The Valkyrie are mythological women who carry the souls of dead warriors to Odin’s (the god of the dead and warfare) hall, Valhalla.  The Valkyrie that I’ve recently been helping has been most thunderous and unpleasant, not a trait that they’re famous for.  Several attempts had already been made to cure her, but none had worked.  For over a year her lungs were thought to be at fault, possibly irreversibly damaged, but no medications of that sort made things better. Despondency was setting in. Even DNR was under consideration.   However, on deeper investigation it appeared to me that maybe her coils of life, the ones that lit the spark of her being, may have become twisted, their colouring seemingly very confused and convoluted. So I conjured up a potion that would, I hoped, correct this affliction, and applied it as soon as I could. The expectations were very low, but… lo and behold, upon taking the medicine we were astonished to hear the Valkyrie’s true voice return, clear and bright, the tones soothing and very welcome.  At long last, cured…. Once more the Valkyrie will ride out, head held high, into the black battlefields of Kent!

OK, here’s the real story – it was a friend’s old Honda Valkyrie that had been badly misfiring since he got it. The carbs and exhaust were suspect, but no fettling in those areas fixed it. As an electronics engineer I was asked to look at it. After some head scratching I developed an oscilloscope interface to go deeper into the ignition area. Just as we were about to do that I did a final check of the wring diagram and noted the two ignition pickup sensor coils on the crank had their wiring transposed. How could it even be running?  My friend had convinced himself (with the internet’s assistance) that it was in fact correct.  Anyway, I knocked up a wiring bodge (adapter) to transpose the wiring without any cutting, quickly installed it and, with fingers crossed, my friend pushed the Valkyrie’s starting button.  Wurr, wurr, va-rooooom!  Woo-hoo, smoothness and peace overcame the garage!!!  What a wonderful sounding engine.  Before this he really was thinking about just ditching the bike, but, with that adapter, the Valkyrie was saved from the scrapyard!  Job done. 😊 👍🏻