Day 248– 13th August 09
Posted by TravellingStrom on August 13, 2009
Thursday – Whitehorse, Yukon
Another long day in the saddle, but at least I was allowed into Canada without any dramas this time
After a late wake up and a quick bun and hot chocolate from the office I managed to get away from the Brown bear, he was stuffed, if he had not have been, I would have been 😆
So, after saying farewell to Simon I started to head off, failed!!! I noticed a clicking noise from the motor section that kept on going, even after the motor had done its self test mode and the fuel pump had stopped, I could still hear it, also my C28 error was back, before starting even 😦 Well, this was no place to work on it in the motel car park so I started it and rode it to the Post Office just around the corner where I posted a post card and then phoned a friend, Johnofchar to be exact. I could not call him last night because he is on the east coast at least 5 hours ahead.
The upshot was it is quite possible I will need to replace the faulty throttle body, the whole assembly, not just the faulty actuator. It is not a big issue and John set my mind at rest, he said it is rideable and if need be it can be disconnected. As there is a dearth of Suzuki shops in this town I decided to head east, most shops would have to order this in anyway, so I could pretty much ignore it but I was told I could leave the dealer mode connector in, someone else had told me the error will not show up, but I obviously misunderstood what they meant. It was a cold miserable day, no sun, cold winds, the scenery looked drab, so was my mood again, I needed to find somewhere warm so I could pitch my tent and rest for a while.
I had stopped at a viewpoint for a photo and worked something else out about my FI error. When I pull up to a stop and it shows the C28, I could drive off but have no acceleration, or not much anyway, just enough to get into about 3rd gear. I could then cycle the engine off and back on again and it would clear the fault and be back to normal, so the computer is shutting off the secondary throttle when the error shows up, more info for the gurus. Not long up the road I came to the small border town where I could buy some duty free, he had not much left as he was closing down in 2 weeks for the winter, this is why I need to go south! I bought some vodka and was taken up to the American border post about 3miles away where the bottle was signed through. I was then in Canada, but not really because the Canadian border was 20 miles away, what a weird setup 😕
So, I am in the Yukon again and in Canada and the first thing I run into is a very corrugated road which shook me to pieces, lucky I pulled over for this truck though, going down a steep crap hill in zero vis would have been no fun at all !!
I eventually arrived at the Canadian border where I was asked a few not exciting questions about firearms and on my way young fella 🙂 Maybe he thinks all the hard questions get asked when coming into Canada from the other side 🙂
Well, I am in with no dramas, now for the ride to Whitehorse at least. My reckoning was confused last night, I thought Watson Lake was a goal but I had been reading miles as kms, so I was way out on my calculations. Even as it was I would be getting into Whitehorse very late in the afternoon, so best get moving, although I stopped a few times for photos etc.
There were a lot of lake views along this road, I wish the sun was out it would have made the day so much better, even so it was getting better all the time 🙂
The lake had some great information about the history of the area.
Onwards I head and hoping like hell that I would reach a servo before I ran out of fuel, the signs pointed to Haines Junction, which I should make, but I had a head wind, oh well, if I ran out, I ran out! Eventually though I got there and fuelled up and continued on east. A lot of the businesses along here had signs and road blocks out, closed for the winter season, I gotta get out of here!
I eventually got into Whitehorse around 7pm and after dicking around a bit, because I was in the capitol city of the Yukon and a tourist trap, I found a motel, it was forecast rain, so I had no need of a tent tonight. After some noodle supper I checked the back log of emails etc and the forums for a motor fault answer, basically I need to strip it down a bit, but not here. I would continue on to Watson Lake tomorrow and check the weather, if it is above freezing and dry I could camp. I spent the evening writing a blog entry and starting on another, it was a late night as I am days behind. Hopefully I can get a camp site with internet and catch up soon.
Day 404 miles and 650 km
Trip – 31,034 miles and 49,944 km
Cheers
TravellingStrom
TravellingStrom 
Donunder said
The magic continues Rich, and it’s SO nice being able to see whole pictures instead of the cropped stuff. Hope you get that worrying C28 biz sorted soon. Good to have Johnofchar on standby hey?? Maybe he can pull a few strings when you get back the States and line you up a Zumo too. Broncs/ Eels this arv. I’ll let you know. By the way, are you the first person ever to ride to Prudhoe Bay on the verge of winter with a full open-mesh DriRider summer jacket?
Cheers, Don.
TravellingStrom said
Hi Don
I still have not seen my own site on any computer where the pictures are cropped, so I have no freakin idea what to do about it. Today’s effort is the last, it looks good on that PC with that browser and that aspect ratio, so if other people use IE crap, not my problem man, I have never and will never use it.
As for the bike thing, just having internet access for 99% of the time is a big bonus, the one time I had none, the bike had a problem, go figure. John is a great bloke and knows a bucket load about Stroms, but even he cannot fix a fault he has never seen nor heard of before. He certainly pointed me in the right direction and gave me some pointers, and the next time on the net he even posted some diagrams of where I needed to look. I even held the phone to the engine while the grinding noise was happening, he had not heard that before. The other point to think about is that this happened in Alaska, a part of the US, so my phone worked, as soon as I crossed the border into Canada, that was the end of that! But, I can nurse this bike for years the way it is until I get back into cheap old USA and maybe swap the sensor out or something.
As for the Zumo thing, well, if John can wrangle that(which I very much doubt), I will be happy to test the system out. Mind you, as you know I pull no punches, if it works great I give the thumbs up, if it dies it gets the big razzoo 🙂
Go the Broncs 🙂
Hmm, about the jacket, well, it all looks nice and breezy, but let me tell you under there is some serious clothing 🙂
I have been thinking about posting some pictures of the apparel I am wearing up here, but it is hard the get my keg of a belly to look like a 6 pack 🙂 Still working on a solution, but a crayon comes to mind 🙂
Thanks for the comments Don, I really do enjoy stuff from home.
If you are wondering why I am so voluble tonight, it is because I am in Watson lake, Yukon and it is discovery day, I have yet to discover what this means, but I met a fellow Queenslander and we had a few 🙂
Cheers TS
Mum said
Just looked at the 13th August via Mozilla, with higher resolution settings than I had. I did not have the option you showed, but have 1280 x 960 pixels.
Text is small but readable and all photos are there in full (e.g. they don’t change when I r/click ‘view image’). So that’s good and I’ll try and keep to this whilst my/our eye-sights stay reasonable.
TravellingStrom said
Hi
Good to hear it is better, but I did not mean the resolution in the browser, I meant the desktop.
Close all the open windows down and ‘right click’ on the desk top, then select properties and choose settings, there should be a drop down box in there somewhere to select the settings I mentioned.
Cheers Richard