Gertrude Gets New Plugs, or, OMG Where Are Your Teeth?

[GrandpaDenny]

Hi guys,

Went over to my C14 owner friend's yesterday to use his air compressor to blow out the spark plug wells, preparatory to changing the plugs. Whilst waiting for the engine to cool down before changing the plugs, I started changing out my driving lights to these nifty little jobbers: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08 ... UTF8&psc=1. Chopped off some of the excess of the pre-made wiring harness I'd used on the old lights, and used those two conductors as the two hots, grounding the lights directly to the frame. Went crazy for a while when after hooking up the first light, it would only light up yellow on both switch positions. After dicking around for quite some time, and lots of head scratching, it occurred to me that the other original light was still hooked up, thereby shorting both hots together and giving the yellow light only. So I chopped the lead to that light, and the new port side light worked fine. Installed the new starboard side light, and it wouldn't work. I had used the horn's ground wire. Hit the horn, the light lit, realized that the horns are ground-triggered. Grounded light to frame, all good. Speedily slapped the fairing back together after tricing everything up nice and neat. I was so proud of myself for putting it back together so quickly. Then my buddy noticed I had the mirrors backwards. <blush>. Ok, fixed that.

Whilst I was working on the lights, the engine cooled down enough to start on the spark plug change. Wayne loves my spark plug boot tool, and so do I. It made what would be a supreme bitch of a job fairly easy, but still not something I'd want to do often. Gertrude now has brand-new Iridium plugs. A few things we came across in the process of the change:

1. #1 and #2 plugs were both loose. I mean like finger loose.
2. The factory tool is indeed the best tool for installing plugs. Standard plug sockets just don't seem to grip the plugs properly when installing.
3. A third hand to lift the upper air box up and back out of the way a little is a tremendous help in dealing with #2 and #3 plugs

All told, including the time spent waiting for the engine to cool down with a fan on it, we were done in less than three hours.

After leaving Wayne's house, I went to the nearby Trader Joe's, and after loading my groceries in the trunk, when I went to put the key in the ignition, I dropped it. Right now inside the fairing. Called Wayne, he came to run me home to grab a spare key. Whilst waiting for him, he kept texting me (his wife was driving) and busting my balls, saying how he was going to blast this one all over the Internet. I kind of scratched my head at that, thinking, well gee, is it really that weird to drop a key? It turns out that he thought I'd said I'd dropped my TEETH down inside the fairing. We had a good laugh over that while pulling the lower fairing off the starboard side and feeling around the radiator and such for the key. Didn't find the key. I assume it's inside the radiator fan shroud. Today I epoxied a magnet to some dental floss, tomorrow I will try fishing around in there for it. Maybe it's in #3 spark plug well, every time I've pulled the battery out that's where I find stuff I've dropped and couldn't find.

What an adventure yesterday was. I was sooooooooooooooooooo sore and tired when I got home. Today I stayed mostly in my recliner, my back was killing me this morning. It was so bad last night I couldn't sleep, between the back and the knees.

"Oh Susanna, oh don't you cry for me, I come from working on the bike with an ice pack on my knee"

Oh, and just FYI, my teeth are OEM.

[cushman eagle]

Yes,GrandpaDenny,The fairing has a very strong magnet to draw anything and every think into it's cavity.
I have dropped many things in their over the years.

[Nails]

Please post a review of those lights.
They would fit in the brackets I already have welded on my bike -- my present lights suck. And I already have wiring there to run white with high beams and yellow with low. (When I turn on aux lights, that is.)
Also wondering how they can be waterproof with an exposed fan.
Small round projector lamps -- just what I need.

[GrandpaDenny]

Sure, Nails. So far, I've only ridden a few miles with them, and it wasn't fully dark. From what I could see, and in the garage, the pattern is flat as a door on top, and a little curved on bottom. The pattern isn't extremely wide, nor extremely narrow, kind of hard to explain. I've got them angled outward to widen the beam pattern. I used my existing mounts, but found an OEM light bar on eBay last night, so that will be going on when I get it. The lights are TINY. I haven't looked at the bike from a distance with them on yet, nor seen our reflection, but I'm thinking for visibility to cars they might be too small; might want bigger lights. In my short ride with them, I dunno, but it seemed like I might have been a little less visible to cars. Too soon to tell yet, though.

[Nails]

Thanks. I would use them only in conjunction with my headlights. With the aux lights I have now, I honestly can't tell whether they're on or off -- I bought them because the headlight isn't bright enough.

[Nails]

Those lights are a whole lot smaller than I expected. I was running with the 1.96" width, but they're really more like 1.5". I can mount them with a spacer, but I'll probably use them instead on a more dirt-oriented build I have coming up. Let me compare then with the lights I have on the XII now, just hooking these to a spare battery. Hard to believe these little pups throw all that much light.

[GrandpaDenny]

Those lights are a whole lot smaller than I expected. I was running with the 1.96" width, but they're really more like 1.5". I can mount them with a spacer, but I'll probably use them instead on a more dirt-oriented build I have coming up. Let me compare then with the lights I have on the XII now, just hooking these to a spare battery. Hard to believe these little pups throw all that much light.

It's truly amazing how much light those little buggers put out. More than my headlight, I think! My only concern is visibility to cars, due to the smallness. However, in my recent trip (got home last night, there's a Story coming) I didn't notice any problems at all.