“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”
– Salvador Dali
Terra Nova has been offline for almost a year, months of neglect on my part stemming from work, momentary and enduring distractions, and angst over the Scooter Cannonball1.
Still, there’s no excuse2.
She turned over but failed to start when I started futzing with her in earnest about a month ago. I drained the gas, put in fresh fuel, and charged up the battery. No luck.
I ordered a new YTZ12S battery at the local Yamaha/Honda/Suzuki/Kawasaki/Ducati/Can-am/Kymco/Kayo/Polaris/Sea-Doo dealer3, recovered from the shock of the price4, and waited.
I picked up the battery on Wednesday and installed it on Saturday. And that’s when I did something really, really (really) stupid; I put it in backward, hooked up the cables and promptly blew the 50 amp main fuse5.
I understand how it happened and if I would have taken another 30 seconds to think about it, I might have gotten it right. It’s one of those things I’ll never get over. In a way, that’s a good thing, because it lessens the chance I’ll do it again.
The screw-up becomes even more confounding when I vividly recall a story from Mark Day6, an old friend from high school.
I mean vivid: He and I were sitting at a cafeteria table at Heskett Junior High School – now Heskett Middle School – in Bedford Heights, Ohio. He was describing how he accidentally dropped a wrench while working on his car.
The wrench – a Craftsman open-end – fell exactly across the two battery terminals and part of the battery top blew off. Mark was okay, but it was unexpected and scary.
He even drew a sketch – on white paper with a blue Bic ballpoint pen, seriously – of how the wrench hit the terminals. I can still see his sketch in my mind.
I have never, ever, forgotten his story and I think of it every time I open a car hood. So Mark has probably saved me from blowing up my own battery more than once over the years.
I went back to the Yamaha/etc. dealer and ordered two 50 amp main fuses7, since Gus, the parts guy8, did not have them in stock.
I sent this story to a few friends, and a response from Karl Gelles about jumping a battery made me remember Mark Day’s experience.
The Yamaha fuse will arrive next week and I’ll pick up the installation again.
Wish me luck, or at least less stupidity. And let this tale be your Mark Day sketch when you work on your own battery.
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1 – Terra Nova is my 2012 Yamaha Super Tenere. I spent riding time aboard Terror and Erebus, the two Vespas, in preparation for the 2023 Scooter Cannonball. Not that it did much good.
2 – Endurance, my 2000 BMW R1150GS, has been in statis for much longer. I think I’ll end up taking her to a shop for resuscitation.
3 – That is not an exaggeration.
4 – It was $238, the most I’ve ever paid for a battery.
5 – Which is bad, but it’s better than burning out the ECU, the engine control unit. God knows what replacing that would cost.
6 – Mark Day has graced this site with previous mentions. He and Tom McCray did an epic motorcycle ride from Cleveland to Virginia Beach in like 1976 that made me jealous. Good guys, both of them.
7 – One for the bike and one for a spare.
8 – Gus is a good guy and did not laugh once while I was there, explaining the problem. No telling what happened after I left, of course.
Motorcycle Days 