Andy, welcome to the hole in the head moto story time podcast with Andy Taylor and Blaine dimlo In this episode, it's pretty much just one long but necessary rant about Ducatis and the joy of getting input from an online community, but chances are you'll be able to relate.
I'm working on the Ducati single. I've got a 350 scrambler, wide case. I'm not sure it's a wide case, 350, late 60s. And I got I heads off. I had to find a new barrel, because the old cylinders toast the
last we talked, that you just sort of given the bottom end to really good cleaning and flushing, and felt like the mains were good enough to kind of stop there. Is that correct? Yes,
that is correct. So I got, well, I don't need to do the bottom end. Everything feels good enough. The inside is shiny, bright and shiny. So I have a suspicion it was an old race bike. The guy that had it for me was racing it. And so everything feels okay in spite
of all that. So about a two years ago, I sourced a cylinder and piston because I knew at some point I found it cheap you're gonna need at some point I'm gonna need it, so I went ahead and bought it, and it sat on a shelf for about a year and a half. Did your wife somewhere? No, it's in the it's in the shop, it's in the garage. Okay, so you put it somewhere, yeah, what's fucked up is, like, as cluttered and chaotic as my shop is, I know exactly where. No, I
know everything is, yeah. So, so I pull this, pull this jug off the shelf, and put the base casket on, and get everything prepped, slide it over the arm, put the put the gudgeon pin in, and seat it all the way down on the lower end, turn the engine over, and the cylinder pops out of the top. The cylinder is too short. Oh, what I in fact, have is 125 millimeter barrel, rather than 135 which is what I need. So I have a narrow case barrel
for my y case. So no big deal, but it's a pain in the it is a big deal. But it's not like
it's a setback, because now you gotta go hunting. Now
I gotta go find one, a thing that I thought I already had. So I go on to this Facebook group, which I thought they're pretty active, bunch of old dudes, old racing guys. Surely somebody has got a wide case. 350 Okay, let
me, let me just predict. I'm gonna guess that your internet friends on Facebook aren't as helpful as they could have.
Oh my god, but you go ahead share this story. It's It was insane, and to the point where I'm like, I'm doing this in real time with my wife, and she could give a shit about what's happening on this, but I'm like, Do you believe what Jim's saying right now? This is insane. And to the the underlying all, to all of this is it's it's mediated through social media, so everything is
in snippets. These are like 65 plus year old guys who who don't understand the nuance of text Totally, yeah, and they don't. They don't necessarily understand the nuance of my generation text or whatever.
Just for the record, what was the question or issue that you wish to address primarily?
I'll tell you. I'll read it and I say it twice. I mean, I'm not like,
Oh, hey, if you, if you can pull it up and read it to me, I would love to go. I'm
gonna read it verbatim. I'm not a novelist. I wasn't an English major, but I can, I can get the fucking point across pretty quick, dude. I mean, like, No,
I understand this is gonna go. This is gonna illustrate how fucking dumb people be. Can be on a forum. Smart people can be collectively absolutely stupid well,
but I think, I think we're, I think we are going to segue from BMW guys to Ducati guys.
Oh, listen, I
was the Ducati guys.
I spent six weeks in the Ducati hole. But I won't run that over your story, but you go ahead.
Here's the at, here's the literal, there's the literal post, hoping some hoping someone has some spares or guidance, have cobbled together bits to my 350 wide case scrambler, got the piston on the rod and the cylinder on but the throw is too far for the cylinder barrel. The Piston pops out of the top, past the top ring, of course, using a 76 millimeter Borgo in what I
thought was the right jug. I assume narrow case rods are shorter than wide case, the jug measures 125 millimeters from crown to the bottom of the skirt. But rather not I'd rather not have to split the cases again. Does anyone have a correct. Correct barrel.
Okay. So the primary questionnaire is, does anyone have a correct barrel for a white case? Okay.
In fact, I started it. I started it with, hoping someone has some spares, yep. And I ended it with, does anyone have the correct barrel?
I believe I have picked up the essence of the message so far. Yeah, go ahead. Let's
I need a 350 wide case. Yeah, I even gave you. It's a 76 millimeter.
And you gave me more information than I wanted. Yeah.
Now the first comment that I made was I got ahead of it, and said, By the way, confirmed. I just measured the old, original jug that it came with. And there's a it's 10 millimeters taller I can I've confirmed I have the wrong barrel. I need this. Okay, okay. First comment, how many fins are on the barrel? I said, well, well, one less than there should be, there's eight,
right? Yeah. Well, I mean, you know why somebody asked that? Somebody knows that there's a 10 fin barrel and a 12 fin barrel or something like that, and that that's what they're getting, getting to. And
they just, they just want me to know that they know that. Yeah, that's right. Then another guy comes in and says, 350 cylinders have nine fins. 250 has eight wide or narrow case. This
is a wonderful fucking rabbit trail that we're going down talking about fins. Now, when the original question was, does anybody have a barrel? Now we're going to talk about fins. Okay. And
then I said, I said, Well, hey, but guy, this setup again, is a 76 millimeter bore with eight fins like I'm not interested in. We can talk about diagnosis of what I have, yep, but again, I know what I need. Does anyone have it? Okay? We
could also talk about the production history of when they provided eight fin as opposed to 10 pins when they switched over.
Oh, no, we get there. Hey. Oh, we get there.
Thank God, thank God, because that's
what. And I said, I said, Are you saying that 350s have nine whether they're narrow or wide? Case like, I'll, yeah, okay, I'll humor you in this conversation. That's not asking for but, yeah, okay, okay. And he says, Well, it's obviously a 250 cylinder. It's too short.
Thank you. Yeah.
I said, well,
thanks. That didn't occur to you when you decided to post on the forum.
Did that? Yeah, when I said the barrel is too short, it didn't ever occur to me that the barrel be too short. So I said, Hey, man, it is. It says it's a 250 cylinder. It's not it is too short. So that should have been obvious to me when I bought the fucking thing. Well, I said, Hey, it's not too obvious. Because obvious, because it is a 76 millimeter bore, right? So, to be fair, a 76 millimeter bore is 350 I didn't count the fucking fins, don't I don't need to. Does anyone have a 350 wide case
barrel? Right? And he said, standard bore is a 250 standard bore on a 250 is 74 and it can be bored to 76 millimeter.
Oh, that's good to know, yeah, because you asked about boring it,
right? Yeah, yeah, okay, that's even if I cared that, that's fine. I do appreciate that. Yeah, good to know this guy could have been bored.
This guy's new name is Ducati dick. All right, you caught it dick. Just trying to put in one piece of information because it makes him look like he really knows his shit. That's all that was, right? Yeah, well, there's an area question,
yeah, what's that? So there's, there's three of these guys, okay,
at the end of this, we're gonna publish their names and their contact, all right, and we're gonna get these guys banned from the internet.
And I feel bad because, like, I think that in one well, okay, so it gets Go ahead. Next, Next, original guy, I'll call him a, and then this last guy who told me that, you know the ins and outs borings, he's B, but a comes back and says, it throws a shitload of numbers at me. 250, equals eight. 350, equals nine, 450 equals 10. Okay, I get that. Okay, thank you. Conrad links, 253, 50 narrow equals 125, 253, 50 wide equals 135 450, wide only equals 140 Okay, okay, so he's, he's outlined what things
came with. That's right, what I could expect if I had a bunch of if I needed identify these jugs? Okay, right?
Just to clarify, none of this information so far addresses any of your questions, right? My
one question, which is, do you have anyone have a 350 wide base barrel? Nobody's okay. He's either an idiot or an asshole. And I'm sure he's a sweet I'm sure he's a great guy. I'm sure he's awesome. It'd be fun to ride with, pal around with, but
he's I'll bet he is tiresome fuck in
this channel. He is a tiresome Okay, so then C guy, C comes in,
oh no, Ducati, yeah, can't say that word. I can't say the C word.
So he says, Hey Andy, the boars on the 250 and 350 are almost identical. Okay, so help there. They're not but okay, yeah, sure, I said. And then he comes back and he says, Hey Andy, the 250s are highly over square, and the 350s are almost square or equal. Boring stroke. I don't know what any of that means. The bores on each displace, but the bores on each displacement may be equal. I don't remember.
Okay, all right. Again, it's completely superfluous, right? Don't, don't even care. But anyway, just, just real quick for the folks at home, when a boar is under square or over square or square square is mean that it's 76 millimeters around, and it travels 76 millimeters in a stroke. That's square, right? Oh, okay, yeah, that's under, yeah, yeah. So if it's under square or over square, that means one of the dimensions is longer, that's all it means.
Okay, all right, so does that so does that mean that you have a 350 wide case barrel?
Do you have one in your garage? Is it for sale for less than $150
and can you ship but then, so then I posted another picture, again, just trying to be helpful, guys, here's a picture of a profile of my barrel. I get it. It's got eight fins. Here's the piston popping out. This is, again, this is what I'm dealing with. You guys, does anybody have one? And then guy D comes in. He's, he's actually a little bit more helpful in that he changes the the trajectory of what my solution could be, right? Let's hear, I'll be the judge. Okay,
let's hear it. So he says, Hey, a barrel spacer may save you a lot of pain. Okay, okay, yeah. And I think, okay, that's a cut. That's a that's an entry into that's pretty constructive. That's
pretty constructive. I
said, Hey, man, that's what I assumed. But
that's the advice portion. Because you said, Does anybody have or guidance, or that's so now you're getting some guidance. So who's this guy? This guy, this guy, Joe, this guy we invite to our campouts. This guy's in the club.
He said. I said, um, that's what I assumed, or at least finding the right jug. Is there someone, and to be fair, is there someone making spacers? Yeah, yeah. I mean, okay. And then he said, I made one once. I Well,
all right, okay, so that indicates that you can make one yourself. I understand that you could make one yourself. Yes, you probably understand that.
And that was, that was a short you know thing, maybe. And then he says, 10 millimeter spacers are fairly common. Okay, great, okay. Then I said, Well, Joe, I'm not really set up for machining right now, yeah. Plus, I'd also need the cam drive spacer, right? Because if I'm raising this, I might need the cam drive spacer and common where, yeah, like, What do you mean by comment? Who, yeah, I don't see anything off the shelf at the usual spares sites.
Okay, so Rs, there's spacer, okay, right? There's not, that's
not like an off the shelf thing. So okay. And he says, Well, yeah, true. So he then he tells me that, yeah, I would need to do this, that the other thing, and then measure this, but then this might be off of then the skirt would be a little too high. And I was like, Oh my god. So I followed this down. And to give them the benefit of the doubt, it just doesn't sound like I'm something I'm interested in for this project. Because again, if anyone has a 350 wide case barrel, that would be great.
Okay? And then if, ultimately, because they're so common, he says, what he says is, I already have a 350 bevel drive for this other racing bike that he's but whatever, someone did have one for sale in this group, but I could make it for what he was asking. So again, they're common, but so expensive that he just made it himself, right? So, okay, well, that that doesn't really now we're back to unhelpful. Okay,
so this guy is is turning into a little bit of an oxygen thief, right in the fact that it started out as almost helpful, and we, I let him in the club, but he's right now he's about to get kicked out. He's
he better buy dinner. Yeah, I mean, he better buy he better read the breath or bring some cupcakes or something. Camden with us.
He better have a motorhome with a big screen TV and a really good selection of movies. That's the only way we're keeping that guy around.
So then a a jumps back in and says, measure the bottom of the liner. You'll discover it's 80 millimeters diameter 250 when a 350 is 81 millimeters, you need a 359 fin barrel. Yeah, that that's again. It's what I'm asking for. And he says, and then he goes in to tell me that a spacer doesn't work. You know, fitting a spacer under the barrels not a solution. There'll be nothing. Aligning the barrel correctly, hence the head and drive shaft won't be located adequately. Okay, fine, okay, yeah, okay,
not interested in spacer. Does anybody have a 350 White Case barrel? Okay? And then I reply and say, hey, thanks. I get that. I need the correct cylinder. That was the ask here, if anyone has spares also, and I'll humor you this on this one also. This all the specs I see, say a 76 millimeter piston is for the 350 not the case. This was my mistake. Yeah, that was your mistake. That was my bad. I shouldn't
have now you kicked a an engineering facts hornets nest, and now all these guys are going to start to fly at you, edit each other, trying to prove whose measurements and whose sources are more correct, is that what happens
because, because every table, every manual, every Ducati, anything that I've read, is that a 250 is a 74 millimeter piston. A 350 is a 76 give or take. Yeah, okay, now, yes, you can bore a 250 out to 76 but a 350 came with a 76 millimeter piston like this. This is now another point. It's like, I don't give a fuck about any of this possibility within the spec range of a Ducati, right? Does anyone have a 350 just answer, no. Yeah. And then so I said, Okay, well, just
okay, just to sum up where we are, so far, you've been entirely correct. You've been unhelped by everyone, except for the fact that you did respond with, I should not have engaged. Yeah, you shouldn't have gone into that, because that's going to contribute to the ongoing dysfunction, yeah?
And so then that's like, that's like, if you're carrying a tray of glassware, and you trip a little bit, you trip a little bit, but you might save yourself, yeah, if you trip again, not only do you fall, the tray falls. Every single glass falls and that shatters. And so then you have a giant clusterfuck everywhere that you have to clean up. Well, Mr. Comes back.
This is about what happened. Yeah, yeah.
He says, 250s or 74 millimeter, 350 76 and 450s 86 because, yeah, okay, I know I get that, because that's what I just said, Okay, fine, I said. And then he comes back. He says, Oh, by the way, whatever your 76 pistons been running in, it's been hitting the head. Ouchy face. Ouchy face. So now he's saying that the 76 millimeter piston I'm using, yeah, is not good enough, or up to par, or, I mean, I'm not feeling judged.
But like, he's saying, Oh, you're gonna use that piston, yeah, and the piston looks, I mean, like piston looks fine. I don't see any score. He just
looked at the picture. Okay, here's, here's what I'm thinking with that guy is I just ate a bowl of spaghetti, and I have a fork right here in my hand. I'm not sure whether to hunt this guy down and stuff it right in between his nose, you know, in that tender part and just causing pain, or if I just jam it in my own fucking eyeball to end my life, because this is becoming so depleting.
And then, so here's, here's where we start to splinter off. And this is where the first glass falls. Oh, here's where I start to splinter off. Yes, yes. He said, you know, whatever the 76 piston was running in, it's been hitting the head. And I said, hey, where do you, what do you mean? What do you? Where do you? Where do you see that I don't under Wait. He says, Where did I see that? You posted two photos, so obviously in them,
great, okay,
I'm not gonna bite. Not gonna bite, yeah, not gonna bite. And then I said, Hey, okay, okay. And then I quoted his two comments. Because then at that point, I'm like, Okay, well, it's weird because from based on what I'm hearing now, I have an eight fin barrel. I'll indulge it. I have an eight fin barrel, so obviously a narrow case, 250 and yet I have a 76 millimeter piston, which is a 350 Oh, if you're saying that 76 is where 350s and you're saying eight fin barrels were 250
narrow cases only. There's a bit of a discrepancy here.
You are not going to be able to call that out or solve that. Hang on, this is where it gets
good. I said, here's here's the quote, here's the comment that you made, here's the second comment that you made. I said, these do cut. These two comments do not square. Yeah, these two comments don't square. Based on all the information, they don't square. He says, I don't understand what you mean. Pistons around, not square.
Okay,
okay, we're so I took a deep breath. I had to take a deep breath. I said, Hey, okay, the specs you gave per narrow, case, wide case, and a 253, 50, do not jive. I have an eight fin, 76, millimeter jug. Why do you and you know, okay. And then guy E comes in and says, Well, Andy, because you have a 250 cylinder that has been a bore two millimeters oversized. Using a 350 piston, you can see a mark halfway of the piston squish where has been hitting the head. And the head
suit 250 bore size. If they came in, they came in the same box of bits. You may just be missing the spacer for the barrel. Measure it like, okay, somewhat helpful, but
it actually okay. What? That's a possibility. That's a possibility, sure.
But again,
still didn't tell you that he's got one on the shelf, or that he knows a guy that has one. I
said, thanks for that. It's been a little while since I got the JUGS in the piston, but I believe I got them separately, independent. But under that, the original barrels toast hadn't measured it, and I'm sure the bevel is fine, similar to the piss, the only bits that are not original, I pre and then Phil, guy, he comes back still, and now he's addressing guy. E, not me. He's
addressing guy. And says, Well, Phil, the problem regards the unsupported, shorter liner from the 250 narrow case now and then he says, mind you. And now this is kind of at me, I feel. He says, mind you. We've only got about 150 years of experience with old Ducati singles, my God. So you know what I mean. Like, you know what that means. Like, I know exactly
what that means, you know,
I know. And then I said, that means, guys, I appreciate the experience. I understand. It's the wrong cylinder at this point again, because I made another comment earlier. I'm looking for a spare 350 wide case barrel, per the original post. That's
right. In fact, can I make a fantasy add to this? Can I pretend I'm in the loop?
Yeah, I gotta tell you. I gotta come
in here. All right, see if, see if you didn't get this one. All right. Hey Andy, I see that you need a 350 y k cylinder. I knew a guy that had one just down the road for me in his barn. That was about 12 years ago.
That would be a good response, right? If it were 1997 God, I could have helped you out. Yeah. So, okay, so then, so, then this is where I'm like, I'm just, I'm done. Okay, this is not going to be helpful. Totally fine. Okay. And then today, I'm at lunch today with my daughter having a hamburger, and I get a notification that someone comments it on my post. I'm like, Okay, well, let's see what happens now. Okay, you know, hey, what about re sleeving the correct cylinder?
Yeah, okay. Okay, good. I said, Hey, man, that's an option I've considered, but I thought for sure someone would have a 350 wide case cylinder, plus the original has at least one broken fin. Okay, yeah, Mr. B. Guy B comes back in, comes back in this the original guy comes back in and says, I have 350 cylinders in stock, $150.02 minutes later, two minutes Later, he says, wait, I should have said sleeve. I I said, Wait, do you have a cylinder or just sleeves? And that was three hours ago. No
response. So, so no response. So he either has what I need after, like, 12 hours
and and could have said that in the first post, he
was the very first person to reply to the post. So Andy,
I think Listen, by bringing this to light, I've always wanted to show, or have a an illustration of how dysfunctional forums and all this kind of the way we message each other is, I mean, it is absolutely it. It explains why all this technology didn't save us any time, right? Yeah, yeah. It just, it just totally sucked your life dry. And this is, I think this is going to go viral.
I think everybody in the world is going to listen to it, and they're going to say that every forum in the world is like this. Every conversation at work is like this. And my question to you is, what message can you now offer to anybody who ever gets their finger near a fucking keyboard to respond to a question? What would you tell them? Yeah,
hang on. I'll ask your I'll answer your question by telling you about the history of instant messaging and how it first came out as a response. It to emails that were taking too long. I
worked at Hewlett Packard in 1989 when we were just experimenting with this in house. Yeah, well, I
mean, the comment is different than an instant message, right? Let's talk about that for a minute. Okay, so here we go. I feel like it's me. I have to assume that it's me. I know you had issues with the forum, and especially Ducati forums. I know you had issue with yours, but it's so it's so aggravating, because I see successful cases of what I'm asking for and what I need from this group, I see success for other people all the time, yeah, and but it feels like it's usually like the people that
have the biggest wins. And what I mean is, they have a problem, they state that problem, and then within the first couple comments, the problem solved, or at least they have some guidance towards solving it themselves. Okay, those people are, usually they don't speak English, Mm, hmm, right? Or they're just a complete fucking idiot that everyone's like, hang on. I got this guys, you know, like, so they get that, so that the old guys get to flex, you know, and help that person and be a rock
star. And it's the same with like, you know, it's usually someone in they post, it sucks, but they post in broken English. And it's, you know, Please do help. I have this thing restore for my grandfather, right? And they're like, oh, that's, that's an amazing machine. Here's this. You want to go to lacy Ducati. You're gonna ask for this and that, right, right? Oh, thank you please for everything. Okay,
yes, awesome. And so here I am coming in like, I'm pretty I'm a pretty confident fucking sailor. You know what? I mean, I'm coming in here and I'm like, Hey guys, where's my boat? Yeah. And they're like, well, actually, god damn it, yeah, you could no one you just said, if they had said, Hey man, 353, 50 wide case cylinders are pretty hard to come by. I'll keep my eye opener. I'll have a look. Get
back to you. Check eBay? Well, yeah, no, shit, but even that would have been helpful, not really, but that would have been at least an answer yes. So I have to assume it's just me, because it's not the first time that I've run into this. No,
it is the defeating thing in a forum. That's why I never go back. Is why I quit all the car club forums that I was part of. I quit the Owners Club forums because I had a version of this in the Pierce arrow club. I'll just, just just, and it was slightly different, but it was the same, same issue of internet assholes, right? There was a guy that bought it, bought a Pierce arrow. This is an old pre war big behemoth luxury car, right? And they stopped making them in 1938 so 38 this guy bought one.
He says, Hey, I bought this Pierce arrow. I'm going to get it for X amount of money. You know, what do you think is going to take to get this thing on the road, or whatever? And so then all the guys in the club climb on, telling this guy it's a chance to then show them how rich you have to be to restore a Pierce arrow. That's the only purpose, not that it's possible. Yes, you can do these things. No, this is like expect to spend $20,000 on the interior alone.
You'll spend $30,000 in three years getting it painted, you know. And they all talk about the top shelf, most long way around the whole thing, and then they tell them, and when it's all done, the car won't be worth what you spent. So obviously, this only goes to the super rich, right? The guys like like me that have the money and the wherewithal just to follow a passion and have no fucking financial sense to it, right? So I posted to be helpful. I said, Hey, I have a Pierce arrow. I'm
a paycheck player. You know, I saved a little bit of money off of each paycheck and try to get some stuff done in the car. But if I were you, I would go ahead with the project. Because even if you have to put a blanket over the seat, you know, and drive it around like that, and take your kids out for getting to get a Christmas tree or whatever, you're going to have a
great moment. And if you just have to, you know, piece this thing along, there's, there's no problem with doing that, and there's nothing that says that the car has to be painted or whatever, until you reach a place where you have to have it done and you have the wherewithal. So in the meantime, you can have a ton of fun with this. And it's a great thing to have and a great thing to preserve. You wouldn't think that that's would require any
response, right? I mean, that's the most conciliatory thing I think a human has ever said. I mean, I think Gandhi's looking at that going, Man, I should have had you help me with some stuff. That
was a good answer. Like, yeah, it
was a good answer, no. And I tell you what, everybody in the club climbed on. Well, if you don't have enough money to spend $18,000 on the gasket set to rebuild that engine, then you don't have any business having a Pierce arrow. And then, PS, by the way, why don't you get the manual? You know, it's like, Oh my God. You know, this guy was simply a guy that was dreaming about this old car, found it had a possible deal on it, and they made it seem like it was unaccessible to
him. I mean, it's so elite, it is. So snobby, it's so mean spirited, and it's exactly what the guys do on the technical side, and that's exactly what happened spiritually in the thing that happened with you on the Ducati site. Yeah,
yeah, if it's not done to a particular level, or if it doesn't justify the effort slash money that I've put into it, yep, then you it's not worth you doing, or you don't know what you're talking
about. You're not as special or as knowledgeable as I am. Yeah, you know, and
it makes me want to, because my other the Ducati I do have, I think I'm in it 1200 bucks. Yeah, you mean about that.
Don't say that, because that's going to make all those guys attack you.
Yeah. So not much, really, for what it is. And so I know that those guys have spent, or some of those guys have spent, 1200 on the paint. And what, what and what, what it was, was they painted it three years ago, and they were never happy with the shade of red, yeah, so they just went ahead and blasted it and took it apart and painted back again, yeah, yeah. And that, like, and that's fine, you know, whatever. But, like, not really what I'm
interested in, right? So again, does anybody have a 350, wide case, you know, and it's still ongoing, and, I know what happened is the guy, he did misspeak, and he's got sleeves
and not cylinders, for $150
for a sleeve, right? 50
to get it put in? Yeah, I just bid on press it in. Yeah.
I bought one on eBay this morning for $15 you know? I mean, yeah, like, Jesus Christ guys. Like, anyway, like, your shit is not and then so that, that tells me that the there's a particular budget that's been set aside for motorcycle projects. And it's kind of, maybe they come from that business side where you have to spend all your budget, otherwise you can't justify the same budget next year. Yeah. I
mean, right. So it's like, well, I've budgeted six grand on my single Ducati single this year, so I better figure, you know, I better instead of, instead of, maybe probably the dumber way to do, which is, like, look at six grand. That's like 12
motorcycles. That's right. Yeah, I can fly somewhere and bring a couple back, you know, and they spend it all on one bike, which they may or may not have to, but maybe they do have to, because they're just buying parts from themselves, and they charge way more than they should.
Andy, why is it that so many people have so many deep seated ego needs that they're trying to get addressed, you know, on forums and in politics and whatever it is, it's like, can't anybody sit down with a friend or a counselor and just learn to be okay?
Yeah? You know, yeah, I did. What is it, yeah, I don't know. I did. I did feel like, so, so part of the getting the piston back assembled, you know, you need the little circle, the ring, the clip that goes in the piston, the wrist pin, you know, those are 18 millimeter, right? They're just like these bent wires. So I just went and got an internal C clip, like an internal, you know, snapper, excuse me, and that should be fine, yeah, it fits. I can't get it out unless I use
the pliers, yeah? And it was 47 cents, yeah.
Did you weigh it? Did you put one on both sides?
You know what I'm gonna
wire if you put a wire on one side and a clip on the other side,
yeah? So I thought of, yeah. So maybe I should do a post be like, hey guys. You know, I found these. I found, in case anybody was wondering, Lacey, has the Lacey Ducati had the Ducati spares people. They have the gadget, the pen rings for like 499 a piece. Hey, man, Ace makes the same thing. They got him for 47 cents. Y'all, yeah, and
just harbor. I got some at Harbor Freight, and I got the players for $1 and a half.
Yeah, hey, just a PSA, guys. I don't know if you all knew this, but you can get most of the parts you need for you to call you nice
and deep. Don't you think we should? Let's, let's do a phantom post, all right, and just see how long we can bait these guys in. This is an ongoing feature of how fucked up the internet is, right? And then let's, let's you and I go pick a forum, and we'll post and then we'll just see if we can't keep dragging guys in off the subject, and just see how much we can get them to dump into it. I'm
gonna, I'm gonna post it right now. Hey guys, is there any reason? Is there any reason I shouldn't use a circle it from, uh, from a snap frame, from Ace. Yeah. See what happened. Andy,
I fantasize about the life you're leading right now by doing that. But you do know that in this whole subject that you know, we've pretty much fouled our nests, and so whatever helped the Ducati guys did have to give us
in the past. Yeah, it's we're tainted. Yeah, we're on our own forever. Well, so I've tried to keep that in mind and being like, All right, just be cool, man, these guys are the old dudes. They're etiquette. They're they're internet etiquette. Their internet etiquette isn't, you know quite what it could be. I'm sure. They're, I
got 150 years of experience between them.
Yeah, apparently they're really important. So they
used to work for Morton fi call on the on the space shuttle in the 70s. Yeah, there are. They're good engineers, damn it. Yeah,
he just machined it. I just went ahead and machined it up. Well, I don't I'm in a rental town home. Dude, don't have a machine. I don't have a goddamn mill in my garage.
It's like I made a promise to go to Italian cars and coffee 30 miles from my house in two weeks. Okay? I don't give a what it takes to get this thing going. I'm putting on my Ducati sweater and I'm going, alright, and I don't, I don't care if I've had to put 80 weight oil in it because I got an undersized ring. I'm going to do it, yeah,
and I'm going to go to ace and I'm going to get some spare hex head bolts. The only reason I can't just rethread these old head bolts still good. No, no, no, no, no, yeah, after after years of use, one use,
yep, as soon as you torque them down, you change the thread, the thread pitch, and they'll never be the same unless you put them back on and you don't pay attention to any of that, and you still do the best job you can. You'll probably only be able to ride it for seven or maybe 52 years before it has a problem because of the head. Yeah, probably somewhere between seven years and 52 years it's gonna fail, but Okay,
and we'll be we beat this dead horse. But part of me, actually, I do kind of envy that discipline around that, but I don't have any. I don't have said discipline to really care more than any more than that, to be like, Oh, maybe I should, but then that's it.
Yeah, yeah. The truth is that, yeah, I have a similar envy, and the fact that I love the fact that guys can do that, you know, me, I have ruined 10 paint jobs because I painted the tank. And of course, I had to set it on there to look at it before it was dry. And then I brushed up against it, or knocked it off, or did something, you know, and everybody would look at this with horror. They'd throw up in their mouth, thinking, My God, why can't you just walk in the house and come back out
tomorrow? And it's like, I can't. I can't. As soon as it was shiny, I just had to look at it. I tried to put the stickers on it when it was wet, you know. I just, I can't wait. I can't, yeah.
Well, yeah. So anyway, I saw more, more updates on that. So if you, or anybody you know, have a three, by the way, I did.
Oh, hey, you know what, I have two of them. Andy, you
got two of them? Yeah. But again, I I paid less than anyone should have for Ducati. You mean? So if I'm taking a step back and look at it like I got these, pretty cheap. I got these for did I tell you how? Yeah, I got these. So the 250 and the 350 I got in a package deal for a trade of a triumph, 650 500 excuse me, 500 Oh, what a deal. Yeah. So I bought this Triumph trophy in Canada, right, and went across the border to a swap meet, and it was a bus, this big Harley
show. And on the way out, I saw this old triumph, cute little flat tracker triumph, yeah, in the back of somebody's truck. And they wanted 800 Canadian for it. And that's like, you know, 600 US. So then I talked to now a little bit more, and I got a really good deal on this, on this Triumph right they're in the back of my truck. I scored, like, I drove four hours and I actually brought a bike home. That's awesome. So I get to the border, and I'm like, you know, stoked I'm coming home. And he
says, Yeah, trophy. He says, Do you have anything to claim? Like, do you want to claim them as well? Yeah. I mean, I obviously have a motorcycle, so I need to claim that. I guess it's okay. Go ahead and go ahead and pull over here onto the right. Okay, that's fine. So I get out. He says, Hey, so good. Let me see the title. So, well, it's not, I don't have it's in this is they're in boxes, dude.
Like, all these boxes that are in the back of my car are a motor, the motor site, yeah, you what you're looking at is an engine and a frame. Like there's no title. This is parts. Well, you can't, you can't come in without a title. So What? What? So I made this bed that, like I'm just trying to play ball here, guys, like, I'm just trying to do up right thing. Yes, I obviously have a motorcycle. Not gonna lie to you, I'm bringing in a motorcycle. So then I have to do this whole custom. In this
thing. By the way, I have my daughter, who's, at the time, four years old,
nice. That's easy in the car, right? Yeah. So
we spent an hour and a half at the border, in the customs thing, trying to talk this guy into some sort of just logic about this motorcycle that's in pieces. I'm not bringing this in as a running motorcycle. I don't need to have a title. This is all. It's a donor, right? It's a donor thing
apart. They finally let me go after an hour and a half, and I brought it in, and then had to sit on it, got it running, but I got to sit on it for like, six months, and then I drove it all the way to Houston, traded it for two Ducatis and an MZ, yeah. Oh, cool. It's like Jesus Christ so, and in the end, it paid off. And now I've got my two little Bugatti singles, yeah.
So the Yeah, the overall karma of the deal is still in in it's still in place, I guess because you're, yeah, you're not overextended yet. But yet,
we'll see how this barrel goes. That might be make, that might make everything it's not worth well,
I hope you get that. I'm so glad you brought that up, because that is such a sore spot with me trying to get this information out. And I'm so glad we could go through that in actuality, because I never remember the, you know, I can't really communicate the ridiculousness of it, yeah, unless you go through it from you know, an actual experience.
And so, yeah, this is this, is this is this just explains why hardly anything gets done in the world ever, and especially, you know, in larger institutions. This is just explains it, but it actually
kind of makes me want to do it more, because then I'm like, well, I'll show you guys. I don't care how many years ago I got I got 50 whatever.
We don't mean to pee in the pool here, but can you relate? Check back next week to see how the search goes. Meanwhile, if anyone has a cylinder for a 350 wide case scrambler, let us know. Want to help us out. Go ahead and subscribe and leave a review. It's a huge help, and we appreciate it. Follow along on Instagram at hole in the head Moto, see you next time you.