LABiker: Fookin' Sprint is broke again.

["Rick Damiani" <rickd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have been having irritating electrical problems with my Sprint for
the past few weeks. The clutch interlock wasn't working correctly,
which forced me to bypass it to get the bike started. I assumed that
it was just the switch, but then I noticed that when I hit the horn
the headlights would turn off. Initial troubleshooting indicated that
the fault lies in the wiring harness, as the switch and the wires
leading to and from the switch checked out OK. Crap.

I had been planning a trip to the bay area next weekend and needed
tires as well, so I figured I would have the folks at Southern
California Triumph take a look-see and see if they could get it
working correctly again. While it was there, I figured I'd let them
put a new set of tires on it as well [1][2]. A bit pricey to let the
dealer do it, I know, but it was more convenient to have them handle
all of it than to try to do the tires and get the electrical problems
looked at during the week.

While I was waiting for Jeremy to come take a look, I noticed that
there was a puddle of oil forming rapidly under the bike. That seemed
odd, so I took a closer look. The oil was dripping off of the base of
the shock absorber. Odd, as there aren't any oil lines back there.
Looking at the rubber bumper at the base of the shock told the tale,
though. It seems that the shock absorber chose that particular moment
to blow out it's seal and dump all of it's oil. Double crap.

Worse of all is that Triumph is apparently closed for the holidays, so
getting a new shock will likely take quite some time. Certainly it
will be long enough to cause me to miss my trip to the Bay Area this
week. The only bright spot is that the bike is still under warrantee
[3], so Jeremy is fairly confident that Triumph will cough up a new
boinger.

My luck with vehicles has been pretty bad this year. In addition to
the trouble with the bike, I've had to replace the cylinder heads on
my '96 Taurus and it's in the shop right now having the transmission
repaired.

In the event Triumph doesn't come up with a new shock, do any of you
have any suggestions for a replacement rear unit? Something worth it's
weight in gold, but costing it's weight in sand would be especially
welcome.

[1] I love new tires.

[2] I haven't been able to get a good price on Macadams this time
around, 'casue Millennium Cycles is only matching prices on Dunlops
and everyone else I called is asking full retail, so I an going to try
a set of Dunlop D205s.

[3] Love that warrantee. So far it has paid for a new cylinder head,
piston, liner, assorted gaskets, a complete exhaust system, a pair of
new inner panniers, and two fuel level senders. [4]

[4] At this point, I'm thinking that the extended warrantee would be
an excellent investment.



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