what did you wrench on today??

[grcamna2]

Replacing fork seals on my 81' GS450E today;I've got more to do to it and the weather 'outside' may just stay sunny and let me do more.

[dorkburger]

Today i finished making a wiring harness for my Triton project, and it all seems to work.

Triton project? I'm sure many of us would appreciate pictures.

[johnod]

Triton project? I'm sure many of us would appreciate pictures.

I just got a new computer and have no idea where my photos are at the moment, maybe once i figure it out.

[Redman]

La.st couple days I used text and phone calls to fix something, but I wasnt the one doing the "wrenching".........

My son called to say his Tiger1050 was making a scratchy-ticky-scrapping pulsing noise.
After some discussion he said it seemed to be from stator side, down by the stator.....

Hey, I thought that kinda like what I had on GK after I changed out the stator a couple years ago (with Steve's help/tools, at Brown County, in motel parking lot).

So I asked him "Hey, when you changed out your stator last year, is there some bracket or shield to hold back the wiring in the stator cover to keep the wiring away from the rotor? .... and can that be installed crooked or get loose...?"

So he pulled the cover . . . . .



Ol' Papa gets some credibility points.

[Retrosteve]

Managed to wrestle the carbs back onto the bike after warming the inlet rubbers and wd40 . On to the air box de greasing , then painting .

[Laz]

My 79' GS550 had been sitting most of the winter, had a bad issue with dying at idle, really rough riding. It's my first motorcycle. Had some air correction jets come in from Zed, tapped my VM carbs and installed them. I installed some pods on my carburetor, then installed the carb, but alas the starter button isn't working for some reason. Whatever, start kicking it, kicked it three times and the motorcycle roared to life.

It's idling high, but I have a feeling it's the air fuel mixture screws. Tomorrow I'll see what I can do to get the idle down. Glad it started for me though, gives me something to work from.

[johnod]

Kicked the old hog in the guts and started her up first time since last fall. Weather permitting ride tomorrow.

[Retrosteve]

Front brake caliper cleaning and dismantling . The old brake fluid had all gone gooey with blocked lines .
Managed to save the seals though .

[Grimly]

Just putting the finishing touches on Goldie. First fire up tomorrow. Just going to check tightness of everything and put the harness wraps on and install airbox.

[1978GS750E]

De-rusted the spare fuel tank for the '82 1100E today in prep for the final paintwork. Waiting on decals to arrive from Diablo Cycle, and then stick 'em on and time to spray some 2k clear!

Hope to have it finished in time for Brown County!

Edit: The postman delivered! Got the decals and stuck 'em on the tank! Now to wait 48 hours and spray the 2k clear.

[gtem]

The last of my "carb" issues on my '78 XS1100E turned out to be ignition issues. Basically, at some point in all of my carb tinkering on the bike this spring, I decided to put new plugs in it (had not messed with the ones that came on the bike as I had received it). Took out a mixed set of BP6ES and BP8ES (trying to keep inner cylinders cooler or something?), reinstalled PBR6ES, seeing as the bike has aftermarket non-resistor plug caps/wires/coils. Well, the bike was breaking up under load, which I initially took to be a jetting issue (I had gone up on the main jets while trying out a different style of needle). Then I thought it might be the ignition pickup coil wires acting up again (known issue on the XS1100s). Turns out, my aftermarket plug wires are of the silicone core variety with about 9kOhms of resistance over the length of the wire, so adding in some resistor plugs really messed up my spark it seems. Got a hold of some old-skool BP6ES-11 NGKs from Napa (the boxes look to be right out of the 70s), and some copper core wire on order. Fingers crossed I'll be in good shape after this. Headed over to bwringer's place to mount some new Shinko 230s on a set of '79 tubeless rims and hopefully I'll be ready for the Brown County rally at the end of June!

IMG_2823.jpg

[Grimly]

Hmm... that's interesting.
Last year I bought a half-decent 1/4" torque wrench by Tekton, and today was the first opportunity I had to use it in earnest.
Since I rebuilt the top end, I've been very careful with the tightening of the cam cover bolts, knowing that some of them might be in a delicate state after so many years, and never knowing how well they'd been treated before I got the engine.
Anyway, slow and careful was the order of tightening and was particularly mindful of stripping, so I've actually been under tightening them.
This has led to the cam cover having a tendency to eventually slowly seep oil out of the front and drop onto the downpipes, with the inevitable consequences of it being smoky and unpleasant when I stop.
Today, I set the Tekton wrench to 6.5 ft/lbs (78 in/lbs) and went for it.
All the bolts took about a quarter turn, some nearly half a turn before the wrench clicked.
Now, some of that was due to the gasket settling, but a lot of it was down to being a bit slack in the first place.
Hopefully, that's it sorted, until the next time. I'll be in there again shortly, as the shims need to be checked soon.

<addendum>
Got out for a 60 mile run this afternoon, and not a single oil drop appeared, so that's fixed it.

[Joe Garfield]

Oops, not a GS.
I went in for inspection and was told I needed 'brake pads and some new hardware.' (2014 Triumph Street Triple). I got it home and found my calipers were completely seized together! The wheel has to come off to do the brakes, so 'brake pads' turned into new (used) calipers, new chain guard, new (used) shock spring for my new (used) Daytona shock, and re-lubing of the swingarm and linkage pivots. A part has been on backorder from England for several weeks so today I had to de-rust the chain

[Grimly]

Oops, not a GS.
I went in for inspection and was told I needed 'brake pads and some new hardware.' (2014 Triumph Street Triple). I got it home and found my calipers were completely seized together! The wheel has to come off to do the brakes, so 'brake pads' turned into new (used) calipers, new chain guard, new (used) shock spring for my new (used) Daytona shock, and re-lubing of the swingarm and linkage pivots. A part has been on backorder from England for several weeks so today I had to de-rust the chain

I suppose the problem with the islands is nowhere is far from salty air.

[Retrosteve]

I popped the fork seal covers off the tubes and released a bunch of water out the right hand side one . After cleaning both im going to need to replace everything but it was only water dripping not oil out of the cover . The retainer clips are in a bad way though and the covers have split .