Broke down in Walla Walla, Washington. The bike would not shift out of 1st gear. Tried bleeding the clutch. Added more 50 weight oil to the bike to see if that would help matters (it was low on oil). Nothing worked. Had to get it trailered to Richland, WA where I loaded it into a U-Haul and drove it back to Corvallis.
From Pullman to Broke Down in Walla Walla
After having driven from Corvallis to Pullman, Washington following Drew in U-Haul with all of Drew’s possessions and Carl’s and my motorcycles the night before, we woke up early to hit the highway for Oregon. The first leg took us from Drew’s new apartment in Pullman, Washington, to Dayton, Washington where we stopped to get fuel. 2.158 gallons purchased. Average speed was around 60-65mph. 50.8 mpg. 109.7 Miles. Running with fully loaded saddle bags, tank bag, and gear tied onto passenger seat. Stayed on main highways.
From Dayton, Washington we went to just south of Walla Walla, Washington. Had been having troubles shifting out of first gear since the beginning of the morning. Added more oil to the engine in Dayton which helped temporarily. In Walla Walla, the bike would no longer go out of 1st. Tried adding more oil but it didn’t help. Bike was burning a LOT of oil. Turned out that I was running the wrong weight (50 instead of 10W40). Had to trailer bike to Richland and then U-Haul to Corvallis. See Maintenance Log for more. Air temp was hot (90+) for most of the ride starting at 6am.
Carl driving the U-Haul somewhere in Eastern Washington.
Unloading the U-Haul outside Drew’s apartment.
Our motorcycles parked out of the way waiting for the next morning.
The only thing in Drew’s fridge.
Drew and Amber.
The old highway dropping down into Lewiston and Clarkston.
Carl and I with our trusty steeds.
Changing fork oil and seals
Replaced fork seals and cleaned out fork internals. Carl helped. Brenton let us use the SAE shop to do the work. The left fork was rusted and corroded inside. We cleaned both forks out and flushed them with new oil. The manual had an error in it that led us to reassemble the forks incorrectly. They were too raked out which made it impossible to reassemble the bike and also caused there to be no damping. We had to come back the following day to finish the job as we had been in the shop from 6pm to almost 2am. The following day, we were able to completely disassemble and reassemble the forks and put them back on the bike in only a couple of hours.