So much has happened since my last post. I’m finally not
living in my mom’s house. Yay! A former college room mate of mine got hired
where I work so now me, him, and his girlfriend are renting a small house 2
miles from our job. The savings on gas are pretty nice, though I still manage
to put a lot of miles on my car. Helping with that however is my Buell, which
is finally inspected. I’ve already put about 200 miles on it and it’s getting
about 64mpg. Hopefully it’ll do even
better after the carb is cleaned out, which leads to a bit of a story…
Last weekend or so, a friend of mine gradumacated from
Bloomsburg University. She invited a bunch of us up for it. Parking would be at
a premium so I decided to take the bike. It was a little over 70 miles each
way. I headed up Friday after work. The weather was gorgeous albeit a bit
breezy and the bike was running great…until I hit the interstate. On the
smaller highways the bike did great, but out on the interstate while
maintaining a consistent speed, she’d bog down and stall. So for the next…40
miles or so I’d stall every 5th mile and have to take refuge on the
shoulder. Eventually I made it to the town of Bloomsburg and upon entering stop
and go traffic (lights, stop signs, etc) the Buell ran like a champ again.
Then Saturday came. The morning was overcast. After the
ceremony I parted ways with my friends and proceeded to stall out in the
parking lot. Yip. Eee. I could tell the carb was flooding so I opened the air
box to let the gas evaporate some. This helped more than I expected and I was
soon on my way. Once out on the interstate again….it began to rain….and the bike
continued to stall every couple miles. In the rain. (Mind you, I have less than
4 months’ riding experience) There were a few other bikes on the road and one
guy on a big touring bike stopped to see if he could help me anything. There
wasn’t much he could do but he did ride behind me to the next exit where I got
off in hopes of finding…something. I found a gas station with a canopy and
bathroom. Gave me a dry place to call my dad from. Being without a GPS (had one
in my pocket but no way to use while riding) I couldn’t track down any mechanical
help type places so I decided to just continue on. The bike stalled once on me
after that and I realized that if I kept varying the throttle, she’d keep
going. Wasn’t happy, but kept running. Once I was back off the interstates and
on the smaller highways the Buell ran with no problems. Only thing I stopped
for was to check out a new McLaren at a gas station near my house.
Anywho, it’s been determined that the carburetor needs a
desperate cleaning. The previous owner used to run the bike with no air filter…surprise
surprise. If that doesn’t help, a new spark plug may be in order as well.
I think that’s all I’m going to tell for now as I should be
sleeping….
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