I went for a day-long (400 mi) motorcycle ride on July 3rd, 2004 - a birthday present to myself.
My riding partner, Rob Dorman, with the same model bike, a VTX 1800 R, had forgotten to tell me that he'd ridden about 40 miles on his tank of gas the day before. So, of course, he ran out of gas going over the North Cascades highway, about 7 miles short the next gas station. I went on ahead, strapped a gas tank over my should with a belt and brought it back to get him going. Shaking that incident off, we went on into the city of Chelan and had a nice outdoor lunch at a restaurant on the lake. Then on to Leavenworth.
Thinking it wise to learn from our fuel travails earlier that day, we pulled into a station to fuel-up before heading over the pass. After gassing up, I started my bike up and pulled around away from the pumps to park it and go inside for treats. The bike died before I could get to a parking spot.... After a few minutes of puzzling I realized that I had accidentally filled it up with almost 4 gallons of diesel. Ouch!
After coaxing the gas station attendants into loaning us a container and hose, I managed to syphon about 3 gallons out of it (getting about 4 mouthfuls of diesel in the process -- no syphoning skills), then filled it up with regular gas.
Wouldn't start.
Ran the battery all the way down trying start it. Turned the key off. Started going through my options:
Ride home double on the back of Rob's bike? Call AAA? Call Katie and have her come pick me up? All too humiliating.
After a few minutes, Rob prodded me to try starting it one last time. I turned the key and pushed the starter button with my thumb. The bike briefly sputtered to life. I grabbed the throttle and rev'd it up to fight its will to die.
Amidst of the backfiring, popping, and general noising-making (my 1800cc engine coughing up diesel outdid the noise of almost all the fireworks. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small child holding his ears and crying as his mother scowled at me) I kept it running for about 5 minutes. Looking at Rob, he bellowed over the noise that we should probably try and get closer to home. So we pulled out and off I went. After about 2 miles the engine smoothed out.
The problem now was that I was burping up diesel - YUCK. (Regular unleaded tastes so much better.) We stopped at a diner about 20 miles up the pass and got a big milkshake thinking that would help calm my stomache. The rest of the way home I was burping VANILLA diesel.
When I got home that evening, I filled up the bike again--regular unleaded this time--then washed off the bugs and diesel. (Still burping vanilla diesel.) At 10:30 at night with no relief in sight, I finally ate loaf of garlic bread thinking that might sop up the residue.
Woke up at 3:00AM with bad heartburn -- popped a handful of Tums. Went back to sleep and woke up in the morning "cured".
Pulled the spark plugs the next day. The bikes running fine. So am I.
