Blargh. I have had the crappiest afternoon >:( Figured I'd share, as it's probably worth a good laugh at my expense, and there is actually a plea for technical advice in here someplace...
I hopped on the freeway a few hours ago & got a nasty rear end wobble/fishtaily thing going on. Totally freaked me out. I ride that road every 3 days, so I know it's not the pavement, it was the bike. I pulled off the freeway pronto (changed my shorts) checked the axle nuts, squeezed the tires, couldn't physically jiggle the front or rear sideways on their axles, so end up crawling home on back roads. Got home, popped Goss up on the workstand, burning my leg on the exhaust and almost dropping him in the process. I found the oil empty, both tires 5 lbs down & front brake reservoir empty. I checked all of them last Saturday & they were fine... I check those buggers weekly for 6 months & the levels have barely moved. I obviously angered the Desmo gods during the last 7 days.
End of story? Hard-ly! This is where the funny oh-so-stupid part starts. Every week when I check my oil, there's a nice pretty clear line that cuts through the either milky background or dark background. Easy. Today there was pitch black nothin. Oh my. No oil, THAT'S bad. Wow, look at that big swath of oil schmutz coming down from the oil filler cap. Who'da thunk that oil would leak *up*? Hmmm. Crap! It's Sunday, Auto-Mart is going to close in 15 minutes & I need to buy oil! Damn, what oil do I need to get?!? Where's my Haynes manual !?! Screw it, I'll look in the owner's manual under the seat, aagh, those damn flippity flipping stupid screws, give me the manual!!! Hop in car, race to store, get oil. Driving home, start congratulating myself on making it before Auto_mart closed as car starts to Buck and LurCH and WHAT THE %^&# !!!! Ah, I see the Nissan gods are irked as well. I managed to get the car home, but did I take this as a sign? A mild hint from the deities of all things mechanical? Oh no, of course not. My darling bike needs oil, and *I*, power tool princess, am going to fill it.
OK, so the good news is that the neighborhood kids didn't try to sit on the bike (on the workstand) while I was gone. Goss is still ass-up in the driveway upon my return. Good. Let's go fill that oil! Check sightglass, pour, check, pour, check, pour, jeez this thing is taking a lot of oil...pour, pour, check, pour, try to peek into crankcase, burn forehead on still hot engine, DOH!, pour, cuss, check, cuss, pour, cripes this IS the *oil filler cap*, right? check, pour, check....ok, this can't be right. Maybe I really should go find the Haynes manual & see how much oil this thing takes. Yeah, definitely...the Haynes Manual always makes me feel better, plus it adds a bit of authority when the neighbors walk by & ask me if I'm working on my bike. "So, working on your motorcycle?" "Uh, no actually, this is an obscure form of energy work known as Italian accupressure, it took years to master & can only be done when the Moon is in Virgo." Duh...what does it look like? Well, today it might actually look like I *wasn't* working on the bike after all. It probably looked like I was making things worse. All the neighbors were good enough to stay inside and not tell me so.
After 15 minutes of rooting around the house for Haynes, I trotted back outside to find a strange little milk-white spot materializing near the bottom of the sightglass. Um....wait a sec. Liquids obey the pull of gravity, and as such, fill space as a level line. NOT a radiating spot that seems to be getting bigger. What is going on here? This reminds me of when I used to look under my glass of milk as I poured in Hershey's Syrup, just in reverse. blink. blink. Uh oh. Oh shit oh shit, that damn thing wasn't empty, the oil was too dark for me to see the line. Oh the spot is getting bigger, oh the spot is getting close the that max line oh crap, there it goes up past the top of the sightglass. shit.
The irony of all this is that I spent a good part of yesterday morning pouring over the Haynes manual to determine if I could, indeed, change my own oil.
Flashback to yesterday morning.. Well, I'm still 1K shy of the 6,000 service, but heck, new oil would be nice for the ride to DRA. And sheesh, it's only a two wrench rating. I bled my clutch when the slave seal failed and that was a *three* wrencher. But hmm, I don't have that nifty filter tool, nor do I have that metal washer I'm supposed to replace. And heck, if the gauze is shot, I don't have that either. I think I'll just wait until Tuesday & take it to Nichols. The guys will let me watch them change the oil, then I'll know how. Ah well, it can't hurt to read Haynes and remember all the important points...don't forget to smear the filter ring with fresh oil, don't overtighten the filter, and of course, time-leap back to this afternoon for my personal favorite: don't overfill the oil. DOH.
I have now officially given up for the day. I am not touching anything else except the keyboard and a pint of Haagen Dazs. Looks to me like I'll be changing my own oil after all. And the front brake fluid for that matter. Yeesh. Wish me luck.
So, the question still remains, what can make oil turn jet black in the course of 7 days? And what's with the tire pressure drop & loss of brake fluid? I'm perplexed and feeling a tad cursed.
Oh, and did I mention that there was a spider in my helmet that started crawling around right when I got on the freeway? I HATE spiders.
Also, my housemate's 600 beast of a Honda fell on her this morning.
And the best part is that I was on the way to spend the day with 60 of my friends at huge event in San Francisco that I have been looking forward to for 2 months. I have planned my life around attending this event and ran into trouble 5 miles from my door : ( I called up to the party to see if anyone could come pick me up, but everybody was already in full party swing & couldn't safely drive 40 miles to come get me. Ah well, at least they have called every two hours, passed the phone around & told me how much fun it is & that they wish I was there. Oh the HUMANITY!