ajft

After a little more than a decade, the time has come to finally part with Mr Damage — for the last four years, maybe even five, I've done little more each year than just pay the registration and then get it running for a couple of days in the last weeks each January.

The bike owes me nothing, the costs in time and money of cleaning it up and advertising to sell it probably wouldn't be worth anything like what the recompense would be. Instead I offered it up on the mailing list of http://www.teamRC17.net — swap for a case of beer! One of the semi-local members jumped at the chance and all that remained was to find a mutally agreeable time to come and pick it up.

In all these years I've never had to put the bike on a trailer so it was a little amusing to finally learn how (backwards) one and a half fit and healthy gents can hoik a CBX into a trailer — my left shoulder still refuses to have anything to do with lifting heavy weights:

Of course Melbourne's weather chose to make life a trifle more interesting by raining lightly on us the entire time, but we refused to either drop the bike or slip over. Paul tied it all down to his satisfaction and after more thanks on both sides, headed off for the long drive back home. I'm really glad the bike is going to someone who'll use it, rather than have it sitting and gradually falling apart in our driveway — Farewell Mr Damage.

Finally, the all-important beer:

Determined to keep Mr Damage running by riding it at least once a fortnight, and hopefully once a week, I rode to work yesterday. Tried to leave only to discover that the ignition switch had no effect. No amount of swearing or checking fuses would get power to the bike. Today I brought in the multimeter, spanners and screwdrivers and an optimistic attitude. Viking provided a few handy pointers on where RC17 electricals are likely to go wrong. My lunch break involved the followng:

Remove fairing, swear, curse, confront row of connectors. Unplug, plug, unplug, plug, unplug, plug... unplug, aha! Scrub scrub scrub, plug. click lights, etc.

One very crusty burnt multi-way connector appears to be the culprit. Cause or effect of the high voltage that the bike seems to be plagued by. I cleaned it up as best as I could and plugged it all back together.

A couple of days work and a couple of hundred dollars, it sure beats an infinite delay and me not getting around to doing it myself! Picked up Mr Damage this morning with a new choke cable, a general service, and an operational second headlight (for the first time in its life). It is running far better than when I dropped it off!

Now all I need to do is pay the registration — $488 — and then consider more money for new tyres, and fix the dangly indicators, and maybe get the seat recovered, and then there's always more...

Today's expenditure

Will I or won't I? The registration papers for Mr Damage arrived in the mail a week or two ago and I realised that I haven't ridden it at all this year. So its either get rid of it in an unregistered and poor-running state, or make it go again and make myself ride. First step is a new battery, the slow death of the old one being one of the leading causes of me stopping riding. A trip to Bikes 'n Bits and $75 later and I have a brand new battery, complete with a plastic squeezy bottle of "Battery containing acid" and a set of gibberish-like instructions.

FILLING METHOD

READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE FILLING (CHECK MANUAL)

OK, that's printed on the sheet of paper that comes with the battery and bottle of acid — there is no manual. Unless the sheet of paper is intended to be the manual?

Preparation for filling

Take off the sealing tape and remove the vent plugs ONLY right before filling the electrolyte.

What flipping sealing tape? The little red rubber bung that covers the end of the overflow pipe? Its a plastic plug, nothing made of tape...

Filling electrolyte

Fill the battery with electrolyte (dilute sulphuric acid) with a density of 1.280. Fill to the "UPPER LEVEL" as indicated on the battery. The electrolyte temperature should not be over 30°C/86°F when filling.

The big question is HOW? Little squeezy bottle has a nipple-like nozzle that needs to be pierced. No mention of piercing it, and the nozzle isn't long enough to reach into the vent holes, how the hell am I meant to do this? OK, call me an idiot, but the last time I got a new battery for the bike it came ready filled.

The plastic piece of tubing fits over the nozzle, and I manage to fill each cell one-by-one through the vent holes from the squeezy bottle — all up to the last one, where I ran out of acid when it's only half full. Bummer. This cannot be the right way to do this! Fiddle about for ages, take long exploratory pokes at the old battery for inspiration, no idea. End up pipetting half a teaspoon at a time out of five of the cells to top up under-fed number six. I guess one day someone will show me what the opaque instructions gloss past and it'll dawn with a great Aha!