19 Jun, 2010

One of my Co-workers had to take his Harley to the dealership in Suwon for a service today and I went along to keep him company. his wife followed us in their Honda Pilot.

the route was Highway 38 to 45 to 42 and it took about an hour to get to the dealership. the ride up was easy highway riding, freeway speed and not very complicated. the weather start out as rain and ended up just being overcast and hazy.

We arrived at the Harley Dealership without issue and turn in the bike for it's service. we all browsed the store for a bit and marveled at all the HD goodies. this HD store is like any HD Megaplex in the states. lots of chrome, lots of widgets and outrageous prices. but it is a good slice of Americana.

Noticing a small leak under my bike I tightened up the hose fittings on the return line.

Leaving the bikes at the store we took the car to lunch as the service was going to take around 3 hours to complete. we found a steak place called VIP's Steak and Salad in the Suwon Train Station. the Food Courts in the Train Stations in Korea are first rate. a little pricey, but the food is good and you don't leave hungry. this place was no different. Excellent food and really good service.

We returned around the time the service was supposed to be completed, had a cup of coffee and got ready to go. we came back the same route in reverse. Heading out the traffic was easy and light for the middle of the day.

I had a sneaky suspicion that the return oil line was going to give me an issue on the way back. I always keep an eye on the Oil Pressure Guage and figured as long as there is pressure there is oil, so keep going until it becomes a problem. around halfway back My friend started Honking and pointing. figured I'd better get over to the side of the road and see what was up. Look at the pressure, still good. Looked for an off ramp, found one. Looked at the pressure again, zero. Oh Shit. Pull the clutch, killswitch, turn the key off and coast.

Coasted to a stop an the bottom of the offramp and into a parking lot. got stopped and notice oil all over the back tire. and then noticed the Oil Return line had come off the tube on the bottom of the engine. so all the oil had been pumped out of the bike. While I was thinking how I was going to fix this, My friend said, "hey, lets just load it into the Pilot." OK this is going to be interesting. Lets stuff a 300 pound motorcycle into the back of a Honda Pilot.

Wouldn't you know it, the bike actually fit as you can see in the pics above. we got back to the base without further incident, unloaded the bike and went our seperate ways. I want to thanks the Kemps for their help and company today, all things considered, the was a good day.