Ride West: Day 2 in Kenner, LA

I wish I had good things to say about the speedo fail, but I don’t.  Talked with several HD dealer service departments today, and the description I gave elicited pretty much the same response from all:   The problem is likely to be the speedometer, which must be special ordered and set to what the mileage was on the existing unit before it went out.  Apparently it’s a two-three week process.

And on top of that, my 2 1/2 year-old battery seems to be giving out.  Not sure if that problem is connected to the speedo issue, but it’s possible that the failed speedometer may be putting a slow drain on the battery.  So, tomorrow, I will take the old battery out, put in a new one, and hope that gets me to Wichita where the HD dealership is going to at least try to trouble shoot the problem.  I’m keeping multiple digits crossed that it’s still fixable.

By the way, if you need to break down on a Harley, try to do it somewhere other than New Orleans.  The HD service department at New Orleans Harley Davidson sucks.  The service writer clearly didn’t have much interest in helping me try to diagnose the problem.  “We’re backed up for three weeks.”  “I’ll ask a tech…(30 seconds later)…it’s the speedometer and we’ll have to order it.”  “You could put a trickle charger on the battery….oh yeah, you’re on the road.”

Give me John Dunn at Adamecs anytime.  Good service there.

Oh well, in between bouts of speedo-battery blue funk, I did enjoy spending time today with grandkids.  And had a great sushi lunch with Hilary.  (Oh yeah, and got rained on again coming back from lunch.)

Another day tomorrow in Kenner, then I push on into Oklahoma toward Kansas.  And it’s supposed to rain again in Oklahoma after it heats up to 104 on Sunday.

Stay tuned to see what crap falls on my head tomorrow.