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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater Tue, 31 Aug 2010The new Ninja 250 had a number of problems when I got it. The most obvious and worrying was the grinding and general unhappy feeling from the final drive. Obviously, the chain was in a bad way. The front sprocket was a bit hooked, but not excessively so. There was also the camchain slap, but that was pretty much cleared up when I cleaned the camchain adjuster before I bought the bike. So, last weekend, I took the bike apart some to check things out and do some of the work that needs to be done. I flushed out the coolant, and replaced it with water (no coolant allowed on the track, as it's slippery as hell if it spills, and nearly impossible to clean up), also drilling the drain bolts for safety wire as long as I had them out. I shot a bit of video showing the initial state of the bike, but it's pretty low quality, and I don't think I really have enough time to properly document what I'm doing -- it's looking like a tight squeeze to get the work done, much less jockey a camera around. As long as I had the bike apart with the tank off, I decided to check the valve adjustment. About half the valves were too tight, so I adjusted them. In the process, I tried a new method of doing the valve adjustment that I really like: I removed the front engine mounts. The rear bolts are enough to hold the engine up while the front mount is out, and it makes access to the head absolutely amazing. I'm doing it that way every time from now on. In the process of doing that, I had occasion to notice that the big fat bolt that goes through the front engine mount was actually backed out about 3/4 of an inch! That's nowhere near a good thing. When it all went back together, I was liberal with the loctite, and it shouldn't be backing itself out again. I also drained the oil, and drilled the oil bolts for safety wire (all fluid-retaining bolts have to be wired per race regs) today. I considered changing the filter as long as I had it out, but I didn't have any spares handy, and it looked to be in pretty good shape. I'll change it after the race, which is the last of the year. I'll have to winterize the bike anyway, since the water in the cooling system will be a freeze danger if I leave it in over the winter. Fortunately, the new sprocket came in today, and I was able to install it and the new (non-o-ring) chain I picked up last weekend. Most of the grinding went away, but there was still some disconcerting feeling about the engine, as I rode it around a little bit. I had a little brain spasm, and checked tonight (far too late) after getting back from a theater event: sure enough, both rear engine bolts are loose, and their threads munged up pretty badly. Off to Tacoma Screw with me! Two new M10x140 bolts will be mine soon. That should sort out the remaining odd grinding feeling. I knew it was somewhat familiar -- my 2006 Ninja had an engine mount bolt come loose like this (the nut was actually completely gone), and it was a very similar feeling. So, if you're keeping track at home, you will have counted three engine bolts that were loose. If you consult with the manual, you'll find that the Ninja 250's engine is held in with... yes, three bolts. That engine was only loosely held in place. That's a disconcerting thing to think about. I noticed a sticker on this bike (which is a 2005) that said "Made in Thailand." I recall vaguely that Kawasaki switched to the Thai factory (although I recalled it being Taiwan, not Thailand) in 2004, and I guess I'm not surprised to find little things like missing loctite on engine bolts in common between these two non-Japanese made bikes. It's inevitable when you switch factories like that, I guess, although it's disturbing that it should have spanned so many years. Once I get the new mount bolts in place, that should be the last reason I need to ride the bike (to confirm that those bolts nixed the vibration), and then I can start aggressively stripping off street parts. Right now, I have to leave it legal enough to drive for testing. New fork springs arrived today, and I expect to see the new rear shock in the next few days. The new front brake line arrived last week, but hasn't been installed yet. I'm stalling on those changes so I can take care of essential "race requirement" modifications before "wouldn't it be nice" changes. I can tackle the nice mods after the race, but I can't even race it if I don't make the required changes. So hopefully, after this coming weekend, I should have the bike race legal, and then I can ponder nice changes, or I can actually take a few minutes off to not be doing something. That would be nice too. Although I'm excited about the opportunity to race a Ninja 250, the additional time commitment of prepping the bike is a bit overwhelming. Posted at 01:26 permanent link category: /motorcycle Fri, 27 Aug 2010Today was another one of those days that inspired me to grab the camera on the way out the door. Glad I did.
Posted at 13:43 permanent link category: /misc Wed, 25 Aug 2010My parents have taken off on their latest adventure -- a sailing trip aboard the SV Sequoia to Mexico and points south. I had my first radio contact with them last night, from 8:00 to 8:08 pm PDT, using 80m (3.870 MHz). It's a very noisy band, and we were only just able to hear each other. I really wish my dad's radio included a DSP to clean up the audio. It makes a substantial difference. As of 8 pm last night, they were southbound about 15 miles off the coast of Oregon, 20 miles from the mouth of the Umpqua river (Reedsport, OR). I didn't catch whether they were north or south of the river. They had the third reef in the mainsail, and the staysail out, so they must be working with quite decent wind, although if they said windspeed, I didn't hear it. The radio contact thing is interesting, because it's so variable in its reliability. At least this close, 80m is a very reliable choice in the sense that the signal is practically guaranteed to get there. The question is whether the atmospheric noise will overwhelm the signal or not. So, wish them luck! Next stop is San Francisco, probably in about 3 days. Posted at 09:09 permanent link category: /misc Mon, 23 Aug 2010This may be the fastest I've ever acted for something like this. Last week, maybe Thursday (it being Monday as I write this), I got a message from one of my fellow racers: he was looking for help checking out a Ninja 250. I asked why he was all hot for a Ninja 250 all of a sudden, and he pointed me to this thread on the WMRRA forums, which was closely followed by this one. Racing Ninja 250s? Hell yeah! I've always wanted to do that, but never wanted to make the leap after it became clear that the only people who were racing them (I met one, and one only, nearly three years ago) were wannabe big-bike racers with attitudes. Not where I want to hang out. But with people like Bateman and O'Mahoney racing 250s, that starts to sound pretty appealing. So, I set out to look for one, turning to the One True Source for all things of a classified nature: Craigslist. The first one that my eye lit upon was a 2005 listed for $1500 just a half mile south of where I live. I contacted the seller, and we set up a time to check the bike out this weekend. I met him and looked the bike over: it looked to be in pretty good shape, although it had obviously gone boom onto its side a couple of times: the right muffler was pushed in and rubbing on the swingarm a little bit; the upper fairing had a 3 sq-in section broken out of it on the lower edge under the turnsignal stalk; there were scrape marks here and there. Everything seemed to be present, though, and nothing vital was bent or broken. I got the key from him and started it up, only to be horrified at the awful clattering noise coming from the head. It sounded like there was a low-speed grinder rattling around inside the head. Not encouraging. I asked Tom (our seller) about the noise, and he said it'd always sounded like that -- he'd just assumed it was normal. It did basically go away when the engine sped up, so I clambered aboard and took the bike out for a spin. Everything about it was loose and sloppy-feeling, which wasn't really unexpected. It's only a year older than my street 250, and has 4000 fewer miles, but has clearly lived a harder life, with some abuse, and some time spent sitting in the rain outside. There was nothing obvious, but there were little signs: the ignition keyhole cover didn't slide to like it should, and the finish on some of the painted parts was characteristically dulled. There was no rust to speak of, though, and nothing seemed structurally wrong with the bike, which is all I actually care about. I liked it, and told him so, but said I had to come back the next day to finish the test ride. He was very willing to humor me, as I think he'd had no nibbles on the bike in a week of having it up on CL. So I came back the next day, and he agreed that I could take it back to my house, adjust the chain, and try cleaning out the camchain tensioner to see if that would take care of the rattle. Several hours and a trip to the hardware store later, the rattle was gone, and the chain was actually the proper tension again -- when I rode it the first time, I pulled up the bottom run with my toe, and it hit the swingarm without any resistance. Not a good thing, and doubtless a source of some of the loosey-goosey feeling I got from the bike. Riding it with the chain tensioned correctly was definitely a mixed bag. On the one hand, it wasn't so loose, but on the other, there was an exciting new grinding feeling when the bike rolled forward. I pulled off the front sprocket cover, and discovered that the front sprocket was moderately hooked (a bad thing), and the chain pulled far enough off the rear sprocket to see a bit over a millimeter of daylight under the link (a bad thing, indicating a new chain is needed). There was an odd thump when the bike rolled over some bumps. The throttle cable needed about 10mm of adjustment to be correctly tightened. I'm hopeful that with a new chain, a lot of the grinding feeling will go away (although some of it is obviously in the transmission too, so I'm equally hopeful that the tranny doesn't need new bearings). As you may have already guessed, I made an offer, and Tom accepted it, and I now have a fourth motorcycle taking up precious space in my little garage. Something's gonna get booted out to tarp-land soon, but I haven't decided what. I really need to get to work on planning for the backyard shed I was just sure I was going to build this year.
Posted at 11:15 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 10 Aug 2010Every once in a while, I'll shoot a theatrical press photo that's just a really great photo. With Penguins, it's pretty easy for me to work with a huge grin on my face. Check those pictures out. They range from pretty good to fantastic. That's largely due to the content, though. With Clubfoot (a show about stories from an EMT), I wasn't expecting to have the same reaction. What can you do with three people and more or less no action? Certainly not anything like what you can do with Penguins. Which is why it was odd when I found myself grinning like an idiot over this picture:
It's really a fantastic picture. The composition, the lighting, the coloration, the expressions; everything came together. The subject matter isn't enough by itself ("three people looking at the camera" is not, on the face of it, a compelling idea for a picture) to grab you, yet this one does. Anyway, it's nice to come away from something like this feeling so good about my work. These are the odd little moments that I'm reminded how much I enjoy what I'm doing. Posted at 00:35 permanent link category: /theater Thu, 05 Aug 2010
A Children's Book of Revelations
You ain't seen nothin' yet.
Come down to Annex Theatre for a showing of Penguins to catch this film in all its big-screen glory. Runs from August 7 through August 27, don't miss it! Posted at 13:52 permanent link category: /theater Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. |
