Ahh… a cool front came thru, highs only in the low 90s and humidity only around 40%, that’s not bad for September in Houston. I went to the HalfPriceBooks down in Clear Lake. Everywhere I went I was stuck in stop and go bumper to bumper traffic. 1st and 2nd gear mostly, even on the interestate. Well, the interstate is where things started to go south, even tho I was headed north. 😛 It quit revving, then it stumbled and died. I rolled off onto the shoulder and started fooling with it. I switched to reserve, but that wasn’t it. It would stumble but wouldn’t catch, if I twisted the throttle at all it wouldn’t even stumble. So I choked it and it atleast stumbled into life, but wouldn’t rev over 4 grand. If I feathered the clutch I could get it rolling without killing it so I took off down the shoulder passing all the parked cars in 2nd gear until it crapped out going up the next over pass. So monkeyed with it some more and it wouldn’t catch. I just sat there and let it cool for a few minutes and got it stumbling some more. Wandered down the shoulder passing all the same cars again until I finally got to the next off-ramp. I got it across 3 lanes of traffic going much faster than me and into a parking lot, where it died again. I rolled halfway across the parking lot, then pushed it the rest of the way so I could be in the shadow of the smallest damn tree in the world. Here I started taking things apart and noticed that the clear plastic inline fuel filter was kinda loose, so I reseated the fuel line and hose clamps on that thing. It’s kinda warped, I need to replace it and remount the whole thing really. I got that done and tried it out, and it would sorta run, a little better than before, but not as good as usual. Cathy was still on her way over so I sat back to let it cool while she showed up. Well, when she pulled in I tried it again and it was running a hell of a lot better than before, I decided to chance riding it home as it wasn’t that much further and now I’d have a car with hazard-lights behind me. I picked up my helmet from where I had set it next to the bike to work on it, and IT WAS FULL OF FIRE ANTS!!!! Grrrrr. Can’t get much worse right?
Well, I got it home, it’s in the garage, and I don’t even care to look at it right now. It’ll probably sit there until my next weekend off. I’m guessing vapor lock due to all the heat, but I need to check the fuel lines as well. Friggin ants in the helmet. ¡Qué Sheesh!
(edit)Nick is suggesting I check the coils. Dunno why I didn’t think of that myself. When it first started cutting out the first thing I did was try jiggling the plug cables as I went down the road. Once it died tho I was mostly focussed on the fuel issue. Oh well. I’ll check both then.