Reviving the Nighthawk and a Journey to the Stars

Timeframe: 1997

I really wanted to get the Nighthawk fixed after the crash, and I was determined to do it on my own and not take it to a shop.  Thankfully, when I was a little girl, my dad worked on our cars in the garage and let my brother, John and I help, and then when John got older, he also let me help him work on his car, so I was very used to working with tools.  Also, I remember going to the salvage yards now and then to find parts for various cars that we had.  These things gave me the comfort to be able to do these things on my own.  I was happy to find out that Vancouver, Washington had a couple of motorcycle salvage yards, which I visited and was able to find replacement blinkers, headlight and instrument cluster.  I could not find a seat in good condition, so I ordered one from the Honda dealer in Portland, OR.

Of course the seat was an easy replacement, the blinkers and headlight were fairly easy as well... just some screws and "quick clip" type wiring, so I didn't have to get into any soldering or splicing of wiring.  The problem I had was with the instrument cluster.  The instrument cluster had lights that showed what gear the motorcycle was in, indicators for blinkers and high beam, and speedometer and tachometer.  There were a lot of wires coming out of it, and alot of wires coming out of the bike to connect to it.  Unfortunately, the color of the wires on the new instrument cluster did not match the color of the wires on the old instrument cluster, so I had no real way to know which wires to match them up to on the bike.

I took my best guess, and nothing worked properly.  The headlight and neutral indicator didn't come on when I turned on the ignition.  If I tried the blinkers, they were all wrong.  Turning on the right blinker would make the front left blinker go on blinking and the right rear blinker go on solid, or some other combination like that, depending on how I tried connecting wires.  I thought I would be smart and use the wiring diagram in the back of the Service Manual, but that really didn't help much.  I called my friend Mark to help, since he had been a rider for years, rode a Honda ST1100, and worked on his own bikes.  He came over and tried for about an hour and couldn't figure it out.  At one point, when we were deep into these electrical wires, Mark stood up to say something, put his hand on the handlebar, and sparks flew from his hand.  I got scared, screamed and started to try pushing him away from the bike, and he started laughing.  Mark was a practical joker and had a "spark making" toy in his hand.  I was mad but I still laughed... he got me good!!

A week or two later, I was frustrated at not having a bike to ride, so I decided to spend some time working on the wiring until I got it figured out.  I went down to the garage with a pad and pen, and I picked something I wanted to work, such as the right blinker.  It was easy to know what wires controlled which functions on the instrument cluster, because of where they came out, but there wasn't an easy way to determine the correct wires coming from the bike... it was just one big bundle.  So, I connected two random wires from the bike to the right blinker wires.  I wrote down what colors I connected, and then wrote down the result.  Then I tried another two wires, wrote down those colors and wrote down the result, and kept going on this process, until I got the front and rear right blinkers working properly.  I followed this same, very tedious process for the left blinkers, headlight, gear indicators and speedometer and odometer.  It took me well over an hour, but I was finally done... and I was VERY proud of myself for doing it myself!!

Shortly after that, I was able to get my friend Mark back for his practical joke that he played on me.  We had plans to meet for dinner and when we were on the phone, I told him I got my nose pierced.  I had actually gotten one of those magnetic studs that you can put in or take out of anywhere that you can place the magnetic disc and stud.  His first response was, "No way, I don't believe you.  You got one of those magnetic ones!"  I wasn't going to give up that easily, so I played it off as if I didn't know what he was talking about... that I didn't even know they made magnetic fake piercing studs.  I got him to believe me, at least on the phone.  When we met, he wasn't really happy that I did it, but he accepted it and we had a nice dinner and great conversation and laughs.  Every now and then, he would stop, look at me and say, "I still can't believe you pierced your nose!"

At one point, he left the table to use the men's room, so I took the fake piercing out of my nose.  He came back to the table and we continued our conversation as if nothing had changed.  I finally couldn't handle it anymore, so I said, "Mark, didn't you notice that I don't have the stud in my nose anymore?!"  I thought he would see and then be mad at me for fooling him all night.  Instead, he said, "Yes, I've been amazed at how there's not a visible hole, it looks like it healed well so you can take the stud out without leaving a mark."  That's when I knew I REALLY had him!!  I couldn't help myself and I busted out laughing and showed him the stud and magnet in my hand.  He was so mad at me but laughed almost as hard as I was laughing!!

A couple weeks after our dinner, Mark invited me to go on a night motorcycle ride.  I didn't know, but Mark must have known, that it was a good night for meteor showers.  He came over to my apartment, and then we took off on our motorcycles on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge.  On the Washington side, the road winds and twists as it goes higher and higher.  We had a fun ride, and at one point, Mark indicated we were pulling off to the side of the road.  I followed him, we stopped the bikes and got off, and we walked to the side past the shoulder.  There was a short guard rail at the very edge and then a cliff overlooking the Columbia River on the other side of the guard rail.  Mark and I sat down on the ground, hanging our legs over the cliff, folding our arms on top of the guard rail, and we watched the sky.  We were far enough from any city and it was dark enough that the sky was just filled with very bright stars.  Mark pointed out all of the satellites buzzing around, as well as the shooting stars.  I was staring at the sky in awe when all of a sudden I saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen before or since.  It was a meteorite falling through the sky, and was better than any fireworks man could create, and there were no big booms or noises.  As it fell down through the atmosphere, it lit up the sky in the colors of the rainbow... Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Orange, Red... then disappeared just when it looked like it was going to hit the earth.  It just disintegrated as it flew through the atmosphere.  Neither Mark or I said anything as it happened, and when it was done, we just turned to each other with our mouths open.  I think he spoke first and asked, "Did that really just happen?"  That image is burned into my memory forever, and I'm so grateful to have experienced it.