8 Gomer the Ratster.7- Return and Burn

I left what happened in Vegas when I went home. I woke up with my front tyre mere inches from the rear tyre of the Panhead in front of me. The Toms and their girlfriends went on home and I slept for several hours in a motel with Gomer parked next to me. I got up just after sun-up, wheeled Gomer out, and wheeled on down the road toward my abode.

I fueled up in Barstow after about two hours on the road. I headed toward Mojave. Then Gomer started choking up when I applied the throttle. I wondered if I had taken in bad gas. I put up with the choking all the way to just south of Mojave, when Gomer starting running right again, after I fueled up in Mojave. Bad gas, right? Maybe not.

It turns out that the bendix carb has a choke that will self-apply under the wrong conditions. I guess the wrong conditions existed between Barstow and Mojave.

So I putted on home.

The next weekend, (I think), I thought I could putt from the SFV to Mojave to Bakersfield to SFV in a few hours. Midway between Mojave and Tehachapi, Gomer started to slow down rightnow, I could smell something burning, and I could see fire under the fuel tank. I pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the ignition, and put the fire out with my gloved hand.

I looked Gomer over and saw that a wire from the regulator up to the wiring harness running under the top tube of the frame had ground against the front motor cylinder and wrecked everything electrical- wiring, regulator, generator, and battery. Probably wrecked the points and condenser, too. Somehow I had missed seeing that the grounded wire was not secure on the frame when I was preparing for the ride.

So, there I was, beside the road with a burned out bike. I waved a five-dollar bill at approaching drivers, and soon a guy driving a pick-up moved Gomer and me to Bakersfield.

There I spent a lot of minutes calling around before a bro from the South Bay who barely knew me agreed to come up to Bakersfield and haul the bike and me to SFV. Josh showed up several hours later, and soon we loaded Gomer into the back of Josh's truck and headed south to the two Toms in the SFV.

Early the next morning, I walked Gomer to a motorshop downhill from the two Toms. Bob told me that the bike would have been fine if the system had been fused or circuit broken. Then he fixed the problems.

I learned from that; when I wired Gomer in 1991, I made sure to protect every part in the system with circuit breakers. I have one protecting the battery, another protecting the generator-regulator combination, and one protecting the wiring. I have one in place to protect the headlight and one in place to protect the tail lamp. When I upgrade the wiring, I will include a circuit breaker to protect signal lights, another to protect road lamp(s), and two for improvised uses.

More later......
2011.08.05