Yesterday I was playing Santa Claus, delivering a few gifts when my cell phone rang. It was my best friend Pat, a local auto mechanic and all-around good guy. Pat was wondering if I was home because he had a present from his family to deliver. I told him that I’d be gone for a couple of hours but stop by anyway; the house is open. We wished each other Merry Christmas and I got back to the task at hand.
About an hour and a half later my phone rang again. It’s Pat again, wondering if I was home yet. I told him that I was on my way and should arrive in 45 minutes. He replied “When you get home you better stop by the shop and turn off the lights.” I’m a little confused because they were off when I left, so I asked if someone had stopped by and left them on. Pat sheepishly replied “Yes, it was me. By the way I needed a battery, so I took one of those too.” After a second or two digesting the information he’d just given me, I broke out laughing knowing that a good story was forthcoming.
First, a little background information. A few years ago I needed to drop off a truck that required his services. Being alone I didn’t have a way home, but Pat said “No problem. I have a car here that I need to take for a test drive. I’ll give you a ride home and hopefully I’ll find the problem.” It sounded like a good plan to me, so off we went. As we drove along I asked what was wrong with the car. Pat replied the owner had complained that the vehicle would die, then immediately restart. He had been unable to recreate the problem in his shop, so he was hoping a test drive would recreate the situation. Sure enough, we turned off the main highway and the car promptly died. The only problem was this time it refused to restart. Thinking it may be a heat related problem Pat suggested that we wait for the engine to cool at bit and try again. After 15 minutes, still no start. We opened the hood and checked for obvious signs of trouble, however with no tools we were severely limited in what checks we could perform. We tried several time to get the engine to fire, but no luck. The battery was going dead and it still hadn’t fired. Finally Pat sighed and said “Well, you’re going to have to walk back to my shop, get my towrope and my pick-up and come back so we can pull it back to the shop.” I replied jokingly “Why do I have to walk? This was your idea, I was just along for the ride.” Pat replied “I can’t walk back. Everyone around here knows me. It they see a car parked along the road and me walking home it’s bad for business. They’ll say “I see you fixed another car Pat”.” I laughed and agreed that I saw his point, but said let me have a go at it. I looked things over, spotted a likely looking sensor and gave it a good whack with the air cleaner lid. “Try it” I told him. To both of our surprise the car started and there was an immediate flurry of activity resembling a Chinese Fire Drill as we replaced the air cleaner housing and miscellaneous other parts we had removed in an attempt to get home before it died again. Thankfully the car ran for the two miles back to his shop. Needless to say we took his pickup for my ride home after that misadventure.
Today’s adventure turned out to be very similar. A regular customer brought in a Jeep that would die. Once again it ran fine at the shop, so Pat figured he would go on a test drive. He made it to my house where it died in my driveway directly in front of my house. Pat tried to crank it over and the battery was totally dead. He raised the hood and felt the alternator. Ice cold. Well, that information would have come in handy getting it from the owner, but at least he found the problem. Pat then walked to the shop hoping to find a battery charger or something else just as useful. Instead he saw the line of forklifts lined up in a row. As luck would have it, one of the forklifts had the same type and size battery that the dead Jeep needed, so He took some wrenches from my toolbox and removed the battery.
Relieved that he now had a fighting chance to get back home, he lugged the battery up to the house, removed the dead battery from the Jeep and installed the forklift battery. As he slammed the hood closed, the now energized electrical system of the Jeep decided it was a good time to activate the security system, locking the doors with the keys conveniently on the front seat. Pat retreated to my house and dug through the closets until he found a wire hanger which he fashioned into a tool to unlock the door. Succeeding in opening a door, he unlocked all the doors, put the keys in his pocket and opened a rear door to set the dead battery inside. Upon closing the door, he discovered that the latch was broken and the door wouldn’t stay closed. Dumbstruck that the string of bad luck he was having, he went back into the house and dug through some drawers until he found some plastic zip-ties to tie the door closed so he could drive back home.
When Pat called me the second time he was limping the Jeep home with no lights or heater running to conserve battery power for the fuel pump and ignition. I kept him on the phone until he made it safely back to his shop, with the Jeep starting to shudder as he turned in his driveway and dying again in front of the shop. Glad that he was home safely I bid him farewell with “I see you fixed another car, Pat”.
First thing to do is determine what you want your bike to do, how are you going to use it and what do you expect from it in that use?
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> From: David H
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