Part Four - The Homecoming

By now, it's just before Christmas and the nights are long.  The wife and I are going to the pub on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday and have arranged to meet up with friends.  Just before I purchased the Transalp, I'd had a bit of a family drama that had left me feeling generally pissed off and for once my mind was on things other than motorcycles.

 At that time I was actively looking to buy a new bike (see Part One) and I casually commented on Facebook.  I thought it was a throwaway comment but it racked up quite a few comments, generally along the line of "Not another one!", and one that would rebound on me.  They say that you should be careful what you post on social media because once it's there it can't be deleted, now I understand.

On the evening of my birthday bash a couple of old friends (in that I've known them for years) ask what bike I'd bought.  I sheepishly try to fob them off with a "I'm only looking" story, but as I say, they are folk who've known me for many years and they can see through my charade.  "Don't tell my wife," I plead but I know the genie is now out of the bottle and that bottle would be downed before long.

Now, it may seem as though I'm scared to tell my wife that I've thrown away another £800 on a motorcycle but the truth is I have a pretty poor history of buying vehicles and wanted  to at least be able to start this one before revealing it to my beloved.

"You haven't bought another bike, have you?" she enquires with that you-wouldn't-be-that-stupid look on her face.

"Erm... Well.... (it's no use) yes" and then I recite my carefully prepared spiel about how it is an educational exercise to improve my qualities as a hunter-gatherer type, to reduce the time I spend parked on the sofa drinking beer, getting fatter whilst watching I'm A Celebrity X-Baker.   I'm warming to the task now and starting to believe my own hype.

"And once I've sprinkled it with magic fairy dust, I can take my eldest boy on camping trips and we can bond over our road trips and tell each other ghost stories as we toast marshmallows over the campfire."

"And thirdly (yes, that's right, there are at least 3 good reasons), it comes with a colour-coordinated top box and panniers that I can put my tools into and use it for work.  I'll cut through the rush traffic and get home earlier to spend more time with my family."  After the inevitable "how long were you going to keep this a secret from me" type questions, she shrugs her shoulders and mutters, "Alright then."

So now the lights are green, I can get a bit more serious about the project. To give you an idea of how serious, I do something very rare indeed:  I clean the garage.  Not just my normal moving things from one place to another kind of clean, but a full-on throw things out, sweep the floor, arrange my tools, plug in a radio and a kettle type of clean.

The following day I again struggle to push the Tranny up the ramp into the back of my van.  Something is definitely not right with the area around the rear wheel.  I open the garage door and push my new baby into her new home.  I'll continue with the parent-infant analogy for a bit longer.  I undress her ready to change her nappy for the first time.  So I strip off all the plastics, remove the headlight fairing and leave her there naked.  Not a pretty sight. 

The day after there is a package waiting for me when I get home.  Inside is the regulator/rectifier (RR) that I ordered off eBay.  It is from a breakers in Essex and comes from a Honda CBR600F. The Transalp forum came to my rescue here as I'd read a lot of posts where members were complaining about faulty RRs, and one member, gravelrash, insisted that the RR for the CBR is far more reliable than the original fitment for the Tranny.  The two units look identical apart from a green earth lead that needs to be bolted to the frame. No problem.  The mismatch between the connector blocks on the new RR and the existing wiring loom however was a problem.  It is a measure of how much my early success had brought about a fundamental shift in my approach to the project that, rather than panicking and thinking it was beyond me, I calmly applied some logic to the situation.  "You've got 5 wires on this side and five on that side. The colours of the cables match, so snip the cables and rejoin the appropriate connectors."   To test my handiwork, I use small household electrical connector blocks.  The engine starts first time and I take the voltage reading at 3000prm: 14.8 volts.  Bang on!  Thanks gravelrash.

That means with help from the world wide web, I have overcome hurdle that for the past 33 years would have had me reaching for the phone.  I am beginning to feel that I can actually do this and, what's more, it's giving me a warm fuzzy feeling. 

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I have started reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, thinking that it will give me inspiration.  I soon realise that I enjoy the parts about motorcycle maintenance and riding across America, but the ruminations on philosophy leave me a bit cold and uninterested.  I see this journey from idiocy to intelligence as an existential exercise, as well as an educational and edifying experience.  Perhaps it's because I'm getting seriously middle-aged and, as such, I need something to do in my shed/garage/loft.  Or maybe it's just because I'm not clever enough to understand what he's on about.  

With the RR rectified (can you see what I did there?), I move on to the next pressing problem - the grinding sound coming from the rear wheel.  My first port of call is the rear brake caliper.  I've always been wary of doing anything with brakes.   It is mainly because the brakes are the primary safety feature of a motorcycle and I want to be sure that they're working properly.  I once rode my Ducati 996 and coming into a bend where I had to stop, I gently squeezed the brake lever and then without warning the lever pinged towards the bar. Luckily I was going slow enough to be able to come to a stop using the gearbox and the appalling Ducati rear brake.  I looked down at the front brake calipers and the brake hose was flapping in the wind while the remaining brake fluid spilled out onto the tarmac.   The next corner I would have come to,  I would usually take at about 60 mph.  It is an off-camber left hander and I normally approach at 90ish and then scrub the excess speed off.  If the front brake had failed here, I would have had a major accident.  I had a car accident on this very same corner in the late 80s, where I slid on a wet road and ended 50 yards inside the adjacent field.  The next day I went back to get my totalled car towed out and saw that I had missed a concrete-reinforced ditch by less than a metre.  

A sobering thought!  So when I get my hands on the calipers I want to make sure I get it right. 

Part Three - Stolen Moments

I'd make a lousy spy.  I had left a trail of bookmarks and open tabs on the web browser of the laptop that I share with my wife that she would have had to have been so blinded by her love for looking at expensive clothes/shoes/handbags/stuff not to have noticed that something was afoot.

However, her suspicions could only have been aroused and not confirmed as I had a cunning plan to keep her in the dark about my new mistress.  Luckily I manage a block of lock up garages a mile down the road from our home, one of which just so happened to have a Transalp-sized space in it.

So now I had somewhere to stash my quarry, it was time to get bodging!  First off, I remove the side panels and find that either a bolt was missing or that either the locating lugs have broken or the rubber grommets that they fit into have perished or disappeared.  I also remove the plastic sump guard and the fairing panels that fit round the radiators.  It is at this point I realise how blind I was when I went to view the bike; not only are the decals on each panel different, they are quite noticeably of a different hue.  Muppet!  Like most men I am very good at taking things apart, it's the putting it all back together where I fall down.  It was therefore essential that I prepare myself properly.  It was time to go shopping.

Top of my list was reading material.  I've been practising reading for quite a few years now and, although I don't want to sound too cocky, I'm pretty good at it. As long as I understand the words. Which, when it comes to anything technical, means I'm at the Spot the Dog level.  Ebay is my new best friend and so I ask it very politely about Haynes Manuals for the basics and something specific to my machine. Emboldened by my success, I then look up my other new friend,  Amazon,  and ask it for an idiot's guide to electrical systems.  Having read a few reviews, I plump for Motorcycle Electrical Systems: Troubleshooting and Repair by Tracey Martin, as I thought -blatant sexist comment alert-  if a girl can understand it then I might have half a chance.  Turns out Tracey is American and has got a beard.

While I wait for the books to arrive, I also order a stainless steel bolt kit and buy a new battery and a multimeter from the local hardware store.  When I receive the bolt kit, I put it into a divider tray according to width and length and pat myself on the back for being so organised.  

With the new battery sitting in my infant son's car seat, I head to the lock-up, convinced that I would stick this sucker on and the Transalp would roar into life.  Once attached, I turn the ignition on to find absolutely nothing, no idiot lights, nada.  I get out my multimeter which reads 4.3 volts, somewhat short of the 12 required to even turn the engine over. Hmm.  I then get out my trusty jump leads and the bike fires up no problem, take a lead off and it dies.  Time to consult Tracey.  In the meantime, I decide to take the battery out and put it on a trickle charge in the garage at home.

Once the sun has set and my son is fast asleep, it's time to hit the Transalp forum (www.xrv.org.uk) to seek some advice.  It's a sign of my growing age that I am constantly amazed by what the Internet has to offer (besides pornography)  and how it has completely changed the world we live in.  For a start, I can write a blog  and potentially connect with squillions of people across the globe.  But in the context of my quest to be a largely self-sufficient DIY mechanic, there are two things that -so far- have been revolutionary.  The first is YouTube.  Hearing how something is done is one thing and for people with those kind of brains it's enough, but when it comes to practical, manual tasks, then I need to see it to have any chance of success.  Secondly, I would be nowhere without the  humble owners' forum.  I love the fact that you can ask the most rudimentary questions, ones that you would be too embarrassed to ask face-to-face for fear of looking like a numpty, and there are folk with years of experience and a softness in their keystrokes, who guide the legions of newbies through their trials and tribulations.  I aspire to be one of these people.  I have visited many owners' forums for many different bikes and, without exception, you will soon quickly get to know who the gurus are.  Phrases like "I'm not sure myself but <insert username here> will be along soon to give you a definitive answer." Gentlemen (and perhaps ladies), we salute you.  So I put my quandary to the unseen masses and soon receive responses, all of which are helpful and informative.  A very useful tip was to head to http://www.electrosport.com/media/pdf/fault-finding-diagram.pdf and follow their flow chart to see if there were any problems with your starting system.  

The next day I awake with a spring in my step, safe in the knowledge that the battery had been charged overnight and that all would be well.  You would've thought I'd know better by now.  When I took the reading at the battery terminals, it's still less than 6 volts!  It is then that I notice that there doesn't seem to be any fluid inside the battery and I realise that I've been sold a dry battery.  Off to the hardware store for a replacement.  I now know that it's called electrolyte and is needed to be able to hold the positively charged ions, hence my dead duck.

The next day I head to the garage and basically do everything everyone tells me.  I undo all the connector blocks I can find and clean them with contact spray.  I check the main fuse which is all good and then trace the positive terminal from the battery to the starter solenoid and see that things are looking a bit manky, so I give everything a good scrub then reassemble.  By this point I have tempered my confidence after a few false starts so am not expecting much when I turn the ignition key. But, would you Adam n Eve it, there are three little beacons of hope shining up from the dashboard.  Cautiously I apply the choke and leave my thumb hovering over the starter button.  I'm reminded of my grandfather, who used to smoke roll-ups made in a rolling machine.  He would put the paper and tobacco in, roll it up and then ask me to lick the paper.  To make sure it stuck and the roll-up didn't disintegrate into his lap, I had to say the magic word "Kushniputs".  This was definitely an occasion for Kushniputs.  And it worked!  The engine fires into life and soon is going a bit mental at 4000rpm so I back the choke off and let the motor settle for a minute before.  This is all going swimmingly, I think to myself.  Famous last words.  The engine starts to splutter and misfire.  Nooooo!  (My moment of triumph was so short-lived I must have looked like the Man Utd players who thought they'd won this year's Premiership only for Man City to score with the last kick of their game and steal the title away.)  I hear the death rattle and all goes quiet.  I then start my problem-solving routine.  Scratch my head, stroke my chin, issue a torrent of expletives.  The swearing does its job and my spleen is sufficiently vented for me to resume.  I turn the ignition key off and on, check the kill switch and try the starter again.  The engine's turning over but not firing.  It's then that I remember that this is a bike with a  carburettor and that means there is a fuel tap and sure enough it's in the 'Off' position.  Once rectified, the motor starts without protest and I reach for the multimeter to check the voltage at the battery terminals.  It reads around 18 volts and having consulted the fault-finding flowchart, I know that my regulator/rectifier is buggered.

This means more expense, but in my own simple mind I am elated to have got this far.

Part Two - The Victim

So having made my mind up to buy the wrong motorcycle, I set off in my van ready to do some hard negotiating and bag myself a bargain.  I'd  found 2 Transalps on eBay that seemed to fit the bill.  One was in High Wycombe only 30 minutes down the M40 in a dealership and the other being sold privately in Borehamwood, a further hour away.  The bike at the dealers was beige.  I repeat beige!  It had only done 39000 miles, started first time and had some home made panniers.  It also looked well lived in and the exhaust downpipes were heavily rusted and well, it just didn't float my boat. It was however a yardstick, something I could measure the second bike against.

Now, call me shallow or vain (or both if you prefer) but what I liked about the Borehamwood machine was that on the photos on eBay, it looked a bit like a 1980s shell suit, kind of purple and mauve with a bit of bright pink thrown in to tone things down a bit. Moreover, it wasn't beige. The reality was that it is maroon and the seller had clearly used Photoshop to trick me.  The good points were that it had a Givi top box and hard panniers.  The bad points: everything else. Deep breath - 62000 miles on the clock, no MOT, no service history, an exhaust so rotten that one of the end pipes had fallen off, a binding rear brake, a cheap alarm and it had obviously been down the road on its side once or twice.  When I arrived the vendor told me he'd got it started but it wouldn't rev and it had stalled.  Luckily I had some jump leads in the van and once attached it started. Again it wouldn't rev and he put it down to some old fuel and mucky carbs. He explained that he had given up on motorcycles as a form of transport after getting cold and wet one day.  I looked at the Porsche on the drive and mentally agreed that he'd made the right decision.

I then commenced my thorough multi-point motorcycle testing procedure. I turned the lights on and off, check that all the electrics were functioning correctly -especially the horn-, I inspected the brake pads, checked for play in the wheel and headstock bearings, bounced up and down on the bike to see how the suspension was working, examined the state of the chain and sprockets and generally rummaged about whilst stroking my chin and hmming, tutting and tsking a lot.  This charade was obviously intended to fool the vendor into thinking that I was a mechanical genius and that all the problems I had discovered with my in depth analysis of the machine meant that I would be doing him a favour to take it off his hands and there wouldn't be anyone else daft enough to take it off his hands this close to Christmas.  Let's get down to business.

I knew he was up for a deal so I began with an opening gambit of £650.
Sharp intake of breath.  "What are you trying to do to me?" came the reply.
 £700?
 "Look, I know what I want from this..."
Which is?
"900 quid."  So naturally I offer to split the difference and we agree on £800.

So after filling in the V5 and grabbing the keys I go to load the bike into the back of the van.  "Hold on a minute, mate. I think I've left something in the top-box."  When I duly open said top box, it is full of rusty water, a box of cable clips and some waterproof trousers.  He empties the contents and apologises and then the euphoria of purchasing another motorcycle starts to wear off and the cold reality that, like a drunken man on a stag do in Bangkok, I'm going to have to pay for this capricious moment., not just in pounds and pence, but also in blood, sweat and tears, and for many days and months to come.  It was also something that I wanted to keep secret from the wife for as long as possible.

So here she is:  What a stunner!

Part One - A New Dawn

As I approach my 43^rd birthday, 33 years of riding motorcycles behind me, I see a gaping chasm in front of me. One giant pothole of ignorance. In all those years, I have never learnt how to maintain these investments that I had probably spent more on than any person. I read recently a joke which said “mummy, when I grow up I want to be a motorcyclist.” To which Mummy replies “Make up your mind, dear, you can’t do both.” But I’m really trying and part of that maturing process is acquiring an intimate physical relationship with my machine(s). Presently, if a bike dies on me then unless I open the fuel tank sway from side to side and hear no sloshing sounds, I’m pretty stuck on what the matter could be. I am sure I'm not alone in being on the brink of phoning the AA or a friendly mechanic coz my bike won’t start only to find that the kill switch is on (actually I lie and my mechanic can attest to that). So I log onto Amazon and order lots of books about motorcycle maintenance. I even clear out my garage and organise my tools and buy a few more. But what I really need is a project.

I have two bikes already. One is my pride and joy and the other is my joy and pride that my mate is borrowing for the summer. I’m going to make mistakes; some of them will probably prove to be quite costly and perhaps Italian exotica is not the best place to start a fledgling career in home motorcycle maintenance.

Now to the fun part, the part I do best: research! I can while away days sat in front of a screen looking for the right bike, I’ll log onto the owners fora (get you with our fora!) and get a feel for its triumphs and its foibles and what the going prices are. However, in the space of three weeks I change my mind three times. As I'm acutely aware that I have a very tight budget to play with and a very unsympathetic wife to negotiate, this is whittled down to two and then the deciding factor is what I can find at the right price, in the right place. Whilst I am prepared to drive the other side of the country for the right bike, it’d be much more convenient if it were within a 50-mile radius.

The one thing I am sure of is that it needs to be a Honda. The Japanese marque’s reputation for solid built quality, unrivalled reliability and thoughtful engineering meant that all other contenders fell by the wayside. I wanted something simple so an air cooled single cylinder bike seemed best. I wanted to ride all year round so something with a fairing and hand guards. I wanted to be able to spend all day on it (with the occasional pillion), so something with a comfortable riding position and saddle. So my perfect bike was a Honda NX650 or the Dominator to use its more popular moniker. Which is why I ended up with something a bit different. No matter how grown up I think I am, when it comes to buying bikes, all rhyme and reason goes out the window as soon as I leave the house with a pocketful of bank notes on my way to view a potential purchase.