There's got to be a few good yarns here....
I'll kick it off.....
How I became "Diesel".....
Okay - so we know I chucked a gutfull of Diesel in my bike one day....
Here is the tragic story (with pics)....
I had organised a latte run for a few fellow ST1300 and ST1100 owners. And they came in great numbers.... from the Gold Coast, Brizvegas, and even Bundaberg. I had 13 ST bikes to cater for in the end.
Anyway - the meeting point was Samford Village, but the Bundy crew wanted to stay at Caboolture the previous night to ride down there with me. "No wukkas" I thought as they were unfamiliar with directions to the start point.
This is where the beginnings of the rot set in....
As I rocked up to my regular filling station (BP Morayfield), I saw Jinxy and waved whilst pulling in. My 'usual' bowser was taken, so I picked another BP Ultimate bowser, and continued my salutations to my guest.
Have a look at the labels on the pump.....
You can see that if distracted... the worst can happen.
Anyways, I filled as we yibbered about his journey down etc etc, and set off for the meeting point.
Around 15 k's into it, I started to notice a delay from throttle on to feeling the power. This progressively got worse the further I went. Puffs of smoke also started to emanate from the exhausts, and I had that 'oh sh*t' feeling as there was a few hundred clicks to travel that day, and my bike was never anything less than totally reliable!
Anyway - made it to the start point, greeted all the riders, had the first morning brew, laid out the rough plan and then mounted up to leave.
My bike only just started, coughed, weased, smoked more and more, then died. I thought I'd dropped a valve or something.
I had to wave everyone off on the ride that I had organised and was ride master of.
I was then left to call the towey and go home in the truck with my tail between my legs.
I learned a terrible lesson that day to pay attention.
We dropped her off to the Honda shop (still thinking the motor may be rooted). After a while we all worked out the problem. I called the servo to see what flavour was on pump 13, and she confirmed.
Amongst all the devastation and disappointment of missing out on the ride, was a little feeling of elation that it was only me being a dickhead and NOT an engine failure.
Funny thing was, later, as I was helping out the trouble n strife in the garden (in fact I was pooper scooping at the time), I thought to myself... "look at me... shovelling sh*t instead of belting through some of Australia's nicest twisting roads to pubs with a great mob!" DOH!
Anyways - it cost me $300 all up - $150 to the STealership for draining etc, and $150 towing.
All is good now and I certainly learnt my lesson. But you all know what the lads are like... as of that moment I became "Diesel Dave" shortened to Diesel.
Also, with all these Euro cars and 4WD's using diesel fuel, the pumps are as 'normal' as possible. They used to be segregated - but now are integrated into the bowser layout too because of their popularity.
These two pics were taken at a Bundy servo - must be a common occurrence.....
Anyway - this is why I will NEVER do that again. I'm all cured!
Hope it saves someone some $$$ and plenty of stress too.
The three main contributors to this were:
1. Distraction. Had a fellow rider grabbing my attention which left me not concentrating on the bowser enough;
2. Similar Labels & diesel bowser integration. Being distracted stopped me properly identifying the 'diesel' bit after the 'BP Ultimate' bit (and the colours are similar too - dark, dark blue for premium, black for diesel) ALSO - diesel pumps don't sit over there in the corner by themselves any more - they are just another pump in the row; and
3. Unlike a car, the diesel nozzle still fits in the motorbike filler hole. A car's filler is necked down and I would not have been able to put the nozzle in to the filler. On a bike - this is possible.
Vigilance is the easy answer to ward this off.
Cheers, Diesel
