Just my luck I found a great bike at a great price down in Sacramento. As I mentioned in my other post, a few hundred miles down the road in the middle of nowhere, I realized that the bike wasn't as in as perfect condition as had been sold me (I did tear it apart and examine it, ride it before the purchase.)
The problem was, that when I filled my tank completely, the bike would start to surge, idle roughly, die if not given enough gas and hesitate with acceleration the first 20 miles or so after a fill up. Otherwise the bike performed great. I had wondered if it was a malfunction in my California charcoal canister, but couldn't figure things out. Then I went online and some wonderful people in the Stromtrooper community were able to direct me to the problem (my thread here.) Turns out the fuel vapor separator/ breather pipe had broken off. I was able to snap a couple pictures of it, please forgive the resolution. This was going to be a problem for longer trips and fuller gas tanks. And I wanted to get it fixed.
Of the options offered, most of them required more work than I was comfortable with and scrounging for some parts I did not know if I could find. But a solution did come around pretty quickly. As I figured, it was only a breather pipe, and as long as I could find some gas resistant tubing, sealant and a tool that would allow me to put it in place, I could probably have a good fix going pretty easily.
Turns out, my local hardware store had a tool that could pinch small items at a distance ($7), a sealant made for gas tanks ($2) and some chemically/ gas resistant tubing that I could use (at round $.15/ft, of which I needed 1.)
Actually bought 2 different diameters of the tubing, as I wasn't quite sure which one would allow the best fit. After a dry test run with my pincers to make sure I was comfortable getting the tube in place, I perforated the tubing by bending it and cutting off the tips with scissors, slathered a fair amount of the sealant on the tube and was able to get the replacement tube snuggly in the breather pipe. Now I only had to let the sealant cure....
The next day I filled up the tank and held my breath as I started my bike up. As I had hoped, it ran fine. I gave it some gas, and it reved appropriately. I took her for a ride, and did not have any problems that I had experienced beforehand. Looks like my upcoming trip to Colorado will have less gas breaks along the way :)
I'll be honest, this was a little too easy. In the back of my head, there's that little voice that tells me it will fall apart at some point inconveniently. But while it works right now, I'll ignore that voice, it doesn't sound like my conscious or reason, just the self-doubt one - and he needs to get a little less attention.
