Fault Finding

Rocinante waiting at the tunnel to  Whittier, AK (July, 2012)

Wednesday afternoon I called Matt at QBR to ask if he had found time to repair Rocinante.

He said, "It's all set!"  "Okay, great!" I replied, "I'll be up in the morning."

Then, Matt told me the following story:

"I set the valves, changed the spark plugs, and found the broken wire that was preventing your neutral light from getting juice.  It was under the bike, and abraded badly. Maybe you hit a rock or something on the Alaska ride.  Then, I adjusted the tire pressures, and took it down to the high school on a test ride.  When I got there and turned around, I noticed that I had no horn or turn signals.  [Thanks to God for having him experience that intermittent fault.]  When I got it back to the shop, I found a Honda wiring diagram, not for your bike, but from the same era [1982].  I looked for some feature that linked the horn, the turn signals, and the brake light.  I traced them all to the same fuse.  I opened the fuse compartment, and there was no visible problem.  None of the fuses was blown.  So,.I found the one for the horn, and pulled it out.  It came out, and its end cap fell off into my hand.  It was broken internally, so it only worked when it was in contact with itself, and if jiggled out of contact, no current could flow.  I replaced that fuse, and the bike performed perfectly."

Let's hear it for all smart mechanics, but especially, let's hear a few "Bravos" for my friend Matt!