How many pieces of metal make a Bike?

Like me, if you have been paying microscopic attention to skillful hands of the mechanics and to scores of curious looking pieces of metal that a mechanic disassembles and reassembles each time you get your bike fixed for burping in public, and on top of that if you have taken the risk of looking (and feeling) stupid by asking questions that you know are stupid to the mechanic fraternity (add to that the cost digesting humiliation of a frowning bike-vet staring at you), you must be knowing that in your bike, there is a component called the Carburetor. :)

You knew already? Even without going through the ordeal like me?  You are a genius!

Well, I have not finished yet.

So, Inside the Carburetor, there is a component called 'Float' housed inside yet another component called 'Float-Bowl'. Now this Float is attached to a small 'Float-Pin' that governs a minuscule passage from where fuel is fed into the Float-Bowl and your vehicle breathes through this fuel to get something called Fuel-Air mixture that burns in the Cylinder to push the Piston and...blah ..blah ...blah...and move the bike forward.

That was the prelude :)

The meat of the story is that if some adventurous particle of impurity that should be no more than size of a sand grain, dodges the fuel filter and accidentally (or intentionally) wedges itself between that minute passage and the Float-Pin, will cause the failure of Float mechanism leading to a situation called "Overflow".

The beauty of this situation is that then you cannot keep the Fuel-Tank valve open because that faulty passage will lead to a full Float-Bowl. Means that all the fuel will overflow from a drain pipe at the top of Float-Bowl draining all the fuel in the tank. Not good for the wallet and the mileage. And you cannot close the Fuel-Tank valve because the Bike will stall from need of fuel.

Today, during the morning rush hour, while I was standing at a traffic signal, when I smelled leaking fuel and saw the fuel dripping form overflow duct, It did not took much diagnosis to understand that my Bike had symptoms of an overflow!

Pretty funny situation to get into on a fine morning.

Quick solution was needed. So I decided to play the 'Float-Pin' myself and turn the Fuel-Tank valve off and on all the way helping the Bike get enough fuel to breathe but not enough to let it overflow. Then opening again when it begins to stall.

Somehow, I made it to the office and that adventurous piece of impurity or whatever it was, decided to give up. Return trip was asymptomatic. :)

Now you know how it helps to ask funny questions to mechanics?

Believe me, that two gram piece of metal is equal in worth to any other piece of metal that makes a bike.

For the curious reader. A Float-Pin. less than 5 mm in diameter, 15 mm high (or long depending on how you are holding it), rubber tip at the top and a spring in the shaft as well. Quite an artwork. Isn't it?

Before I turn philosophic on worth of other smaller components of rest of our world and society...


See ya! :)