Not much sleep last night.  I lay awake trying to figure how much damage could be done to my engine by air shipment.  Joni set the alarm clock in the room and was an hour off.  I woke Randy up at 5:30 and I thought it was 6:30.  We got down to the bikes and only Rich was there.  It was a bit later on that I figured out the time problem.  Randy and I rode with the group to the Legion hall for breakfast and riders meeting.  Many more bikes joined the group.  I counted 48 bikes plus 3 cop bikes for an escort out of town. 

I pulled Joni’s bike into the Harley Shop and was met by Mac (Jason) the service manager.  They were getting the spare bike lift ready for me.  They had cleared out the back room for me and told me to stay inside to do my work.  Wow, pretty cool.  Mac introduced me to Jeff and said for anything I needed to see Jeff.  It only took me 45 minutes to get the bad engine out and on the floor.  Drew and Cliff showed up seconds after Randy and I got there.  With help from our guys, it went pretty smooth.  We had to wait for the Fed-Ex truck to arrive.  Randy went to the Fed-Ex store to try to find out where the truck was.  They got the driver on the radio and talked him into going to our place next to deliver my engine.  My fears were realized when he opened the back door.  The engine was tipped over on the sprocket shaft side with oil all over.  The heads had quite a few fins broke off and both spark plugs smashed to bits.  They dropped it over on the cone cover side also.  They dropped it so hard that they smashed the pallet that Mark and Paul had made.  There were only two smashed 2x4’s holding on to the motor stand.  The motor stand was even bent from being dropped so hard.  Yes, we took pictures and had the driver note the damage.  I then put the motor in place and Drew, Randy, Cliff and I started on the install.  It was going fairly well.  Two hours and 20 minutes later, it was ready to fire up.  I had a problem with the carb and I had to fix it.  A few other minor things occurred that had to have extra attention paid to them.  The guys at Mavericks Harley Davidson did me super in all that they did.  They gave me all the things that I needed to do the job.  They went way beyond what I expected them to do for me.  I couldn’t thank them enough for all the down-home feeling that I experienced there.  Anybody that has a need for anything to do with Harley Davidson, I highly recommend Mavericks Harley Davidson!  

We finally got on the road around 3:00.  We got fuel and headed east once again.  We went about 220 miles and needed to stop for the night.  We were about 140 miles short of the group’s stop in Grand Island, Nebraska.  We found a Holiday Inn in North Platt to check into.  A short ride through town got us to a Mexican restaurant.  Pretty bland food.  We got back to the motel and I took the plug off my oil pump and collapsed the spring some.  I forgot that this motor had very high oil pressure and oil was leaking out of the pump.  I had 110 lbs of pressure when it was cold.  It went down to 55 lbs when hot.  Oil has been getting on my rear brake system and that don’t make it work too good.  Okay, not at all.  By collapsing the spring some, the pressure went down to 30 psi at idle.  I’ll see what she runs at tomorrow on the road.  It’s been a long day and it’s 2 hours later than at home now.  Good night.