Playa San Diego to San Salvador – April 12

We left Playa San Diego just after 7am and were in San Salvador at the Kawasaki Dealership by 8:30am with little trouble finding the place.

Ready for the 12K service…at 18k!!

The bike service was underway by 9am and we set about finding tires.  Eventually, appropriate tires were found at another location across town, so I went with Victor, the Shop Manager, to deliver our wheels.

My rear tire has seen better days!

We were told at 11am that the bikes were done, save for reinstalling the rear wheels that were still at the tire shop.  Finally at 1pm we were told the wheels were ready to be picked up, so Victor and I drove across town again only to find the wheels sitting exactly where we left them with the old tires in place!  Victor rallied some help and eventually we got the tires changed and were back to the dealership by 2:30pm.

An hour later the bikes were still not complete and we were told it would be another hour.  At this point I started to get frustrated because it wouldn’t take that long for me to finish both bikes myself.  After I pushed a bit, the mechanics admitted there was an electrical problem with Petra’s bike – the ignition switch was overheating, and alternatively the regulator fuse would blow.  I went into the shop area to see what was up and saw them reefing the gas tank off of the frame with the fairings still attached on either side, and proceeding to yank on the wiring harness, disconnecting circuits left and right.

As they tried to test individual circuits with the starter button, we pointed out that they had cut the side stand kill switch and therefore were not going to know when or if the problem was solved.
After the side stand switch was reconnected, I stayed with the mechanics and forced them to work in a more methodical fashion to diagnose the problem.  It turned out, they had initially removed the gas tank in the same inappropriate manner we had witnessed, and in the process had crimped a wire in the wiring harness that runs under the tank.  When the tank was replaced, the crimped wire would short the ignition circuit (it actually melted the solder off of the back of the starter button and destroyed a return spring), and blow out the fuse in the regulator.

We rerouted the wiring harness to avoid any more damage, removed the fairing to properly reinstall the fuel tank, had to send someone out for replacement fuses, and re-soldered the starter switch before the shop closed for the night.

In the mean time, Petra had gotten us checked in to a hotel a few doors down from the shop.
Tomorrow morning we’ll have to make a new spring for the starter and finish reassembling the bike before getting underway.