45 max…. holding onto a rattletrap feeling like it’s ready to just fly apart, rattles, noises, grinding sounds, wobbling, brakes suck, jumps out of gear if you don;t keep pressure on the shift pedal, speedo isn;t even close to right and it gets more off as you try and speed up. Speed up? well that’s a relative term… I mean you finally get in top cog.. 4th gear.. you are a noise generator that causes folks on the sidewalk turn around and look at you creep by, the main thing you are doing while riding is watching al the parts to be sure nothing falls off…….. it just gets a little boring after a while! Ah but after 10 months at a performance car internet garage up for sale with no takers… Oh boy… I get to be reaquainted with all that fun riding the thing. Oh BTW, his name is “Attila”.
So Attila came home Friday 
I had taken off all the personal trappings in preperation that someone would dress up his doll himself but Attila looks great 
Got rid of the black saddle bags in favor of the original box… I think I kinda like it and I added a little something I picked up at an MVPA (Military Vehicle Preservation Association) it’s a Cold war era (this is a 1966 Chinese military bike) Hazmat, cleanup portable kit made to fit in a fuel can bracket Betcha never saw one of these.. figured with owning Fire Fight Products something like that might be neat 
. So yesterday I didn’t have to ride far to get tired out which is actually a descent feature if you have a lust to ride but can’t take all day …. 30 minutes on this thing you could use a nap and a shot of gin! 
Anyway the day is on and I have the days subject to cover… here we go:
Coming in at the usual stupid early time, I went over to do another episode of Kevin’s Cocoon… Hety Kevin, where are you man 
. OK, you’re over pullinf top rails… oh joy… 
Buying one of these coaches this is something you need to know about and most probably do. The rails where the roof meets the sidewall on the outside of the coach is not a sealing rail… no, it covers the plyable sealant under it. GM knew this joint would need to move freely so the sealing system was a bead of butyl tape with that cover to protect it. Worked ok and that was the standard of the day. By this time that butyl tape is gone into clay and each screw along that rail is a potential leaker which shows a water leak at the back near the rear speaKERS OR UP FRONT JUST BEHIND THE DRIVER AND PASSENGER SEATS. Oops, sorry, pushed cap lock….
This rail needs to come off, the sealant under it dug out and renewed and all of those machine screw holes drilled and tapped out….. sorry guys there’s just no way around it 
You can see here the previous owner did a valiant job od trying to seal the rail and cross seam. That’s sort like putting a tire patch on the outside of the tire. The steel machine tort screws are threaded into a high tehsil strength hollow aluminum extrusion. With the screws rusting, electrolysis, 35 years of gobbing sealant I mean WHY wouldn’t all those screws come out? 
You can see Kevin has his cup of coffee there with him for this one! Each screw has to come out, if you breAK MORE THAN 3 OR 4 YOU SEAL ALL THE OLD HOLES AND MOVE THE ENTIRE RAIL UP … CAP LOCK AGAIN… forward then drill and tap onto some really hard aluminum every screw hole… drill, tap each one at a time!!! Yuk of a job and time…. oh man that is a killer!
Under this rail we find dead butyl tape, this rail had never been up. 
And now the white underbelly 
The verdict is in, the coach was originally blue. On doing an exterior refinish, we also remove those rails.. paint the coach then the rails separately then reseal and screw down the rail with stainless steel screws… true there will one day be corrosion from dissimilar metals again but it will take a while and the look is superior.
We’re not doing a complete paint job on this coach.. it’s a recent purchase we need to stop the rail inside so this is how you do it guys. The sealant under this rail is a German product with high elasticity and strong adhesion… the stuff is an air dry product and is $24 a tube… should take 3 tubes to do both rails…
NOW, on to an update on David G. and getting the Honda EV-4010 water cooled generator into his 23′ coach. Tony was over the other day with hank just getting the unit in place 
This job is a tight fit but it’s the best unit for this job .. it’s in the hole sideways, your fuses, circuit breakers, oil, cooland and spark plugs are still accessible with this slide bracket Hank fabricates 
Hank will finish this off with a 90degree tail pipe on the visible spark arrester sticking out.
OK, this day was long but we hit our goals, hope you enjoyed the post, call if I can help and thanks for the support….
