How I Spent My Summer Vacation

This is such a common back-to-school English-class homework assignment it became a cliché. So here is my little pandemic-summer story. This past weekend I replaced the ignition sensor in my 1994 Honda XR650L and now it runs again. I’ve ridden this bike since new. Over the first three years I gradually converted it from dual-sport configuration to something set up for urban street riding, though after the conversion was done I also rode it to Los Angeles once (in 2001), camping out most of the way because I’d wanted to experience ‘traveling light’, which at the time was more uncommon than it is today. No saddlebags, just two size ‘M’ Ortlieb waterproof duffels strapped across the back: one with a tent and sleeping bag and the other with clothing, miscellaneous items and a basic food bag: Canned Tuna, canned beans for a campfire, etc. No stove or cooking pot. Vagabonding.

The modifications included a lowered suspension at both ends, wide 17” wheels with stickier tires, a larger gas tank, a throttle lock and a bunch of other lesser personalizations. I’d stopped riding it four or five years ago when one day it mysteriously had no spark and I was too lazy and distracted to diagnose and fix this fault. It just sat over in the corner of the garage with the right handlebar end leaning against the wall. Waiting.

I decided to bring it back to life last fall: Carb and brake rebuilds, an oil change, a bright modern LED headlight, and a new fuel petcock and battery. All done by an independent motorcycle repair shop. Over the winter I did a bunch of additional smaller, easier things myself: Cleaning its sticky turn signal switch and throttle, etc. That strange no-spark thing had disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. Everything was working well for a twenty-six-year-old bike.

In the spring when I began to ride it again the no-spark thing came back. Fortunately, this time there was a pandemic handy, so I wasn’t distracted by other temptations and immediately put it up on a milk crate and started following the Honda shop manual’s “no-spark troubleshooting” instructions – a sequenced fault diagnosis plan: Bad spark plug, cap and wire? Nope. Bad CDI? Nope. Bad coil? No. Next on their list was the ignition trigger thing which is inconveniently located beneath the right-side engine cover where the clutch lives. It tested bad (via the external wiring to it) on a little VOM so I ordered a new one.

Last Saturday morning my ultra-slow amateur-mechanic skills meant three hours for disassembling and carefully cleaning everything and then about the same amount of time on Sunday replacing the failed component and reassembling everything. It had been around ten years since the last time I’d done anything inside an engine. Tune-ups, tire changes, farkeling and general maintenance doesn’t count.

After putting everything back together there were no extra parts left over and the bike started right up, so I was happy. This job had involved the mess of an oil pan beneath the engine and a long time spent tediously scraping away the old hardened gasket material, which came off in little flakes and scraps. As I worked around the sealing edge of the case with several scraping tools, I imagined a dental hygienist removing stubborn calculus from all of the little spaces between a non-flossing person’s teeth. This task seemed about that fiddly. Except one’s bi-annual tooth cleaning goes quickly – you’re done in less than half an hour.

After electric cars and bikes eventually become common, those who grew up with electrics will find it difficult to believe people not only put up with, but actually enjoyed dealing with the dirty, messy and burdensome complexities of normal combustion engine repair and maintenance. It will seem to them like we suffered the crudest rinky-dink, unreliable, antediluvian, primitive engines to serve our necessary automobility needs.

When you use any newer car or ride some of the recent luxe touring bikes now, the fundamental Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang nonsense is almost entirely camouflaged beneath multiple layers of NVH-eliminating (Noise Vibration Harshness) engineering -- but it’s all still there, all the filth, fire, drama and precision-managed explosions so many motorcyclists love. Including me, at least most of the time. Future riders will say you are “Doin' it old school” as they smile, admire and slightly condescendingly regard your surviving ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) machine.

In summary, the pandemic has meant almost no longer-distance motorcycle traveling anywhere and lots of house, yard, domestic and garage projects, plus electric and regular bicycle transportation-pedaling for the majority of my riding. For the first time in thirty years I didn’t ‘go’ anywhere. I guess it’s nice to be more caught up on all the previously procrastinated projects, but it is even nicer to be moving along an empty road somewhere, listening to the wind and feeling the vibrations of riding. So please come soon, summer of 2021.

How did you spend your summer this year?

Took far longer than anticipated to get this old XR650L running right again:

• 2019, Sept 20, bike given to independent MC service technician for oil change, carb and brake rebuilds, no-spark issue, etc.
• 2019, Oct 17, 18, bike serviced and running again, rode to work two or three times before it got too cold for it to start reliably. (Not a good cold-starter below about 35ºf.)
• 2020, January-April did a bunch of fiddly ‘winter’ maintenance, turn signal and throttle clean and lube, etc.
• 2020, May-June rode bike to work two or three times before no spark problem occurs again.
• 2020, July, ordered replacement CDI, Coil, Trigger.
• 2020, Aug 29-30, tested and replaced all three items, but it was the trigger that was bad.
• 2020, Sept 3rd, finally started motorcycle (not bicycle) riding to work again. Fun.