Oh shit moment

There are two kinds of 'oh shit' moments when it comes to motorcycles: the best are the kinds you get when the bike is in motion, and you almost die. My first such 'oh shit' moment was when I was taking my first curve at 60mph; I felt my bike creeping across the centerline of the road, and I thought I could do nothing about it but high-side into a ditch and die. Instead, my training took over, sharply relieved of its duties the part of my brain that feels fear, and ordered me to shove down on the right handlebar. I complied and got back into my lane, trembling, but alive as fuck!

Then there's the 'oh shit' moment you get when the bike's stationary, and you're wrenching. Zen riding only comes through Zen wrenching, but sometimes you do stupid shit when wrenching and you wonder if the bike will ever run under its own power again. It's like when you know you're on the out with your significant other, because she won't return your phone calls: is she just busy? Is she sleeping with another man? Is she dead? That uncertainty --- it's a killer.

Today was the latter. I was fiddling around with the Noble Savage. Objectives: check valve clearances, replace breather tube, put vacuum cap on vacuum port, check for leaks in fuel line after having installed the new manual petcock, and clean her up a bit. Easy peasy, and nothing I haven't done before.

So when you're doing valve clearance checks, you have to rotate the engine to top dead center on the compression stroke (hereinafter TDCC). This is so that both valve rocker arms have free play, which you need in order to slip a feeler gauge in between the tappets and valve seats. It's easier to rotate the engine if you take out the spark plug and put a straw in the spark plug port, so you can watch the cylinder rise and fall as you rotate it.

I didn't have a straw long enough, but I did have an ivory chopstick!

So I stuck the chopstick in the spark plug port, and started rotating the engine, when I heard the butthole-clenching sound of the chopstick snapping off inside the fucking cylinder. Foreign objects inside cylinder are bad bad news. They can clog oil passages, score cylinder walls, break valves, and really fuck your day up.

So after profanity, I remembered my breathing and thought of solutions. I wanted a cigarette, but it's been day six, and I'm not about to let a mere chopstick cause me to relapse into smoking. The only way out was through! So I tried the following: (1) compressed air to blow the pieces out (nope, didn't work), (2) coat-hanger-and-chewing-gum trick (only picked up carbon, no chopsticks), and (3) picking up the bike and shaking it upside down (I wish).

I even thought about ghetto-rigging a vacuum cleaner up to the spark plug port and sucking it out, but realized our vacuum sucks at sucking, and we didn't have an extension cord long enough to make it work. We'll pause here for a second and talk about risk-taking, but first, these words:

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

Over here at Sven Williams, we're not about avoiding risks; we're more about assessing the probability and potential for catastrophic damage from risks, and going ahead anyways knowing full well that what we're doing is a bad idea. It's better to take a foolish risk and be fully aware of the consequences, than it is to avoid a risk that you know little to nothing about. This is typical Sven reasoning, and it's most of the reason why I'm constantly slipping on snail trails.

So here's what I was thinking: A cylinder is made of steel and is subject to enormous thermal and physical stresses. That chopstick is made of ivory, a keratinous substance not unlike fingernails and hair, and is subject only to tons of sriracha sauce. Bitch-ass chopstick ain't got shit on a 652cc motorcycle engine!

Weighing the risks, I tightened everything up, put the gas tank back on, pulled the choke, and fired up the engine. Starter whirred and whined futilely, and the piece of chopstick clattered around inside, taunting me with visions of ruined valves and cylinder head scoring. I hit the starter button again, this time longer. You don't want to do that too much, or else you'll melt the starter, but dammit, I'm Sven and I live fast and die young! YOLO baby!

Ultimately, it took more than a couple of tries with the starter to get the engine running, and with every clattering sound made by the chopstick piece inside the combustion chamber, my butthole clenched until it was tight enough to fuse hydrogen into helium. Helium into carbon. Carbon into iron. Because of the fact that iron has the high binding energy of any element, it can't undergo nuclear fusion any further, so after the fifth or sixth time with the starter, my butthole was about to go supernova.

I am a Knight of Svendinavia, and will not be bested by a mere eating utensil! If I tank that engine, I'm taking the entire solar system out with it! I am Sven and I feast upon the corpses of the gods slain dead at my feet!

Finally, the engine turned over and started idling. My butthole relaxed, and the solar system was safe another day. There was a burnt hair smell wafting from the exhaust pipe, and it was overpowering, but if something catastrophic were to happen to the engine, it would happen in pretty quickly. I decided to let the bike idle high for about ten minutes to cook anything out, periodically going over and holding the throttle wide open for a few minutes, potentially pissing off some neighbors, but fuck 'em; the Noble Savage must live! I have never known love until I found motorcycles! Live dammit, LIVE!

She's fine now. I'll keep listening to the engine to make sure it doesn't crap out on me, but I'm putting at least a hundred miles on her this weekend with all the running around I'll be doing, so if something goes wrong, I'll find out fairly soon. Stay tuned for future episodes of Sven and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in which I talk about how a tin can makes a good seal between the exhaust header and muffler, and other ghetto fixes!

Peace!