Jammin Global

13 May 2013

I got to Bombay last night and nursed sanDRina with a leaking carburetor to Arunoday Singh's place in Juhu. He's an old Kodai School friend and after studying acting in the US and the UK, he's started his career as a Bollywood actor.

sanDRina's carburetor started acting up in the last few days. Her float bowl was over-flowing and she was running very rich (too much fuel in the fuel-air mixture). I couldn't get her to idle at the stop lights through Bombay's traffic. Bharat from the Madras Bulls put me in touch with a local Bullet rider and he told me that Anthony (pictured) was the best bike mechanic in Bombay.

Anthony stripped the carb down and found that the o-ring in the float needle valve was past its due date and was letting fuel flow past into the bowl. That little o-ring served me well over these past few years and it was sent to o-ring heaven ;) A new o-ring was installed and voila, no more over-flowing float bowl but now sanDRina was running too lean at idle, since she was used to all that extra fuel coming in past the old o-ring, so Anthony put in a bigger pilot jet and now sanDRina's growling like a tiger :D

Anthony also adjusted my loose shift lever with an interesting technique of widening the upper end of the bolt hole so that it would pinch tighter. I can see why he's revered by the bikers in Bombay. He comes from the Trichur district in Kerala and has been a mechanic here for 35 years, initially working on old British bikes and then due to a lack of parts, switched to working on Royal Enfield Bullets.

Good to get greasy and meet the local mechanic :)