Gumption

Working on the bike today after many promises to her and myself to get down there and get something accomplished. I found that fuel tank sealer doesn’t mix well with e10 gas (Gas and ethanol blend). Which is what most of the pumps in Nashville have. The result was my tank liner being reduced to a powder and clogging up my entire fuel system. So my project today was to clean the carbs, rebuild the petcock, replace all fuel lines, and try to get it running. I accomplished most of this. I cleaned and replaced everything. Put it all back together, and my right carb bowl wouldn’t stop leaking. This turned out to be the gasket being out of place, but once I stopped that leak another started out of the vent for the bowl. I realized there was a larger problem at work. I removed the bowl and found that the float wasn’t cutting off the flow in time and that was causing the excess fuel. I adjusted(bent) the tap that contacted the needle and voila! It worked. I started the bike it ran for a bit but one of the slides was sticking causing it to rev unevenly and it would idle for a min or two and then die. I went through this seqence a few times and then reached my stopping point when the kick-start jumped a tooth and now needed to be dissasembled before I could start the bike again. That’s where I ran out of gumption… I guess it’s time to do something else having accomplished most of what I set out to do, but I couldn’t help feeling defeated as I climbed the stairs stinking of gasoline. The experience reminded me of a section of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

http://mysteriousflame.com/gumption-traps/ Has an excellent write up on Gumption Traps and others of the sort...