Dum bass

[cactusjack]

Today I had to leave my office in the afternoon to attend a meeting in our data center, about 6 miles away. This building is only a mile or two from my Kawasaki dealer and my bike needs an oil change at 18,000 miles. My grand plan was to ride to the meeting, then afterwards ride over to the dealer and drop my bike off tonight and they would service it tomorrow. My wife would meet me there on her way home from work and I'd ride with her. So I arrive at the data center around 2:15 and then when the meeting ended at 4:15, I went out to the parking lot and experienced that sick, nauseating feeling you get when you realize you left your ignition on. The battery was deader than Lincoln.

Of course, I have no jumpre cables and no tools to remove my seat. I replaced the factory screws with SS button head bolts. I called the dealer to tell them my predicament and that I probably wouldn't make my appointment. They said they could normally send a truck to pick it up, but the truck and driver were out of town. I was going to have my wife come get me take me home to get tools and jumper cables, then bring me back to get the bike. This would have taken a good hour and a half in rush hour traffic.

Then I remembered my son works just 3 miles away and he had a set of tools in the trunk with metric hex wrenches...but no jumper cables :( So I called him and asked him to stop at NAPA or Autozone and buy a cheap set of cables. Once he got off work, he was there in 15 minutes and I removed the seats, hooked up the cables, and it fired right up. I let it idle and threw the seats back on and by now, my wife was a block from the dealer. I told her to wait for me and I managed to get there and drop the bike off before they closed at 6:00. Everything worked out as planned. Except for the $20 I had to reimburse my son for a "cheap" set of NAPA cables.

[blowndodge]

My wife does stuff like that !!!

[chainsaw]

All's well that end's well.

[audiogooroo]

Eh...I've done worse! :)

[ringadingh]

It could have been worse for sure.

[paul]

Ouch. I keep a set of motorcycle cables in the bags. Not because I'm smart, but because I'm observant. A Harley riding buddy of mine left his lights on while we were having a rest stop in the middle of nowhere late on a Sunday afternoon. He had no cables. Way too much trouble to get one of these things started without them.

[cactusjack]

Originally Posted by Ringadingh

It could have been worse for sure.

Yes, I could have been 150 miles from home. There are a lot of remote, desolate places in AZ I wouldn't want to get stranded in. Oh well, I need a set of cables to pack in the trailer anyway. I would have been okay if I had the metric allen wrench to remove the seat. Getting a jump would have been no problem. All the other bikes in the parking lot were Harleys. I didn't want to ask their owners for a metric tool.

[dkdixie]

Just a slight bump in the road.

Glad you worked it out. We've all been there....

[VulcanE]

Glad all turned out well CJ, and I hope it don't make the battery fail prematurely. I made me a set of jumper cables for bikes, I keep them in the bag with the compressor, tire repair kit, and a first-aid kit.

[samkjr]

I did that three times the first year I had the bike. I was not used to driving without a key in the ignition. I would just get where I was going and jump of the bike and walk away. But now that I have had a chance to customize it, I always look back and admire her beauty as I wam walking away. That gives me a chance to notice if the lamps are still on.

[trip]

So far, I haven't done that......but I'm sure my day is coming. Glad everything worked out CJ.

[jussmatt]

I'm like you Trip...so far...so good... but it does make me think about adding/making a pair of jumper cables. I have all the tools I need to fix most things on my bike, but I hadn't thought about jumper cables till now. And since I ride w/ a lot of "Hardley" guys....I'm sure I'll need them eventually!!

[phenrichs]

I can't remember the brand but my old battery tender had a pigtail connection that would connect to the battery as usual but also came with a cable that would connect to that and had aligator clips for jump starting on the other end. Foolish to let it go with the old bike when I sold it.

[dantama]

Originally Posted by OP

I can't remember the brand but my old battery tender had a pigtail connection that would connect to the battery as usual but also came with a cable that would connect to that and had aligator clips for jump starting on the other end.

.

Oh, so you could Take the alligator clips, hook it back up to the battery, and jump yourself! Brilliant idea!

In 80,000 plus miles on a Nomad, I've done the leave the lights on twice. At least done it twice long enough to run the battery down ;)

One time another person in the lot had jumper cables, the other time was at a girlfriends house and a husky neighbor kid helped push it fast enough to bump start it.

[ronnie]

SO,,,,,,,,OP,, are you saying you can push and start your nomad.. because I can't, and sure wish I could.......mine just slips the clutch, and dosn't turn the motor over...... the dealer said all the nomads were like that....