Rectifying An Electrical Problem in Italy - 1

[bccap]

Thanks for the wonderful photos and story. I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
I too boiled my new battery dry due to a toasted r/r. There was no liquid in it at all. When I did my voltage checks I got readings of 16.5 and 17 volts at 5000 rpm. Changed the r/r and filled the battery up with distilled water and two years later I am still using that battery....

[londonboards]

bccap - I thought that my battery had perhaps not been totally wrecked. After all it came back to life with fizzy mineral water. I regret leaving it behind but there was no safe way to take it home. I bought a new one because I just needed to eliminate it from the equation and put my mind at rest. And when I look back at it, I had traveled over 1,200 miles at fairly high speeds before it finally gave up the ghost and stopped giving me power. When I tested the rectifier, it was only delivering 1 to 2 volts over the top which ain't no killer diller me thinks.

Greetings

[londonboards]

9. Rectifying an Electrical Problem in Italy - 9

Travelling on your own is a completely different experience to travelling with a group. You have to choose your route and decide on your pace and where to stop. Up till now I had stepped back from all that, enjoying the freedom of having to follow the group rather than to be making decisions all the time. Riding now was somewhat more stressful than switching off and following as I was used to but I was enjoying the moment more than I realised. I batted on travelling up to 85 mph for stretches of 2 or 3 hours or until I needed to stop for fuel.



I was comfortably managing to do around 170 miles before the reserve was needed. So I would be looking for fuel from around 165 miles from my last fill up. The tank holds 22 litres and I was getting about 10 miles per litre or around 40 mpg. On motorways, I tend to ride using throttle opening positions rather than sticking to a set speed, traffic permitting of course. I operate the bike at 1/8^th to ¼ throttle opening. So if I am going up hill that might be as low as 65 mph but on the flat I’ll be doing 75 mph or more if I can slipstream with a truck or car. I intersperse this with the occasional blast up to 90 mph if I have traffic free roads just to get the adrenalin going and keep me alert. There is nothing quite like an adrenalin shot to sharpen the senses.



I wound my way up the Aosta Valley using the A5 motorway. This is a sensational road which runs alongside the Fiume Dora Baltea river, which brings the melted snow down off this part of the Western Italian Alps and is surrounded on both side by steep and imposing mountains. It was a fitting adjunct to feeling on top of the world.



Next part: Part 10

[GSXR7ED]

Italia!

OMG!

Beautiful pics...sorry, I'm side-tracked with the splendor of Italy. I lived in Sacile and worked on Aviano and drove my wife's car to Sigonella NAS so I've seen first-hand how beautiful this country is. Check the mileage...Venice to Catania, Sicily.

Anyway, I hope it all works out for you...lesson learned on the R/R for sure.


Ed

EDIT: Let me also say, I've lived in England as well. Wethersfield, Essex; Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk; and Newmarket, Suffolk, so, I've partaken in your country. Beautiful place...love the countryside, pubs, markets....enjoyed it from Feb 1989 to Sep 1993.

[tatu]

bccap - I thought that my battery had perhaps not been totally wrecked. After all it came back to life with fizzy mineral water. I regret leaving it behind but there was no safe way to take it home. I bought a new one because I just needed to eliminate it from the equation and put my mind at rest. And when I look back at it, I had traveled over 1,200 miles at fairly high speeds before it finally gave up the ghost and stopped giving me power. When I tested the rectifier, it was only delivering 1 to 2 volts over the top which ain't no killer diller me thinks.

Greetings

You had some gaffer tape, you could've emptied the acid out carefully, rinsed the outside with water taped it up in a bag to be sure put it into the box the new one came in and chucked in your bag or strapped it to a bit on your bike someplace.

Just mention that when I suggested using a bulb as a resistor, I meant connecting it in series on the positive wireso that if anything the filament would just glow not connected across positive and negative so that it worked as a bulb and not as a resistor, then that way you could connect and disconnect to achieve the charge you needed, a lot of messing but it would stop the battery boiling up. In the end you went the best route and couldn't'v done it better. Good write up.

[londonboards]

tatu - yeah I probably could have done that. My bag packing was all sorted and I didn't want to have to re-arrange it all. It would have been quite a weight in my soft saddlebags. I was keen to get back on the road and sacrificed it in the heat of battle - so to speak.

[londonboards]

GSXR7ED - Sounds like you've been in the USAF. Do you recognise this:



This is on a bike I picked up from a US importer here in the UK. Belonged to some US serviceman somewhere.

Greetings

[GSXR7ED]

Royal Air Force Life

^^Yes sir! (I recognize that decal)

I was stationed at RAF Wethersfield first, then when the base closed, I transferred to RAF Mildenhall. I married a local girl who's family has roots in Coatbridge, Scotland. Been up there too...someday I need to find the pics I took up there as well as the ones from England.

Thanks for the recognition and keep up with the updates!


Ed

[londonboards]

10. Rectifying an Electrical Problem in Italy - 10

There are 282 components in my set of 4 Mikuni BS34SS Constant Velocity carburettors and I have had every single one of them in my fingers. From the carburettor body right down to the little washer and rubber O ring from the pilot screw. Each component is critical to the operation of the unit and built to withstand the rigours of their workplace environment. Component failures are thankfully rare. The rubber parts perish over time and the needle valve springs lose their spring which can lead to overflowing float bowls. But the main causes of problems are from contaminants in the fuel or from fuel putrefaction due to long periods of inactivity. There are small pipes, holes and passageways with minute apertures that can easily get clogged and cause a disproportionate degree of malfunction. Clean carburettors are the first place to start when refurbishing or overhauling one of these engines.



I am something of a carburettor nerd. I think most of my appreciation and love of this type of bike is simply because they have these fine pieces of engineering and craftsmanship attached to their engines. I tore this set apart as my first job after taking ownership of the bike. Get the carbs sorted to start with and then everything else falls into place. This was a particularly good rebuild. None of the jets had seized and everything went back together nicely. Now these beauties were delivering up to 8 litres of fuel to the cylinders every hour. On our first day alone, they were washed with 44 litres of unleaded. And now they were delivering a perfect mixture, as I climbed up the mountain motorway. This was what riding was all about for me. Man and machine blended into one moving item. I have not been digitally distanced from the operation of my machine by ECUs, CPUs or electronic chips. I can see and feel that golden liquid travelling through those beautiful pipes, bowls and tubes. And that puts me on top of the world.



I reached the entrance to the Mont Blanc tunnel and rode up to the checkpoint. The tunnel is just over 7 miles long and you are required to drive at a speed between 50 kph and 70 kph and at least 150 mtres behind the vehicle in front of you. Inside the tunnel the air is very warm. It doesn’t prepare you for the massive drop in temperature when you exit the other side. You enter at an elevation of 4,531 ft (1,381 m) on the Italian side and exit on the French side at 4,180 ft (1,274 m). But in between you move from hot to cold. And in the middle it’s stonking hot. In that 7 mile section of tunnel, it feels like you move between continents. Well at least between climate zones.



38 people died in this tunnel in 1999 and there is an aura of “memorial” to the place. Plaques commemorating those who lost their lives are highly visible on the French side. Verbal and written instructions passed to all drivers before you enter the tunnel are most disconcerting. It feels like you are about the enter Disney’s Space Mountain. You are given every opportunity to chicken out after you read the warnings. But the daring-do in you draws you in. There is a sense of danger, excitement and mystery all at once.



Next part:part 11

[tatu]

Cool, I got a picture of that glacier looking thingy in the background'v your pic.




Only seven miles, it seemed longer, these when we went on our hols to Lake Garda in the racer.



Inside....



And popped out on the Italian side

[GSXR7ED]

Carbs & Scenery

Londonboards, thanks for the narrative on the carbs...my bike has been sitting in the garage since July and it will be some time before I start to ride again. I'll be doing the carb rebuild to remove all the contaminants and replace springs/o-rings.

I can't forget to mention your pics; simply love that you are describing travels and taking beautiful scenic pictures. I'll be checking in periodically.


Ed

[mf70]

OMG, when you switched from "being on to of the world" to the innards of the carbs I was expecting the worst.

Yes, riding on your own can be a pretty lonely feeling on a big trip. I did a stretch across the Wyoming high plains one day, and I remember thinking about each one of the spark ignitions that was moving me forward.

A wonderful write up.

[tatu]

Spark? What about the camshafts whizzing round at 50 odd revolutions per second and the crank 100 + times a second with the pistons going past any point in the barrel 200 times in a second (@ 7k ish rpm) those are the things that I used to marvel at in my mind and it all holding together doing those long miles and trying to work out how far each rev moved the bike. I never did work that one out. (needed more info and too stupid anyway)

[londonboards]

tatu - I will indeed marvel at that once I have the new GS1150 engine rebuilt. That crankshaft will have been in my hands so I will know it intimately.

It frightens me to death. All that is needed for a total apocalypse is for one nut/bolt/shim to give way and .........

[londonboards]

11. Rectifying an Electrical Problem in Italy - 11

The reality of the tunnel is somewhat less exciting. It looks a bit like the single carriageway Blackwall Tunnel in East London. It’s very narrow and small by comparison to more modern tunnels we see across the world these days and the journey through it was uneventful and fume filled.

On the other side, I just took the signs towards Chamonix, a place I was vaguely familiar with as I had skied there some years earlier. I entered the town and stopped at the first hotel that had any visible parking. It was a small guest house with a bar frequented by local municipal workers. A perfect place for a lone biker to hang up his leathers for the night. I bought a couple of beers and rested on my bed, sound in the knowledge that man and machine were functioning precisely as the good Lord had intended. It’s a simple satisfaction that any touring biker will understand. Arriving safe and sound at your destination, having survived murderous car and truck drivers (especially the Italians), inhospitable road surfaces, inclement weather and a 32 year old Japanese bike not in its most reliable condition, is truly a reason for celebration. Beer is good for that.







The next morning was picture postcard. Snow capped mountains greeted me after I had had a fabulous “only in France” French breakfast and set off on my way again.



A quick Google Maps made it to be 554 miles to the port of Calais where I would get the Eurotunnel train back home. That looked like being 4 petrol tank fill ups. It was 100 miles more than our very first long day. I didn’t even consider if I was capable of doing it. I was on my own and would simply set off and see how it went. In the back of my mind were the stories I had heard from our US friends who were Iron Butt participants. One guy had done the 4 corners of the US, 48 States and 11,000 miles in 11 days. How was that even possible? I set off with no fixed target but a determination to make the most of the good weather I had in front of me.

Next part: part 12