Padre showed up for a big patriot ride out of Fat Boys up north. The plan was to take the pan and his trike for the ride. The night he arrived - we got right to workin on the pan. A couple of kick's into attempted starting - he thought the timing was too retarded so I showed him the static timing and noodled the idea a bit. A couple beers later - we decided to time things by ear. Advanced the timing until we had something that'd start and then listen as it was running. Check the egt's during timing adjustment to see where the temperature was in the cylinder and eventually we had some happy compromise. I was constantly asking what he thought of the engine and all he could say was - sounds great!
Midnight before the ride - we terrorized the neighborhood with some runs up and down the road. I was nervous to drive it but it was ok. Hit a couple of bumps and felt the rigid frame. My seat was resting on the fender (seat springs completely collapsed!). We rested.
The next morning - we got ready for the ride.
Double-check all fasteners and clean. We did another quick ride around the neighborhood to ensure everything was ok and then set off - FUCKIN BANZAI up HWY 169 headed for sister-in-law's where we meet with our group for the ride. Had to be there by 9:00A to get to the ride before check-in time.
What an intense experience of jumping onto an absolute nuts idea with little riding experience and hammering the pan up to 60 MPH. It seemed ok actually. Ran strong enough to keep up with traffic and stopped well enough to avoid accidents. The wife was in toe with padre in his trike and with my right-side only mirror, I lead and had my head on a swivel. Made it almost 2 miles from home when we rolled to a stop-light and the pan died...
Pulled off to the side of the road and checked & checked - found a dead battery. The charging system wasn't working. Checked the wiring and couldn't figure out why. Tried polarizing - nothing was working. Hopped on the back of padre's trike and ran back to the house to get my truck and battery charger; the wife stayed roadside with the pan! Contrary to what I expected - only a lil ol' couple stopped to ask her if she needed help.
Back at the pan - we charged the batter to 12V and proceeded to ride. We figured the system was discharging the whole time we had been running the bike (testing & all). Although we weren't sure why the system kept discharging - we proceeded to wife's sister's place. Rode for another 10 miles without issue. The firestone tires were a bit squirrelly on the ice-grooved roads. Made it to the stop-light just before wife's sis' place and the pan died again. Pull -ver & recharge. We were running out of time so we charged just enough to get it running and then rolled to her sisters. We asked some of the folks there if they had any ideas and none were had so the pan was parked in sis' garage in trade for a new Victory to ride (thanks bro' in law). As I got acquainted with the Victory - padre rolled the pan into sis' garage, parked it and hooked up a battery charger in hopes that we'd return to a bike with enough juice to ride back home. Then we all rode on.
ride...
After the ride - we returned to sis' place to hopefully revive the pan and head home. Instead - we returned to find the charger on and the key-switch on. Fried the ignition coil so pan = dead. Loaded it into the back of my truck, homeward bound.
I a way - I think the pan knew what was in store. The patriot ride was hot and slow, not too good for a pan. Considering the future events (you'll see), the pan wasn't ready. I was nervous about breaking in an engine when all I could hear was car noise.
We went back to do some more troubleshooting on why the charging system wasn't working...
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