Final Stage of the Ride Project

Before we headed back to San Francisco with Jenny's bike, I needed to do an oil and filter change on the truck.  In the process of doing that, I noticed the clutch master cylinder was low on fluid.  Further investigation showed that it was leaking into the cab.  I put a new (rebuilt) master cylinder on the day before we left, and this turned out to cause some big worries during the trip. 

As I mentioned in the previous post, we decided to take two days to get to SF, and here is a picture taken from outside our room at our motel in Yreka, California:

I noticed during the first day that the clutch pedal had very little free play, even though I had adjusted it according to the specs.  As the day went on it seemed like I had less and less free play.  I adjusted it some more, but on the second day it actually slipped when I was leaving a rest stop.  I adjusted it again, but it didn't seem to be making much difference. 

Nevertheless, we got to San Francisco and unloaded the bike:

On Monday, Jenny was off to work:

And Carolyn and I were off to spend a couple of days with friends on their house boat on New Malones Lake near Angels Camp, California. 

It was pretty much the end of the season for house boating, but the weather was fine and we had the place all to ourselves.  Here are all the boats tied up to the dock.  We didn't take the house boat out on the lake, but did take a short cruise in their ski boat:

 
In the evening we had snacks on the top deck and later that night got in the hot tub:

The next day we toured some of the old mining towns near Angels Camp, and I noted some really good-looking roads for riding.  This could be a destination for another long ride.  One of our stops was at a winery where I took this picture of Carolyn with her friends and former employees Vicky (left), and Leti (on right).  The creature is a cross between a frog and a chicken and is called.......wait for it........a Fricken:

We got back to the house boat just in time for a windstorm that nearly caused the ski boat to self destruct against the house boat, but we saved it. 

I had a theory about what was happening with the truck clutch that I discussed with our friend Gary, who is a car nut and he agreed that it could explain what was happening.  My thought was that the new master cylinder was defective and was not allowing fluid to return after the pedal was depressed.  If this was the case, I could perhaps relieve some of the pressure by cracking the bleeder screw on the slave cylinder and letting some of the fluid out.  So the first time the clutch started to slip on our drive home, I got under the truck and let out some hydraulic fluid.  It worked!  I had to do it again the second day and I'm sorry I didn't get Carolyn to take a picture of me in the Starbucks parking lot laying under the truck on a piece of cardboard that I had bummed from them.  She says she thought about it but was afraid I was too pissed-off to allow it.   

At any rate, we made it home and I don't think I destroyed the clutch, so all is well and the epic ride is really over.