sprocket i/o

On Thursday night I was due to meet up with my friends, Chris and Young, at Maddy’s Rib & Blues Joint in Decatur. Secretly, I wanted to head out to the Vortx Bar & Grill for the ADVrider bike night, but we don’t get to have a Guys’ Night out too often. After work, I headed down I-20 and noticed that my “last gallon left” warning light came. I typically get 48-58mpg, and only had about 15 miles to go. 

I got off the highway and headed north on Moreland Ave, and as soon as I was stopped behind traffic, my bike sputtered and died. I said to myself “No way am I out of gas after 10 miles!”. I tried to restart the bike several times, and you could hear it trying to get a spark, but to no avail. There was a biker on a Goldwing behind me who said “Sounds like you’re out of gas!”. I agreed, and as soon as the lights turned green, I duckwalked my bike down the hill to the nearest gas station. Filled the bike up, and it started right up without a problem!

I get to another stop light, and the bike quits again. I mash the starter a few times, but the engine just wheezes, so I pull over onto a nearby sidewalk. This time I turn the bike off entirely with my keys, and restart it… the engine purrs like a Thumper should. “How strange!’.  I pull back into traffic, and at the next stoplight, it dies again. This time though, when I turned the key off and back on, the lights on the dash were dim — I had drained my battery.

I get off the bike, and push it to the nearest parking lot — the Best Buy about a mile south of the Vortex. It’s amazing how light a 500lbs. motorcycle is when you are annoyed and embarassed! I didn’t have Young’s phone number on my cellphone, so I called up Chris to share the good news. Chris and Young show up shortly, and we attempt to recharge the battery from Chris’s car. Meanwhile, Young and myself look for the stalling culprit.

Like a car, a motorcycle only requires 3 things to run: A battery to get started, fuel, air, and spark. We attempted to start the bike while plugged into Chris’s car, but it still would not yield. To us, this meant that we needed to look at air and spark, since fuel should no longer be an issue. I had changed the spark plug only 500 miles ago, and cleaned the air filter at the same time. After inspection, we decided that the spark plug was good, but the K&N air filter (and airbox) was filled with oil, which could cause oxygen starvation (and lack of spark). On the F650GS, if you ever tip the bike, or overfill slightly, the airbox gets oil into it, which sticks to the air filter.

After reseating the spark plug and cleaning the air filter as best as I could without proper tools, the bike started up! Eureka! We unhook the jumper cables, start the bike again, and the bike doesn’t start. Looks like the AGM battery I bought from BikeBatts last year is a bust. After some discussion, we hunted down the local Autozone with the help of Google Maps Mobile, and plonk down $70 for a Magna Power CB12AL-AFP battery.

Sadly, most motorcycle batteries do things old school style: You get to mix the acid in yourself, and at least once a year must top it off with distilled water. You must also hook up an exhaust tube so that any acid overflow that occurs during riding is disposed of properly. I solved all this by buying the AGM battery last year, but here we go again. After filling the new battery with acid, we have to wait an hour for the chemicals to mix properly, so we walk down to the Vortex for a bite to eat. We got there around 10:30pm, so most of the folks there for bike night had left already. The burgers were good and the company was even better, but I was feeling antsy to get my bike up and running again.

After eating, we got back to start the initial charge cycle for the battery. The manual calls for another hour, so we went on a search for caffiene. The coffee shops around were closed, so we got some energy drinks from the Kroger just before closing time, and just hung out and shared stories. This is what a guys night out was all about.

30 minutes later, we get tired of waiting, plug everything in, and the Dakar starts up like nothing ever happened. The original battery exhaust hose isn’t reaching far enough, so we use the one that the battery came with, and just poke it out into the back of the front tire mud flap. We headed home, and that was all I had to say about that. Until the next morning, when I saw what happens if you don’t have the battery exhaust port routed properly:

All of those ‘stains’ were caused by the battery acid on a 30 mile ride home. I took the time the next morning to properly clean the K&N filter, as well as the bike, and she’s all pretty again:

I can’t wait for the next guys night out!