T'Dubing at the Imperial Sand Dunes

This morning's sunrise was pretty good:

The morning was spent charging up Scarlett's battery.  She wouldn't start on her own this morning, but started just fine when I jump started her using the VRRV's house battery.

I think the battery is toast, as it's almost 5 years old, having been installed November of 2018.  I also noticed, while it was charging, that the charger went down to 3.4 Amps but then started climbing?  I stopped charging it when the amps reported were at 5.5 as that isn't normal charging behavior.

I would end up, at the end of the day, starting her with her own battery (which read 12.9V) and parking her up on the trailer.  I'll see if she holds a charge and starts tomorrow morning.

I rode Yagi, my TW200, towards I-8 along Ogilby Road, and spent some time wandering the near dunes, never did find an established trail to the big dunes this time.  Lots of loose sand and the fact I was riding solo led me to be conservative in my explorations.  

Yagi did great, negotiating the dunes at low speed, never going above second gear.

Trying to get to the big dunes I could see off in the distance, I got on I-8 and the TW200 made it to 60 mph as I rode the couple miles or so to the next exit: Grays Well Road.

Got off at the exit, and cruised along the highway and got these shots using the telephoto lens to crop in.

I got back on I-8 heading back towards Ogilby Road.  The TW was doing fine until perhaps a mile out and she started slowing down.  Hmmmm.   I switched to reserve thinking perhaps I was running low on fuel, no change.

I got off at the Ogilby Road exit and promptly forgot about the seeming loss of top end power as I tried the dunes once again. 

Again, I didn't get very far, so I gave it up for today.  I noticed now, as I rode along Ogilby Road towards camp that I couldn't get above 30 mph, even with the throttle wide open!  Dammit.

I got back to camp, cleaned the air filter, which was filthy.  While the filter dried, I tried a test run with no filter...nope, still no top end power.  Checked fuel flow, at Chris Z's suggestion, but there was good flow.

I checked the spark plug, which seemed a little loose, reinstalled it and tried another test run, no luck, still not able to attain speeds above 30 mph!  

I'll check the carburetor bowl tomorrow since it was by now getting dark.  If Scarlett starts ok tomorrow morning, I might take her the 15 miles or so into Yuma and get a new spark plug for Yagi.  If that doesn't do it, not sure what the next step will be.  Sigh.

Tonight's sunset was OK: