Stupid Noob - The Sequel
Heh - so, with the leak gone, and the petc0ck behaving, I decided to take her for a test spin - about 8 miles. I did this at night, and she performed beautifully - no leak, not stalling - the job was a complete success.
So, the next morning I grabbed some rags and am going to clean her up. Whoa! The tool kit cover was missing! Here is what happened...To pull the spark plug to test for TDC, I needed the tool kit spark plug wrench, so I took the kit out, left the door hanging, but not locked. When it's hanging in its spot without a tool kit in there, it looks as if it's on correctly, so when I was checking the machine out before the ride, the toolkit door looked ok.
But, when I was riding it fell off - but where? Idunno! So I jumped on my bicycle and pedalled the 8 mile route that I took - no luck. On a whim, I rode the reverse of the route that I took and there it was - about 3 miles from home, only moderately smashed. It fell of the right side of the bike, and made its way to the oposite(left) side of 6 lane street and on the the sidewalk.
Why do motorcycle parts defy physics when they fall?
I got it home, bent it back in to a rectangle, and was able to get it secured. The chrome is toast, and it's scratched up. I'm thinking of covering it with some thin polished diamond plate.
I spent most of the day familiarizing myself with all the fasteners makeing sure they we're all tight.
So, the next time I go out to by a new diagnostic tool for the garage, it's going to be a mirror to mount on the garage wall - whenever something is screwed up, all I have to do is look in to the mirror and I'll see where the problem started