Clatter

Engines are not designed to clatter. That, at least, is my opinion. Purring as in a 425 Cat or barking as in an R Model are not to be confused with clattering. What my motorbike developed, slowly but surely, was unmistakably a clatter. Something akin to the noise made by a ball peen hammer inside a tin kettle in the back of a CJ-7 on the washboard road to Shenk’s Ferry. This particular clatter, I like to think, was there when I bought my motorbike, albeit in an undeveloped form - small, fuzzy and slightly charming, like a Rottweiler puppy. If the clatter was there when I bought it - that means it’s not my fault, right? Eventually, the clattering got to be hard to ignore, which is saying a lot for a clatter – I have long and well documented experience in ignoring funny noises in vehicles! My favored motorbike mechanic started, a couple years ago, to tell me every time I stopped in that I need to buy a new motorbike. He long since gave up on that, instead he took to shaking a crankshaft in my face and telling me I needed one of those. I took my bike up Ba Vi Mountain last fall, and started thinking about that noise, as it got louder. Then I came back down the mountain and didn’t think about it so much. That happened again the next time I went up a mountain. Then it started clattering on flat roads. I was kind of waiting for it to fall apart underneath me, then I would know that it was time to fix it, but it’s a Honda and I just kept on waiting and waiting…

Eventually my mechanic prevailed, convincing me that I didn’t really want it to fall apart underneath me in the middle of nowhere, where I go occasionally. So he replaced the engine, which is roughly the size of a small Thanksgiving turkey. He also replaced the “transmission” which is the size of a short stack of pancakes at the Iron Skillet. Deconstructing my bike into a couple pieces of plastic, a pile of greasy bits on the floor, and a sad, skeletal wheels-frame-and-seat nha quê looking affair didn’t take long at all. Reassembly with the new bits inside didn’t take much longer. So, after two hours or so of drinking tea on the sidewalk, my bike came back. That set me back maybe 10% the cost of a new motorbike, or, say, 17 hours on the clock of doing whatever it is I now do! Unfortunately, you can’t really see any of the shiny new bits unless you look underneath, but for the driver it does indeed feel like a whole new machine.

The next week, as I was still driving around getting a big smile on my face from hearing the sound of a new motor with the conspicuous absence of clatter, I had a flat tire. Rounding the corner at the end the alley to my house I heard something metal stuck in my tire clicking on the pavement. About a centimeter long, the thing I pulled out of my tire appeared to be the broken off tip of a sewing machine needle, the tip bent slightly so as to catch a tire rolling over it even when lying flat, and of course it is hollow and therefore perfect for quickly releasing the air in your tire. There are no sewing machines that I’m aware of at the corner of my alley. There is a sidewalk motorbike mechanic who sits there waiting to fix flat tires all day …

My theory of ill intent is, of course, only a theory. But, having said that, the next day I decided I needed a nice walk for exercise, so I pushed my motorbike with the flat tire out past the sidewalk motorbike guy, who followed me three hundred meters telling me more and more stridently that he could fix my flat tire, really, he could, truly, then I wouldn’t have to walk, really, honestly, that’s what he does, fixes flat tires. I smiled and walked another couple blocks to my regular mechanic. Sadly, he wasn’t there that day, the tea lady on the sidewalk outside his shop wasn’t there either, so I had to get someone else to patch it, and it went flat again right away. Then I got a new tube put in and was swindled by the guys in that shop who knew that no other motorbike shops in the neighborhood were open that late, and seemed very happy to swindle me. Karma like a defective boomerang…

Shortly after that I decided that since I had fixed the engine and could really go now, I should also fix the brakes. Yes they worked before, but the rear brakes seemed to offer about as much resistance as, say, dragging your feet wearing bowling shoes. Upon dropping the back wheel and looking at the brakes, my long-suffering mechanic pointed out that half the thing holding the wheel bearing was, well, gone, somehow. Oops. Thanks to too many sidewalk mechanics banging in new bearings (with less attention to alignment than me pushing the knob on my Bodum) to fix the noise, which wasn’t the bearing to begin with! So I got a whole new wheel. A new shiny bit you can see this time, and the brakes work very well. Beyond that, I can go to the middle of nowhere, clatter-free, and relax without fear of being stuck in the middle of nowhere for longer than I want to be there.