I'm giving away my age with this old camera, a Zeiss Ikon SLR.

1 February 2012
Lazarus alive once more...

When you make progress on any task it brings with it a sense of accomplishment and relief. And right now I'm basking in that sense of accomplishment. The Harley Davidson Road King, better known as Lazarus, is half fixed. The hot engine restarting problem appears to have been fixed.

Lazarus was suffering from several electrical problems when it arrived. Its battery kept going dead and the tail lights flickered when they worked. I found the short that kept draining the battery and causing the tail light problems pretty quickly. I also thought that would solve the problem of the starter motor failing to work after the engine had reached full operating temperature. With the battery not being drained by the shorted wiring the battery voltage should now be high enough to operate the starter. I sent Lazarus home feeling pretty good about things.

It wasn't long before D.R.; Lazarus' owner, called to let me know it was still not starting when the engine was hot. Lazarus came back and this time I thoroughly inspected every switch, connector and wire in the starting system. Every part tested passed, the ohm readings, continuity tests, and visual inspections. I did everything I could think of to find some malfunctioning part of the starting system.

I even called Dion Warwick several times to enlist the help of her Physic Network. She kept telling me to consult with Miss Cleo who is still doing time somewhere…

The battery and charging system was checked several times. The charging system was putting out well over 14 volts and the battery was in fine health even though it had been drained dead several times.

After going through the starting system and the charging system, and not finding any reason for the starter's aberrant behavior; I decided to test the starter under the same conditions described by D.R. when it failed to restart. Time for a test ride…

After riding forty miles nonstop in a circle, ensuring the engine was well warmed up to operating temperature, I returned to the "Hovel" (home). Then only after reaching the safe haven of my driveway, I shut off the engine…. I paused a moment, and then reached over and thumbed the starter switch. All I got for my effort was a faint click from the starter relay, indicating that it was working. Every attempt to restart ended in utter failure.

The starter relay would click, indicating it was working electrically. But the solenoid wouldn't energize. It was behaving as if there wasn't enough voltage in the battery to energize the solenoid and turnover the starter motor.

Note: for those readers who aren't starter familiar or mechanically impaired, there are two wires going to the starter. The larger one is from the battery to the starter and the second one is from the starter relay to the solenoid. On the Harley starter, once the starter button is depressed, it energizes the starter relay which allows current to flow to the solenoid. When the solenoid, which is nothing more than an electromagnet energizes, it connects the battery to the starter motor which will then energize and spin. The solenoid also pushes out the starter jackshaft to engage the gear teeth on the clutch basket turning over the engine.

Now safe at the "Hovel" I could take voltage readings and start to eliminate possible causes. I even tried jumping the starter from the battery to the solenoid. The mistake I made was using a smaller gauge wire than the original; I managed to burn my fingers and I failed to get correct test results.

The next step was to remove the starter and disassembled it, then check every part for some possible explanation for why it failed to restart. By the way, this was an aftermarket high torque starter which wasn't a year old. Of course I didn't find anything wrong inside the starter.

After reassembling the starter, I bench tested it several times. I even held my heat gun on it for several minutes trying to get the starter hot to see if would fail. But it didn't; for all practical purposes it was a perfectly good starter.

I took a second look at the battery cables. The important areas of the cables are where they connect to the terminals. The connections are covered and it was necessary to cut and peel back the shrink wrap to inspect the condition of the copper wire at the terminals.

I was looking for corrosion; copper when it is exposed to the weather and elements for long periods of time will turn green with corrosion. That corrosion adds resistance to the wire; reducing its ability to transmit current. (Actually the corrosion is the copper wire being reduced to powder, which is reducing the copper wire's diameter reducing its ability to transmit current and voltage.) The starting system needs every one of the battery's 12 volts to work.

To my surprise the battery cables were clean… After putting on new shrink wrap over the ends of the battery cables, I pulled the wire from the solenoid to the starter relay. The wire looked nice and clean. But for some reason I decided to replace that wire and the clip on its end where it attaches to the solenoid. I replaced it with a larger gauge wire which would have less resistance and allow a better flow of electrons.

In electrical circuits, if you have to change out a wire it's always best to use the same size. But if you can't, always go bigger never smaller. If you use a smaller wire it will increase the resistance, creating more heat and allowing less current to reach whatever part of the circuit relies on that wire. In some cases the smaller wire will just melt down and burn up; possibly starting a fire.

On test ride number two I covered the same 40 miles as I did in test ride one. Once again I ended in front of my garage as before. But this time the results were different, Lazarus surprised me by restarting not once but several times.

Each time you engage your car or motorcycle's starter it eats up the battery's reserve. And if you don't ride or drive the car or motorcycle for some time, depending on how low the battery is, that reserve isn't replaced or the battery isn't fully recharged. Restarting the bike several times should have taken enough reserve out of the battery where it would suffer enough voltage drop for the starter to fail to energize. It didn't fail, everything seems to be working like it should.

For test number three I rode Lazarus to Williamsburg making sure I took a roundabout path to have the needed magic 40 miles. I made sure the last 5 miles or so were at speeds well below 35 mph to insure the engine was hot when I shut it down. Once again it restarted; not once but several times…After sitting for several hours in Steelhorse's parking lot, basking in Thursday's midday sun; it fired up and carried me home. And yes once I got back to the garage it shut it down and it restarted several times without a hesitation.

Lazarus has now risen from the living.

However he still leaks oil…

My brand new Nikon D3100 SLR had to go back to Nikon for service. For some unknown reason it was having a problem recognizing or communicating with the lens that was attached to it.

Today's modern digital cameras and their lenses have computers inside them. The interface of a LED screen or buttons and knobs on the camera body tell it what you want the camera to do. Years ago we looked through the view finder and either centered a pointer in a box or a circle to set the lens for light conditions. This required you to physically turn the aperture ring. We even had to manually focus the camera lens using our hands and human eyes. Today the camera does all of that at the speed of light.

The new automatic lenses lack focusing and aperture rings; making them very hard to operate if the master computer in the camera body can't communicate with the lens. My poor Nikon for some reason didn't communicate in any of its auto modes with either of my lenses. Yes it has at least ten automatic modes to operate in and one manual mode which is rather difficult to work with; unless you've had experience with matching pointers and targets in the viewfinder. It also helps to have a working knowledge of how the shutter speed, film speed and aperture work to control light.

Focusing and old SLR

We don't see these old knobs anymore...

Raise your hand if you know what the third set of numbers from the top indicate.

I removed all of the attachments: SD card and battery as instructed, place the cap on the lens opening and slide my new camera into a plastic bag. Rolled it up in bubble wrap and stuffed in a box for shipping. I had to send my camera back to Nikon to Melville, New York.

It just happens the Nikon repair center is located around the corner from the elementary school I attended. Once the camera was received they quickly went to work. I got an email from Nikon informing me that they had received my camera and it was covered under warranty and there would be no charge for the repair.

I got it back on Friday, only a week out of my hands ready to go. The Nikon folks were great to deal with and they did everything they promised to keep me informed on my camera's progress. The people at Nikon are really interested in taking care of their customers…

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