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Thanks guys. I think I'll probably go with the $100 JC Whitney ones. All the comments, while pointing out that they're not perfect, are quite positive, and I just can't see dropping $300+ on a set of shocks for a 30 year old bike worth only 3-4 times that. Plus, I'm already jonesin for another bike. A couple people mentioned in the reviews that the shocks were maybe 3/4" taller than the stock ones. Did anyone notice this? Is it going to make a big difference to me?
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May 4, 2010 00:28
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Ever since I adjusted the chain slack on my EX250, there's been a sort of whine at higher speeds, and it is speed dependent, as far as I can tell. Its not really noticeable until I get above 50 MPH or so, which makes it difficult to discern exactly where its coming from. I'm thinking maybe wheel bearings? Doesn't sound too difficult to repack them looking at ninja250.org.
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May 4, 2010 01:01
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Did you lube the chain? It makes a sizzle type sound when it's lubed properly. But yes, otherwise, I'd be looking at bearings.
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May 4, 2010 01:15
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Recently my 2009 Kawasaki Ninja 500R has been dying while in use. It's happened four times now, at different speeds and road conditions. The first symptom is the bike will begin sputtering, similar to the noise and feel of the gas running out prior to switching to the reserve tank. This will continue for a short distance prior to the engine dying entirely. After pulling over, several restart attempts are needed before the bike will fire up again. Afterward it has been fine for the remainder of the ride. All of this has happened on the same tank of gas. While I can't rule out bad gas entirely, I fill it at the same station regularly and haven't had any issues there. It seems likely that something's up with the fuel system and causing it to partially clog. This has all happened within the last week, and it is spring and there's a lot of pollen in the air, so maybe the air filter is dirty? Each time it has died the engine has been running for a few minutes, in the five to ten range. It's happened both at highway speed and at in town speed (30ish). Happened in multiple gears as well. What I have noticed is in general if the bike has warmed to normal operating temperature it seems less likely to happen. One exception is while idling for around ten minutes making my way through traffic to the highway, it died while at speed several miles down the road and had warmed up prior to even hitting the highway.
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May 4, 2010 03:14
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It's a pretty serious clog if it's causing you to stall out at various speeds above idle. Generally, a clogged carb will stall a bike at idle unless choke is used, but at speed it doesn't have as much of an effect because main jets are larger and harder to clog. If it's been getting warmer where you are, one possibility is that it is too rich which was okay when colder outside, but now that it's warmer, your bike wants to be a bit leaner. It could also be something stupid like your battery terminals are loosely connected, which can cause the bike to die and sputter but then magically work again. To have a better chance of finding the problem, you're going to have to establish some kind of pattern or clue. Having it happen at various speeds, at various operating temperatures, is gonna make it hard to pin down.
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May 4, 2010 03:41
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Try popping the tank cap. If it starts immediately, you have a clogged tank vent.
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May 4, 2010 03:58
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orthod0ks posted:A couple people mentioned in the reviews that the shocks were maybe 3/4" taller than the stock ones. Did anyone notice this? Is it going to make a big difference to me? Yeah it hiked the back end of my bike up a bit. I like it though.
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May 4, 2010 04:06
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orthod0ks posted:A couple people mentioned in the reviews that the shocks were maybe 3/4" taller than the stock ones. Did anyone notice this? Is it going to make a big difference to me? I could already stand up and clear the seat by a few inches, so I didn't really notice other than there's a lot of fender gap when I'm not on it. There might still be when I'm on it, but 1) I can't see it myself, and 2) I don't really care what other people think.
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May 4, 2010 04:24
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Hey, I, too, have problems with a 500 cc Kawasaki engine. 2007 Vulcan 500. I got the bike out for the first time this year (I know, I know) today. I stored it with Sta-Bil in the tank. This weekend, I took off the exhaust, painted it, and put it back on. I charged the battery overnight. I ran the engine at idle 10 minutes, let it cool, then at idle for 20 minutes (to cure the paint). Checked the oil and tires and left for Peoria. I was about 12 miles from my parents', doing about 90 mph on the interstate, when I suddenly lost power (no sputtering or gradual loss). WOT barely kept the bike at 65-70 mph. I pulled into an oasis and the bike stalled when I grabbed the clutch. I popped my tank cap thinking it was a clogged vent (had that happen before) and eventually got the bike started, but it idled (with the tank cap still open) at a very, very low speed. I turned up the idle air screw 'til it idled okay and let it idle for a few minutes. When I tried to pull away, I had almost no power or acceleration. I ended up calling a tow as I didn't want to risk taking it back on the interstate. I did start the engine again while waiting and the engine sounded like it was only running at 1/4 max RPM when I tried going WOT in the parking lot. I won't be able to get to the bike again for a couple of weeks, but I will take all suggestions into consideration while I look for the culprit. Uthor fucked around with this message at 08:08 on May 4, 2010 |
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May 4, 2010 08:05
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Uthor posted:Hey, I, too, have problems with a 500 cc Kawasaki engine. 2007 Vulcan 500. Check the airbox for a mouse nest/debris? Bad petcock or coil?
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May 4, 2010 11:36
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Is there any consensus out there regarding the necessity of rain gear? I'm looking 1,000 miles of riding in a few weeks and the only rain resistant gear I have is my helmet and my Fieldsheer jacket. My pants, boots, and gloves are leather.
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May 4, 2010 19:08
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If it's raining, it's really nice to have. Otherwise it's pretty irrelevant  I have an oversuit that I use when it rains.
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May 4, 2010 19:09
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Z3n posted:If it's raining, it's really nice to have. Otherwise it's pretty irrelevant Is it a one piece or a two piece? Should I just let my boots and gloves get soaked?
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May 4, 2010 19:30
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Crayvex posted:Is it a one piece or a two piece? Should I just let my boots and gloves get soaked? Not trying to be mean, but these are really obvious questions. If you want to ride when it rains, buy rain gear. The quality of and amount of rain gear you need is decided by how much protection from the rain you want. If you don't want wet feet/hands buy rain boots/gloves. The lower number of zippers/seams, the more protection the gear will provide. pr0zac fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 4, 2010 |
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May 4, 2010 20:39
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Crayvex posted:Is it a one piece or a two piece? Should I just let my boots and gloves get soaked? One piece. It doesn't rain here much, my boots are water proof enough to stand up to light rain, and usually i just suck up the cold hands. If I felt really motivated, I'd toss some latex gloves on under my gloves to help keep my hands dry, but I usually don't need that.
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May 4, 2010 20:57
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pr0zac posted:Not trying to be mean, but these are really obvious questions. If you want to ride when it rains, buy rain gear. The quality of and amount of rain gear you need is decided by how much protection from the rain you want. If you don't want wet feet/hands buy rain boots/gloves. The lower number of zippers/seams, the more protection the gear will provide. I have a crate full of motorcycle crap that I bought that I thought I would die if I didn't own. I didn't want to blow $70 on gear that people may have found isn't worth owning. I thought someone would say, "Meh, rain resistant is fine for a short ride in the rain but expect your leathers to get soaked and take days to dry."
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May 4, 2010 21:30
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Just ran into this problem this week... I mentioned before that I have a '78 Yamaha XS750 Special. Earlier in the year I noticed oil running from the side (as much as I could tell) to the bottom of the bike where it just dripped. I replaced the float valve (not me, but a mechanic) and the leak was gone for awhile. Now this week I life up my kickstand and see a spot of oil underneath. Oil seems to be running from somewhere on the bike (possibly from where the gear shift connects, if that makes any sense) down the frame, down the kickstand, to the ground. I also noticed on my last ride that there was some smoke coming from the front right side of the engine and it smelled like burning oil. I can take some pics of that will help. Does anyone have any idea where to start troubleshooting? I'd like to do the work myself. I have a Clymer manual and I'm willing to get dirty with this thing.
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May 4, 2010 21:45
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Should I tip my mechanic? I'm getting my carbs rebuilt (sigh) and air filter changed, if that makes any difference.
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May 4, 2010 22:57
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eviljelly posted:Should I tip my mechanic? I'm getting my carbs rebuilt (sigh) and air filter changed, if that makes any difference. I probably wouldn't tip anyone who takes a credit card...but I've never taken my bike to a mechanic, so I'm no expert.
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May 4, 2010 23:37
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BigMcLargeHuge posted:Just ran into this problem this week... You need to clean the hell out of everything first and figure out where that drip is coming from. eviljelly posted:Should I tip my mechanic? I'm getting my carbs rebuilt (sigh) and air filter changed, if that makes any difference. Nah, I wouldn't. I only tip mechanics in unique situations (ie, a friend doing the work) or if they've gone way above and beyond.
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May 4, 2010 23:45
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Crayvex posted:Is it a one piece or a two piece? Should I just let my boots and gloves get soaked? I have a coworker who just wears overpants and he'll cut open a hole in the bottom of a black garbage bag and wear it over his jacket when he rides home, crude but it apparently works well enough.
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May 4, 2010 23:53
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eviljelly posted:Should I tip my mechanic? I'm getting my carbs rebuilt (sigh) and air filter changed, if that makes any difference. If in doubt bring in a box of doughnuts or pizza they'll take good care of you and remember you as the pizza/food guy next time. I started bringing cookies I baked into my dentist and now every time they knock $30-50 off my bill and then throw a 10% cash discount on top of that. Best thing is even if they can't accept tips they can take food so you don't have to put them in a sticky situation if they can't.
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May 5, 2010 00:35
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This may be more at home in a/the carb thread(s) but here goes: Normally, Hondas of my vintage (1980) have an exhaust crossover (called the pre-chamber. #4 in this pic) under the engine casing between the headers and the mufflers proper, apparently to reduce noise, so coming out from the engine the path looks like this: =x= Some previous owner removed that, so the pipes go straight into the mufflers, like ==. How would that affect tuning when compared to a stock setup?
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May 5, 2010 01:20
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Chris Knight posted:
Very litte if anything at all - but then again exhaust effects on mixture are a bit of a voodoo thing and I'm not well versed in that voodoo. The basic idea is that for a normal engine, there's a bit of exhaust left in the cylinder after the exhaust stroke - by design. So if you make more exhaust leave the cylinder, the resulting mixture becomes leaner because there's a higher % of oxygen present at ignition than the engine designers accounted for. Reduction of noise is a side effect of increasing exhaust resistance so in theory a de-X'd exhaust can slightly lean the mix, but there's more to exhaust scavenging than simple flow, otherwise all racers would run short open headers. So again, best guess is very litte if anything at all.
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May 5, 2010 01:27
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more of an insurance question than a bike question.... My girlfriend's KLR got stolen a couple of weeks ago. do I need to manually remove her bike off of my insurance now that its stolen, or will it automatically come off when she gets the settlement?
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May 5, 2010 04:58
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Here's how stupid I am: After leaving my SV650's parking lights on for five hours, I come back to a completely-dead bike. The red oil light is BARELY on, and the headlights? Forget about it. (I need to figure out how to disable that stupid loving useless parking-light setting, it's too easy to click over from lock to P) Two failed, ramp-assisted pushstarting attempts and a long, curse-laden uphill shove later (to get the bike back to the garage's motorcycle parking), I get MY GIRLFRIEND to bring me tools and pick me up. I leave the battery on the roof of the car, she makes a turn, and it slides off and hits the concrete. Here's where my stupidity hits epic proportions. I pick up the battery, mostly intact except a top cover piece has popped off, exposing six blue cap seals. I get in the car, and this occurs:  I wonder what's under these caps! *opens 2-3 of the caps one at a time, replaces them**reads labels that say DO NOT REMOVE SEALED CAPS*  gently caress.I get home, smash the lid back into place, and throw it on my trickle charger. It shows my battery as being charged. How badly did I gently caress myself here?
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May 5, 2010 07:39
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Just charge it back up, reinstall it, and try and restart the bike and ride it around. All else fails just spend 50-60$ on another battery 
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May 5, 2010 07:43
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:How badly did I gently caress myself here?
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May 5, 2010 13:04
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Armacham posted:more of an insurance question than a bike question.... My girlfriend's KLR got stolen a couple of weeks ago. do I need to manually remove her bike off of my insurance now that its stolen, or will it automatically come off when she gets the settlement?
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May 5, 2010 13:05
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Endless Mike posted:Intuition would suggest that it would happen automatically, but since it's an insurance company you probably need to check with them. It might be something that SHOULD happen automatically, but if it doesn't happen and you keep paying the premium on the stolen bike, it doesn't hurt anyone except you, so just check on it with a 2 minute phone call.
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May 5, 2010 15:30
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My bike seems to be spitting quite a bit of oil through the crankcase vent. What could be the reason for this? I seem to recall reading that a clogged up vent hose could cause oil to flow out instead of just air going back and forth. If I have time I'll do an experiment tomorrow, route the hose to a little bottle and see how much comes out. Right now the crankcase vent is set up like stock, i.e. it goes in the airbox which then has a drain hose. That hose accidentally rested against my frame so I saw a bit of oil buildup in addition to a slightly higher consumption than normal. If it does spit too much oil out there, I might consider having a piece of cloth around the breather outlet, jammed into position by the hose. Bad idea? Riders behind me also commented on a slightly oily smell from my exhaust. Worst case it's the valve guides or piston rings. 
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May 5, 2010 15:34
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So I moved to a new state and in order to get my motorcycle registered they need the engine number. I have looked all over the bike and the internet and have found nothing really to tell me where to find this mythical number. Does the DMV mean engine size? I have a 2001 honda shadow sabre.
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May 5, 2010 21:04
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Branis posted:So I moved to a new state and in order to get my motorcycle registered they need the engine number. I have looked all over the bike and the internet and have found nothing really to tell me where to find this mythical number. Does the DMV mean engine size? I have a 2001 honda shadow sabre. It's going to be imprinted somewhere on the crankcase...I think it's typically a 6 or 8 digit code. It varies from bike to bike as to where it's located.
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May 5, 2010 21:11
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niethan posted:I live in Stuttgart. There's only BMW here as far as german bikes are concerned, the rest is japanes mostly and some italian ones. We got more 125cc bikes than you have over there cause you can get a license for them when you're 16. We also got a lot of bike with 27 to 34 hp, cause there's a 2 year period where you're restricted to 34hp after you get your license. You can probably get a GS500 or something like that for 1000 to 2000 euros. Check out mobile.de and motoscout24.de for listings. From Stuttgart you can go on daytours through the black forest, which has pretty awesome twisties. Awesome! Thanks for the good gouge. Out of curiosity, is there any profit in bringing over a US bike and selling it? I don't own much stuff, so if I get a moving allowance of $X and it's more than I can use would it make sense to buy, say, an older Harley and bring it over? Any particular bikes available in the US, and registerable in Germany, that are hard to get? I ask because a friend said he knew soldiers who would buy whatever types of beater goofy 1970s muscle cars a month before PCSing (transfering stations) from the US to Germany, and once they got the car there would sell it, buy a nice European car, and then move the Euro car back to the US at the end of their tour. Not sure if the same works for bikes. EDIT: Hot drat, R45 and R65 sell as low as $1300 for a beater. The temptation to cafe one out is intense: 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 22:31 on May 5, 2010 |
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May 5, 2010 22:07
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Do this but give me the harley
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May 5, 2010 22:10
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Awesome! Thanks for the good gouge. Yeah, if you get the shipping really cheap then you can make a profit on a Harley. But do proper research into it, importing vehicles is a real Kafka dance of forms and regulations in any country. Norway has one of the highest price levels in western Europe. A late 90s Sportster 883 starts at around $10K. You'd need to cough up some import tax, I suppose somewhere around $1500 (rises awfully fast with more hp, bigger engine, newer bike) for aforementioned Sportster. So that's potentially $8.5K to further deduct expenses from, probably ending in a fair profit but with no small degree of hassle.
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May 5, 2010 23:25
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Ok, possible dumb question... Is it possible to test a cdi box? My 82 cb450t has no spark at all. None. I have checked the wires, cleaned the connections, reseated them. Nothing. I have checked the coil, the stator, the kill switch, nada. All checks out. The only thing I do not know how to test is the cdi, and I bought a used one...still no spark at all. The bike will crank, the lights will come one, no kickstand switch, clutch is in. NO. SPARK. I even replaced the coil with a good used one. NOTHING. Grasping at straws here.
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May 6, 2010 02:06
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Shempt_The_Mighty posted:Ok, possible dumb question... Try to find a service manual online or ask a forum for somebody to scan the relevant pages. Most of them have methods for testing the CDI. Usually it involves unplugging it and sticking your multimeter into the various pins in the CDI, making sure the reading is what the manual says it should be. My CDI is more modern but was easy to test on my '94 CBR. Also, check the pulse generator. The wires to that were cut on my '82 CM250C and the result was no spark. Mine was in the crankcase next to the stator and had two wires coming off it.
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May 6, 2010 02:08
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FuzzyWuzzyBear posted:Try to find a service manual online or ask a forum for somebody to scan the relevant pages. Most of them have methods for testing the CDI. Usually it involves unplugging it and sticking your multimeter into the various pins in the CDI, making sure the reading is what the manual says it should be. My CDI is more modern but was easy to test on my '94 CBR. I will look for the wires. I posted the question to the cb450t yahoo group as well. edit - The pulse generator is in the rotor next to the stator. I replaced that one as well. 
Shemp The Mighty fucked around with this message at 02:25 on May 6, 2010 |
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May 6, 2010 02:16
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One day of parking in crowded college campus motorcycle parking has caused more damage to my SV650 than it has seen in its entire 9 year life. I came back to it today to find the right indicator broken off and dangling by a wire, and a Nighthawk 750 parked pretty much on top of it. That was not like that when I inspected the bike yesterday or when I parked it yesterday. poo poo. Anyway, I'm just going to duct tape and superglue that fucker back on. Edit: Whoops thought this was the chatting thread. If I had a question is was basically "will duct tape, superglue, and prayer hold a turn signal on?" Twerk from Home fucked around with this message at 04:58 on May 6, 2010 |
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May 6, 2010 04:03
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