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Outranked by Major Engine Damage



Our tale of woe begins, as most of them do, with a little thing.
Monday evening, when leaving work, my bike sounded a little odd -
almost as if it needed some choke (something that fuel injected
Triumphs aren't actually equipped with). It was sputtering and popping
at idle, but ran fine once it was warmed up and given a bit of
throttle. I figured it was a vacuum leak from the ScottOiler I
recently installed and planned to have a look-see Wednesday after
work. That, unfortunately, was not to be.

Cut to this morning. The Guppy seems to be running a bit worse than
yesterday - maybe I should check out that tubing at lunch or
something. This could get annoying really quick. After waiting a bit
for the Guppy to warm up I'm off into lovely Los Angeles traffic for
another day at work.

Once I get to the office, I take some time during my smoke break to
look at the exposed ScottOiler tubing to see if I can spot any obvious
problems. Crap - everything looks fine. Guess I'll have to pop the
tank off then. Not today though - gotta head out to San Fernado for a
laser engraver installation. Hop on the bike again at noon and I'm
off.

Traffic is pretty light on the 210 as I head towards the 118, and when
traffic is light on the 210 it's also fast. I'm doing 90 and barely
keeping up with all the other nuts. As I am passing through Sunland it
happens. Not with a bang, but with a whimper, a tick, and a lot of bad
words.

About 1/2 mile from the Sunland off-ramp the engine looses power.
Completely. Immediately I disengage the clutch and start cursing.
Above the curses, the white noise of the wind, and the hum of the
tires on the pavement I hear 'the noise'. A rapid, metallic clicking
noise is coming from the engine compartment. I have been outranked by
Major Engine Damage. I kill the engine, leave the clutch disengaged,
and head for the Sunland exit off-ramp. Thankfully, the light at the
end of the off-ramp is in my favor, as is the slope of the pavement. I
make the right turn and, with my last few ergs of inertia, I coast
into the local Public Storage complex.

Wonder of wonders - my buddy lives just down the block and he has a
truck all set up for transporting bikes that he uses to get his bikes
to and from the shop. Won't help get the bike running, but it will
help in getting it to someone who *can* get the bike running, which is
the next best thing. Unfortunately, Steve (the buddy with the truck)
is at work and won't be home until about 2:30.

First things first though - gotta call the office and tell them I'm
stranded. Then call the dealer and see if they can come get the bike.
I know they have a transporter, cause I seen them use it. No joy on
the transporter, but they do know a motorcycle-specific towing company
they can send out. Cool, says I. I might get back to the office in
time to get some work done, even if I did have to put off the engraver
set-up until tomorrow. So I go back to the bike and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally, I call the tow company to see what the hold up is. "Oh yeah"
they say "we'll be out there in about an hour."

"An HOUR?" Says I. "I been waiting an hour for you guys already."

"Yeah, well. We're kinda busy here today." they say. "But we got
someone headed out that way pretty soon."

"Don't bother." I say. "I'd hate to get in the way of your servicing
paying customers in a timely fashion."

By now it's 2:00 in the afternoon and Steve (the guy with the truck)
will be home any minute, so I walk over to his place. I get there just
as he arrives and tell him my story. Steve, being the great guy he is,
agrees to give me a hand. Him and Brian come over and pick up the
bike, load it up, and away we go. Me and Steve in the truck and Brian
following along on Rrrr (his CBR900RR).

When we get to the dealer, I see why the transporter is not available.
It seems that the Aprillia truck has just dropped off what appears to
be every Aprillia scooter in existence. Everyone at the shop is
hustling around trying to find someplace to put all these diminutive
Italian motorized fashion statements. This does not bode well for
timely diagnosis and repair of my Guppy.

Preparing to unload the pickup gets the service managers attention,
though. He comes over, helps us get the bike off the truck, and
listens to me explain all about my brush with Major Engine Damage. As
I hand them the keys I ask him when he might be able to look at the
bike and figure out the problem.

"Not tomorrow, but maybe the next day." He says. Uh-oh. At that
moment, I realize that my Guppy has been through triage and had 'no
heroic measures' scrawled on it's chart. Guess I won't be riding this
weekend...

Now it's back to work. Brian is working from home this week, so he
hands me the keys to 'Rrrr', his CBR900RR and tells me I can use it
for the next couple of days until I work something else out - most
likely getting his clapped-out Radian running. Are these a couple of
great guys or what.

Tune in Some Day Real Soon Now when we find out what happened to the
Guppy, and how many months it takes to get engine parts from deep in
the bowels of England.

- --
A host is a host from coast to coast ..................... Rick
Damiani
and no one will talk to a host that's close ....
rickd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unless the host (that isn't close) .........
rickd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
is busy, hung or dead ..............................NGI# T695 DoD
#2659



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