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“Okay. These are fixed. Let me screw something else up.”
Probably a couple of years ago, I picked up an older Honda motorcycle to work on and keep me off the streets most weeknights. It had been sitting in someone’s back yard for quite some, and the owners just wanted to get rid of it. Total price for the (running) bike, helmet, and jacket was a lofty $500.
Sweet.
The nice folks selling the Honda even loaded it up in their pickup and brought it to my house. They were either really, really sick of it, or were, in fact, great people. I actually think it was a bit of both.
Well, the bike has somewhat languished in my yard since its purchase, with the prime culprit being clogged carburetors. Son and I made a go of cleaning them out one weekend awhile back, but our primary success was managing to reassemble everything properly and getting the bike to start again.
Of course, the carbs were still plugged after all that. The bike ran better, but not as it should.
Time to call in The Professional and pay the piper. My last motorcycle was similarly afflicted with the impacted carbs, and I randomly chose a guy off of Craigslist to provide service. As it turned out, he was marvelous. He did a great job, the bike ran superbly after he finished, and he was very affordable.
Luckily, I still had his business card years later, and when I phoned him this week, I found out he was still busily engaged with being a Mobile Motorcycle Mechanic. The way he works is interesting. He charges a flat rate per carb, comes to your house, and usually finishes in four or five hours.
So while I trudged off on Friday and spent a day at the corporate grind, he disassembled my Honda and put it back together again. And true to form, the engine now ran flawlessly. I was very pleased.
So pleased, in fact, that I thought I would spend some time attending to a few of the other niggling details that had been bothering me about the Honda — primarily the tachometer, which didn’t work at all. As is usually the case with these types of things, I have a tendency to: a) think they are easier to repair than they really are, and b) take way too many things apart to try to find the root of the problem.
In this case, both a) and b) were true. By late afternoon, I had taken apart almost the entire front end of the bike, and not only did the tachometer still not function, but also I somehow managed to knock out of commission both the turn signals and the brake light.
This was going wonderfully.
I was dead certain the tach was not working because of a broken wire somewhere. Rather than finding that wire, I was heavily engaged in breaking every other connection on the bike during the troubleshooting process. At that point, I prudently decided to quit for the day and think about things, before I did any more damage.
I will tell you that, not so many years ago, an experience like this would drive me absolutely nuts. I would obsess over the details, lose sleep worrying about how much my amateurism would cost me, and get extremely upset at myself for being such an idiot. But with the luxury of age and mental fatigue, I now boast a more sober approach, which includes trying to stop while I’m ahead, having a nice cup of tea in the evening while thinking about things, and delaying further activity until I’ve recovered my wits.
So, with a decent night’s sleep behind me, I started afresh today. First stop was a guy I contacted on Craigslist earlier in the week who, incredibly, had a used tach for sale for my bike. What were the odds? I figured I would swing by his house, pick up the used part, and use it as a baseline to finish troubleshooting and finally fix things on my own motorcycle.
The first hitch occurred when I showed up in his driveway and he produced a really nice — speedometer.
“Dude, you said you had a tachometer.”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry. I already sold it. I guess I got confused. I hate that you came all the way over here for nothing. Go ahead and take something for free.”
Which I did, though I didn’t know if I’d ever need the part I took.
I tried to stay positive as I drove back home, but I feared I was looking at several more potentially fruitless hours of electrical continuity testing.
Well, I figured, what else could go wrong?
In my heart of hearts, I knew the answer was “plenty”.
When I pulled up to my driveway, I calculated I could spend probably two more hours on this thing max, before I would have to put down my tools and kill somebody — most likely the closest family member.
I proceeded to uncover the bike and reveal its guts strewn here and there. Forget the tach, would I be able to put everything together again, or was Humpty Dumpty Honda doomed to stay separated?
Then, I began to think about my bike’s symptoms and what I’d done the previous day. Surely one broken wire couldn’t cause all this drama, could it?
Do motorcycles have fuses?
What an idiot I am.
Next steps on Resurrection Road: a) locate fuse box, b) determine if any fuses are blown, c) repeat constantly, “I am and idiot, I am an idiot.”
Well, you might have guessed the end of this story. Yes, a fuse was blown, and replacing it magically “fixed” all the mysterious lighting problems on the bike. I then reassembled everything and only had one screw and one clip left over.
I fired her up and proceeded to embark on a thirty-mile ride, and I enjoyed a wonderful late California spring day.
And when I returned home and parked the bike for the night, I chalked the experience up to age and karma.
And, no, the tachometer still doesn’t work. I’ll save that one for another day.
- Dad
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