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I made my 9 oclock appointment at South Seas Cycle to have my new tach installed. It seemed to be taking a long time to R & R the instrument. They had diagnosed the problem a couple of weeks ago and got the new part in a little over a week. Impressive. But......they couldn't get the new one to work. Bad diagnosis, it seems. I told them to forget it, now that I know that the instrument is ok, I'll take care of it myself. An hour and a bit more gone.
Ok, off to see my wife who was in Tripler Army Medical Center. Got about halfway there and ran out of gas on the freeway. I had filled it (I thought) and reset the odometer. It read 79 miles. Hmmmmmmmm. Seems a little thirsty. Tried to slosh some gas over to the petcock side. No luck. I managed to coast to a shady spot and locked the bike.
I had been running on reserve for most of the last fifty miles, I thought there was a problem with the petcock, that it wouldn't pass fuel in the ON position. Wrong. It was just low......either I didn't get as much into it as I thought, or there is a fuel thief about. It wasn't in the crankcase when I did the oil change a couple of days ago, and it isn't in there now.
Plugs look good. No smell of gasoline from the oil filler plug.
I hiked over the armco and worked my way down the hill into a streambed and followed it to a condo's fence, found a low spot and hiked over. Got to Sears several hundred yards on, bought a small gas can and hoofed it to the gas station.
Now, it has been HOT and HUMID for the last few days.....just miserable. Winds from the southeast (Kona winds) bring humidity and volcanic smog (Vog). Yuuuuuk.
Met Walter at the gas station where he was also filling a couple of gas cans. I offered Walter a twenty if he would give me a ride back up to the freeway to my bike. He said he would be glad to give me a ride. Away we go.
I got to know a little about Walter during the relatively short ride....he is retired....45 years at the Hawaii Newspaper Agency which used to print both of our daily papers. Press operator. Only job he ever had, raised six kids. Salt of the earth kinda guy. Dropped me off and wouldn't take any money. Wished my wife well.
I told Deb about my "adventure" when I finally got to the hospital. Turns out that several years ago, she had given Walter a ride when he needed to meet up with his wife....I didn't get the whole story, but it seems that good deeds go in full circles.
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Triumph old, Triumph new, any Triumph will do.
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