Skyway to the Danger Zone - Recap

What a weekend!  I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked for a variety of reasons.  First off, I had an issue with my Sportster that began about 150 miles away from Deals Gap.  Fortunately I was spending the weekend with some really competent Harley mechanics!

A broken exhaust flange on my rear head lead to all hell breaking loose! Got the exhaust welded up in town, still not fixed.  We eventually took the rear head all the way down to inspect the exhaust valve.  The fear was that my 150 mile ride with a loose exhaust could have bent or broken the valve.  

Once I was holding the head in my hand, I started to worry.  Everything looked good, no indication of damage and we poured gas into the combustion chamber - looking for leaks.

It was still mid-day Friday, so I was holding out hope to get it fixed in time to salvage the main ride on Saturday.  The trip to Maggie Valley, and Wheels Through Time Museum, riding back on the Cherohala Skyway and finishing with the Tail of the Dragon was the main event!

We were kind of at a loss at this point so we put the head back on, buttoned everything up and hoped for the best.  No good.  Still popping and backfiring through the rear exhaust pipe.

Since everything mechanical seemed to check out, we turned our attention to electrical and timing.  Points looked good, I replaced the condenser, spark plugs, and tried spark plug wires from Walt's FXR.  That seemed to be it.  The spark plug wires.  For a fleeting moment it fired up, idled, and revved like it was supposed to.  I was on top of the world!  Gigastatt Tim offered to drive me down the mountain in search of new plug wires.  All the parts shops were closed so we headed to Murphy NC (about 40 min away) to go to Wal Mart.  Big mistake, Wal Mart deems it unnecessary to carry plug wires.

I woke up early Saturday and headed down to Robbinsville to wait on the Carquest to open at 8:00.  The group was scheduled to leave at 9:00 so I was hoping the plug wires would do the trick.  I got back to Deals Gap and was really bummed that the new wires did not do the trick.  I could ride the bike, and I did around the parking lot, but it popped and banged and sounded like poop!  Oh well, I wasn't going to miss the day!

The bike would run, it just didn't want to idle.  Good thing there wasn't much idling in our 250+ mile journey.

All in all, it was an awesome day riding some of the best roads in the country.  Wheels Through Time was mind blowing and it was a great weekend with some of the best dudes on 2 wheels!

We had an awesome BBQ dinner and drank some cold beer while watching some intense pit bike racing in the parking lot.

Ross, Kustom Jeff and I left around 8:30 Sunday morning for the journey back to Birmingham.  We made it outside of Cleveland when we stopped for gas.  Kustom Jeff ran into a buddy who was in the area for the Shovelhead reunion.  Since he was driving his bike up in his truck he offered up his coil.  We were pumped that it seemed the coil would fix my problem but alas, it still didn't provide the fix.

We pushed on to Cleveland and I decided to pull over into a closed gas station for shade.  I thought that we could source some new points and another new condenser in Cleveland.  Kustom Jeff rode a few miles away to an O'Reilly Auto Parts and picked up the parts.  We installed them and while we were re-timing the bike, KJ noticed the points were arching on the cam bolt.  Apparently this was the problem all along!  We got the points installed into the notch that keeps them away from the bolt and it ran like a champ all the way to Birmingham!

I want another shot at those roads with my bike dialed in!  I am looking at the Bastard Bash in August and if I can make it happen I will be back!

I want to thank EVERYONE that pitched in and helped me salvage my trip.  Boss Ross, Kustom Jeff, Gigastatt Tim, 47 Industries Mike, Kickstart Walt, Otto Von Blotto, Biltwell Bill, MikeD and everyone else that chimed in with a theory on how to fix it.

This is probably the longest post ever on this blog, but it really was a crazy sequence of events!

I'll make another post with some pictures from the trip.  Search #skywaytothedangerzone on Instagram for everyone's pictures.