South of Sunnyside

I’ve often heard that a service can’t be provided fast, cheap and with high quality (all at the same time)—it can be fast and good, but it won’t be cheap. Or, it can be cheap and good, but it won’t be fast. You get the idea.

And with a new (used, that is) Harley, I’ll be lucky if I find any of these, at least in combination. Parts and service of decent quality are accessible, but they seem exorbitant in price.

But maybe I’m a little quick to judge:

Last weekend I discovered that one of my gas tanks was leaking due to a weakness around its upper mounting bolt. I took the tank off the bike and rinsed it out, but struggled to find anyone who would work on it (evidently, welding on a gas tank is dangerous). Alas, my boss pointed me in the direction of a local radiator repair shop, and they agreed to fix the leak.

I dropped the tank off at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I was warned that efforts would be made to preserve the paint, but that no guarantees could be made. I waited to hear just how much this would cost me: worst-case scenario, I was told, would be $75. Okay, so I can get the work cheap, but in what time frame? I picked it up at 4:30 p.m. that same day.

I can’t say yet whether or not the quality is what I hoped, as the tank still has to dry before I can re-assemble the motorcycle and fill it with gasoline, but the shop preserved the paint job, and even cleaned the rest of the tank in the process (the leaking gasoline had mixed with dirt to form a greasy sludge on the bottom). They also soldered over the effected area, smoothing it out and making it much more presentable that what I brought to them.

The shop is inconspicuously located downtown; I wonder how such reliability, timeliness and affordability affects their business?

I was warned that Harleys require a great deal of hands-on maintenance. Actually, several people “informed” me that H-D actually stands for “Hundred-Dollars”—even little add-ons or repairs cost that much.

The bike is in great shape, but John pointed out a small gas leak before he sold it to me. He gave me a new seal to repair what looked to be the cause, and shortly after getting the bike home, I drained the tanks and in no time was good to go.

Or so I thought.

I fired ‘er up and let it run for a few minutes; no leaks, so I took it around the block.

Drip.

Drip.

Argh…

Realizing that the leak was actually coming from the inside of the tank (then dripping down to the petcock, so it appeared to be leaking there), I set out to remove the tanks and get a closer look.

The short story is that I got the tanks off, found the leak (from a crack around the rear mounting bolt), found many people afraid to weld on it (gas and flame…um…don’t mix?), but lucked out when a local radiator repair shop agreed to fix it. Now, all is well. I’ll post more as the work continues.