A while back I got a carb and muffler from Larry Driskill to put onto my VA 049. I dutifully measured the threads on the carb and went to my local machine tool emporium to purchase a 6x0,75 mm tap to tap the crankcase to accept the carb. I no sooner went to use it a day or two later and it was gone. Where did I put it?...... Where IS that d*^$ thing..... WHAT *$()$&#*@ HAPPENED TO IT ! ! !....

A day passes, then two, which turns into a week. Yet more weeks pass with no sign of it Sporadic attempts to find the tap lead me the final alternative.... I clean up....[X(] Still no tap. I'm getting a trifle perturbed by this point (vast understatement). Visions of purchasing a second tap so it can find it's brother loom in the back of my cobwebbed mind but you just KNOW that if I bought a second one the first would be waiting to open the door for us when we got home. So I procrastinate.

But here we are a month later and I'm washing up after a night working on my motorcycle and pass the dryer... and there it is sitting on top of the dryer... It's returned from the "sock place". How long it was in hyperspace is anyones guess. But it had travel stickers from various stops with symbols that no human eye has ever beheld... either that or it was in the pocket of the one pair of pants I never looked at until the wife found it clanking in the dryer.

At any rate the adventure is over and I can proceed with RC'ising my VA049. More details and pics to follow.... and fine pics they'll be too. I just brought home a new Minolta A1 5 megapixel digital camera today. The Li Ion pack is charging here beside me so we can join hands and venture boldly into the 3 inch thick manual.....

Oh, and you'll all be happy to know that hte preservative on the tap has been washed off and it's all shiny and squeeky clean.