Well, finally the motorcycle shop finished painting and installing the
rear disk brake on my bike. As nothing is perfect, bike came without
the rim lock and battery wasn't charging. My bike does not have a kick
start, so I need the battery to be fully charged at all times. Also,
the electric design of my bike depends on either the battery or the
charger system to power the CDI. If it is not charging, bike dies as
soon as I disconnect any battery cable. I spent a good portion of the
saturday tracing the problem to the starter relay connector.
The bike is beautiful!
http://paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/diariodastrilhas/xr.jpg
http://paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/diariodastrilhas/xr2.jpg
http://paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/diariodastrilhas/brake.jpg
Sunday I went for a ride with my friend Gabriel and the XLX350R that
we split the cases to replace shift shaft and countersprocket shaft.
We invited some other friends, but nobody wanted/could go, so we went
just we 2.
We left my home early, before 7am. A quick stop on the gasoline
station, as Gabriel's bike low on fuel. Float stuck, let a puddle of
gas under his bike (http://paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/diariodastrilhas/
posto.jpg). We went to our usual playground, the jar trail, itapuama
beach (http://paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/diariodastrilhas/
itapuama1.jpg
http://paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/diariodastrilhas/itapuama2.jpg),
enseada beach and then, zombie woods. Gabriel (http://
paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/diariodastrilhas/zumbi.jpg), leading,
almost ran over a huge frog (http://paginas.terra.com.br/lazer/
diariodastrilhas/sapo.jpg)... We arrived at the steep hillclimb on the
middle of the woods and Gabriel was first, choosing a poor line, that
made me go up there and help him. When I returned, I noticed the
starter motor was not turning with it's full power, so I figured that
I had charging problems again. Since the engine was already running, I
climbed the hill and stopped up there to remove left side number plate
cover (all electrics except rectifier are there) and check on the
starter relay. Thing was melting, burned four out of the five fuses
the bike have and the battery was almost hotter than the engine!
Things turned bad, bike refused to start even going downhill trying to
bump start. Oh well, ride is over...
I never leave home without a rope. It has saved a lot of headache in
the past and it is easy to carry anyway, so... I tied my bike on
Gabriel's and off we went. We found some friends down on zombie woods,
chatted a little and we took our way.
At the old dutch road we stopped to look for mangoes, it's mango
season and even though mangoes are not native, portuguese, english and
dutch people who lived on this part of the world centuries ago loved
mangoes, because there are mango trees everywhere. The mango season is
once a year and has just started!
That's when the real trouble began. Previous on the towing, Gabriel
made a too fast turn, my bike was all over the place and I was very
lucky to not let it go - it could cause both of us to crash and we
were fast enough to get hurt... I told him, slow, slow, slow, be very
careful on turns, I often can't make the turn as wide as who's towing,
who's been towed must keep the rope under tension to avoid it get
caught by wheels but can't brake too much because it may cause who is
towing to crash, etc... Gabriel tried to cross a narrow bridge over a
narrow but deep creek. The sudden turn made me loose control, I
dropped my bike right when Gabriel was in the middle of the bridge and
him and bike went under the water. He was lucky to not get trapped
under bike, under water...
His bike was completely submerged. After lots of pushing and sweating,
five guys came by, riding bycicles. They were harvesting the mangoes
and bikes were full of them. They helped us pushing the bike back up,
but it sat too much time under water. The gas tank was full of water,
all the gasoline went into the creek. No way that bike would start
again. The oil stain on the water was huge, we figured out that the
oil was gone as well... Not to mention the cylinder and carburetor
full of water... Well, looked like my tow needed a tow!
With both bikes broken, we had no options but walk and push bikes. It
could get worse, because now, middle of summer, the temperatures are
high... But yesterday it was cloudy, it was even pouring short showers
to cool us down... We walked and pushed to the nearest village - not
far, luck us - and found a public telephone... We called a friend and
he came riding his XLR125.
We did a very crazy thing: The XLR guy tied a rope between his bike
and Gabriel's and I tied a rope between mine and Gabriel's. The little
125 would push two bikes!
We got home... Wet, cold, sore all over from pulling bike out creek
and pushing so much... We had some beer and some crab meat that went
great with ultra hot red pepper and manioc flour.
Now, I don't know if I take bike back to mechanic and avoid the
temptation of drowning him in a bucket of grease or if I forget the
mechanic and try to fix myself... I think I am buying a new starter
relay, trace all wires back to the stator, measure resistance and
voltage and see what happens, the grease bucket thing is too strong in
my mind for me to talk with that guy anytime soon...
-- Tiago
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