Tales of mechanical mischief.
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:22 pm
Yesterday was heading home from a car lesson in Ipswich. Was raining heavily and had to drive through some medium sized puddles to get where I wanted. It seems like nobody notified the Koreans, and my Hyundai is distinctly allergic to water on the road. Drive it through the smallest of puddles and water ends up in the ignition and it dies in the arse. Got stuck in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of the hill in an automatic Hyundai Excel in the pissing rain. Bugger. 
Usually nearer home I'd have a tin of WD40 or the like and disperse the water that way. No chance yesterday and I was at least 3 or 4km from the nearest shop or servo. Something I didn't cherish of walking in the rain. I don't belong to the RACQ. I used to but I can usually have a car going before they arrive. Anyway went for a dig in the boot and found some old windscreen washer hose and blew through that to get most of the water out of the sparkplug wells. The car started but still wouldn't run smoothly enough to move along. I didn't have an aerosol tin of WD40 in the boot, but what I did have in the boot was a tin of Rexona, which I applied to the sparkplugs. Worked like a charm! 
I was going to stop at a servo on the way home to buy some WD, but the car ran perfectly so I didn't bother. My sparkplugs smell great and no water would gather around them either. I'll probably not have enough Rexona next time the pits need some attention though. 
Today I took a Q-Ride course. The first part is a pre-ride safety check in which we go over the bikes and identify any problems before riding off. I've never thought it was much of a big deal except for tyre pressures etc until today......
Had a young girl turn up on her KLR250, accompanied by her father on a 1200 Kwaka. They had travelled (miraculously!!!!) from another town about an hour away. When I measured the air pressure on the tyres, NEITHER tyre registered on the gauge. I changed gauges (couldn't believe someone could ride 90km on flat tyres) expecting the gauge to be wrong but it wasn't.
I checked the engine oil. The young lady said also, ' we've only had the bike for just over a year, the oil should be alright.' KLRs take 2L of oil. I put in nearly 1.5L!
When I went to put the oil in, the girl said 'that's not where you fill the oil, it is on the other side of the bike'. Huh? Turns out her father had 'topped up the oil' by adding oil into the coolant reservoir- right up to the brim of the filler neck. She produced the oil bottle- TWO STROKE oil. He musta thought the KLR is a two stroke! I got Warren to remove the reservoir, clean and flush it and reinstall it with coolant, not 2T oil. 
Broken brake lever. Brake fluid needed flushing, but brakes worked, just, Buggered, loose and stretched chain. At least it was registered. Too much freeplay in rear brake, easily adjusted. (drum brake) I'm surprised with that lack of maintenance that it ran at all, but ran all day, relatively faultlessly. Wow.
Usually nearer home I'd have a tin of WD40 or the like and disperse the water that way. No chance yesterday and I was at least 3 or 4km from the nearest shop or servo. Something I didn't cherish of walking in the rain. I don't belong to the RACQ. I used to but I can usually have a car going before they arrive. Anyway went for a dig in the boot and found some old windscreen washer hose and blew through that to get most of the water out of the sparkplug wells. The car started but still wouldn't run smoothly enough to move along. I didn't have an aerosol tin of WD40 in the boot, but what I did have in the boot was a tin of Rexona, which I applied to the sparkplugs. Worked like a charm! I was going to stop at a servo on the way home to buy some WD, but the car ran perfectly so I didn't bother. My sparkplugs smell great and no water would gather around them either. I'll probably not have enough Rexona next time the pits need some attention though. Today I took a Q-Ride course. The first part is a pre-ride safety check in which we go over the bikes and identify any problems before riding off. I've never thought it was much of a big deal except for tyre pressures etc until today......
Had a young girl turn up on her KLR250, accompanied by her father on a 1200 Kwaka. They had travelled (miraculously!!!!) from another town about an hour away. When I measured the air pressure on the tyres, NEITHER tyre registered on the gauge. I changed gauges (couldn't believe someone could ride 90km on flat tyres) expecting the gauge to be wrong but it wasn't.
I checked the engine oil. The young lady said also, ' we've only had the bike for just over a year, the oil should be alright.' KLRs take 2L of oil. I put in nearly 1.5L!
When I went to put the oil in, the girl said 'that's not where you fill the oil, it is on the other side of the bike'. Huh? Turns out her father had 'topped up the oil' by adding oil into the coolant reservoir- right up to the brim of the filler neck. She produced the oil bottle- TWO STROKE oil. He musta thought the KLR is a two stroke! I got Warren to remove the reservoir, clean and flush it and reinstall it with coolant, not 2T oil. Broken brake lever. Brake fluid needed flushing, but brakes worked, just, Buggered, loose and stretched chain. At least it was registered. Too much freeplay in rear brake, easily adjusted. (drum brake) I'm surprised with that lack of maintenance that it ran at all, but ran all day, relatively faultlessly. Wow.
