I FINALLY have a bike that can be ridden! Kim came over last week after listening to me woof for a year about an intermittent problem with my bike. I would charge up my battery and a day later, it would be dead. Seemed something was drawing a half-amp and we couldn't find it. Disconnected some of my lights/accessories and that worked for a while, but then the problem reoccured. Kim (who is a master of everything he touches) was getting frustrated and I was actively planning on parking Makik on I-95 in the path of an oncoming Semi Tractor Trailor at the first chance!
The last time he tried to fix her, he was getting ready to close the bike up when he inadvertently joustled a bunch of wires and BINGO - the meter he had on the battery went haywire! FINALLYYYYYYYYYY!
So yesterday he came over and spent the whole day rewiring my entire bike. When he was done, everything was nice and neat, all my wiring and CD stuff was connected to a bus bar, and the only things connected to my battery were the ones that were connected straight from the factory. He even solved the problem with my horn relay - which had been replaced six times in the past year and a half. Evidently whoever had originally installed the compressor had just run the wire from the original horn to the compressor across the engine. When he pulled the wire off to rewire the horn compressor, it was burned and exposed in about five or six places. No wonder the damn thing kept blowing my relays!!
After he rewired Majik, he installed a new battery in Green Machine (LD's bike). When he first started it up (for the first time in 11 months), it ran like a Harley (on five cylinders). He ran it for a bit, then shut it off. When he fired her back up, that last cylinder kicked in and I though the garage was on fire - there was so much white smoke it made me choke. Needless to say, the gas was real old (not to mention he was on reserve) so Kim told me to put some new gas in it and run it good first chance I got. So off we go to dinner. When we get back, my entire house reaks of gas! Checked LD's bike, and sure enough, gas was flowing from some unknown place. Kim's figuring there's a stuck float in one of the carbuerators. So he tells me again to get it regassed and take her out and run her.
Soooo, today when we get home from our fantastic Mother's Day cook-out at my sister's place - I fuel the bike up, put on my helmet and gloves, and *clunk* - no starting!
Called Kim and he said to keep trying, which I did for almost 45 minutes. No go. I can get her to rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, but she just won't start. So I guess he'll be back here this week to check her over and see what the problem is.
Lessons Learned from all this was two-fold:
(1) If I ever have to have a bike sit for any amount of time, find out the best way to do it so it won't be so hard on the bike when it comes time to fire it back up. (Although I had other things on my mind the last eleven months and the bike wasn't even CLOSE to being on the top of the list).
(2) NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER EVER EVER allow any itinerant vendor to touch my bike again! All my electronic work was done by the same person during Bike Week over a period of 2-3 years. Not knowing a damn thing about wiring, I had no idea the bastardized job he was doing on my wiring unltil I started having problems. He had spliced all kinds of crap into my main line and there were exposed and naked connections all over the place! From now on, noone - but NOONE - will ever touch my bike again unless they are a certified Honda mechanic or Kim.
Oh, I forgot, the message does say ALMOST ready to go......took a look at my back tire on Majik, noticed it looked kinda funny, ran my finger over it, sliced my finger open, and realized the steel belt was showing through! Dont' know how that happened, I haven't put any mileage at all to speak of on the bike in the last year and I hadn't noticed that spot before. So I've ordered a new set of Elite 3's from Hal and they should be here Wednesday or Thursday. I've got an appt. on Friday to install the tires and then WATCH OUT - I'm going riding!!!!!!!!!
Wish I could ride to Helen, but won't be able to do that this time. But at least we'll be there with friends, even if we are in a cage!
Y'all take care and ride safe, y'hear?
