A Project Bike is always ... a Project Bike!

Last weekend I celebrated the completion of a three year project ... the conversion of a 1986 Harley Davidson Sportster into an Old Skool Chopper.  The original owner was a real gear-head and had hopped up the engine so it was a real get-and-go machine.  The subsequent owner, a young man with more testosterone than sense, thoroughly thrashed the body, but the engine was still a monster.  So by the time it came to me it was in need of a great deal of work and seemed to me to be a wonderful way to learn about Harleys.  And so I did ... more than I really wanted to learn! 

Over the years I did the work I could do, jobbed out other things that were beyond my abilities, until finally last week the finishing touches - forward controls and upsweep pipes - were added and the dream realized.  The weather over the past few days has been beautiful so I have been riding the H-D to work, enjoying the glow of a completed project.

Until Tuesday.  I was stopped at a light and when it turned green I twisted the throttle and the engine died.  Assuming that I had just stalled it (something that has occured more often than I would like to admit) I hit the starter, fired it up, twisted the throttle and got the same result.  It quickly dawned on me that something was blocking the fuel line, which has happened before.  I was purposely running the gas tank low, since I had put some Sea Foam in the tank to help clean the carbs and wanted to run it through.  Obviously there was something alien floating in the tank which was now blocking the flow of fuel.  Nuts.

Having experienced this sort of thing before in my life, I had a couple of coping strategies.  The first was simply to choke the engine, providing more input, which would allow me to get to a gas station, fill the tank, and free said alien to float away from the trap.  Although this had worked in the past, not this time.  So on to strategy #2 - shake the bike back and forth to see if the offending article could be dislodged.  I can only imagine what my fellow commuters thought, seeing me standing there shaking the bike back and forth.  Perhaps that somewhat psychotic looking behavior by a man dressed in black leather explains why there was no honking, in spite of the fact that I was holding up traffic.

Sadly for me, shaking did not work either so I dog-paddled the bike over to the side of the road.  I tried choking it again and shaking it some more, with the same result - nada.  Since I had no tools, nor would I have particularly wanted to dismantle the fuel line and tank by the side of the road, I fell back on the last remaining strategy and called my buddy Pat to bring his truck.  Luckily he was available and said he was on his way.

The day was glorious, so I took off my jacket and waited patiently in the sun.  I later realized it was good that I had no tools with me, as I probably would have thrown them at all my motorcycle "brothers" who whizzed past and just looked at me.  So much for The Code.

Pat arrived, we loaded the H-D (we are actually getting pretty good at loading this particular hunk of junk ... ) and took her back to my house, where she sits awaiting my attention.  Sigh.

The day was not lost, however.  As stated, it was a beautiful day, so I was not stranded in the rain.  I have three bikes in the garage, so I simply jumped on another and made my way to work (a bit late).  And I realized that in all the years and miles, this was only the second time in my life I had to be carried home ... the last time I was fifteen and given how I abused that first bike, it is a wonder that I ever made it home at all!  Given my averages I can expect my next lift home to occur when I am around 95 years old.  Cool - something to look forward to!