My new baby

Well I finally peeled my butt off the seat and got around to taking some photos and uploading them. As you can see, my newest bike is a 2009 Yamaha FZ6R.

It's an amazing bike and really handles nicely in the city and on the highway. The only place it has trouble is on gravel/dirt roads, the old CB650 seemed to handle those a lot better.

This is a 'sport' bike but the power is not really comparable with proper Super Sport bikes, even though it looks it. The fairings and windshield really help a lot on the highway. My neck is a lot less stressed when I finish a couple hundred kilometres of cruising. The riding position is also mostly upright, although less so than the CB650. It is not at all leaned forward like Sport Bikes such as the CBR600, R6, etc..

Anyway, enough of that. I did buy a tailbag and some other small things for this bike. I've already put 2,000km on it and I plan to put on many more this summer. The next step is finding a week or two of vacation and crossing the country.

Also, there is (supposedly) a GoPro Hero HD Video Camera in the mail. It is a month or more late. I am not impressed... BUT hopefully you will be impressed when I upload sexy 720p HD videos of my trip.

You may have noticed a deafening silence here for the past month or so. That would be because I managed to get the bike plated and running on the roads. And I had a blast with it.

It was pretty amazing, taking this bike from scrap in someone's backyard to fully certified and road-worthy. What a fun ride.

That said, it's time to pass it on.. I've gotten a new bike and this one is up for sale. I really enjoyed the whole restoration process but I think it's time to let it go to a new beginner, or bike project enthusiast. I'm selling it for about $1200, probably less, but I figure that is a pretty good deal for a running bike with so much restoration work put into it.

My new bike is a black 2009 FZ6R - and I love it. More pics of that to come when I'm not busy riding it!

Spring Cleaning

So after stripping the bike down for a few days I found the source of the weird bubbling noise and diagnosed the flooding problem as a busted fuel petcock.

Alright!

So with the bike halfway apart I decided to give everything a good pressure wash and knock the oil and dirt off. The carbs got cleaned again, air filter cleaned and re-oiled, oil changed and new spark plugs added. Later on I'll change the drive oil and possibly re-do the oil change with a fresh filter as well.

As of right now, it's sitting at a mechanic's shop in Toronto where I hope the finishing touches will be made and a safety certification given. Once that's done, I just need to pick up a pair of plates and go.

Oh yeah, it's insured, too.

Ontario, get ready for your newest menace on the roads...

Update Noneventus

Yeah, so.

Turns out the crankcase is flooding with gas again.

Might be time to drag this into a real expert... maybe.

Season 2 - Off to a rough start

Why hello there, faithful reader. Curled up next to the glow of the LCD with a warm glass of milk, are we? Good, good.

Amazingly enough, the bike pretty much fired up with zero complaint this spring. I drained the battery completely, recharged it up and it started within a few pushes. Very nice. My confidence in the trusty metal steed renewed, it was time to start getting it really road-ready.

A few weeks ago I got my M1 and I am soon signing up for a motorcycle safety course which will instantly give me my M2. So all I would need would be to get this bike road safety certified, some insurance and bam, open highway bliss!

Yet as things are wont to do in the world of 27 year old motorcycles, my easy riding was short-lived. I drove it over to a friend's place and left it outside while we had dinner. When I came back out, I realized I had left the petcock on -- stupid move, considering that had flooded the crankcase before.. Pushing the starter I heard a weird bubbling noise; it's the sort of noise you hear when air goes bubbles into a water cooler, or perhaps when you unceremoniously fart in the tub. Eventually it started, I got it home, and it died in the driveway. Not good.

I decided to recharge the battery and give it another go. It started again, not without issue, but it ran. I took it over to my friend's place and we decided to swap the one broken turn signal out with a new one so it would pass safety. As it happens something seems to be wrong with the new signal and it does not want to blink properly. If at all. There is some electrical gremlin alive in this machine and I must find and destroy it.

That's where things stand right now. I'll get some pictures up here when I have better news.