And I took only one photo for my very first ride in 2020.
But made it home in one piece, and enjoyed the ride. So there is that.
And I took only one photo for my very first ride in 2020.
But made it home in one piece, and enjoyed the ride. So there is that.
Yesterday we took someone special out for their birthday lunch, so today we thought we would have a picnic somewhere on the island, and of course there was no destination, it was just an excuse for a ride once again.
Caroline at Sea Cow Head Lighthouse Prince Edward Island |
Augustine Cove High Tide |
Caroline at Carleton PE |
SVEA123R with zero gas |
Caroline enjoying her Special Ramen. |
You can see the topsoil, the clay, and the porous sandstone that makes up much of the island |
Sea Cow Head Selfie! |
2009 Versys KLE650 Sea Cow Head Prince Edward Island |
Hunter is happy to be part of all the action |
That was a great start to the season, and I'm hoping we can do a repeat soon. Perhaps with an expanded menu. :)
What do you take on your moto picnics?
P.S. The chocolate dessert I brought melted in their wrappers, and needed to be refrigerated in order to be eaten later on. Caroline was most pleased with the Icy Squares I'd brought with me. :)
I'd been a bit lazy, for when my Versys let me down in the fall of last year, no longer charging the battery and leaving me high and dry at Gas's grocery store in New Haven Prince Edward Island, Caroline helped me collect it, and we stuck it into her garage, where it has sat on a battery tender over the winter.
There is a real danger of ice today It's 1C / 34F today! Brrrrr! |
I'd pulled into Gas' and refilled with the engine off, and the trouble began when the motor failed to start after paying and grabbing a couple of things. The owner of the store loaned me a battery boost pack big enough to jump start a truck, so it had no problem boosting the Versys back to life, but try as I might, I could get no clear indication that the battery was charging, and when I pulled the pack off, the bike would die immediately. Caroline arrived with her Klein Digital Multimeter and I proved that the battery wasn't taking a charge conclusively, so returned the pack and made arrangements to leave the bike and pick it up the next day. **Sigh.
It was still September, so once we rolled the bike off the trailer and into Caroline's garage, I thought I'd have tons of time to repair it, but was truly dreading the cost, as a new stator and regulator could be over $1000 easily if you were buying OEM parts, but then along came Hurricane Fiona, the nasty beotch, and bikes were a thing of dreams for a bit there while we tried to put the island back together post storm. The the snow set in and there was always an excuse not to be outside freezing one's digits off. I finally got off my butt, read some online "How-To" material and decided I needed a definitive test of the bikes stator, but there is so much information on the topic that it becomes pretty overwhelming, and I may not have had the best meter in the world when I found that with the stator disconnected at the wiring harness plastic connector, a three wire, spade set up, that each leg of the stator was making more than 15VAC with respect to frame ground, and that increased as the revolutions went up.
ElectroSport Stator ESG638 Stator Kawasaki ZX-6R/ZX-6RR https://www.electrosport.com/collections/street-motorcycles-kawasaki-2009-versys-650/products/esg638-stator-kawasaki-zx-6r-zx-6rr |
Good, so electrically the stator was okay so the regulator rectifier must be to blame, right? WRONG!!! That stupid connector... one of the spades was "make or break" and that meant that the output to the battery was fine on two legs, but on the regulator rectifier side of the connector one of the legs was not making voltage at all, so it took a spade terminal and female terminal replacement to square it away in no time flat.
Excessive arcing caused be a "too loose" connector.
Darn it! I could have ridden well into Fall last year, but I'd mis diagnosed the problem and thought it was a much more expensive fix.
The red size is about all you will need for a Versys Unless you are dealing with battery cables :) |
While my friends in Ontario have been camping already, I'm old enough and smart enough to wait for warmer weather for that, plus I still have to redo my fork seals and brake pads up front as well. On a bike that is now fourteen years old, you have to expect a few wee problems here and there, don't you?
Shiny side up!!!
We had planned to do three days of motorcycle fun, but when those plans fell through and we found we had a shot at a single day of riding the motorcycles, we took that toy firmly in our teeth and ran with it... We had a dogsitter!!!
East Branch Apple River |
Borden-Carleton PE to Advocate Harbour NS and Return |
Caroline @ Shulie River NS |
Shulie River NS |
They repaved bits of Route 205 Shulie Road! |
Sand River |
Sand River Bridge |
Sand River looking SouthEast |
Sand River |
Apple River |
Apple River, East Branch |
Frank & Scents burger |
Donair Sandwich |
The poopers were thrilled to see us... |