Subject: RE: Christmas in January!!!
Author: Tom Bowes
Date: Jan 14, 2001, 3:53 PM
Post ID: 1704911913
Dave,
By this time you have no doubt had many inquiries as to the cache of
parts that you acquired. Although I do not know of your intent to sell
any of them, please allow me to express an interest in the following
items which are needed for my 1970 Ambassador restoration project.
Dear Santa,
I have been a very good boy this year and have spent a lot of time
taking apart and cleaning my Moto Guzzi. I have been polishing, fixing,
repairing and restoring it the best I know how. I even went and saw
Father Dellorto and had him bless my newly rebuilt carburetors. But
there are some things which are keeping my bike from being all shiny,
new and perfect as it was in 1970.
First of all, I need a new choke actuator lever assembly because mine is
all scratched and rusty where some bad kid ran it up against a wall or
something.
I could also use a new set of front crashbars, police ones would be
great, but civilian ones would be OK too, so long as they are not old
and rusty with marks from highway pegs like the ones I have now.
A new horn would be nice, since my old one has some strange Japanese
writing on it and doesn't look like it enjoys being on an Italian
motorcycle.
I could use some rubber grommets for the headlight, and for the
instrument nacelle mount.
My headlight mounts are kinda nasty where some guy let the headlight get
loose and it wiggled around and made the mounting slots all big and
sloppy. Some new ones would be great and would save me having to braze
up the old ones. Come to think of it the spring covers would be nice
too, as would the lower fork sliders and bushings since mine are a
little loose and wobbly, but only in one spot.
Of course, then there's the brake, clutch and speedometer cables which
are showing bare metal 'cause all off the plastic peeled off kinda like
the header pipes and mufflers which are also holey, but not in the good,
Jesus sort of way.
A new gas cap would be great so that I wouldn't have to go to the chrome
plater and pay their $250 minimum to re-do the old one. And if in your
bag of toys you happened to have a brand new shift, and brake pedal,
they would sure look nice too, along with a nice new shiny set of
springs for my shock absorbers.
Of course then there's footpeg rubbers, and handlebar grips, and a
distributor cap, and a spring for the cap, and a headlight ring, and a
gasket for it, and a set of points, and a condenser, and a set of foot
boards, and a police sidestand, and engine gaskets, and engine seals,
and transmission gaskets, and transmission seals, and a new solo saddle,
and a new rear fender, and all of the other stuff that I am probably
forgetting but that my motorcycle needs because it sat unused and
unloved for twenty years waiting for me to come and love it and care for
it just like the guy who drove it home thirty-one years ago, new from
the showroom, before the clutch blew out at 22000 miles and nobody
wanted to fix it.
Oh Santa, there is so much more that I will need for my old motorcycle,
but I know that there are other boys (and hopefully girls!) who will
want to receive some toys from you, so I will end my list, for now,
until I hear from you as to whether I have been naughty or nice. I want
you to know that I have been saving all my pennies and that my piggy
bank is full and that I will leave it for you if you happen to come by
my house on Christmas (in January, or any other time). I also promise
not to tell all of the other kids that your sleigh is actually pulled by
a V-8 Moto Guzzi, and not by the eight reindeer that they all saw in
that movie, you know the one where all the kids ride bicycles without
motors cause their Mom's didn't want them having any fun and lied to
them and told 'em that Santa didn't bring toys to those naughty
motorcycle-riding kids who swore that Santa was part Italian and living
in Maryland and not at the North Pole cause it was too cold there to
ride a motorcycle.
Sincerely,
Little Tommy Bowes