Here is T-Max with the RH side body panels off:
Note the complexity of this beast! The variator / CVT cover is shown here, so now you can visualise the rest of this story as it unfolds. Geeesh, I should really put some time into this writing, there is much too much to say.Twas a brisk morning All Saints Day, I was ready to roll out and go home. So I'm staring at TMAX while running my pockets, looking for my keys was starting to make me panic. They were not on me, and after stripping off my leather uppers wearing only my Hakone shirt at low forty degree temps, the search was almost futile as it was useless. The keys were gone, nowhere on my person and possibly left in a strange automobile or even the house iI was standing in front of.
I was not going to go back in and start looking for them, and at the same time felt helpless all the same. I was stranded without my keys and the temp was dropping quicker by the moment... So I decide to walk over to TMAX and figure out what to do and charge my phone. Lo and behold the keys were in the ignition. WTF? The whole night I was away at a party, my keys were in the ignition!! So relieved and shocked, it was time to leave.
The driveway was on a steep incline so instead of waking the whole neighbourhood, I released the E-brake and coated all the way down the drive and to the next street before starting her up...
Waiting at the main outlet before the roadway, I just let her warm up for a good while like we should, and even had a cop bust a u-turn right in front of me to go chase something. Cool! :) So after warming up and putting the gloves on, it was time, and we made chase.
All was fine and dandy made it to a stop light and next to me was a sports car with some people all painted up, since I was feeling happy and risky, I had brought it opon myself to do a hole-shot, and really make something break, oh but little did we know at the time...
I started spooling the engine while holding the brakes in, higher and higher I got the RPM
and it did feel a bit like something was slipping a little then BAM!
The light was green and I was off like a rocket, screaming down the road in no-time, it felt great.
After slowing a bit through town, we were finally cruising along again around fifty-sixty MPH and came up to a red light, time to stop. No kidding eh?! ;)
Green, I give her some gas and she felt like she was slipping, she was over reviving and could barely do 40 MPH now, so I drift her over to the right lane allthewhile kicking her in the CVT case with my heel, like that would make a difference.
Something was wrong and getting worse by the minute, as she would barely do 30 now...
We hobbled around a corner to a different road and by taking that corner at 25 MPH that now became the max speed TMAX was capable of. She was now starting to overheat and really losing power to the wheel, oh crap another red light. This was it. She was dead at Seven and Beech, once the light turned green, I had to push with my feet to keep her moving, pulled her up the curb and onto the walkway, shut her down.
Needless to say, I spent the next two hours pushing 500 LBS up and down some hills and let me tell ya, it wasn't easy wearing full leathers and having a helmet half on the noggin. Could I have called AAA and waited an hour to get a tow, but then what? No thanks, this is my baby, I'LL DEAL WITH IT! Only all caps because I was extremely upset, and this was the same spot My other Scooter went out, and I had to hump it back home hour after sweaty hour pushing a motorbike up hill.
There were some spots there I thought I was going to collapse, it was brutal pushing a five-hundred pound bike all over town, just to save face and quietly park her in the drive as if nothing had happened. I went inside, showered, and slept at 0500 and dreamt of many things.
A few hours go by and we awake, still depressed that T-max is injured and what is worse, we still don't know what it is yet. Went out for supper and decided to peel off her panels and see if we could diagnose the situation, but first some facts.
1. She was fine until engine spooling.
2. During the 40 mph slipping run, I had noticed the spedometer was incorrect, and at some speeds not registering, this is critical, and similar to the Variator during hole-shots, as it would "stick" under acceleration.
3. As long as I was moving, only a little power to the wheel was needed to keep the speed, regardless the overrevving. The two times I stopped killed it, which means it was a degrading issue with time.
4. On the Center Stand the back wheel spins still under throttle, but with very little HP to the wheel.
5. Prior to incident, engine was well warmed.
It seems like the wet clutch is shot, but this does not explain the incorrect spedo readings and mores how this correlated with the variator anomaly. We will take apart the machine this week hopefully, but first we need space and the right tools. More on repair later, we can say this though: The sloppy mechanics at so and so something sports had done shoddy work on my bike, and should be punished for stripping out the phillips slot bolts on T-max, as well as constantly missing hardware, like missing bolts and screws. Let alone slip-shod assembly, I am wondering if they hosed the bolts so I couldn't work on it? I mean, the fucking bolts are stripped! fucking hacks. So now I must deal with this....
sigh
-m
