Checklist

Well, there's a few things I need to do next weekend, so I figured I'd list them for my benefit and the enjoyment of my dear, dear readers. All two of you! You're very special to me. Yes, you are.

Without further ado, the list:

• Check speedometer cable for rust or wear.


• Try to loosen front brake slightly (Currently it is way too tight).


• Ditto for clutch, although this is less important.


• Check spark plugs every few km for the first day or so. Make sure they stay brown.

Carb cleaning/adjustments

After a couple km of riding with the new spark plugs, I pulled over and took a look at what they were reading. Good thing I did. They had some bad news to share - the mixture in 3 out of 4 cylinders was dangerously lean, burning the plugs white hot at the ends. The fourth was the proper brownish colour it ought to be.

So Dave and I spent the better part of today pulling the carbs out and adjusting them. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but we did know that having every single needle fully closed (as the last person to open up these carbs apparently did) was bad news.

Two hours later, I think we got the problem sorted out. The first test run of a km or so seems to be showing browner plugs, definitely not white-hot ... but sadly, extensive 'testing' will have to wait for next weekend...

All plugged up

After a short trip to Canadian Tire, I came home with about $20 worth of stuff to fix up the bike with.

- 4 New NGK Spark Plugs ($7.99 for a pack of 2,) and
- 1 Bottle of Carb Cleaner ($3.99 for enough to use in 80L of gas)

I also picked up about $7 worth of 89 octane gas - which is enough to run it for the next 3-4 weekends at least.

This is what the new set of spark plugs look like:



This is what the old set of spark plugs look like:





Yeah. As you can see, it was well overdue. Although one of the plugs threatened to snap and break into the engine from the rust, they all came out eventually without much hassle.



That, in addition to the carb cleaner and slightly better gas, lead to a much smoother test engine run. Unfortunately it started raining so I didn't get much of a chance to really see how much better it was performing, but it's very promising so far.

Got my last ride in for the weekend, just before dark... I tried to open the throttle a lot more today for kicks..

Let's just say I've never owned a vehicle that gave me motion sickness in a straight line before..

In the past few hours I have managed to put several new scrapes and bruises on my legs. I've also knocked out the cover on the front turn signal and scraped up the gauges... hm.

Let us enjoy the pleasures of the bourgoisie

Turns out I made a very good call on not buying that '82 750 Virago - it dropped from $1100 to $700.

If he drops to $550 or lower I will snatch it up!

edit: It has since dropped to $650. Still waiting..

This proves how cool I am

Some hilarious advertising from the good ol' 1980s. I'm sure people were flooding the Honda dealerships after this one:

Restoration Station

The choice was made last Friday.

I took the 1983 Honda Nighthawk CB650 for $600.



It was in somewhat rough shape, having sat outside for some time. Vines had literally grown through the spokes of the wheel. A trial of about 2 hours began where we tried desperately to bump start the bike, running it down small hills and through the streets. No dice. I hemmed and hawed quite a bit over the final purchase decision, then finally rounded up 5 people and loaded it onto my rental pickup truck. This bike is around 550lbs with no fluid, so quite a heavy lift.

After getting the initial coat of dust off and doing a little bit of rust cleanup, she was starting to look alright. As you can see though from some of these photos, there was a lot of dust and debris piled up on it...:







OK, so cosmetically it still needed a lot more elbow grease. I went at it religiously with WD-40 and a rag, followed by a rinse, wash and wax. She started to shine pretty nicely after that.



A quick walkaround:



Big difference. It's still not done - there's rust to be brushed off and chrome to be polished, but we're getting there.

Mechanically though it was pretty sound, save for a few major flaws.

Toasted battery. Had to buy a new one. Hilarity ensued when the new battery appeared to also be broken, but I discovered that the charger blew a fuse - because there was a 3Amp fuse in a charger rated to charge up to 4 amps. Stupid.

In addition, the main fuse was snapped.. but only jiggled out of place once in a while. This was a hard one to find and fix. It snapped clean in two from metal shearing. The fuse on this particular bike was just a thin strip of metal, too, so we didn't have a replacement handy.. but I did have some normal 15¢ fuses kicking around. Some MacGrubering later, we fashioned a new fuse.



Yes, those are nails in the fusebox. They're not nailed into anything, just used to connect the circuit.

Finally, The speedometer is not working correctly. It reads about 20km/h and then gets stuck. I think the speedo cable is just rusted out or broken, will examine. The plexiglass for the main cluster is also very badly cracked.



All told, I spent about $100 on materials (including new battery) to fix it up. And what we get in the end is a sick, sick ride for about $700. I have to really credit my friend Dave here, he helped with a lot of the troubleshooting and was the manufacturer of the nail-fuse.




Now I just need the folks at DriveTest to stop striking so I can legally drive this bad boy. I did go up and down the dirt roads in Muskoka a few times and man can she rip.

On the road to becoming a motorcyclist

Well, I've now checked out two 80s Yamahas and both were.. well.. crap.

The first was an $1100, '82 Yamaha Virago 750. The rear lights dangling by their wires off the sides, would not start (engine wouldn't even turn over,) and that was all I really needed to see. I'm not dropping $1100 on a bike that won't start.

Tonight I checked out an '81 Yamaha Seca 750 - for $400. Great deal, except the guy has left it in the garage for over a year, the battery is way past dead, the seats are split, the headlight is cracked, and the odometer was swapped so you know it's not real. Fair enough, $400. I thought about it, especially since I dropped $8 on a service manual online just to see if it's manageable to fix, but ultimately had to pass.

Tomorrow I'm seeing an '83 Honda Nighthawk CB650. I think we've settled on $600 if I do take it. I'm told by the seller that it runs, but that's what the previous two guys said. We shall see. Already I know the speedometer is broken and the front brakes need work. We shall see.

My other option is a seemingly very well maintained '81 Nighthawk 650 for $800. I think that is my safest bet.