Road Trip!

Due to interruptions, it took until Friday night to finish getting the yellow trike road worthy once more.

One of those interruptions was a dead starter. Luckily, I had the troubleshooting braintrust of fellow BTW members at the clubhouse, for our monthly meeting had just ended and everyone wanted to see, point and contemplate. Zipped down to Autozone for a replacement starter, back to the clubhouse to install it and zowie, does it spin over better.

Finished the last bits of it about 1AM and took it home for the night.

We wanted to go to Fredericksburg, but were getting such a late start, that we decided to just head south out of the metroplex and go as far as we felt like going. Once we got to Stephenville, it didn't seem all that far to Brownwood and from Brownwood, not all that far to Fredericksburg. I am posting this from a hotel room in Brownwood.

We will decide in the morning whether we want to continue to Fredericksburg, or perhaps more importantly, whether we want to trek all the way home from Fredericksburg tomorrow afternoon.

The trike has done well with a couple of exceptions. The flat spot that the distributor was supposed to improve is slightly better, but far from gone. Similarly, and likely related, rather than the nice low idle we've been enjoying, it seems to want to idle at about 2000 RPM. The throttle appears to not be returning well. At this point, I suspect it has something to do with my running the throttle cable in at a lower angle in an attempt to reduce throttle effort.

The air shocks were deflated to ease their removal (actually, the removal of the baja cage) and until we were underway it didn't occur to me that a few issues were symptoms of the ride height being too low. I didn't have a gauge handy, but I zipped a bit of air in there, enough to raise the already high rear end another inch or so. It went back to riding quietly. Once in Brownwood, we wanted to seek out a place for dinner. We decided to go two up on the trike. With just Toni's added weight, it got all kinds of squirrely, most disturbingly a lurchy kind of sway. Circled back around to the hotel and with her off it, it settled right back down. It didn't do that with her up there when we rode around the neighborhood on it the Friday we were leaving for Turner Falls.

Finally, we found good food and finished eating. When we ready to leave, the trike cranked twice (they are a bit cold natured, ya know), but then stopped cranking. The solenoid was clicking, but the motor was not turning.

Long story short, I whacked on the solenoid a few times and next time, it stared fine. We'll see about the morning.