Not much...

You may wonder why I haven't posted for awhile. Well, my scooter has been broken down (the stator problem), brought back to life (for 3 days) broken down again (again the suspected stator problem) and now brought once again back to life. I actually gain possession of it once again the day after tomorrow. I'd do it tomorrow (impatience, thy name is Keys), but I have promised to do a piano bar at an old folks ho...wait a minute...that's not politically correct, is it? I guess you call them retirement villages now. Whatever. Old folks who dig jazz and blues live there and I play for them and get paid for it.

So, I rode my scooter home on Tuesday, October 31st. A 70 mile run down from Flagstaff through Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona to Cottonwood. A fast, chilly ride...down in the 40's. It ran GREAT!! I subsequently rode it to work and home on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Then I headed back to work on Friday to get my paycheck and a mile from work, POOF! No spark. Again. Just like before. I pushed it to work and got a lift home from a guy with a pickup.

Genuine required I send it to Tucson to Scoot Over this time, so it rode down in Wade's pickup. Wade, if you will recall, is the cat who runs the Flying Dorffini motorcycle and scooter repair shop in Flagstaff. He was going to Tucson anyway for the annual Fall Classic Tucson to Nogales scooter rally. Which I wasn't able to attend. Crap!

I called down there on Tuesday the...um...that would be the 12th and talked with Ron, the mechanic. He spent some time with a continuity tester and determined the problem was not the stator after all! Apparently, the ground wire for the coil feeds into the main wiring harness which has one main ground wire for...well, almost everything! As it turns out, the connection was bad where the coil ground joined the harness. So, I'd hit a bump just right and an instant absence of spark occured. Slapped me down every time. Ron then made a new ground for the coil alone and grounded it directly onto the engine. Instant spark. Instant go. He's been riding it around for the past few days just to make sure he corrected the problem. These guys definitely go the extra mile for customer service.

Anyway, Shelby was going to Phoenix this weekend anyway to visit her mother and is bringing the Urban Assault Vehicle with her. I'll meet her there with a friend's pickup, have coffee with some of my Scarab friends, load up my scooter and go home.

It's time to continue the terrorization of the Verde Valley's cagers...

C-ya...ride on,
--Keys