Thursday's rehearsal with the orchestra was boring. I mean this in the best possible way. It is the first time I can say this, and being a part of this production has been very good for me in many ways, but there it is. I found my mind wandering to other places. Here's one.
I'm a biker. My bike is a 1974 Honda CB360. It gets the job done OK, although one female friend advised me that if I expected to attract chicks with a motorcycle I would have to upgrade. I thanked her for her input.
I got the bike started last week, but only one of the two cylinders was firing. This is a fairly frequent occurrence. Once I was riding on Rt 152 and suddenly I seemed to have only half a bike under me, but I made it home on the one cylinder. Barely.
Usually the culprit is clogged carb jets. What you have to do is remove the float bowl on the offending carb. You need to use a stubby Philips head screwdriver to remove the four screws, and you have to be a contortionist to get to the inner two screws, but it can be done. Then the two jets have to be unscrewed from the bottom of the carb with a stubby flat blade screwdriver, and the tiny little holes have to be cleared with some combination of mouth air and very delicate wire. The Rt 152 crisis was my first experience with this process, and I found the jet lying in the bottom of the float bowl - not attached to the carb at all! This led me to believe that it was not properly tightened in the shop, and that in some situations I am superior to the shop. You reassemble everything and Shazam, happy bike.
Only not this time. Still not firing. Looked at the spark plugs, seemed ok. Looked at the spark plug wires. Aha! The spark plug wire end fits rather loosely onto the wire itself. Maybe too loosely in this case. Some finagling and Oh Mighty Isis, happy bike. Golden!
Until I tried to start it the next day. Firing on only one cylinder. But this time it's THE OTHER ONE. So the assignment will be to repeat the whole process on the now non-firing side. And don't get me wrong, I enjoy farting around for an afternoon with motorcycle repair. Dirt under my nails, soaked in gas and oil. But who has the time?
Maybe I should just upgrade.
I'm a biker. My bike is a 1974 Honda CB360. It gets the job done OK, although one female friend advised me that if I expected to attract chicks with a motorcycle I would have to upgrade. I thanked her for her input.
I got the bike started last week, but only one of the two cylinders was firing. This is a fairly frequent occurrence. Once I was riding on Rt 152 and suddenly I seemed to have only half a bike under me, but I made it home on the one cylinder. Barely.
Usually the culprit is clogged carb jets. What you have to do is remove the float bowl on the offending carb. You need to use a stubby Philips head screwdriver to remove the four screws, and you have to be a contortionist to get to the inner two screws, but it can be done. Then the two jets have to be unscrewed from the bottom of the carb with a stubby flat blade screwdriver, and the tiny little holes have to be cleared with some combination of mouth air and very delicate wire. The Rt 152 crisis was my first experience with this process, and I found the jet lying in the bottom of the float bowl - not attached to the carb at all! This led me to believe that it was not properly tightened in the shop, and that in some situations I am superior to the shop. You reassemble everything and Shazam, happy bike.
Only not this time. Still not firing. Looked at the spark plugs, seemed ok. Looked at the spark plug wires. Aha! The spark plug wire end fits rather loosely onto the wire itself. Maybe too loosely in this case. Some finagling and Oh Mighty Isis, happy bike. Golden!
Until I tried to start it the next day. Firing on only one cylinder. But this time it's THE OTHER ONE. So the assignment will be to repeat the whole process on the now non-firing side. And don't get me wrong, I enjoy farting around for an afternoon with motorcycle repair. Dirt under my nails, soaked in gas and oil. But who has the time?
Maybe I should just upgrade.
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