In the last week of class I had managed to unbreak everything I had broken on the interceptor. I had also replaced all the fluids, filters, spark plugs, battery, etc. All was as it should be. Except when I pressed the START but, start it would not. Lots of click-click but no start. Same problem always. Then up walks Ken. You could hear the birds quiet down and the wind pick up for just a moment. Dark clouds began to form. "What seems to be the problem he whispered" eyeing the unsuspecting motorcycle with disgust. "It won't start" I replied plaintively. "Won't start? Let's see."
He took out the fuel filter and sprayed Carburetor cleaner in the intake port. Carb cleaner is like a commercial form of a Thermobaric weapon and the intake port is where the engine gets the air it is going to mix with gas. The mixture is then ignited by a spark plug.
By replacing the air in the normal mix with Carburetor cleaner what I imaged Ken had done was set the stage for a nice sized explosion, with the engine forming large chunks of shrapnel and myself supplied as the Darwin award recipient. "Hit START" Ken said. I reflected on my life, reflected on that one day when I should have let lust over power reason, took a deep breath and hit the button as I gunned the throttle. VRRRROOOOMMMMMMM!!! sez the engine. It is running loud an nasty but it is running. I was jubilant! The universe is Just! All is well in the world!
And then the engine dies and I was back in the emotional void that is my life.
Ken said, "Let me see a [spark] plug". "They are brand new", I tried to explain. His cold, dead eyes say no more. I looked down and muttered, "but they are brand new..." as grabed my tools and took one out. He looked them over and said, "Anti-Seize", handed it back to me and disappears as mysteriously as he appeared (and by 'disappeared' I of course mean walked to the other side of the room).
What had happened was, in my zeal to replace the spark plugs, I had smeared anti-seize grease all over the contact points of the spark plugs. Anti-seize is applied to the thread of a bolt to make sure that they don't lock in place, a serious problem with spark plugs as they heat an cool frequently. The contact points are where the spark forms on the spark plug. Thus fouled (ie, coated in anti-seize) they were only sparking erratically, not enough to cause the normal fuel-air mixture to ignite. Ken having added carb cleaner (very volatile and combustible) to the air supply, allowed the plugs to ignite the mixture and burn, thus running the motor. As the carb cleaner burnt off the engine returned to trying to burn air and fuel, failed and shut down.
After cleaning the spark plugs, the bike started up just fine, though a bit smoky. Actually much more that a bit. It was smoking so much that after a minute I started looking for fire. I cut the engine and asked Dave Miller if that was supposed to happen. He said for a bike that has been sitting it is pretty normal. The heat from the engine is burning off all the grease and oil that has built up externally on the bike. So I started it up and began to panic again and think, yeah maybe it is supposed to smoke a little but it was getting a little out of control. After checking with some of the older folks who concurred with Dave I took the bike outside so as not to pollute the inside of the building. After about half an hour all the grease burned off and it ran with no smoke.
All looks well for taking the bike how on the last day of class.
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