The_Veg
D'OH!
PART I
October 27 I hit the road for another one of my favorite motorcycle events, the twice-yearly rallies held by the guys over on the Boxerworks forum. We have them at Big Cedar, Oklahoma, just five miles off the center of the Talimena Scenic Drive. Our host is a great guy named Ken, a former Dallas engineer who retired to the rural woods of OK where he spends his time building guitars and tinkering with a growing fleet of Airheads.
Here's my story of the weekend, adapted from an email I wrote about it. Many folks are identified by their Boxerworks forum screen-names. Also, you can see pictures here.
The Decidedly Unorganised Boxerworks Forum Rally was a total blast as always! This time the theme, at least for me and somewhat for my friend Randy ('Randy '78R100/7-'84RS' is his screen name) was Overcoming Adversity.
It all began Thursday morning. Randy sent me an email at 5.30 saying he was hitting the road. The plan was that he'd ride from Austin up to my place and we'd go from here. It was approaching 10 and I'd not seen or heard from him. I was getting worried, but I kept calm and told myself that the way my luck works, if I go up to the corner for fuel he'll get here while I'm out. So off I went. Sure enough, ten minutes later as I pulled up to the apartment he was standing there grinning. Turns out he'd had some carb trouble along the way, making him stop and drop the float bowl four times in the first hour. The problem still was not fixed. His bike was running on only one cylinder through the first 1/4 of the throttle range. Since he had it heavily loaded, this made for some nervous starts.
About 45 minutes up the road, I started having problems too. I noticed that my charge light was on. DAMN! This after a year and 10K trouble-free miles since defeating horrible problems I had with the Omega. Since we had a lunch stop coming up, I pressed on and hoped that we'd make our stop. A few miles short of stopping, the ignition began to cut out. I pulled onto the shoulder and began braking. Before I got stopped, the light went out and the ignition roared back to life. No further problems until after lunch, when I found I had insufficient juice to start (clickclickclickclick...). I borrowed Randy's bike and rode to the auto parts store that the waitress said was nearby and bought another battery. I installed that battery and disconnected the headlamp. We had about three hours left to travel, so a fresh battery should be enough to get there even running at a total loss to power the ignition. The light flickered variably all the way (HMMMMMMM...). We did indeed arrive safely, and made relaxing and socialising a priority. The fall colours were out and bright. Joan from Seattle was already present, and our host Ken was extremely happy to see us as usual. The four of us had a wonderful dinner and after that Ken showed us the four guitars he had just finished building. They were things of true beauty and he had a total of about 2000 hours in the four of them. The woods were all stunningly beautiful as was his craftmanship, and the sound they made reflected this.
The next morning (Friday), Randy attacked his carb and found a plugged idle jet. This cured his bike. I did some tests on mine and the symptoms pointed to a bad voltage regulator. I called Rick at Motorrad Elektrik and he remembered me from my earlier problems and was eager to send another regulator out. I had him hold off as I would be back home before anything would be able to arrive, and I had plenty of expertise and options available. Turns out though that all of Ken's bikes are pre-'81 (except his new RS that had been reserved for Joan to ride since she flew in), so he had no regulator to loan me. I called some auto parts stores in the nearby towns and one could get one in the following morning.
Friday also saw a few more people arrive. Richard T and LaDonna as usual rented a cabin down the road and trailered their immaculate K75 and old faithful R75/6 (with full Wixom bodywork). Richard heard about my problems and gave me a spare regulator he had handy. Larry Fixit and Starstuff arrived too, as did Curt Henry and Duane Ausherman. Duane lives in California and was in the region visiting family so he joined us for a couple of days, which brought much joy as he's a real guru with older Airheads. He was the founder of BMW of Marin (it has had three owners since) and worked for BMW NA for a few years after that. Duane was the guy who showed the factory how to cure the wobbles in the /5, and the guy who who knows how to cure rear wheel bearing preload problems (you may not even know you have this problem, but it can destroy a wheel eventually). Duane is a funny guy too and has a reputation in his town for cross-dressing every Halloween. He was not able to bring the costume though.
Saturday morning Justin B and his wife Barbara arrived (Justin lives near Fort Worth and I've been to his place. Nice guy and great with a paint gun, and he loaned me a clutch cable in a pinch), as did Doug in Arlington and son Will, who just got his first bike (a Ninja 250- Will is 15 and is restricted by state law to no more than 250cc until 16).
Throughout the weekend we did our usual mix of socialising, rides, meals, etc. There was a keg of Joan's special homebrew untapped form the last rally in May and we did our level best to drain it. It was a very tasty Russian Imperial Stout too! And Joan loves to cook for people- she claims to have the "dinner-party gene!" She's officially everybody's hero for her wonderful efforts to keep us fed at the rallies. She had help from Curt Saturday though as the main course was Curt's famous dry-rub ribs.
There was a lot of wrenching too of course. Larry Fixit and I attacked my problem. We found that Richard's regulator seemed good at first, then bad. I got the new one from the store too. More on that in a moment.
Duane gave some *EXCELLENT* tech sessions! First he did carb tuning. Duane is of the mind-set that you don't need visual devices. He showed us how to do it by ear, and I now feel I understand the method. He was eager to tune mine as it was a newer model than he had done before, and the single exhaust added an extra degree of challenge (since listening to the pipes is part of it). We found that I had stretched throttle cables, very poor balance, and a clogged idle jet. Once all that was a sorted as we could get it (there is more tuning to do once I get some exhaust leaks cured), richard noticed that my charge light was on again. Larry and I went back at it. We investigated everything we could in the charging system and found all components good. It was becoming a real puzzle. We found some diode-board ground wires that were loose in their crimps, but the board still had good grounding via the solid mounts and some other wires. But then we found that the power lead from the starter to the diode board had charred itself at the terminal that connects to the board. We replaced that one 12-gauge wire with FOUR 10-gauge wires, and sent two each to two different terminals on the board. At that point everything would run but the unregulated charging voltage was still low. But we know it would get me home, and I did still have that extra battery just in case. After riding 100 miles around the countryside the next day, we measured again and all was as it should be. We figured that it was the day before too, but that the charge voltage seemed low due to how drained the battery must have been. I had no further charge problems at all.
Continued in PART II, next post...
October 27 I hit the road for another one of my favorite motorcycle events, the twice-yearly rallies held by the guys over on the Boxerworks forum. We have them at Big Cedar, Oklahoma, just five miles off the center of the Talimena Scenic Drive. Our host is a great guy named Ken, a former Dallas engineer who retired to the rural woods of OK where he spends his time building guitars and tinkering with a growing fleet of Airheads.
Here's my story of the weekend, adapted from an email I wrote about it. Many folks are identified by their Boxerworks forum screen-names. Also, you can see pictures here.
The Decidedly Unorganised Boxerworks Forum Rally was a total blast as always! This time the theme, at least for me and somewhat for my friend Randy ('Randy '78R100/7-'84RS' is his screen name) was Overcoming Adversity.
It all began Thursday morning. Randy sent me an email at 5.30 saying he was hitting the road. The plan was that he'd ride from Austin up to my place and we'd go from here. It was approaching 10 and I'd not seen or heard from him. I was getting worried, but I kept calm and told myself that the way my luck works, if I go up to the corner for fuel he'll get here while I'm out. So off I went. Sure enough, ten minutes later as I pulled up to the apartment he was standing there grinning. Turns out he'd had some carb trouble along the way, making him stop and drop the float bowl four times in the first hour. The problem still was not fixed. His bike was running on only one cylinder through the first 1/4 of the throttle range. Since he had it heavily loaded, this made for some nervous starts.
About 45 minutes up the road, I started having problems too. I noticed that my charge light was on. DAMN! This after a year and 10K trouble-free miles since defeating horrible problems I had with the Omega. Since we had a lunch stop coming up, I pressed on and hoped that we'd make our stop. A few miles short of stopping, the ignition began to cut out. I pulled onto the shoulder and began braking. Before I got stopped, the light went out and the ignition roared back to life. No further problems until after lunch, when I found I had insufficient juice to start (clickclickclickclick...). I borrowed Randy's bike and rode to the auto parts store that the waitress said was nearby and bought another battery. I installed that battery and disconnected the headlamp. We had about three hours left to travel, so a fresh battery should be enough to get there even running at a total loss to power the ignition. The light flickered variably all the way (HMMMMMMM...). We did indeed arrive safely, and made relaxing and socialising a priority. The fall colours were out and bright. Joan from Seattle was already present, and our host Ken was extremely happy to see us as usual. The four of us had a wonderful dinner and after that Ken showed us the four guitars he had just finished building. They were things of true beauty and he had a total of about 2000 hours in the four of them. The woods were all stunningly beautiful as was his craftmanship, and the sound they made reflected this.
The next morning (Friday), Randy attacked his carb and found a plugged idle jet. This cured his bike. I did some tests on mine and the symptoms pointed to a bad voltage regulator. I called Rick at Motorrad Elektrik and he remembered me from my earlier problems and was eager to send another regulator out. I had him hold off as I would be back home before anything would be able to arrive, and I had plenty of expertise and options available. Turns out though that all of Ken's bikes are pre-'81 (except his new RS that had been reserved for Joan to ride since she flew in), so he had no regulator to loan me. I called some auto parts stores in the nearby towns and one could get one in the following morning.
Friday also saw a few more people arrive. Richard T and LaDonna as usual rented a cabin down the road and trailered their immaculate K75 and old faithful R75/6 (with full Wixom bodywork). Richard heard about my problems and gave me a spare regulator he had handy. Larry Fixit and Starstuff arrived too, as did Curt Henry and Duane Ausherman. Duane lives in California and was in the region visiting family so he joined us for a couple of days, which brought much joy as he's a real guru with older Airheads. He was the founder of BMW of Marin (it has had three owners since) and worked for BMW NA for a few years after that. Duane was the guy who showed the factory how to cure the wobbles in the /5, and the guy who who knows how to cure rear wheel bearing preload problems (you may not even know you have this problem, but it can destroy a wheel eventually). Duane is a funny guy too and has a reputation in his town for cross-dressing every Halloween. He was not able to bring the costume though.
Saturday morning Justin B and his wife Barbara arrived (Justin lives near Fort Worth and I've been to his place. Nice guy and great with a paint gun, and he loaned me a clutch cable in a pinch), as did Doug in Arlington and son Will, who just got his first bike (a Ninja 250- Will is 15 and is restricted by state law to no more than 250cc until 16).
Throughout the weekend we did our usual mix of socialising, rides, meals, etc. There was a keg of Joan's special homebrew untapped form the last rally in May and we did our level best to drain it. It was a very tasty Russian Imperial Stout too! And Joan loves to cook for people- she claims to have the "dinner-party gene!" She's officially everybody's hero for her wonderful efforts to keep us fed at the rallies. She had help from Curt Saturday though as the main course was Curt's famous dry-rub ribs.
There was a lot of wrenching too of course. Larry Fixit and I attacked my problem. We found that Richard's regulator seemed good at first, then bad. I got the new one from the store too. More on that in a moment.
Duane gave some *EXCELLENT* tech sessions! First he did carb tuning. Duane is of the mind-set that you don't need visual devices. He showed us how to do it by ear, and I now feel I understand the method. He was eager to tune mine as it was a newer model than he had done before, and the single exhaust added an extra degree of challenge (since listening to the pipes is part of it). We found that I had stretched throttle cables, very poor balance, and a clogged idle jet. Once all that was a sorted as we could get it (there is more tuning to do once I get some exhaust leaks cured), richard noticed that my charge light was on again. Larry and I went back at it. We investigated everything we could in the charging system and found all components good. It was becoming a real puzzle. We found some diode-board ground wires that were loose in their crimps, but the board still had good grounding via the solid mounts and some other wires. But then we found that the power lead from the starter to the diode board had charred itself at the terminal that connects to the board. We replaced that one 12-gauge wire with FOUR 10-gauge wires, and sent two each to two different terminals on the board. At that point everything would run but the unregulated charging voltage was still low. But we know it would get me home, and I did still have that extra battery just in case. After riding 100 miles around the countryside the next day, we measured again and all was as it should be. We figured that it was the day before too, but that the charge voltage seemed low due to how drained the battery must have been. I had no further charge problems at all.
Continued in PART II, next post...
