Chix Bike Prep – Same Old Song

Posted byKaran AndreaPosted inUncategorized

Last Saturday’s struggle with the Atomic Shovel really got me down. I have so much to do to finalize the Chix on 66 ride, and I thought my bike was good to go. All of a sudden, it wasn’t. Like. REALLY wasn’t. Straw meet the camel’s back.

One really good thing that has come out of planning the Chix ride is the women I’ve met. One of our riders, KA Miller spent hours on a zoom call with me helping me test the coil, the battery, and the ignition – turns out the coil and ignition tested out fine as far as we can test them. But the battery tested out weak. When I thought about it, it WAS 4 years old. When I pulled it, turns out it was 5 years old. So then the search for a battery… omg. Athena Ransom, who is one of our ride along mechanics, and Kiersten Miller helped me find a battery that would fit the bike. I figured I’d have to order one, but turns out I could get it locally. Hooray! Thursday my mission was to score a battery and a new charger because my charger was acting silly. Got both and planned to pop the battery in Friday morning and then Athena was going to walk me through more testing. Until I noticed that the negative post was mushed over. I didn’t see it when I bought it, but apparently someone had dropped the battery on that corner. Couldn’t do anything till I exchanged it.

So today…. armed with a new battery, I tackled the install. But first I decided to try and clean up the shit show of wiring affixed to the 30 Amp breaker next to the battery (NOT my work). I couldn’t do what I wanted to do to clean it up because I didn’t have the right supplies, so I just did a better job on the ring terminals than had been done, and moved the breaker to give more room for the Medusa of wiring.

Then I was ready to install the spanky new, freshly charged battery. What a colossal pain in the ass. It took me an hour of struggling before I finally got that bastard in the bike with the cables tightened down. At Kiersten’s suggestion, I slipped some shrink tube over my screwdriver because I have never put a battery in that bike without arcing on the frame, which makes me jump out of my skin! With her little trick, I got that battery in with no fireworks. Major win.

I also decided to change my auxiliary starter button out because the one I had really sucked. If you didn’t press it straight down, just perfectly, it wouldn’t work. Agh! So I found a different switch and got that swapped as well.

Tomorrow I have to put the frame cover back on, and I can see if the bike will start and run. If that goes well, I’ll put the battery cover on and take it out for a test ride.

Published by Karan Andrea

I ride motorcycles, I live motorcycles, and I write about motorcycles. Both of my blogs are written for motorcyclists: atomicshovel.blog tells the never-ending story of my 1974 Harley-Davidson FLH, which I have named the Atomic Shovel. My other blog coachk.home.blog is written for riders of all skill levels, but is primarily aimed toward the rider who is transitioning from the riding range where they learned basic skills, to the open road. This blog address the most common questions I see in the online groups and forums: dealing with anxiety - yes, that is the number one question, navigating traffic, parking, holding your bike on an incline, just to mention a few. Much of what I write is simply drawn from my own experiences - successes, failures, do-overs. Nothing in either blog should be construed as the absolute one and only approach; rather, look at them as a starting point for your own discovery process.

Leave a comment