Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Sat, 01 Mar 2008

It's Alive! (Again!)

I just got in from my first breakin session with the CL175. It runs!

I got the oil in, and the gas tank full of not-too-old gas. Started the camera rolling to catch the historic, momentous event. Turned on the gas, waited. Sure enough, one of the carbs overflowed, interestingly, through its actual overflow tube this time. Removing and reinstalling the float bowl seemed to solve that -- the carbs have been living on their side for a long time, I'm not too surprised something got slightly out of whack.

Turned on the gas again, no more leaks. Turned on the key. I'd already checked to make sure I had spark at both plugs. And started kicking.

And kicking.

And the kickstarter kept slipping off my foot, and coming back to whack the back of my calf, which is now throbbing unhappily. So I came in and got boots on, which have a more-definite heel, and provide protection higher up my leg (although not actually high enough).

More kicking.

Yep, more kicking.

Fortunately, I was starting to get the interested little pops and kerfuffle noises that suggested it was getting close to firing. Then, it did! Didn't stay running, though. I played with the choke and throttle position, and finally found a combination, along with a lot more kicking, that got it to fire off and run.

Finally, after a few episodes of, "Ooops, guess the idle speed isn't set quite right," I got it to settle down into a nice idle. The throttle cable needs to be rerouted somehow, as it's raising the engine speed and binding up at full lock of the handlebars, but it was really running!

My breakin regimen calls for running at idle for about 10 minutes, to get the engine up to operating temperature. Along with the aid of a big fan, I let it run. Around 8 minutes in, as I was revving the motor a little bit, trying to determine the problem with the throttle cable routing, I heard a loud, dismaying CRACK! noise. It obviously came from the bike, but I couldn't tell if it came from the engine or the exhaust. It could have been a backfire, but sounded much more like a bolt breaking.

After I turned off the engine, I crawled around with a flashlight, looking for anything that was obviously broken, but didn't see anything. The engine ran perfectly both before and after the noise, so it wasn't something big, like a valve snapping or something (although I would probably do well to take a look at the valve train before too long, just to be sure).

So now, I have about four hours to sit back and do something other than operating the CL175. Perhaps I'll actually (gasp!) work on putting together the next video installment. Maybe after lunch.

Posted at 12:34 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.