{"id":99,"date":"2004-05-07T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-05-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewebgal.com\/wordpress\/?p=99"},"modified":"2004-05-07T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-05-07T12:00:00","slug":"spring-triumphant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/?p=99","title":{"rendered":"Spring Triumphant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Click<\/a>
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One of the folks at work just bought a new Harley V-Rod, another has a new Harley on order … and the weather has been very nice lately.
\nI’d ignored the bike as I still need to get it through inspection and winter caught up to me before I finished that task last year. But … Its time!\n<\/p>\n

So after a lot of yard work this weekend, I rolled the bike out of storage, tickled the Amal with my thumb, and gave a few solid kicks – nada. Didn’t sound like it even fired, so I hopped off and flipped the headlight on, watching the ammeter for any signs of life. (Glad I made a point when I wired the bike to install an ammeter, even if its not "authentic" for that year, its a handy tool!)Nothing. Battery must have run down during the winter. Rolled it up to the house, and checked it with a voltmeter – 7.5volts … I flipped up the seat, connected a trickle charger, and left it alone for two days.\n<\/p>\n

Yesterday after work I disconnected the charger and checked the voltage again … 13.5 – great! Rolled it outside, tickled it, and gave it a kick. Fired up and died.\n<\/p>\n

Did that little ritual a few times and as it warmed up, it ran longer and longer. I had to feather the throttle to keep it going, but finally it was running on its own, tho a bit uneven. Put my hands at the end of the pipes and could feel the right cylinder was missing occasionally. Guess I ought to install a new set of points – or at least file the surface a bit – maybe that will help.\n<\/p>\n

But I couldn’t resist any longer. Went inside and swapped my shorts for a pair of jeans. Grabbed my helmet and papers, and my cellphone, and headed back outside.\n<\/p>\n

Started it up again – first kick, now that it was warmed up, so I flipped the kickstand back and rode it through the gate and up the driveway … Yeehah!\n<\/p>\n

Yes, I know it was just a short ride around the neighborhood, and I know I have work to do yet … but it was such a rush of energy just riding it around, knowing I’d rescued it from a rusty fate …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click to enlarge One of the folks at work just bought a new Harley V-Rod, another has a new Harley on order … and the weather has been very nice lately. I’d ignored the bike as I still need to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorcycle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewebgal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}