Day 217: Bits Of BMW

Who'd have thought it would take so long to change over a throttle cable? We arrived at Heyfield a bit after 12:30 and started dismantling Pete's bike on the footpath, we needed to completely remove both side fairings and the fuel tank to access the engine end of the throttle cable. Once we'd pulled it all apart there was a fair bit of fiddling about with pulling the junction box out so we could remove the end of the cable that was still in there.

Just to make our job a little more fun, the bike had developed a flat battery as well. When we left the bike here overnight we had an inkling that we wouldn't make it back before midday, the time that the shop looking after Pete's bike was closing. The guy who'd let us store the bike had wheeled it out the front and had left the accessories switch on causing the radio to flatten the battery. This meant that after spending just over 2 hours replacing the throttle cable we had to push start it to make sure the repair was effective. Push starting a 250+ kilo two cylinder BMW wasn't too bad, it started on the 3rd attempt after Pete tried it in 3rd gear instead of locking the rear wheel up with the engine compression in 2nd. 

Before all this had happened we'd payed a quick visit to Wapshott Motors to collect payment for the warranty repairs that were required a couple of months ago. After being mucked around for months with the old 'the cheque's in the mail' story, then actually receiving a cheque that couldn't be processed because it was dated incorrectly I figured dropping in to collect in person was the only way I was likely to see anything from this dodgy dealer. The pick up was fairly painless and hopefully this will be the end of the dramas that I've had with the car. At least I was able to tie this little mission in with a road trip on the bike.