Yonke El Koke

The next day was a long trip to Los Mochis and then south along MX-15 to Mazatlan.  A couple of features about driving in Mexico bear mention.  First, on most roads entering any size town or city, pedestrian crosswalks, or train crossing as these asphalt lumps in the road known as topes -- giant speed bumps (or as the locals affectionately call them - sleeping policemen).  If one does not slow down to about 15-20 mph in a car (about 30 mph on a motorcycle) you can count on going airborne and seriously damaging your vehicle.  They are very effective at traffic speed control.

The second feature of Mexican driving is the "Cuota," or toll roads, which are pay federal highways that tend to run roughly parallel with the "Libre" or free federal highways, usually with the same highway number but with the designation of "D" on maps, and sometimes on signs.  The difference for the driver is that the Cuota don't have topes and very few (formal) exits.  Whereas the Libre tend to go through the middle of most towns along the way, are littered with intersecting streets, homes, etc., and have topes everywhere. Needless to say, but if you want to get from A to B in Mexico in a hurry the Cuota are the way to go.  On another note there are the "Libremiento" which are bypasses around cities that act as sort of mini-Cuota saving time and the possibility of getting lost.

We picked up the Cuota for MX-15 in Los Mochis heading south to Mazatlan.  This was going to be a pretty long day, considering we had to come about an hour west from El Fuerte to reach the turn south, and then we expected to go another 427 km (265 miles) to reach the outskirts of Mazatlan.

Everything was great until we hit the second toll just as we were to exit Los Mochis, this is when the temperature gauge on my instrument panel started moving up, and up, and up, with no sign of stopping.  I had to turn the bike of for fear of it overheating, and had to crab walk the bike through the toll booth and to the side where I met Curtis.  Under normal circumstances when the bike is moving down the road and plenty of air is passing across the radiator the temperature (depending on the ambient air) never gets much above drop dead center.  When stopped and running or in stop and go city traffic, at a certain point the temperature will rise to a point (usually about 3/4 up on the gauge) and cause a fan to blow air across the radiator to maintain the temperature and keep the bike from overheating.

We talked it over and at the time couldn't figure out whether it was a fuze, the fan or a the thermostat that had gone bad, but since we were embarking on a high speed trip to the next city, Culiacan, it shouldn't be an immediate problem.  Moving through traffic or more toll booths though was going to be another story.  So we proceeded on down to Culiacan.

However, at the first toll booth outside Culiacan the temperature went up again, and again I had to crab walk the bike through the booth and to the roadside where we began the process of giving the beast a once over inspection and trouble-shooting the problem.  It was at this time that 3 federal policemen approached us and inquired as to what we were doing, where we were going and what was the problem.  One spoke decent English and together with Curtis' command of the Spanish language we were able to tell them that the fan had quit working and we were looking for a place to examine the bike, tear it apart and get the thing running.

One of the officers, Subofficer Rojas, commented to the others about the "crazy motorcycle guy" up the road on Culiacan who could probably deal with this.  The officer who spoke English told us to go ahead, but stay on the Libre, we would enter a construction zone and we should look for a junkyard on our right, where we should ask for "Tonke Toke."

So we headed up the MX-15 Libre, saw the construction zone and stopped at the first junkyard on our right that we saw.  However, the men in there must have thought we were insane when we kept mentioning "Tonke Toke, Tonke Toke" and told us they didn't have anything to offer for "motos."  The two adolescent boys outside who looked as if they had just enjoyed a bag of glue weren't any help either, even if we could have understood them.  We figured we would just go back to the Cuota, and head to Mazatlan, a bigger city with a dealer who could help us.  However, because of the construction we had to proceed further up the Libre before we could perform a U, and then, much to our surprise we saw a junkyard with the sign "Yonke El Koke!"  Those guys told us we had come to the right place, but that the man was on the other side of the road and we saw another "Yonke" over there, so we crossed MX-15 and pulled into a large gravel lot.

Apparently "Yonke" in Spanish means "junk" or "junker" and based upon what I observed, what these guys did was take wrecked or abandoned cars and trucks and dismantled them piece-by-piece by hand.  "Koke," who spoke good English came up and after introductions called his employee Marco Antonio Torres, who is apparently, at least according to the local federal police, the crazy motorcycle guy.  Through Koke we explained the situation, showed him the relevant wiring diagram from the Cylmer Manual, and in about 15 minutes Marco had the bike torn apart, had trouble-shot the problem (blown fuze) and fixed my bike.

Curtis' bike in the foreground with all my gear, panniers, etc.
My bike in the background torn apart.

The Yonke El Toke guys.  Marco is on the far right, and Koke on his immediate left.

Marco working on my bike.

Kawasaki did not make trouble-shooting an electrical problem with these bikes easy or simple since there are two sets of fuses - one under the sear, and another under the right front panel.  To get to the set under the seat you have to take off the panniers, the left sub-frame covers and then the seat.   To get to the ones under the panel you have to take off the right panel (and to properly diagnose the fan, you have to take off the left one as well).

I gave Marco 150 pesos for fixing my bike and thanked him and Koke for saving our asses.  Sure Curtis and I would have eventually figured out that it was the blown fuse, but it probably would have taken us 2 hours to do so.  Marco, based upon a lifetime's knowledge of working and riding motorcycles, was able to do it in about 15 minutes.  For his efforts we were both truly grateful.  Thanks Marco.

Before heading on down to Mazatlan we headed back to the toll booth to thank the federal policemen who had directed to Koke and Marco, but they had apparently already moved on.  Once I got back I drafted a letter to Mexican President Calderon and copied the Mexican Tourist Bureau hoping they will be able to identify and extend my thanks for their help.