Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Both bikes running; potential buyer

Well, I literally spent most of this past weekend trying to get my motorcycles up and running. The Intruder's battery was dead after sitting for 2 weeks before I could talk to the safety rep and get his blessing to ride again so I had to fix that first. However, the bike was not made for easy access to anything. The battery sits under the frame in a little box and you have to get it to drop out of there through a little hinged door on the bottom. But of course there were connections at the top that had to be taken off first, including 2 more random wires attached to the + and - terminals and then nothing else. (I figured later that these must be for emergency jumping or charging the battery since they are in an easier place to get to than trying to take the whole battery out) So I finally got the battery out Saturday and then spent the day shopping for the oil, oil filter, and coolant I want to flush and replace and looking for a replacement maintenance free battery. However, I kept the battery I have as i soon found that batteries are NOT cheap! So I bought a charger instead and let the battery charge overnight. So my plan was to do the oil change and coolant flush on Sunday between services. However, we had an even earlier choir practice than usual as we need to get ready for the Cantata, so I wasn't left with much time. Then I spent a while trouble shooting the battery.

When I first got it in there, I turned the key and got no indicator lights. That's bad...So I messed with the connections a bit, and this time the lights came on! So I got on the bike and went to start it: *click*, lights go back out... That's not right! So I fiddled with everything again, got the lights back on, and tried it again: *click* rumrumrum *click* lights out. Agh! This happened about 3 times and I finally disconnected everything and tried cleaning the leads which looked pretty clean to me anyways. But actually, the negative terminal lead had a bunch of grime on the side I couldn't see. So I put it all together again, got the lights, and no more just *click-nothing*. After a couple of turn-overs on the starter, I had a running bike again! Woohoo! I had about an hour and a half to go so I hopped on the bike and drove it over to the auto hobby shop: only to find they're closed on Sundays and Mondays. Agh again! So anyways, I decided this would be a good time to check up on my 500 which has been sitting in the lot for about a month or two now, and sure enough it's battery was dead too. So I dug that one out and got it charging that afternoon.

Sunday morning at church I had been approached by a gentleman and college freshman son whose a friend of mine and they asked about trying out the bike. They may be interested in purchasing it if it's what he needs, but of course of the price is a little high. And I said, yeah, I know! That's so I have room to barter down, honestly! So I got the 500 running again today after work and then dropped it off at their house this evening. So, we'll see if they want to buy it or not, and I'm hoping they do! I'd really like to sell that thing at this point!

Tomorrow morning is a 445 report for Ben and I for our sim, so it's going to be an early night tonight! So far we've both worked really well together and all our study sessions have really paid off. All the instructors we've had sims with so far have commented that they can tell we've been putting some good study in. So I'm praying that continues with tomorrow's sim.

And speaking of prayer, please be in prayer for my Dad who's been really sick for a few days now. In other news, Kimberly has made it home, but please keep her in prayer as well as her muscle tone is really down after having been in ICU strapped up to IVs and all for so long.

No comments: