Beemer Stats:11.4 miles
38 mph ave
47 mpg
Gypsy Stats:
Read on
The plan was to head over to Washington's Crossing to look at old Norton's with breakfast somewhere along the way, maybe Perkiomanville FC. But the day got off to a bad start when the BMW wouldn't. Start, that is. No matter what combination of gear selection, clutch, side stand position, bump the starter button and it would start to turn over, then quit almost immediately without starting. Several phone calls back and forth and a borrowed new battery from Dave had no effect until suddenly, it decided to start. The problem continues intermittently and appear to be related to the side stand interlock (maybe). However, it started reliably enough to get us over to the the Masonic Temple in Birdsboro for a late breakfast. The GPS, meanwhile, refused to load up and now is not working, hence no map or gypsy stats this ride.
After being swept out the door by the clean-up crew at the Temple after 11:00, we did a 2 hour loop around the north and west ends of the county. Just enough to scrub in the new rubber (photo above) before heading out to WVA next weekend. Temps were 68 rising to mid-to-upper 70's by mid afternoon. Lots of bikes out many looking like the first ride of the season. The trees are in early leaf with greens of all shades, reds, and oranges in the tree tips and dogwoods, redbud, lilacs, and azaleas are all in bloom. The dominant color on the landscape is the bright yellow swaths of wild mustard blooming in the unplowed fields.
Late start and a short ride. Maybe the problems didn't turn out so big after all; in any event I gotta go start fixing gear.
Developments:
ReplyDeleteRan into a thread on the internet where someone had trouble starting a truck with the same symptom I have on the bike - starter turns, then quits, then keeps cycling - and thought it was due to loose starter connection, So today I took the starter off, cleaned and tightened the connections, cleaned and tightened the battery connections, put the starter back. No change. EXCEPT, the bike exhibits the problem with clutch out but starts with clutch in. Then I noticed that with the clutch in, when I press the starter button, as the bike starts, the N changes to a 2, then back to N. So it looks like as the engine starts to turn over, the tranny interlock switch is reporting 2nd gear briefly - long enough for the interlock to kill the starter if the clutch is out - then when it stops turning, the tranny switch goes back to reporting N. I also confirmed that the side stand switch is working properly - kills the engine if side stand is put down while engine is running and in gear, allows the engine to run if the side stand is up.