ChronoTech

About five months ago, I made a deal with my dad. He agreed to let me have his 1972 Yamaha CT-2, and I would pay to fix it. So about a month later, he dragged it down from Abiquiu to Albuquerque. So far so good. At the time, I had no money to fix it, so it got parked in my sister’s backyard until the end of August.

I finally had the money to actually fix the bike around then, so my dad drove back down, and we took the bike to a local bike shop. About the middle of October, the bike was actually finished, so I rode the bus up to the bike shop and picked the thing up.

Now keep in mind… this is an old bike, and before October, I’d never ridden one. So one thing I was not particularly aware of is this: When the fuel feeds by gravity, it’s very important to close the petcock after you shut off the bike, or else it will flood. Flooding, obviously, is bad. What’s worse, is when you don’t realize that your bike is flooded, and you start fiddling with the carb to try to fix it.

This does not work. What it does do, is allow (in the course of fiddling) dirt to enter into the carb, and to allow that dirt to gum up the throttle, making it stick all the way open.

Motorcycles don’t like this much. Because they can’t start with the throttle all the way open. It just doesn’t work. It pretty much does the opposite of “work.”

So, for about 2 or 3 weeks, I was without motor transport. This is okay, really, because I’ve been without motor transport for more than 2 years. I can cope.

$34 dollars later, my carb is cleaned by the shop. The motorcycle runs better than it ever has before. I haven’t gotten a chance to take it on a good cruise yet, but I’m thinking I’m going to go down to the valley and ride around in search of a decent New Mexican restaurant, assuming such a thing exists in Albuquerque.

The real lesson is this: When you take a spark plug out of the engine, and crank the engine to see if you have spark, it is inadvisable to be holding the spark plug up in the air. Because if you do, you become the ground for that particular circut. Ouch.

I learned this the hard way, but am not any worse for the wear.

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