Excursion and Electrical woes.

Well,

Seven years later and we have our first significant issue with the Excursion. ๐Ÿ™

Yesterday C informed me that she didn’t have any brake lights (nor turn signals). I asked her to stop at an auto parts store and check the fuse for the brake lights. Sure enough it was blown. Problem was as soon as you put another one in it just popped. If course she didn’t know, according to her replacing the fuse didn’t fix it.

The fella at the auto parts store suggested it was probably the Flasher Relay, but they couldn’t figure out where that was.

When I got home I took all of the tail lights apart and looked for any visible shorts. I disconnected the trailer adapter just in case. There was a front marker light out but no visible signs of a short. So, yeah, let’s try the flasher relay.

I stopped by a couple different auto parts stores to find one. Finally did, picked up a bunch more fuses (for testing) and started the hunt for the relay. The Haynes manual says it’s mounted to the right of the steering column. That’s a lie, it isn’t there. Somewhere I read on the web that it was under the dash behind the cubby. After much searching and tearing a good portion of the dash apart I was able to find it hidden in a box under a cover, behind the cubby. Just about cost me my arm though trying to get up in there. I finally got it replaced, but the fuse still blows about 2 seconds after insertion, regardless if the brakes or turn signals are pushed.

We’re going to drop it off at the dealer tomorrow morning. I have a felling this isn’t going to be cheap. ๐Ÿ™ But locating a short within that wiring harness is beyond my patience threshold.

[Update]

Well, as it turns out, it wasn’t that bad after all. Something was ‘leaking’ onto the brake switch. What? Well, the tech didn’t elaborate, which had shorted it out.

They didn’t charge us full price for diagnostics on this since there was a recall they needed to perform anyway.

They did however talk me into the 100,000 mile service which included:

Coolant flush and fill, air cleaner, oil change, 8 new plugs and plug wires, transmission flush, etc.

We also elected to have them install new shocks front and rear.

The Excursion has been a very good vehicle for us. It’s paid for now and we plan on putting at least another 70,000 miles on it. The only difference now is that instead of a car payment we’ll have to start maintaining things that are wearing out. ๐Ÿ™

We certainly hadn’t budgeted for all of this ($1200 worth) but it needed to be done.

Sciatic nerve, what a pain in the butt…

During my MD2020 ride, towards then end of our 1300 mile ride, I was in agony.

Now in the past, I’ve ridden more miles than we did. I’ve done a couple saddle sore rides, all of which took some riding to get to to get started and to get home. More miles in the same amount of time.

My past experience with longer rides normally goes like this:

About 300 miles or 6 hours in, my buns get tired and sore.
About 400 miles or 8 hours in, my buns kinda hurt.
At about 500 miles, my buns are just numb, but not painful, either that or I just don’t care anymore.

I’ve done a lot of miles on the ZX11 on the stock seat, then on a much better Corbin saddle. On the FJR, I’ve done a couple long trips, one to NH, and a bunch of miles to the EOM meet, riding during the meet, and back home, all of them on the stock seat. I have an Air Hawk to get a little comfort now and then but it was more for a change of pace, it’s not the end all – be all answer for me. But it made things a little tolerable.

Now back to the agony part.

During our last 200 miles, I was hating life. I have (3) leg positions on the bike. The standard pegs, the passenger pegs (which I use from time to time), and the newly installed highway pegs just for this trip cause I knew there’d be some time my legs would get tired.

During that last 200 miles I was constantly switching looking for some relief. I’d change pegs then in less than 5 minutes the agony and pain would be back. I could feel it down my leg, and in the end my feet were throbbing. This wasn’t good. I described it to Kyle and he said, my sciatic nerve(s) ware being irritated. He gets that sometimes from sitting in a car too long.

Man that sucked.

We made it back but I could not have ridden another 100 miles, no way, no how. All other aspects of my body were fine. I wasn’t that tired, and my back, neck and shoulders were good, which usually they cause me some pain.

The ride home was long, but we stopped about every 100 miles for either gas, or a bathroom break and that helped break it up. Even so, when I got home my rear was in bad bad shape. It’s hard to describe this pain, it wasn’t a saddle sore type of pain, no, it wasn’t plain soreness. This was agony from the inside out. I could feel it down the back of my legs, but at least my feet didn’t hurt.

After some digging on the net, and talking to a guy at work I decided to go for some massage therapy.

The lady worked on my gluts and thighs. She said I was unbelievably tight. But I think I got some relief. Actually, I was very sore the next day. But I felt like her poking, pushing and prodding did me some good, I think.

Sunday I went on the BMW ride, not a lot of miles about 250 round trip, but towards the end it was all I could do to ride home. I’m still aching as I write this.

Don’t know what the solution is, more than likely a new/better seat. Something that provides more support.

I even took some ibuprofen last night, which in the past has broke me out in hives, but I needed some relief.

I go back to the massage therapist tomorrow and I’ll have her work the area again. But I’m weary about riding for a while. The bike is calling me, but I’m scared ๐Ÿ™

If you have any sure fire relief for sciatic pain, please post a comment cause at this point I’m willing to try just about anything. It’s not sciatica, because it doesn’t start at the base of my spine, it starts in the middle of my buttocks, and runs down the back of my legs. I have no back pain, none, only a burning stabbing pain in my gluts down my legs. Or maybe it is back related and I just don’t know it or can’t relate my pain to my back? In any event some time off the bike is in order until I get this figured out.

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Everett Moore comes to visit.

Low and behold, out of the blue, our old neighbor Everett stopped by for a visit today.

He used to live across the street and his life long goal in life was to own an ecstacy trike. I remember years ago when I first met Everett, he had a photo of one in his barn. Now, this type of trike isn’t my pick, but there is some logic here.

After Everett’s wife died, he moved to Florida, got all set up and eventually picked up a Goldwing trike. It was the bee’s knees. The problem though as Everett would explain it is that it will nickel and dime you to death. The starter went out and it was $800 to get that fixed. You’re dependent on a Honda dealer (although they are just about everywhere). But the cost of anything repair wise for one of the big jap bikes is just too much.

With this trike, it’s a Chevy V6, gets better gas mileage than the wing trike, and if he needs a part, it’s off to the local auto parts store. A starter for this is $65 dollars and it’s not a major surgical procedure to put it on.

Ok, so some of that makes sense.

Anyway, he’s in great shape, looks good and is happy as can be. It was good to see him again. He took all of the kids (including me) for a ride. Then we went to dinner.

 
From Everett Visit…

More photos in the Google/Picasa Web Album.

The MD2020 Recap

Whew, itโ€™s overโ€ฆ Iโ€™m exhausted.

Heading to York, Friday the 25th at o’dark thirty.

500 miles to York, PA, 1300 miles in the rally, 500 miles home. We could have and should have done more but unfortunate circumstances kept us from executing our planned route. It was very doable and would have scored us in the top 15, which for being noobs at this, would have been very, very good.
Out of 50 riders we finished 30th, which for our first Rally isnโ€™t too shabby, especially after you consider our down fall.

Continue reading “The MD2020 Recap”

Garmin Zumo is the shizzle.

Wow,

As indicated, I’m participating in a rally this weekend. Because my right hand man at work will also be unavailable (out of town) this causes a small dilemma. We need to be reachable, because it seems that Murphy always shows up when we go somewhere together.

Previously I had the Scala-Rider Bluetooth headset that I used so that I could be reachable. I don’t like to ride and talk on the cell phone, there’s already enough going on that I just don’t like it, but it is hands free so that’s a plus.

Last fall I migrated/upgraded my onboard entertainment to a StarCom1 intercom with iPod music input, as well as Radar (when needed) and the GPS audio. This system just rocks. For the rally my GPS was getting a bit dated. The Garmin Quest 1 is fine, except that it’s internal storage for maps isn’t all that large. I couldn’t load enough maps to potentially cover the rally area. I lucked into a Quest2 which holds all the maps for the US, but man is it slow.

That brings me to the Zumo. This brilliant GPS is designed for bikers. It’s designed for gloved touch screen use, can interface with XM, and has bluetooth.

After reading a few reviews on the FJR board, and doing a little digging it became apparent that this was the way to go. This baby puts me back into a situation to be reachable on the bike as well as upgrades my GPS considerably.

The unit is mounted on a Tech Mount Stem Mount, audio and mic cables are plugged in to the StarCom1. Audio isn’t ‘perfect’ but similar to most of the bluetooth head sets I’ve used with the Treo 700p which has a crappy bluetooth implementation anyway.

With this I have crazy fast and accurate GPS, 2gb of mp3s for it to play (as well as my iPod pumped into the StarCom1), and now bluetooth connectivity for my phone. I mounted everything tonight (had to wait on cables for the StarCom1) and it works great!.

Photos:

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One other thing, the Zumo motorcycle mount is brilliant. It’s water tight, and has this crazy magnetic cover to cover the contacts with the Zumo is out of the mount.

To keep your Zumo, there’s a ‘security’ screw that you screw in. The basically keeps the mount from releasing your Zumo from the bike. It’s just a funky screw with a funky screw driver. You’re supposed to mount this on your key ring, but the brilliant minds at Garmin didn’t realize that they put the hole on the wrong end. Basically the screw driver stayed attached to your keys which made it darn near impossible to use. (It’s a really tiny screw).

I fixed that by drilling an identical hole in the cap and attaching that to the key chain. We’re good now.

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