Over the past few days, Mozi has been a little reluctant to start up on her own. She is not equipped with a kick starter and must rely on a fully charged battery to spin the old starter.
Come on, let's sing together: "The starter's connected to the Crankshaft..." and so on.
Saturday night is a night when most of America is out with friends, lovers, spouses or perhaps with total strangers in some arena to witness a sporting event in person or on live big screen TV. Not me, on this past Saturday night. Oh no, Mozi had different ideas. As we were heading south and west on some road, out of some town (the names escape me at this moment), I noticed the headlight getting a little dimmer as the miles passed. Anyway, we had been traveling up an incline for maybe 5-6 miles and there was a service station opened as late as 9:00PM. It was now 8:45PM and I decided to fill up with gas in case I decided a hotel would just be a ball and chain to slow me down on this mission. With the bright lights of a gas station at my disposal, I searched for the reason the lights were dim and found the battery to have only 3volts instead of the normal 12volts. I checked the generator leads and when I jiggled them, I discovered the generator was loose. I mean really loose as if the generator bracket weld had broken again. And guess what? It did!
The woman who owned the gas station was closing up at 9:00PM and was kind enough to leave the exterior lights on for me to see to perform surgery on my riding buddy. Off with the travel bag, Sleeping bag, tent, spare gas can and my seat to gain access to the tools and the battery. Removing the negative cable will a short circuit while working on the electrical system, including removing the negative cable end from the battery since it is a negative-ground system.
Remove negative cable, check!
Remove horn, check!
Remove generator, check!
Remove generator mounting bolts, check!
Reinstall same bolts with flat washers I happen to have in the spare parts saddle bag, check!
Reinstall generator, check!
Adjust generator belt and install generator belt cover, check!
Store the horn in the saddlebag, since the horn button doesn't work after I replaced the headlight switch a few weeks ago with one not suitable for a horn button.
Load everything else back onto Mozi and wash my hands, check!Foolishly believe Mozi would just start right up on her own, check!
Attempt to push her off by myself, checkmate!note: battery is now too dead to even produce a small spark to start the engine and must be charged.
Push this 500LB motorcycle and the 300LB of cargo needed for this trip up the hill to the main road, check!
Try to flag down anyone to jump-start Mozi, failure to find a kind soul who is not headed to that arena for the sporting event of the century.
I asked myself, "What would MacGyver do?"
After finishing off the Diet Mountain Dew and a Slim Jim, I had a revelation!
I remembered the incline Mozi and I rode up to get to this place tonight. All I need to do is spin the generator at a good speed for a few minutes to charge the battery enough to cause a spark and once Mozi cranks, we are on our way.
A compression engine is called that because the cylinders are filled with air, laced with gasoline and then this same air/gas mixture is compressed by the spinning of the engine forcing the piston up in the cylinder and at a given point in the revolution of the crankshaft, the sparkplug fires and ignites the vapor which forces the piston back down, continuing the crankshaft to turn. The compression of each of the two cylinders causes a resistance in the spinning of the engine.
Therefore, I removed both sparkplugs to allow the air to escape and eliminated that resistance.
No need to have gasoline running through an engine that will not run, so I shut off both fuel valves.
I also removed the wire that normally feeds the headlight, so I am not using the electricity the generator produces, enabling the battery to charge more rapidly.
I then strapped my LED headlamp onto the windshield of Mozi to provide some light to see where we are going.
"Little Miss Sunshine" popped into my head and I laughed at the vision of a little girl running next to a VW Microbus as it was driving away.
Helmet installed to protect what is left of my warped mind, check!
Key switch turned on to allow the electricity to flow to the battery from the generator, check!
Push Mozi down the inclined highway after checking for no approaching traffic.
As we coasted down the road in neutral, the speed increased at a steady pace until it was time to place the transmission into 3rd gear and release the clutch.
Mozi was purring without exhaust emissions and without noticeably decreasing speed, so I shifted into 2nd gear. Stealthy, we were and it seemed a little silly. But, if it works, do it. We continued down the hill at a fast running pace for about 7 minutes and I pulled off the road and we came to a stop. I checked the voltage on the battery and found 8 volts reading on my meter. Yeah!!!
I put everything back like it should be and pushed Mozi down the hill again, and let out on the clutch in 2nd gear with the key switch on and the fuel valves on. Mozi jumped to life and we were off and running!
We ran along in 2nd gear for about 4 more minutes to charge the battery enough to allow for headlight use again. I pulled off the road once more and connected the wiring to the headlight. Closed up the headlight into its housing and double checked that everything I owned was in its place. Ready for lift off, NASA!
Mozi on...
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