We have sure had our share of it.. and even more is predicted/forecast.. There is one positive advantage to all this bad weather.. it sure isn't made for riding.. it is a good time to get all the bugs out of the ride, for when the weather clears and it's time to seriously hit the road, again.. During the past few months, as you all remember.. I've been doing a lot of not quite routine stuff to the Green Vulcan.. The first valve adjustment on this ten year old sucker.. and after almost seventy thousand miles.. A clutch rebuild.. The almost famous belt drive conversion.. hmmm.. Did I mention that the Green One has a belt drive on it, now ? Gas line replacements.. vacuum tubes and vent lines replacements.. etc. etc. Then, there has been a carburetor rebuild and that's where the rub comes in.. Since the carburetor was rebuilt, the Green Vulcan has been extremely hard to start, after it sits overnight.. Other than the typical little popping noises from the exhaust.. it runs just fine after it gets warmed up and after the initial difficulties of starting, first thing in the mornings.. The fine technician that did the rebuild on that carburetor has been scratching his head, and trying to tweak that carburetor to eleminate the problem.. Every body in that dealership has been involved, at one time or another.. Last weekend, I was brooding about the Green Vulcan, just not running the way I've grown to expect, after ten years of good service.. Between showers, I decided to do a little tinkering.. nothing serious, of course.. Before starting the bike.. I fumbled around with the plug wires, then hit the starter.. Lo and be- hold .. that contrary bitch, cranked before the motor turned over twice.. First thing Monday morning, I called the dealership to order me some new spark plug wires for the Green Vulcan.. After consulting his source catalogs online, my parts guy at Grapevine Kawasaki informed me that he'd have to order the wires as a unit.. which was expensive as hell.. Besides.. since the problem was the carburetor .. it wouldn't help.. hmmm.. Tuesday morning, again, between showers.. I mounted the Green One and started the twenty mile trip to Grapevine.. It was cloudy and ugly, but dry.. when I started around DFW airport.. the bottom fell out and that rain was coming down in torrents.. In just a few short minutes, I was soaked.. The rainstorm lasted until I got into Grapevine, and the area where the deal- ership is located was bone dry.. As I requested a conference with all the parties.. the tech, who'd done most of the work on the Green One, the owner, and one of the top sales guys.. huddled up and discussed my problem.. I explained what I'd done over the weekend, which seemed to have been some relief of the problem of hard starting.. The owner and the tech, both kept talking about a carburetor.. The sales guy bent down and pulled one of the plug wires out of the spark plug boot .. He motioned for us to take a look, and there was the problem.. Even though, both wires looked good, there was ample corrosion on the end of that wire, to cause erratic firing, or a complete breakdown.. Of course.. the insides of those spark plug boots were corroded badly, as well.. We got them on order, right away, cleaned up the mess.. cut some new wires to fit and put it all back together.. Starting problem cured.. smoothed out the engine and the Green Vulcan is running like new.. We'll change out those spark plug boots, when they come in and the problem is solved.. The lesson learned by the tech, the owner and me.. is sometimes you just have to get out of the box and take another look.. All of us had been focused on a carburetor, since it was the last thing we'd done to the Green One.. The problem hadn't shown up before, so we'd all just assumed the problem was connected to the carburetor.. We'd all been confined in a carburetor box, so to speak.. After we'd got it all back together, it was time for me to make the rain evasion run back to Irving.. That didn't work out well, either.. had to take cover under bridges twice before I finally made it back to LaCasa.. There is several more days of rain in our forecast and I'm steady looking that Green Vulcan over, to make sure I've got all the bugs out of it.. When and if this weather does clear up.. I don't want anything to interfere with whatever ride comes up.. At least one more trip to Mexico is on my mind and maybe another trip to Arizona.. Mena, Ark.. is definitely on the agenda and all told, that is a lot of miles left to run, this year.. Stay tuned, girls.. this is Texas and when this un- usual spell of storms is finally played out, we've got a lot of riding to do.. Bill Walker Irving
