what did you wrench on today??

[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!

 

[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 .

 

[xcgates]

After several years of half-hearted attempts, I cleaned/reassembled the carbs, and got spark back to my 850, only to find the carb fuel rails leaking. So this morning saw me look at the new (metal this time) rails, and start poking around a box of o-rings to test fit. Very complicated and strenuous work I didn't complete before heading into work.

Something about trying to be productive before finishing coffee. And distracting dogs.

Here's to more progress over the weekend.

 

[Shin-Ken 1074]

To help keep the clutch cable silky smooth and reduce wear to the cable it gets a dose of cable lube 3 times per year. The needle fits straight into the OEM clutch cable, squeeze in the lube until it runs out of the cable at the lower cable adjuster and reinstall the cable to the lever. Same thing for the throttle cable. I have been taking care of cables with this system for many years and so far have not had a cable fail on a ride. I do inspect the cables and replace them at 150,000km as I think they have served me pretty well by that stage and its time for a new cable, just for peace of mind.

Cable lube 1 by Max Mutarn, on Flickr

Cable lube 2 by Max Mutarn, on Flickr

 

[KiwiAlfa156]

What's the 'special sauce' in the bottle, Glenn?

 

[KiwiAlfa156]

Always thought a cylinder head temperature (CHT) gauge would be a good thing for an air cooled, and toyed with the idea of a thermocouple wired up to a waterproof digital display. And I might still do this, but its hard to find a gauge/display with the appropriate heat range without spending big bucks on a VDO or some such.

So to work out whether a CHT is a good idea or not, I made this.

It's a 6mm 32 gauge copper cable lug I drilled and tapped to fit a cheap BBQ thermometer. This is it after its first heating. I'll reference it, with my optical thermometer this afternoon to see if it's accurate enough. Then decide whether I need/like it

 

[Grimly]

Be interesting to see what the heat loss in the copper lug is.

 

[Shin-Ken 1074]

What's the 'special sauce' in the bottle, Glenn?

Hi Darryl, "special sauce" is Inox MX 3. This is similar to other products in this category however, what makes it so good for cables is it cleans and lubes the cable and does not go tacky or leave any varnish/residue to gum up cables. Yes, it looks to have the same properties as that other very well known product but it isn't the same. I buy it from a bearing suppler.

Cheers mate.



Inox MX 3 by Max Mutarn, on Flickr

 

[KiwiAlfa156]

Be interesting to see what the heat loss in the copper lug is.

Yes it will. The conductivity of aluminum is about 0.6 that of copper, the the lug is also tin-plated, so how more effective the lug is in terms of shedding heat to the air flow I guess is the unknown. That being said, the 'bulb' of the thermometer is in contact with the head, and the heat path of the thermometer is in the mm, so I'm not too worried about heat loss from the lug causing a temperature differential, although the test will be if the temperature goes up after stopping the engine (removing the heat and the cooling source).

 

[Shin-Ken 1074]

I like to give the chain and sprocket a wipe down each month to prevent the old chain lube building up and gumming up the works. Cleaned the chain and sprocket today before new lube on the chain.

Chain Sprocket ajpg by Max Mutarn, on Flickr


Chain sprocket b by Max Mutarn, on Flickr

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Back on the road!!!
Last summer in Lafayette IN, I had a low side crash on this bike. Then again a month later it fell off a trailer. All my fault.
Took me a year to get over it but I did, and now it's back.

 

[steve murdoch]

Back on the road!!!
Last summer in Lafayette IN, I had a low side crash on this bike. Then again a month later it fell off a trailer. All my fault.
Took me a year to get over it but I did, and now it's back.

Glad to hear of your reconnect to the passion of motorcycles.