"2 out of 3 ain't bad"

June 22nd

no pictures today. running around doing stuff and didn't really go anywhere.

woke up early (9am) and started calling all the motorcycle shops in the area.

the motorcycle shops around here are all closed on mondays. My timing is just peachy ain't it?

I showered and headed out to a car parts store that is an authorized distributor for PIAA. I needed 2 bulbs since mine burned out.

The store Lorco is a big chain around here, so i shouldn't have a problem getting these bulbs right? wrong. he said in the whole area there were 4 or 5 bulbs, but not all in one location. earliest he could get them would be saturday. argh.

next shop, canadian tire, where else. my favorite store i think. hell, i spend enough money there.

I bought a bulb circuit tester, a little cheap thing that costs $10. i wanted to find out what the problem with the horn was and the only way is with a bulb tester, or a voltmeter.

bought another set of fog lights. the ones i had on earlier in the trip, worked but a bracket broke and i took them off and put them in my right hand saddlebag. the same saddlebag that took the brunt of the impact when the bike crashed. one of the lights shattered, so i went out and bought an identical set.

I also bought a brighter headlight, since the one i had now is the spare which was the stock light. I popped the sylvania silverstar in the crash. the stock bulb sucks.

a bulb tester looks like this. not my photo

so with the bulb tester i started prodding around. hmm. the PIAA lights aren't getting power. odd.

the other fog light connections are getting power.

i took off the seats and looked at my battery connections. everything checked out.

i checked every inline fuse i had, and that checked out. the problem with the PIAA's was that the fuse was burned out at the END. there was a hole in the fuse where it connects to the inside and it was burned out. i couldn't do a check on that fuse since it's a long glass one you can see through.

without a fuse, the lights worked. Huzzah!!

I opened the box of the foglights, cut the inline fuse from the wiring harness (i didn't need the harness since it's already on the bike) and cut the old glass fuse from the PIAA. success.

The PIAA's work.

I took out my leatherman lookalike and started filing the bolt hole on the fog light mounts. i can mount it directly under the triple tree, but the bolt is a M8 and the hole size on the mount is no bigger than M6. so with the file in hand, i went to work.

Huzzah! great success.

got the fog light mounted and working.

I put in the new bulb instead of the stock bulb. no big deal there, 2 min swap.

but the horn. the horn has been bugging me since day 3 of the trip when it failed. i think it failed right after the rain i hit on the 1st day actually.

off with internet scribbles in hand on how to connect the 12v relay properly, i went down and started checking everything over. wiring seemed good. the relay seemed good (i even have a spare) and the fuse is good. I pulled off the tank (enough to get to the wires) and checked all connections there.

what the hell. the only thing it could be would be the switch, but i already checked that.

i took the switch apart again and there's a ton of corrosion on it.hmm. could it be?

I cleaned it up as best i could, reconnected the relay and all wires and huzzah!! it worked. well kinda.

the horn actually puked mud from the dalton highway back out. about a 1/4 cup of muddy water came shooting out. hah. air compressor works. horn works, but the switch is the faulty one. damn you corrosion! why they put copper contacts on something that isn't water tight is beyond me. there was a dead bee and other bugs inside the switch housing. hah.

Horn works.

I had a bottle of water with me, and since the tank was off a bit, i poured water in. instantly i got a big leak. crap. i went back to my room and got a few packs of pepper. I heard from a few mechanics that it can stop some leaks. The problem is that my leak is really far down the rad, and it's probably too big of a hole for pepper to stop it. i know the egg trick might work, but having pepper in my block (waterjacket) is bad enough, i don't want a whole omelete in there.

i poured more water and let it run. no go. still leaking like canadian security documents.

of the 3 things i wanted fixed, 2 were done.

lights, check

horn, check

radiator, fail.

oh well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad... that's what meatloaf says anyhow. I should trust what he says... hell, he's MEATLOAF.

tomorrow, hopefully get to a shop and get this rad fixed, at least i'll know more then.