Best Laid Plans Of Mice and Men...

#1
Today was to be one of the warmest since winter set in. Low 40's and sunny.
I thought I'd take out the Trail King and run it up to the top of my mountain. Fresh gas in the tank, set the choke, pull the starter and it fired white smoke for two secinds and stopped cold. Never to start again. WTH? This Predator 6.5 engine always starts no matter what. O.K, time to trouble shoot.
Water in gas?, no.
Gas in carb?, yes.
Ignition switches ( two one on the engine and one on the handle barks I made) both close with no resistance.
Spark? no! The spark plug is only 6 months old and clean. I removed the plug and grounded it to the engine via a wire and turned the engine over with a drill motor. The spark was inside the insulator and very week. I swapped out the plug with a lawn mower plug for a test and it sparked brightly and hot.
The "dead" plug was a Chinese weird name but had worked well all summer long.
I hand on hand a new box of NGK's and threw in a new plug. The engine fired on the first pull as it should.
So I suited up for a ride. I left my property and took the lower mountain trail to the fire road going to the top of the mountain. A little mud but not really what you'd call bad.
I reached the fire road and headed up the mountain only to get 100 yards before the dry road opened up showing it was thick mud. The mud was so bad it was impossible to sit up-right in the seat. The rear tire was spinning and slinging wet earth and grasses all over the place. forward momentum could not be achieved. I tried to stand to turn the bike around and could not get a footing. My boots clogged up instantly and the goo was like STP oil treatment. I was stuck in one place.
It took me a better part of 30 minutes to get the bike turned around. It was a real dog and pony show. Realizing that there was no way the bike would go back the way I came I had to do the "get off of the road and try the grass/mud/rocks 10 yards to either side of the road. This worked but the going was a real challenge. Cactus are everywhere just waiting to puncture your tires. The tires were so clogged with this mud that clings like Velcro that I had to really gun the engine just to get it to move.
Mud,rocks,and grass was flying everywhere. I decided I was going to take gravel and paved roads home. Getting to the dirt road took awhile as the trail had thawed as well and was the same kind of mud.
One I got onto a County road that was gravel I had to take it real easy as the tires were flinging chunks of mud and rocks all over the place. Once I hit the paved road the bike shoot off most of the heavy mud and I had a nice one mile ride to my house.
As soon as I got home I fired up the hose with a jet nozzle and blasted off the mud on the bike. This mud had not dried yet but was very hard to wash off. I really clings to anything it gets onto. Had I let it dry it is a nightmare to get off. If you let it dry on the engines exhaust and bake it, it is not possible to remove.
I Learned my lesson about nice days out here. It may feel nice but the ground has not given up its moisture and if you disturb the surface it unleashes the wort mud I have ever seen.
I really need to fabricate a mud flap.
muddy Trail King.jpg
 

old shed finds

Well-Known Member
#2
Sorry about the hard starting but this story sounds really neat..
I would have loved to be there riding too other than the goo goo mud....
But I would be more that curious to see how my BearKat would eat the mud...
 
Top