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.

Season's Over

The first snowfall has come down and it doesn't look like the snow is going to be leaving anytime soon. Muskoka is beautiful now, but definitely no place to run a motorcycle :)

Next year folks!

Fixed - Sort of

Well, I managed to fix up the bike to the point where it runs. Very strange, the needles looked fine as did the floats.

It's not quite as smooth as before ... something is up. Regardless, I believe it has had its last run of 2009. I'll take it apart over the winter and check out the various pieces.

Bad news..

Carb inlet needle on the bike failed on the weekend, which flooded the crankcase with gas. The oil is ruined, as is the filter I imagine, and I will probably have to spend in the range of $200 to get it going again.

Note to the wise: do not leave the petcock in the ON position when storing the bike for any length of time..

I'll be retiming the engine and such later this fall/winter, so that's when all this will happen.

Blood, Oil, Sweat and Tears pt. 2

No pictures for this update - sorry folks.

In addition to the maintenance I did in part 1, I also changed the oil and filter. This is pretty routine maintenance and not a big deal at all, except there were a few serious complications that made it pretty tough.

First, the head of the bolt on the oil filter was old, rusty and the head was rounded off. When WD-40 and Vise Grips failed, I was forced to go pick up a set of bolt extractors from Canadian Tire. $30. Ouch. Well, after 12 hours of trying to WD-40 it out, I guess that's alright.

After that, things went fairly smoothly. Out came the old, nasty, blackened oil and in went the fresh, nearly transparent oil. Also dropped in a new K&N Oil Filter. Drain plug and oil filter bolt retightened, oil level check looks good, all set. Or so I thought...

One hour later, I started to skid a bit when braking. Shortly after the oil light went on. "Dude, you're leaking...!" Shit!

The drain plug had popped out mid-ride. So we hopped on Dave's ATV and followed the trail of oil down the road. About an hour of searching later, we found both the washer and the drain plug bolt. Crazy lucky, because they must have gone flying off at at least 70km/h.

The oil that came out (what little of it we caught in a bucket) looked nearly as black and awful as the old oil I had changed out earlier, so I might very well have done the engine a favor by accident. Anyway, another $20 of oil and a properly tightened drain plug later, everything is smooth.