Dormant
Posted by Jim Zeiser on Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The only activity I've indulged in lately is going out to the garage and firing up the big scooter and I have to tell you it's a sad substitute to riding. We had a brief thaw this week with some light showers and incredible fog. Most of our foot of snow is gone but the weather report for the foreseeable future is for cold. It is January after all so I would expect bad weather. It's just depressing after the mild winter last year when I had already ridden a few times by now.
I have had a chance to flex my mechanic muscles lately so that part hasn't gone into hibernation. My minivan had a moment and I was able to diagnose and fix the problem with no cost at all. My cruise control suddenly quit and my first reaction was, "Well it is fifteen years old. Stuff happens." It displayed some activity that led me to take a closer look and discover a broken vacuum line to the unit that operates the control over the throttle. I was able to slip the line out from under a clamp and slip the hose into a tube junction further back on the line and now the cruise control is working again. This was after the windshield wipers had quit on me which required a trip to the local garage. That too was a bad connection, of the electrical kind, and cost me minimal amounts to have repaired. Time will tell how well these repairs work but considering how far the van has gone versus the original purchase price I feel satisfied with making the occasional repairs. I don't know that any of my present fleet of two wheelers will ever reach 185,000 miles like the minivan has but one can dream.
I have had a chance to flex my mechanic muscles lately so that part hasn't gone into hibernation. My minivan had a moment and I was able to diagnose and fix the problem with no cost at all. My cruise control suddenly quit and my first reaction was, "Well it is fifteen years old. Stuff happens." It displayed some activity that led me to take a closer look and discover a broken vacuum line to the unit that operates the control over the throttle. I was able to slip the line out from under a clamp and slip the hose into a tube junction further back on the line and now the cruise control is working again. This was after the windshield wipers had quit on me which required a trip to the local garage. That too was a bad connection, of the electrical kind, and cost me minimal amounts to have repaired. Time will tell how well these repairs work but considering how far the van has gone versus the original purchase price I feel satisfied with making the occasional repairs. I don't know that any of my present fleet of two wheelers will ever reach 185,000 miles like the minivan has but one can dream.
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