As most of you will probably know, my ol' ninja has problems.
Its done 90,000k's and still chugs along quite nicely...
When it wants to.
Here is a map of my journey tonight:
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?f=d&sa...3,0.11158&z=14
We start at A, playing in the pool at dilworth, having a good long chat with fish and chips by the garage.
After a while we start talking about this abandoned bike near the uni, we figure we should go investigate.
I know my bike doesn't like the night time, it can take a long time to get running properly. Basically its power is less than half of what it should be until you run it for a while, I believe this is due to one cylinder not running.
The time it takes to get running properly on both cylinders can range from straight away as soon as I switch on the bike or after some revving on a hot day. To 10 kilometres down the road with me revving the shit out of it trying to get any power on a really cold day.
This was one of those bad days.
Knowing this, I start the bike before everyone else to get it warmed up, I ride up the driveway and down the road and then back again on 1 cylinder thinking that yeah it'll come right as soon as I follow these guys for a while.
So I follow them, by B I'm getting sick of the complete lack of power that holds up traffic. We're waiting traffic light at B so I decide it could be a good idea to quickly shut the bike off and start it up again. But it doesn't start, the rest of the bikes take off but dushi comes back to the rescue.
I manage to get it started and we take off to the university.
Along the way on two occasions I hear the sound of PING like a bb gun being fired at a metal wall, I didn't take too much notice of it and thought maybe it was from riding over manhole covers or something else in the background.
We arrive at uni at C and take a look at the abandoned bike, the ignition barrel is missing and the speedo is full of ants. Right. So Andrew phones up to report it.
After we decide it's time to go I start up my bike, it starts to sound better so I am convinced it's running properly now so I take off home hoping the rest of the guys would hear the sound of a GPX running properly. No such luck. I need the bike to get to albany.
I decide to ride out into the suburbs out west more after crossing the motorway and keep riding till I get to D with no luck getting the engine running properly. I let it sit there idling for 5-10minutes hoping getting it hot would get it running properly. But no....
From this point on I still am limping along with very little acceleration or hill climbing ability but add one more thing to the mix, the bike starts backfiring and cutting out.
I checked the fuel, there was at least 1/4 of a tank left with plenty to swish around, so I start thinking this is a fuel problem, not enough fuel getting to the engine due to a lack of pressure pushing the fuel down. The previous owner fitted a aftermarket fuel filter between the tank and the engine so I think this may be at found.
Right then I would have filled up the tank but I hadn't a dollar to spare, I get paid monthly and the paid is to be deposited into my account later on tonight. So I switch to reserve hoping that that it would help because it gets the fuel lower in the tank, didn't help noticibly. So I'm very eager to get home and still confident that I can get her home if I can maintain a high enough speed but she continues to die at every intersection along the way. I've heard the pinging sound a few more times now in addition to the random backfiring. I must have cut out at 10 or so traffic lights/roundabouts by now and starting to be very very unimpressed. The pinging noise I hear every 10 minutes or so is getting to be very concerning also, perhaps I have completely rooting one cylinder and its firing chunks of itself out the exhaust?
I've now decided that the bikes needs an area where it can maintain high speeds long enough to get up to speed so I head for the motorway. Miss the correct turnoff and go around the loop and start heading towards the city. DOH. The bike manages to get to 100kph very slowly and I turn off to loop back around to go west on the motorway. Dies at traffic lights.
I head for the motorway again, I'm riding along at 90kph with the bike backfiring every few seconds so I pull over and let it sit for a little while at E, hoping the fuel will go down the tube somehow and make it flow better.
I take off again and am riding along for a while again when I get to F and suddenly the second cylinder starts kicking back into life.
Kk.....kkkk.....kkkkkkkk..kkkkkkkk BRRRRMMMMM POWAH!!
The engine is now very noticibly different sounding and is now responsive and pulls away very nicely.
The backfiring has now stopped and I blatantly speed all the way to westgate.
I pootle around the new roundabout there and along the 50kph area and then up the north western motorway again. I turn off at the albany turnoff and pull up to some trafficlights now mildly happy. Bike dies.
FUCK YOU BIKE YA FUCKING GRRRRRRR
The saga of before continues, bike cuts out periodically, this time not at traffic lights but even while riding along at 50kph.
All power is lost and I'm forced to pull over... try to start it and fail... wait... wait... try again ok we're going. I do this 5 times before getting to the end of my road. Bike dies so I cruise down my road up my driveway and into the garage.
Thank fucking god.
I've arrived home well over an hour later than I should have and I'm going to thoroughly kick the shit out of my bike tomorrow when I have the energy.
I'm still sure its a fuel problem, more specifically with contaminants or a dodgy fuel filter. Time to pull some things apart tomorrow.
That is my story. I love you GPX, but you're letting me down. Please stop doing this to me.
Edit: Holy shit is this post long.
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Originally Posted by skidmark
Don't just live to ride but ride to live.
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