Just Rambling

Yesterday, the directors let us leave work early, which was nice.  I checked out the parking structure where I'll be stationing my car during the daily stay; once at the top I'll need to find a choice spot for my bike when better weather comes 'round.  The company helps pay for the parking so it's only $65/month for me.  Two years ago when I was working for Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield I was paying $100/month and that was the cheapest I could find (I then had to walk 1.5 miles to get to work from the parking structure).  So that's not too bad.  I do, truly, miss my parking spot at Yahoo!, heck, I miss my office and most of the people there.  I could look out my window and just a few feet away was my Italian Girl.  Now I'm in the top of a plain building, in the center of the floor, in a non-privacy cube (man I HATE them...if you're going to corral me in a work space then give me some privacy!) -- thank goodness I'm getting well-paid!

People.  Self-centered, self-absorbed, sheep and tools all about me, driving and reproducing.  Nothing specific about that day, just that we've all met them, only concerned about themselves, and my tolerance for putting up with their BS is dropping.  I noticed that the ones in Mercedes and BMWs were particularly on my "Take out with a RPG" list.  But the Sylvan area north of Hwy.26 is flooded with those people, keeping up with the Joneses.

At 4:09am the outside temperature was a brisk 14.1 degrees F!  But today the temps are slowly rising and the rains will be coming.  I wonder what December will bring...

Oh yeah, the thermostat went out on A's Passat so that get's fixed next week, along with the rear brakes since they're dragging and there's some creaking going on under the front of her car.  My Jetta got a stay in Dean Futrelle's shop so they could clean & grease the driver's side door latch/locking module.  The door wouldn't latch.  Kinda hard to drive to work holding the door, so I took the Passat.  That's when I discovered the thermostat was bad.  Oh, that reminds me, I need to get the sliding door on the Bus regreased; the grease is old and freezes up.  Not good.

Oh, forgot to mention that last night I measured the tank spread and it was a solid 33cm!  I also went into the garage and pulled on the mounting rails.  Not a lot, just a little, no more than .5 to 1mm on each side.  If my tank has spread then I'm hoping that it will shrink back to what I can only hope to be original size and once again fit snugly in its mounts.

Ducati tank expansion

My beloved Italian Mistress has a fault:  Fuel tank expansion.  There's debate as to what the cause is in the www.Ducati.ms Sport Classic forum.  Some people don't have it but most every one else does.  I'm guessing I have it as there is 2-3mm of side-to-side wiggle at the front of the tank.
Other owners are experiencing paint bubbling, too!  And these issues are not solely the bane of the Sport Classic line, it also affects other Ducatis with plastic tanks made by Acerbis, an Italian plastics and OEM company.

In order to combat this tank expansion (and possible paint bubbling issues), which at the worse will have the tank come off it's rails and flop around, is to coat the tank with a protective coating.  This seems to be the best way to stop tank expansion.  So the friendly staff at JC/PAKBIKES perform this service.

Yesterday I removed my tank, took off the fuel cap and fuel pump, and cleaned out the tank.  It's sitting in my closet for the next two weeks to dry out and, hopefully, unexpand (shrink back to stock width).  I took a measurement from the outside edges of the mounting pucks, where they meet the tank, and came up with 33.5cm...maybe a tad bit more but definitely under 34cm.

 

Map of the tank belly.

 Example showing how I find the edge to make the measurement.