Petcock replacement and a meeting with our lawyer???....

Hello again, Ed here.

OK, so when I was preparing to write this post I was going to originally write about the petcock first to keep you in suspense about the lawyer thing, but I started to think about it and really the meeting with the lawyer was one of the most important to do items for our trip.  The meeting had something to do with what we believe everyone needs to think about and act upon.

So why did we go?  No, we are not suing someone nor are we being sued.  The reason we went was for estate planning.  Don't get me wrong, we really like it here and have no intentions of leaving this life any time soon, but we want to make sure our children are taken care of and our assets are protected.  If you pass away without any estate planning, the state (at least here in Oklahoma) gets to dictate what happens to your kids and assets via the probate process.  The well being of our kids is the most important thing to Devon and I, we also don't want our families to deal with the pains and messes of probate.

Devon and I wrote a will about nine years ago when we took our first vacation away from our kids.  That was about nine years ago and our situation has changed considerably since then.  This time, we wanted a professionally written trust vs. a will we created with the Family Lawyer computer program.

So we were sitting in this conference room waiting for the attorney to come in, Devon and I were joking about a good friend of ours who also uses the same attorney when the attorney walks in.  The attorney immediately says to us, "wow, people laughing in an attorney's office, that's unusual".  I immediately knew I was going to like this guy.  The meeting was a real eye opener, this guy really knew his stuff.  He explained all of the pitfalls that could come up and how we would write the trust to avoid or plan for the pitfalls.  We also learned of some of the tax consequences that can occur if you do not do it right.  We learned that even though we currently have a will, our estate would still have to go through probate and there could be all kinds of pitfalls there.  So the bottom line is that we are glad we went and are going through the process.  We feel our family will be very well protected with all the safety nets that have been put in place. 

If you have not completed or considered any estate planning, we highly recommend it.  Many of us tend to put this off thinking death is so far off, but in reality you never know when the Reaper will come for you.

Sorry if I brought you down thinking about this topic, let's head into the garage where we'll change out the fuel petcock on the Wing.

The process is very simple and takes about forty minutes start to finish, let's grab some wrenches, screw drivers, and a pair of pliers and get started.

Our first step is to remove the seat.

Here is the piece we are after, it is just in front of the gas cap.  You will notice the tray under the petcock is slightly damp from fuel.

Here is a little better of a photo.  At this point, I removed the top shelter and radio so I could access the petcock.

At the bottom left side of the fuel catch tray is a tube that will drain gas spillage away from the motor.  This tube needs to be disconnected from the gas tray. 

Remove the vacuum line from the petcock.

Disconnect the fuel lines from the petcock.

Remove the fuel cap and tilt the fuel tray to the right side of the bike.  On the bottom of the fuel tray, there is a small screw that holds the petcock to the fuel tray, remove this screw.  I used a right angle phillips head screw driver to loosen the screw, then used a magnetic tip from a screw driver that I have (the type where you can change heads, I used only the magnetic head as the entire screw driver will not fit in this space).

 Unclip the idle adjustment screw and pull the old petcock out.

Here is the old petcock out of the bike.

 

This photo shows the bottom of the petcock, it looks like it had been seeping for quite some time.  I plan to keep it to rebuild and sell once the kits become available again..

Here is a photo of the nice and shinny new petcock.

Here is the back side.

The installation is the reverse of the removal.  Here it is back in the bike.

Today Devon and I are going to look into some silk glove liners.  Devon's hands have been getting cold when we ride even with her new gloves.  I have heated grips which work great to keep my palms warm, but my finger tips tend to get a little cold.  At this point, we do not want to buy heated gloves, so we are going to see if silk liners will help.  We may not need these on our trip, but we will have them for our weekend rides during the winter.

Tomorrow, we are planning a breakfast ride but are not yet sure of where we are going.  We may go out to the Rock Cafe in Stroud again, or try Mom's Place in Stillwater, or even perhaps The Sunrise Cafe in Nicoma Park.  Devon and I really like the food and ambiance of small cafes.  Talk to you soon, have a great weekend.