Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Fri, 29 Jul 2005

I forgot to mention this yesterday.

When I took that part to the Kawasaki dealership in Bellevue, I was expecting them to pull out this mystical $250 tool, and gently pull the bearing race off the shaft.

What actually happened is that, literally without a word (as we'd spoken on the phone an hour earlier, and I'm sure I was the only guy talking to him about removing the bearing race from a Ninja 250's triple tree), this guy grabbed the part I'd set on the counter and headed back into the shop. I saw him pick up a medium sized hammer and something long and narrow, which was probably a cold chisel or a drift. He clamped the tree in a vise, and proceeded to hit the second tool with the hammer, very hard, transferring force in a surprisingly graceless manner to the bearing race.

My first thought was, well shit, I could have done that myself, and saved the gas. My second thought was, I can't believe I'm prepared to pay someone money for this. My third thought, after I got the part back and he refused payment for the service (thank god) was, oh look, vise jaw marks all over the shaft. Great.

He'd been none too careful with the part (which would cost me $200 to replace), and if I'd known he was going to simply apply a hammer, I wouldn't have bothered. I'm pretty good at hitting things with hammers. I probably would have been more careful about it, too, and not damaged the bearing seal and washer, which they would have had to special order ("um, seven to ten working days for the parts to arrive <chewing gum snap>").

Anyway, lesson learned. Don't take maintenance to the dealership. They'll do even more of a Bubba job than I will.

Posted at 12:05 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 28 Jul 2005

Yesterday was the Day O' Maintenance, for sure.

It was all about the Ninja yesterday, which was good. The Ninja's been suffering from a bit of benign neglect lately -- it's been needing a valve adjustment for a while, and the steering head bearing has been needing replacement for over a month. I've been avoiding it because I knew it would be an all-day thing.

Starting in the morning, I got all the fairings stripped off the Ninja, and drained the coolant. Off went the radiator. Off came the coil. The valve adjustment went even better this time than last time, since I took the time to remove all the extra crap, even more so than the last adjustment (where I was singing the praises of taking off all the extraneous things in the way of a valve adjustment). I actually got the valve adjustment done and had moved on to spark plugs (with all the stuff still off the bike, though) by lunch time.

The valves were all tight, except one. The outboard left intake valve was still in perfect adjustment. Weird. Still, it should make for a better running engine, and certainly this is the last time I'll need to adjust this bike if I sell it later this summer.

After lunch, I got to work on the steering head bearings. This was a daunting task for me, since I'd never done it before, and it involved a lot of "take this major section off the bike, then this major section..." in the manual. Fortunately, when taken a step at a time, it wasn't bad. I also discovered that the glue holding the bike computer's speed sensor on was set really well, which was nice. In hindsight, it would have been better to cut and resolder the wire rather than knock the sensor off the fork leg, but regluing the sensor will work fine.

The bearing races were indeed a bit scored, and I think I've discovered the source of my ominous creaking noise. That's encouraging, to be sure.

I called around to bearing houses, but I didn't find the Ninja's bearing sizes, so I just ordered this kit, which should be here in a few days, hopefully by Saturday. I was able to remove all the bearing races except the lower one. I'm going to take it to the dealership today, on the promise that they can remove it for me for "like 20 bucks." I checked on getting the right tools to remove it myself, but you need a specialized puller tool, which Kawasaki will sell you for the princely sum of $245 (vs. $40 for a generic bearing puller kit). Since it needs the special puller, this is a situation where I'm willing to give in to the economics of the thing and just let the dealer's service department do it.

It was pretty satisfying to get all that done on the Ninja yesterday. I'm dissappointed that I couldn't get it all finished in one day, but I'm not very surprised. That was a lot of work, although if I'd had the bearings, I could have finished it yesterday. Hopefully they'll arrive soon, and I can get the bike back together and running soon.

Once the steering head bearings are reinstalled (which will hopefully not be too hard), all that's left is to put everything back together, top up the coolant, and balance the carburetors. That should put the bike back on the road to good health. Actually, I also want to sand the brake pads and disc a little bit, to see if I can get them less grabby after in broke them in a bit abruptly. I should also adjust and lubricate the chain. So much work to do. You can see why I was dreading working on the bike, with all this maintenance piled up.

Posted at 11:53 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 26 Jul 2005

I went over to Jesse's house last night, to help him get his garage
ready to get his bike ready for his first vintage race on August 13th. He picked up this Honda CL175 a couple of months ago from someone who sold it to him for very cheap "as long as you're going to race it." I guess the vintage racing scene is packed full of helpful, friendly people, which makes it more interesting to me.

Anyway, he built this workbench, using very straightforward construction techniques with very standard lumber. But the trick is, it was at my (and, of course, his) elbow height. That's the first time I've ever worked at a surface that was actually sized correctly for me. It was a revelatory experience. Now I really want to do the same thing.

The reason I mention all this is to set up that I was at Jesse's house, though. As I was preparing to leave, I was telling him about all the work I have in front of me for the Ninja -- the valve adjustment, the steering head bearing replacement, etc. I was telling him how I'd miss the little, light bike, but wouldn't miss the fact that it was designed for someone who weighs 100 lb less than me. To demonstrate, I caused the bike to do its front-end-creak trick. He made a sort of horrified face. At that moment, I had this profound sense of all the pent-up "this bike is too small for me" anxiety rushing to the forefront of my consciousness. Ugh.

After the brake disc, and the steering head bearing, both at the same time, I'm kind of burned out on it. The bike is just repeating over and over (and the chain stretching out so fast, sigh) that I'm too heavy a rider for it, at least for the kind of riding I'm doing.

So, although I still love the EX250, and the idea of the EX250, I won't be entirely sad to see it go when it goes. It's really a size mismatch between the two of us. I wish it weren't so, but the Littlest Ninja is simply too lightweight a bike for me.

That night...

Well fuck.

Every one of my vehicles is collapsing into shit. The Ninja desperately needs a valve adjustment (and therefore a coolant change, and an oil change, and a carb balance, and...), and its steering bearings are creakier than a wooden boat. The Le Mans needs a new $180+ rear tire. The sidecar needs its rear tire remounted yet again to fix some slow leak, and one of its ballast jugs sprung a leak some time this evening, leaving just over an inch of water in the very watertight trunk (along with the tools, and the little compressor, and the spare exhaust headers, and the riding gear I'd left in there...).

Feh. This is all incredibly discouraging. I may even take tomorrow off to deal with it, since it's making me very unhappy right now. At least tomorrow I could make some progress on getting one of the bikes back into functional shape.

Posted at 23:42 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Mon, 25 Jul 2005

Well, there's something you don't see every day:

It's pretty unusual to find two sidecar rigs side by side, except at rallies.... This is at work, where a coworker recently bought this Ural Gear-Up.

In other news, I got another test of my tire plugging kit, and this one didn't go quite as well.

On Saturday, I headed up to Anacortes with my friend Jean. I wanted to go to a telescope store up there, and she wanted to go for a ride. We rode together as far as Burlington, which is right on I-5, where we stopped for gas and a snack before we parted company. I noticed I had a nail buried deep in my tire, but it wasn't leaking. So, after we gassed up our bikes and ourselves, we discovered there was a Les Schwab tire store across the parking lot from the grocery store where we ended up eating. I needed a source of compressed air if I was going to do this tire plug, and that was just about perfect.

So we rolled over to the tire store, and after securing their permission to use the compressor, I pulled out the nail and prepped the plugging kit. I thought about trying to work it so the tire would still have some air pressure in it, but realized that the plugging procedure pretty specifically opens a large hole in the tire, and that there was no practical way to do it.

I was demonstrating all this to Jean as I went, as she'd never seen a tire plugged like this. Of course, the demonstration effect meant that the first plug failed. I pulled it snug, like you're supposed to do, and then pulled a little bit harder, just to really make sure it was seated. Then, when I cut off the stem that was sticking out, it immediately started hissing. D'oh! Ok, number one, why was there any pressure in there, and number two, why the heck did it fail?

I tried again. Insert nozzle in tire, forget to insert plug in tool, pull nozzle from tire to insert plug, re-insert nozzle in tire, screw on installation tool, install, pull, ok. There's the plug tail. Pull it tight, cut it off, and... Crap! It sucked itself back into the tire!

Finally wising up, I realized that I was pulling the plugs too tight. This left the stem stretched out within the thickness of the tire tread, but it relaxed outside the tread, where I was pulling on it. Since it kept that tension inside the tread, when I cut off the excess (which was the only thing keeping it from releasing that tension), it sucked back in. Sigh.

The third time, I pulled it just until it stopped, and cut it off. This time, thankfully, it stayed, but I was not feeling confident. I rolled the bike over to the shop, and after a certain amount of futzing (note: Les Schwab in Burlington doens't seem to own a normal air chuck that will reach the valve stem on a motorcycle tire), we got the tire pumped back up. With Jean's help, I rolled the bike back and forth until I found the plug, and I stuck my ear right next to it. No hissing noises. I had to assume that it was alright.

Jean was reluctant to part company, feeling bad that I was riding around on a potentially about-to-deflate tire. That was quite sweet, but I assured her that I would have been in this predicament whether she'd been around or not. She pointed out that there was a sporting goods store directly across the street from us after I showed her the CO2 inflator I had with me, and I agreed it would be a fine idea to stock up on CO2 cartridges, just in case.

We parted company at that point, and I went over to the store and got myself a 15-pack of CO2 cartridges. The rest of the ride to Anacortes and back was uneventful, and unmarred by tire disaster. The Le Mans is parked in the garage again, safe and sound, although I need to replace that tire before I can sell the bike. I guess some lucky buyer will get a brand new rear tire.

Posted at 10:55 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 23 Jul 2005

I had an interesting experience last night. Well, interesting to
me, anyway.

I went to Costco to pick up a few things. Shopping successfully accomplished, I hauled my booty out to the bike to load up and head home. After I'd loaded my stuff into the basket, I noticed someone had perked up a lot and was checking out the bike.

Turns out he works there, and rides a ZX-6RR. We talked a bit, and he mentioned offhand that his coworker's bike picked up a nail on the way in this morning. Sure enough, there was an SV650S with a pathetically flat rear tire.

I debated for a second (since I wanted to get home), but finally said, "I have a patch kit, does he need a patch?" The guy didn't know, but he ran in to ask. "No," he said, "Mike's going to load it up on a truck." So, I got myself ready to leave, but before I got on the bike, Mike's girlfriend showed up with one of those sticky rubber band patch kits, obviously intending to try and use the thing to fix the flat.

A little bit more discussion ensued, and we walked back into the store together, to talk to Mike. I asked him if he wanted me to patch his tire, and with a fairly expressive look of "yes, thank you!" on his face, he agreed he would like that. Formal permission out of the way, I went back to the bike.

By the time I actually got to wielding my little Stop-N-Go kit, I had gathered a crowd of 2 or three interested Costco employees and hangers-on. This was my first "real" patch, done on a live tire on the bike, which would be ridden home later. It went very smoothly. I really like the Stop-N-Go Pocket Tire Plugger kit. It's very slick, and works really well.

Tire successfully patched (after about 10 minutes of rolling the bike slowly back and forth, trying to find the hole), I donated 5 el-cheapo CO2 cannisters to the cause, and probably pumped the tire up to ~25 PSI. Certainly enough that he could safely ride it to the nearest gas station with a compressor.

The tire already had a plug, very near the right edge of the tread, in almost the worst place to try and plug a tire. I made the girlfriend promise that they'd replace that tire as soon as possible -- I think they were already planning on dealing with it the next day, but I really wanted to stress the point. With two plugs in close proximity, and one of them in a stinky location, that tire is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope he made it home safely, and they took my advice and stuck to surface streets to keep the speed down.

I was glad to see my plugging and filling gear get used "for real." It was especially gratifying because it all worked exactly like it was supposed to, and once we found the puncture it only took about 20 minutes.

I definitely feel like I got in my good deed for the day.

Posted at 01:39 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 21 Jul 2005

I am pleased to report that I have once again entered the ranks of
the carless. The big truck is gone, taken home by a mortgage broker from Woodinville in exchange for almost-asking-price. Finally!

In other news, I'm taking the Goldwing into the exhaust shop again today, with my new, simpler exhaust headers in tow. The current headers terminate in two outlets on each side, meaning that for my ideal system, three two-into-one joints would have to be built. The exhaust shop guy balked at that, thinking it would be too bulky, and too expensive. The new headers (which I got from Aaron, who bought them to fix up the Goldwing before he eventually sold it to me) exit into one pipe on each side, which means that only one Y joint would have to be built.

My ideal Goldwing sidecar exhaust system is one in which the pipes from each side are routed to the "inside" or right side of the bike, between the motorcycle and sidecar. They would then terminate in a single muffler, probably a small oval car muffler, just for simplicity's sake, which would exit on the right side of the rear wheel. There's plenty of room to do something like that, what with the sidecar frame being there.

This system would be lighter than the current two mufflers (and definitely lighter than the stock exhaust system, assuming I could even find one in decent shape). It would also be cheaper than buying a new stock system, for which Honda would claim the princely sum of over $1200, if all the parts were still available. Of course, they're not all still available, so it's a moot point anyway. No one seems to make a quiet aftermarket exhaust for the Goldwing in this vintage, they're all of the "make the bike more 'custom'" school, which seems to include vastly increasing the volume as well. Is it somehow wrong to want a motorcycle to be whisper-quiet? I guess it probably doesn't sell well.

Anyway, I'm hopeful the exhaust guy will be more positive about doing the job now that I have the simpler (for him) exhaust headers to work with. We'll see what happens.

Posted at 10:33 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Today is Ride to Work Day.
At least, it's supposed to be. As I was riding in this morning, during the regular commute time, I only saw one other rider (vs. the 2-5 I normally see on a regular day, without the promise of excellent weather). I noticed that the motorcycle parking areas at my workplace seemed a touch empty when I arrived this morning, and checking this afternoon, they're still empty. I did see two new bikes which I hadn't seen before, which is great, but still.

Did people's schedules just not work out for riding the bike today? Cool weather at the start of the day too daunting, despite the predicted severe clear and 75°+ conditions? (Predicted conditions have come to pass.) I'm pretty dissappointed.

Next year, I have to remember to put up posters around my workplace, see if we can't get a few more people out.

Posted at 10:20 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 19 Jul 2005

Well, foo. I thought I had the Goldwing's rear valve stem problem
licked, but I noticed that the cut-down cap had been rubbed pretty vigorously as well. I wondered if the centrifugal force would bend the stem outward, so it would hit the swingarm. I guess I know now.

Unfortunately, I discovered this on Saturday evening, and didn't think to try locating a shorter valve stem until Sunday, when all the tire stores are closed. No luck there. I was out on Monday, so I didn't have time to find a valve stem then either.

Today, I looked up tire stores in the phone book, and dialled my first number with trepidation -- there's no reason a tire store should want to sell valve stems to the general public, and it might be that finding a store which has both the right stem and the desire to sell it would be difficult or impossible.

However, my very first call, after a touch of explanation, yielded good results. I'll be headed over there today (fortunately, it's not very far) to pick up a couple of stems, hopefully of the correct size. I should have realized that this is a very common item. It's not as if I'm looking for some kind of very specific part. Every car on the road has 4-5 valve stems on it, and every truck (which is the size I need) has at least 4, all of which get replaced with each tire change.

That evening...

I was surprised, but I managed to get the rear wheel off, the valve stem replaced, and the whole thing buttoned up in less than 2 hours. The first time (skipping time spent waiting for the wheel to be repaired, obviously) took over 3 hours. I guess that's what I get for knowing what I'm doing the second time 'round.

I'm pleased to have the Goldwing back in a functional state, but I find myself wondering, "what's next?"

Posted at 19:55 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 15 Jul 2005

I mentioned in the last entry that I was inspired by the Hawker
Hurricane picture, and I ended up dinking around in the GIMP (graphics program, like Photoshop) until I came up with this:

It's obviously not what the sidecar would really look like with matte green paint, but it suggests what it might be like. I like it. This might be an excellent opportunity to try out proper airbrushing, since I can have any color mixed up in an airbrushable form, and I already have the compressor.

I might also try powdercoating, although that's a more significant investment, since I'd have to find an electric oven, and buy a powdercoating gun. Powdercoating would work pretty well for coating the wheels and the headlight box, although I don't know what variety of powder colors are available. It's just a random thought at this point, and I'll probably end up painting everything with regular paint (assuming I even do it).

Later...

And, just for randomness value, now with mostly meaningless stencils to improve the flavor of general military-ness:

Posted at 12:14 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wed, 13 Jul 2005

A paint scheme I was thinking of is like
href="http://www.machtres.com/Hawker%20Hurricane.jpg">this Hawker Hurricane, although solid green instead of green and grey. That picture also suggests to me how I could make a suitable-looking fairing, and a thematically similar short windshield for the sidecar.

Later...

I finally got the sidecar back together, but of course, it's not all wine and roses. The valve stem is too long, and rubs against the swingarm on the wheel's path around the axle. At least, the valve stem cap with the little core wrench in it is too long. I need to check when I get home, and see if a smaller cap will fix the problem. I'm glad I didn't put on the metal valve cap I was considering.

Still, it's nice to have the rig back on the road. I didn't realize how much I was missing it.

If I can't get a small enough cap on there, I guess I'll have to ground the outfit again, and find a shorter 5/8" valve stem. What a pain that'd be.

Moments later...

Woo! I just tried out my MacGuyver skills: I pulled off the valve cap to see if the stem would clear the swingarm with no cap at all. It did, with a bit of room to spare. So I whipped out the Leatherman-style multitool, and alternately cut and filed off the now-ruined valve core wrench that had been molding into the end of the cap. It now fits past the swingarm! So much easier than having to take the whole rear end apart again to take the wheel off the bike, the tire off the wheel, and locate and install a new valve stem. That's at least 5 hours saved.