11 February 2018 – I got up and went downstairs to pay for
another day. Guess what? This is a love hotel. I saw at least three couples use
it for that purpose. They were very young: late teens, early twenties. Anyway,
I had a bigger issue to worry about…my rear brake. I got it cleared through the
man of the house that I could work on my motorcycle. He backed his van out and I
pushed my motorcycle up into the daylight where I could see what I was doing.
I removed my right saddle bag / pannier and dug out my
tools. I got out my metric Allen / L-wrenches and removed my break caliper.
Sure enough, the brake pads were worn down to the metal. Typically, these pads
last 10,000 Miles / 16,000 Kilometers. These pads only lasted 7,000 Miles /
11,000 Kilometers. I attributed this to all the mountain driving I have been
doing. Lots and lots of braking in all those mountain switch backs. I went into
my spare parts bag and pulled out a new set of rear brake pads. I was carrying
two sets of them. I also have them for the front disk rotor. I got out my file
and flat-filed off any welded on globs of steel on the rotor. I also noticed
some work hardening on the outer diameter. I don’t think that will be any
problem. I roughed up the pads, cleaned up brake caliper, the disk rotor and
caliper mounting arm. I dipped my rag in the gas tank and wiped all my parts
clean with the gas rag. It works pretty slick. I showed the owner of the hotel
my worn out disk pads and he kind of shook his head. Both he and his wife were
giving me this look……Can this Gringo get this motorcycle put back together? They
were worried and I kind of smiled.
Well, I put everything back together and
Loctite the bolts holding the brake caliper to the brake caliper mounting arm.
I pumped up the brakes and tested the brakes. They were holding and releasing
when I took my foot off the brake pedal. I re-installed the right saddle bag /
pannier and put everything back into it. I tested the rear brake again and
everything was still working. I backed it farther back into the garage so the
owner could get his van back in. Everybody was happy. The Gringo was going to
be leaving.
All the time I was working on my motorcycle, this little dog
with a loud bark continued barking non-stop. He also riled up the other dogs in
the neighborhood with his / her barking. Well, I went to my room and the
barking continued all afternoon while I was planning my route around Lima,
Peru. I got Blanche programmed to go around the city as best I could and was feeling
pretty happy about it. Then I got to thinking I should purchase some Yamaha
20w-50 engine oil. I looked up on the internet to see if there was a Yamaha
Dealer Lima. There is one, but it’s in the inner city. I thought to myself if
I’m going to be driving up to Cuzco, Peru – Machu Picchu – through all those
mountains, I should change oil. There will be a lot of shifting and clutching.
It will be best to have new oil in the engine. So, I programmed a route into
the city to the Yamaha Dealer. I got that done before 9:00 p.m. Blanche was all
tuned up and ready to go. I had my hotel picked out in Nazca, Peru for tomorrow
night. Things were looking up. The little dog was still barking. How could a
dog bark that much? He was going on 12 hours of straight barking. I went to bed
listening to the barking dog. I woke up sometime after 10:30 p.m. and the dog
was still barking. I went back to bed.
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