need help and i'm on the road

[Smash]

Did you get back on the road?

[thebottle]

Did you get back on the road?

Yeah, I got back on the road. I was able to slow the leak down considerably with JB Weld. Aside from the leaks that I described it was also leaking from a crack in the case above the cam chain tensioner that had been glued over by the previous owner but cracked through again. It was only leaking a 1/4 quart every 600 miles so it was liveable.

I went through Wall, SD and then headed to the Devil's Tower. Went through Yellowstone and then up into Montana but it was pretty cold so I took I-15 down into Utah. Leaving Utah I blew my back tire and had to have it towed into town because I wasn't carrying anything for a flat. I plugged the tire, made it about 25 miles and it blew out again on the interstate. Had it towed to a bike shop to change the tire. They didn't have the right size but put on a little bigger tire and said it would work. Drove over 1,000 miles, 22.5 hours straight into California. Next day I am loading my gear back on the bike and see the tire started rubbing on the drive shaft so I was not happy. Drove down HWY 1 and I was going to start making my way to the Grand Canyon but my bike started having seizures.

I don't know what the problem was but when driving on the interstate if I would let off the throttle and then try to go back on the throttle it would lose power and backfire a lot and I would have to pull over. I don't really know much about engines. Even though it was hot I would have to choke it to start and then it would be backfiring and sputtering... a lot of smoke would blow out the pipes and then it would start running fine again but this continued to happen. Eventually it got to the point were it was doing it every 4-5 miles so I quit in Mesquite, NV and trailered it back home. I felt bad for it... like a wild animal in a cage... the bike just didn't look right on a trailer. But it started sounding sort of like a Harley so I knew something was seriously wrong with it, lol.

Yeah, so right now I am back home and looking for an engine to swap into it. Since it has a crack in the case which can't be fixed I don't really want to do any work to it. It is going to be cheaper to just replace it.

Here she is naked:


And here she is loaded down:


I wrote about my travels on theconfine.com if anyone is interested in reading about all the problems I had with it.

[skids]

Wow! Talk about a confluence of problems on one trip! Sorry about all of that. At least you seemed to keep your sanity.

[thebottle]

Yeah, well, I came close to losing it a few times on the road but overall I saw a lot of cool stuff and had a good experience. When I go again I might choose a different bike for it. I love this bike but I think I might get an old Goldwing or something that gets better MPG for such a long trip. I want to hit all four corners one of these days but I am going to have to wait at least a year before I set out for attempt number 2, .

[cywelchjr]

Or at least get a standard or venturer tank for it to get the extra range out of it. I get about 160+ miles per tank on the road, 120 to 130 around town (that's to reserve at which point I fill up, even though I can get another 30 miles out of the tank).