When Your Ride Needs Juice

Ecuador information will be forthcoming, but in the meantime...a teaser. 

The GS was laid up and half apart in an attempt to ready her for the Multiple Sclerosis ride.  So what to do when we want to ride?  Take out the R!

Since Oilburner hasn't ridden her to work this year, the R12R has been a little neglected.  Unfortunately she wasn't on a battery tender and had to be jumped. That didn't put a damper on our day, we merely packed the jumper cables and took off.  I had my hopes that the ride would put the juice back into her and things would be fine.

Hopes but not expectations. 

We didn't have a firm destination.  Thought we would head south to Monticello and see what restaurants remained. Taking tons of backroads that we had never seen, we meandered around and yimmed and yawed.  Hunger was taking over and we spotted a Firehouse Sub that would fill the void. 

Filled the voids in our tummies, but not the belly of my beast.  She wouldn't start. Barely turned over.  Time to get that cable out, but decided to perform that quick surgery on a level area, rather than the slope we were on.  I let her coast backwards.  Gave a couple bunny hops to start our way across the parking lot, and decided to try and bump start her.  A couple more mph and it might have worked.  There just wasn't enough oomph.  However, whatever the move did, it gave her enough of something that she fired up quickly.  Wasn't going to dare shut her down though.

But we needed fuel...  :(  The gas station next door was one of many that were suffering from the pipeline issues, and was out of fuel.  We'd get fuel elsewhere, but turned the bikes back north to hit the dealership and get a new battery. We calculated it out, and figured the battery had to be 6-7 years old. It had done us well.

Nothing exciting to report.  Good day, decent ride, new battery, saw the techs I hadn't seen in awhile.  Couple dollars poorer, but the R is worth it.  It was great riding her again. 

Life of the Party

I took up the popular "battery conversion" for my R.  I hadn't yet experienced Sudden Battery Death but my battery was approaching three years in age and was audibly weaker and cranking slower. This issue has been on my mind for awhile and I had requested Mr. Oilburner make jumper cables for my bike that are permanently mounted under the seat.  But I finally decided I would rather lose a few months of life and money from the battery then to be stranded.  So armed with battery replacement opinions from the forums, and conversion instructions, I ordered the Odyssey PC535 and went about installing it.

Removing original battery tie down.

Removing the plastic rivets, making it possible to remove/bend/replace mounting bracket.

Cutting notches into the fins making it possible to squeeze the battery between the seat posts.

After the tie down bracket was hammered out and refit, still need a washer of sorts to make up its shortcoming.

In all, the conversion was extremely easy thanks to a couple hardy souls that documented it for the rest of us. The battery sounds strong and turns the bike over quickly and easily.  I only had one confused moment on the Alabama ride when the bike repeatedly stalled.  The problem existed more between handlebar and seat when the operator continued shifting into first with the kickstand down...