Thursday, March 29, 2012

An ass out of you and me

Why is it that as humans we always assume the worst?

All winter long, all WARM winter long, I have put off fixing "Big Ticket" assuming it was in need of a stater solenoid. Not the most expensive part of the bike for sure but 50 bucks is 50 bucks. Since I had no plans to ride over the winter that money had better places to be.

So tonight, after 12hrs on the job, I came home determined to stay busy since I am on call tonight. I knew if I sat down I would be tired in no time flat. I toyed around with the jeep while letting the battery in the bike charge a little. Just before going in the house I went into the building to see if  I could jump the solenoid and at least start her up for the first time since October or so. Well due to the genius minds at Harley Davidson in the 70's, the solenoid is damn near impossible to get to with that rear exhaust pipe still on. Anyhow, "Big Ticket" has a starter button on the top tree for easy access when things are working right so I decided to just try it for the heck of it and it made a tiny noise at the starter. AH HA!! The solenoid is fine. I jumped the starter button and "Big Ticket" spun over a few times and roared to life momentarily. So it turns out that because I am not only a cheap skate but also a procrastinator that I have saved myself 50 bucks and quite a bit of heartache. As for my assumption of the problem, when you assume you make .......

1 comment:

  1. That's good news. Possible the battery had been weak and not holding a full charge. Or - as was in my case - the starter bendix is bad inside the cases. So as it stands my whole starting system has been replaced, starter, relay, solenoid, bendix, start button, circuit breaker and kill switch. All but the battery.

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