So last week I put a couple hundred miles on the XS, riding it to work (I consult, so somewhere different every day) and then taking the twisty roads home afterward. It’s my therapy, okay? But on August 15th on a twisty road on my way TO work, my throttle cable broke.
Gah.
Did not know exactly where the lever was that it pulls, so I just had to kind of coast to a stop at the bottom of a hill and then push it to the top. Fortunately, even though I was in the middle of nowhere, I was just that one hillclimb away from the parking lot of the Colony story (in Colony, MO, naturally). I know the people who own it, and one of them was outside working when I arrived. He gave me the go-ahead to leave it there in the lot. My wonderful wife came and rescued me (taking about an hour off of work, and my thanks to her boss as well) and then met me there tonight with the truck and ramps so we could load it up and bring it home.
In the interim I called two local Yamaha dealerships, but of course neither had the required part in stock. One told me I’d have to wait 4-5 business days and pay $40.00 for the part. I’d have paid that to have it right away, but if I have to wait, ebay it is. $16.95 with free shipping from a 98.6% positive vendor is worth waiting.
Well, the wait wasn’t as long as I feared; the cable arrived in the mail this morning. Installation was easy; hardest part, as always, was getting the gas tank hoses off and back on properly. When I removed the throttle cable, the upper end was kinked. Someone had jammed the little metal barrel into its place SIDEWAYS and let the cable wrap around the throttle tube incorrectly. I’ve NO idea how it’s been working so well all along, but the kinked bit was going to break off if the other end hadn’t gone first. Just another discovery of something half-assed by a previous owner.
While I had the side panel off for easier access, it occurred to me that I have been forgetting the thing I ALWAYS forget, namely the air filter… oops. So I took out the one screw and removed the cover, and found this:
Obviously they couldn’t find the right foam to replace the original, so they found something that would work. I know I’ve complained about the previous owners of this bike before (like, right up there at the top of this post), but I can’t find a single thing to complain about here… it’s neatly done, with the excess bundled up in a place where it doesn’t seem to matter. And the filter looks to be in pretty good shape too, so it must have been done not long before I bought the bike. Incidentally, both filters are done the same way, and equally neatly. I just photographed the one I had to bring into my office because the seal needed glue.
I’m wondering about just one thing here… is this the kind of foam that should be oiled? It’s not an OEM replacement, after all, and it looks like the foam from my TW200 (which is oiled). But without confirmation, I just put it back in.