Rex’s Betty

So after being gone a week I decided this morning it was time to try to get Betty back up and running. After a few cranks, the battery was too dead to even do a think. This of course reminded me of how disappointed I am with everything right now.

I tried to remove the battery, but it turns out in trying to crank the bolt out of the negative terminal that it also destroys the negative terminal. The bolt came out, with the nut still attached, it pulled completely out of the negative terminal, splitting the terminal into two halves. It just keeps getting better.

So now that I have the battery out, I work on getting the bolt out of the lead. If I can’t get the bolt out of the lead, I’ll either have to replace the lead, or cut the bolt off, before I could put a new battery in. That is, if I end up having to get a new battery. At minimum I can repair this battery and get it charged up.

I track down the manager, pay rent, enlist her husband’s help in removing the bolt. Luckily he has a set of vice grips, so I clamp down on the nut, and use the socket wrench to extract the bolt. What happens? With very little effort the bolt splits in two. This is great because it gets the bolt out of the lead, which I needed to do. I’d had to replace the bolt anyway, because had I gotten the nut off it, the threads were possibly stripped anyway.

The manager’s husband helped me track down another nut and bolt that fit, so at least that was taken care of when I got the battery working. I didn’t want to have to take the battery to the dealer to get charged/tested, because it just sucks having to carry a battery of that size on the bus. Plus it takes about 4 hours to charge, if it takes a charge, so what am I going to do over there during that? I decided to explore other options first.

I took this time with the battery off the bike to maintain it a little. I added some distilled water here and there to top off a few cells. The manager’s husband then suggested I try to just jump start the bike. So I hooked the battery back up to Betty, left the body panels off, and the mounting bracket undone. I also read up on jump starting a motorcycle from a car to see if there were any unknown hazards. I figured they’re both 12 volt batteries, but the battery in his SUV has far more amperage than my battery. Most sites listed nothing, but I found several that noted to make sure that the donor car isn’t running. So I noted that.

I then remembered that I busted up the negative terminal on my battery trying to get the bolt off. So I repaired that using my Craftsman socket driver and the socket extension. I think the driver and extension are covered by the Craftsman replacement warranty, even though the actual sockets are not. How did I repair it? Well the negative terminal is lead. And its’ a somewhat soft lead. So I just hammered it using my socket extension to shape it, and my socket driver to hammer the socket extension. It worked really well, and I had very little trouble getting the lead back on the terminal (the lead forms a cap over the terminal).

It’s a bit of a pain in the ass to hook up even the small clamps to an installed motorcycle battery, but I got it done. I tried to start Betty, but she just didn’t want to. It did crank and crank, which just tells me that it’s a fuel issue from sitting. So I gave her a little gas and she fired. I then tried the choke again, and she fired up and started a very rough idle. After a minute it evened out and I released the choke.  Most of the sputters in the idle at that point I attributed to the weak battery.

I figured I’d give her a bit of time to both warm up, and recharge her battery, so I stood around and talked for a few minutes. I think I gave her about 10 – 15 to come back up. Unfortunately I didn’t get to go for a ride right then since I had plans. But later in the evening I was able to start her up again and go for a ride.

I ended up going around the park, over to Burbank, then up through the Santa Monica mountains and down into Hollywood. In Hollywood, on Hollywood, I ended up almost running over Eli Manning as he went running out in traffic with his lady. He was quick to make sure she was between my bike and himself as I came to a quick stop about a foot from actually hitting them. I’m sure I’d made the news, or at least TMZ had I actually hit them. I’m not sure why he’d be out here after that poor performance on Thursday, but he should probably spend more time on the field and less time in traffic dodging my motorcycle.

Betty’s running again. Tomorrow I’ll try to get a little more  riding time in.