Ever felt a foo?l (longish)

Ever felt a fool I just have.
( I don't mean touched up a daft person ).
I'm still getting used to my new bike. It starts great
when warm but I have yet to find the nack of getting it
started when cold. I'm not woried I know I will find the
right sequence of choke, no choke, throtle and no throtle.
But today I even astounded myself with my own foolishness.
Tried to start and she was a right cow. Got her going then
she stopped, Kicked and kicked for 10 maybe 15 mins.
Checked the spark-plug and it was a bit wet. I was curseing
the bloke I bought it off and any one else I could think of.
Finaly got it going so I pulled out onto the road to give it a
good warm up. But she was just sluggish with no power
after 3000 revs. I thought of all the things that could be wrong,
was it the power valve? or was the exaust choked up? Was
the carb at fault? or was there a blockage in the fuel supply?
Got her home and read the manual. My first thought was the
exaust or the air filter so off comes the seat to check the air filter.
Who's the silly bugger that left that rag under the seat eh?
taz slaps head Homer style shouting Doh!!!!
I had only left my cleaning rag under the seat and it had been sucked
into the bloody air intake of the filter. Problem solved just like that.
So the moral to my long story is check the obvious first and don't
leave your cleaning rags where they can be sucked into the air filter.
taz.

 

oh yes...

[snip tale of woe]

serves yer right for cleaning it then, dunnit

--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.fsnet.co.uk my opinions are just that
"The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, The swallow twittering
from the strawbuilt shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing
horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed."
Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

 

Smoke is good for calming wasps is'nt it?
taz

 

Heh.

Did a similar thing myself yesterday - wanted to run the 400/4 for a
while prior to changing the oil[1] - battery was flat so used the
kickstarter, and it started up fine on the choke, but as I tried to
reduce the revs it died on me - did the same again and it ran fine on
choke again (at about 4k rpm) but wouldn't run if I tried to moderate
it.

Getting fed up with kicking it, I got the jump leads out and connected
to the mower (ride on tractor jobby, with FOAD battery) and restarted
- again, it would only run on the choke, but was getting progressively
worse. Then it started only firing on two or three cyls and would
hardly run at all. Eventually, despite cranking over for ages, it
wouldn't run at all.

Hmmm. Let's check the plugs then, which were new about 200 miles ago.
Quite black, from the choke running, I imagine - maybe they're so
sooted up they're not making a strong enough spark. Clean them off and
try again - still nothing.

By this time I thought sod it, I 'll do the oik and filter change
anyway - it had run for long enough to warm it up, so off I go. Some
time later, having cleaned up loads of bits while waiting for it to
drain (as you do) and reassembled/refilled I try and start again -
success!


but only for about two seconds. WTF? Take out one plug to see if it's
flooded and it's totally dry - strange, says I, I can see that there's
petrol in the transparent fuel filter, so it can't be that, although
there's some air in there - Oh, hang on, the arrow shows the flow
direction, and the bit of air in there is at which end?

Twenty seconds and half a gallon of 95RON later it starts first kick
and runs as smooth as you like. D'oh indeed.


[1] Flogging it to Blaney, so I thought I'd get it all[2] A1.
[2] And it is - looking nice and running really well. Even charged up
the battery, though it's always been easy enough on the kickstart.

 

You rock. I will bring you fine wines. And money. Speaking of
which, do you want an electronic transfer, or hard sterling, or hard
Euros?

 

Oh, err. Yeah, whatever. What's easiest for you?

 

Anything but Euros.

 

OK I'll bung you my UK bank details so you can transfer straight into
it.

 

Spesh. I'll do that as soon as everyone leaves the office (our 2MB
satellite DSL isn't all that good).

 

I AM MR. JOSEPH OBANGO, FORMERLY INTERIOR MINISTER OF NIGERIA.

I AM VERY PLEASED TO HEAR OF YOUR OFFER TO TRANSFER FUNDS, AND WISH
TO CONVEY TO YOU MY GREATEST RESPECT AND GOOD FEELINGS. I CAN BE OF
GREAT SERVICE TO YOU FINE GENTLEMEN IF YOU WILL ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN
MY PRESENT SITUATION ...

 

Oh, err. Yeah, whatever. What's easiest for you?

With a full tank of fuel.
taz.

 

I did something similar - sort of....

I was the fireman on the last regular BR steam line on the last day of
regular service (11/05/88).

We had the best engine (No. 7 "Owain Glyndwr") for the day. We'd
polished it; set black flags from the tanks and, as was traditional for a
line closure, chalked "Sold Down the Rheidol" on the smokebox.

It was me and my regular mate (and good friend) Micky Richards. We were
dressed to the nines in our 'best' bib and brace with a proper Western
Guard (Dick Borth) we were being very professional. The place was
crawling with the Board; senior managers; the press and rail enthusiasts.

A good thrash to the top (Devil's Bridge) - ruling grade about 1:50; lots
for a train - and all was well. At the top it was my job to uncouple the
engine from the train for the run round.

As I broke the vacuum bags (the pipes which connect the locomotive's
brakes to the train) Micky blew up the large exhauster making 27" - 29"
of vacuum.

That was the moment the cloth I was holding leapt up the pipe - adding
insult to injury by waggling its grubby little tail as it shot up into
the locos 'works'.

Contemporary mainline vacuum pipes have a crosspiece guard to prevent
this occurrence. However these turn of the last century heaps didn't.

o h f u c k .

The sinking feeling was too much to ignore and I had to tell the Driver.

A trainspotter had put his tape recording gear on the footplate to tape
the final run - on this tape was recorded a plaintive voice:

"Mick, Mick - my cloth's gone up the bag"

"what?"

"No, I mean it - my cloth's gone up the bag"

"you little ****"


Fortunately at this point the tape runs out..


I have a photograph, given to me by a spotter, of Mick and I in our
"rabbits in a headlamp" moment. We were saved by a very very, very thick
ticket clerk....

 

For some reason, I read that and thought of louise woodward.

 

Christofire says...

Does she make you want to have a sex-wee?

 

Well, ridding the world of mewling brats is a plus, but I can't
remember what she looks like so I'll have to pass.

 

Heh. Spit or swallow. If you'd poured it down your neck like a man, they'd
have been into the stomach acid in a trice.