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Picked it up in St.Louis friday at 8:30am and arrived home in Minneapolis Saturday at 5 pm. Chickened out at 4pm on Friday when I hit a storm and didn't know how long it'd last thanks to no Verizon signal in Hannibal.  Triumph Street Triple by Andrew Wong MPLS, on Flickr Cleaning bugs off it today.
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Jul 15, 2012 16:05
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| # ? May 28, 2024 18:04 |
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Today I worked on my bike properly for the first time - more than just cleaning or changing indicators. Today I had the fuel tank off for the first time and touched up some frame rust as well as remove the restriction washers from the carbs. Was concerned about doing this kind of thing myself, but it all worked out fine. 2 hours later, all was back together, cleaned, and ran. Was so pleased that the bike started first time. The efforts have givn me a lot of confidence to deal with any future work myself.
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Jul 15, 2012 22:06
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Adjusted my chain tension for the very first time today. Now I feel like a manly man. Thanks _Dav for the heads-up. I'm a little concerned about the wear on my rear sprocket, it's going to the dealer to get new tires on Tuesday so I'll ask them what they think. Unfortunately while lifting the tank for some other miscellany I managed to drop one of the two bolts that hold the tank down down into the no-man's-land underneath the airbox. Took me an hour just to get visual on the fucker and it's certainly not anywhere I can get my fingers, so I'm going to get some bilge grabbers from Harbor Freight in the AM. The right answer would be to pull the airbox but holy gently caress is it an ordeal on a late-model Speed Triple.
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Jul 16, 2012 03:16
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Snowdens Secret posted:Adjusted my chain tension for the very first time today. Now I feel like a manly man. Thanks _Dav for the heads-up. I'm a little concerned about the wear on my rear sprocket, it's going to the dealer to get new tires on Tuesday so I'll ask them what they think. A stick-magnet should be in the toolbox of anyone doing repairs on anything with an engine. I got one from Princess Auto for a few bucks that has a flexible neck and has an LED in the end of the magnet, it's saved me from some difficult digging for dropped bolts.
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Jul 16, 2012 04:10
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Snowdens Secret posted:Adjusted my chain tension for the very first time today. Now I feel like a manly man. Thanks _Dav for the heads-up. I'm a little concerned about the wear on my rear sprocket, it's going to the dealer to get new tires on Tuesday so I'll ask them what they think. Yeah seeing yours reminded me to do mine, took me an hour. The little tool is so loving difficult to get onto a notch, I managed to loosen it easily enough, tightening it from slack as gently caress was near impossible. Went for a ride afterwards, and it returned to where it was? So question is, what am I doing wrong? There's a pinch bolt that's more than tight enough, and afaik that's the only thing holding the adjuster ring from turning?
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Jul 16, 2012 15:24
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I gave up on it. I've been trying to figure out why the gently caress this CB125 motor has poor compression but I'm at a loss. I'm just going to have the cylinder bored to .25 over and go from there. http://gnarlywrench.blogspot.com/ (last 4-5 posts tells the story)
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Jul 16, 2012 15:41
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What kind of shape is the cylinder in on that donor bike's engine?
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Jul 16, 2012 15:42
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Splizwarf posted:What kind of shape is the cylinder in on that donor bike's engine? Well... not the worst I've seen:  but yeah. This is after half an hour of heat + hammering  More pics here.
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Jul 16, 2012 17:13
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Painted up my third tank.  Little camera flash reveals its special night-time powers.  Gonna paint the seat pan next. Cannot decide whether to fab up some side panels or hunt down more panels on eBay. They are kind of a bitch to get for my old bike.
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Jul 16, 2012 20:41
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_Dav posted:Yeah seeing yours reminded me to do mine, took me an hour. The little tool is so loving difficult to get onto a notch, I managed to loosen it easily enough, tightening it from slack as gently caress was near impossible. Went for a ride afterwards, and it returned to where it was? What bike? Take a picture of the adjuster.
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Jul 16, 2012 21:00
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Z3n posted:What bike? Take a picture of the adjuster. His is a new Speed Triple. It looks like this:  You loosen that 17mm bolt right there and then turn the eccentric adjuster that's barely visible, counter-clockwise to tighten. A tiny tiny twist makes a huge difference. The bolt is supposed to be tightened afterwards to exactly 41 or 44 ft-lbs or something right around there.
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Jul 16, 2012 22:45
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Yeah as above... Guys on the speed triple forum said I probably overtightened it, making it pull itself back into place. SSSA like a bit more slack apparently?
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Jul 16, 2012 23:01
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The guys on the speed triple forum are old fudds and it's hard to tell truth from myth over there. I swear half the threads are guys yelling at each other about how they're all using the wrong tires. Mine seems to have loosened a bit after riding it around, could be that the torque spec on the bolt is supposed to be a lot higher, could be the eccentric adjuster has some built in slack, could be my imagination, I'll ask the dealer.
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Jul 17, 2012 04:12
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_Dav posted:Yeah as above... To be clear, are you sure the adjuster moved back or did you just find the chain was as loose as it was? Your chain might also be unevenly worn, which if you don't realise makes chain adjustment an exercise in futility... Tamir Lenk posted:Painted up my third tank. Cracking job. The orange and chequer combo is always a winner. As for me, I'm still waiting on my SC-Project exhaust for the SMC. All the service parts; the clutch, cam chain etc have arrived. The new white and black 2010 panels are here and the ODB2 interface for reprogramming the ECU. But still no goddamned exhaust. But... it’s been sent from an Italian company, most likely being handled by one of the awful local couriers, which is like the package equivalent of Schroedinger’s cat. Has it reached the island? Has it even been shipped? Did the product ever exist? The answer to all of these is both yes and no, only resolved once the quantum waveform collapses. Manifest in this case as the courier finishing his ninetieth tea break of the day and finally doing some deliveries out of boredom. To make myself feel better I ordered an Innovate wideband O2 sensor package with a gauge. Which will, without access to a Dyno, be invaluable for getting the right set up with the new can and the K&N pod filter. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Jul 17, 2012 |
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Jul 17, 2012 10:01
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Today (well Sunday) I actually diagnosed something correctly with a multimeter. Shock, horror. Determined that the Tuono's non-working speedo was probably the sensor (it uses a Hall effect sensor reading off the rear brake disc mounting bolts) and replaced it with an e-bay one on the weekend. Thought I had hosed up the diagnosis as the speedo wasn't reading just pushing the bike around, but now going to work this morning I have a working speedo again. Awesome. The used sensor had better last, because a new Aprilia part is £110 or something.  Now to fix my lovely aftermarket LED brake light (because again the original is something like £150 ) so my right-hand indicators work again. 
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Jul 17, 2012 10:39
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ReelBigLizard posted:To be clear, are you sure the adjuster moved back or did you just find the chain was as loose as it was? Your chain might also be unevenly worn, which if you don't realise makes chain adjustment an exercise in futility... It's a new bike, 3k miles on it and checking the chain it looks to be happy. I can't know whether the adjuster slipped back without tightening it back to where I had it and marking the adjustor cog-wheel thing, but I assume such a new chain wouldn't stretch out that amount so quickly. I adjusted it to about 1" slack and now it's maybe 2ish. I'm sure it's fine.
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Jul 17, 2012 11:25
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Asked the Triumph dealer about the chain slack, he took one look and said "It's way too tight" and loosened it right back to where it was before I messed with it. I also now have new Pilot Power 2CTs on it, time to go ride around and build some first impressions.
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Jul 17, 2012 17:30
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First oil change on the VFR with some Rotella T6. Was a lot easier to remove the fairing than I thought for a Honda. Oil filter was a little tight in there. My poor baby was running on a FRAM oil filter the last few thousand miles  replaced it with a nice Bosch unitOh and Pilot Road 3 are awesome tires.  
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Jul 18, 2012 08:40
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I use fram filters and give no fucks about it.
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Jul 18, 2012 13:42
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Last month some parts i ordered for the F4 from Italy arrived, so it was off to the shop to get them installed. There was a shift return spring update for the bike which the useless local agent knows nothing about, i decided it was quicker to just order the replacement direct from Italy and get my mechanic to install it. Installation in progress.  About 2000km on the clock now and still some junk in the oil. I believe some of this is from all those false neutrals i've been getting at the track (see return spring update).  New parts! Aftermarket engine cover and Lightech rearsets so that i can run a reverse shift (only Lightech makes rearsets for this bike that has the linkage to allow reverse shifting without having to swap the shift drum).  While the mech was at it i decided to go ahead with a 520 chain conversion and up 2 teeth at the back. Halfway through the install he realised that the front sprocket he had in stock was for the F4 750, so we popped a lightly used F4 1000 one in for temporary use until the new stock came in. This is halfway through the install with rearsets already fitted.  MV Corse rear sprocket and DID chain on.  After that it was off to the groomers for a wash and wax.   Today the new front sprocket came in so i had the bike sent to the mechanic to get it installed. At some point during the day a HM quickshifter also found it's way onto the bike, oops. No pics as by the time the bike got home it was dark. I'm going to test it out later. I've also got an order of an R&G tail tidy and tank sliders on the way. Next on my shopping list is a Microtec ECU and some aftermarket headers to get rid of the cat. I've also got my eye on an Ohlins rear shock. That's the problem with getting a new bike, i've got this need to start modding almost immediately. Sorry for the lovely pics, all taken on my handphone.
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Jul 18, 2012 13:54
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^^^ Gaya, Mutu, Keunggulan...as they used to say on television. Any pics from the track?
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Jul 18, 2012 15:33
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From before i got the aftermarket bodywork sprayed back to original colours.
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Jul 18, 2012 16:57
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Sun! We don't have that in the UK.
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Jul 18, 2012 17:10
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Snowdens Secret posted:Asked the Triumph dealer about the chain slack, he took one look and said "It's way too tight" and loosened it right back to where it was before I messed with it. My bad, looked really loose :/ I wonder why the speedie likes slack? Surely the torquey motor will be tugging teeth more if it's looser? Or is it something to do with single sided swingarms?
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Jul 18, 2012 17:22
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Got a new mirror! It seems like the PO dumped my bike on its left side and replaced the likely bent-assed OEM mirror with a cheap lovely knockoff, that vibrated like a bastard. I walked up to the parts counter at Pro Cycle down the street and they had one in stock! Put it on in their parking lot and now both mirrors are rock solid.  Edit: also, oil and filter! stevobob fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Jul 19, 2012 |
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Jul 18, 2012 23:07
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2nd oil change in 2 days! Oh the joys of owning too many bikes. The 636 was pretty easy and straight forward and nothing blocks access to the oil filter. Tightened up the chain too because it was getting pretty floppy. 
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Jul 19, 2012 01:09
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Ordered parts! Pilot Road 2s, EBC HH all around, and a jet kit. $450 after tax, installed (including the jets and a carb tune/sync/whatever magic those shop guys do). A steal. I love my local(ish) bike shop. Basically, if you order the parts, they'll do the work free. I can't save enough money to make internet parts worth it anymore. They even said they'd do tires/brakes while I wait, and I can drop the thing off before work one day, and pick it up after.
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Jul 19, 2012 02:07
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I replaced the fuel filter and screen, put the bike back together, and checked to make sure it runs without leaking fuel. Success, I think. Pretty easy considering the pump is in the frame, partly concealed by the swing arm. Also, the wife got her beemer tuned, runs real nice. 80 horsepower sounds about right, too. bonus edit: I guess it takes a minute to work the air out of the fuel lines? Bike died once while I was gearing up this morning and had weird hesitation for a minute but after a few blocks it was a-ok. I put 1.1 gallons in to make sure the low fuel light came on properly, and it did about 8 miles from the garage. No fuel leaks. clutchpuck fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Jul 19, 2012 |
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Jul 19, 2012 06:43
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I pulled off my carbs to find PO made up for the rock hard carb boots with a generous helping of grey RTV. Imagine my joy. I ordered a pint of wintergreen oil and as soon as it gets here I am going to mix it with some xylene and try to make some homebrew rubber restorer. I also stripped down the carbs, which turned out to be off of a Yamaha Raptor 660 ATV. This is good because the original carbs on my SRX-6 were penny pincher abominations with non replaceable jetting. This is bad because ohgod carbs what am I doing everything is tuned wrong. The carbs are covered in gold cad plated parts, so I am avoiding using pine-sol and have decided to try a Yamalube product that won't eat rubber parts OR cad plating but supposedly eats varnish just as well. Next step is stripping the gas tank for some fancy paint and dent removal. Probably going to try electrolytic rust removal.
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Jul 19, 2012 20:54
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Commodore_64 posted:I pulled off my carbs to find PO made up for the rock hard carb boots with a generous helping of grey RTV. Imagine my joy. I ordered a pint of wintergreen oil and as soon as it gets here I am going to mix it with some xylene and try to make some homebrew rubber restorer. I also stripped down the carbs, which turned out to be off of a Yamaha Raptor 660 ATV. This is good because the original carbs on my SRX-6 were penny pincher abominations with non replaceable jetting. This is bad because ohgod carbs what am I doing everything is tuned wrong. The carbs are covered in gold cad plated parts, so I am avoiding using pine-sol and have decided to try a Yamalube product that won't eat rubber parts OR cad plating but supposedly eats varnish just as well. You've got an SRX too? I've never messed with the carbs, replacement bits don't really exist and I don't want to tempt fate. My boots aren't looking too good either, some rubber's missing around where they attach to the head, but they still seem to seal fine. Some people install a Grizzly ATV 2-in-1 manifold that allows one to run a single, more common carb of their choosing. Requires cutting up the battery box, but a battery eliminator doesn't cost much. EDIT: Also new boots are like €70 apiece. High Protein fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Jul 19, 2012 |
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Jul 19, 2012 21:32
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High Protein posted:
They don't sell boots in pairs in Europe?
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Jul 19, 2012 21:43
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High Protein posted:You've got an SRX too? I've never messed with the carbs, replacement bits don't really exist and I don't want to tempt fate. My boots aren't looking too good either, some rubber's missing around where they attach to the head, but they still seem to seal fine. Some people install a Grizzly ATV 2-in-1 manifold that allows one to run a single, more common carb of their choosing. Requires cutting up the battery box, but a battery eliminator doesn't cost much. I have a grey import with the lettering all in moon runes, km/h speedo, gas nipples on the forks, and single 320mm front disc brake. It also uses a different output spline than US market models, so finding a new front sprocket was fun. KEDO to the rescue. I've heard of the 2 to one manifold deal, but these dual 33mm CV carbs still seem to work great over most of the range. I guess I get to learn more about carb tuning. I've heard pods tend to lean things out. Thank goodness I came across a website with a BSR carb tuning procedure. I have no airbox or battery tray as the PO removed them and replaced them with pods and a capacitor, respectively. I intend to at least fit a battery, possibly one of those tiny LiFePo units.
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Jul 20, 2012 00:38
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A couple pages ago I had just replaced my 5th flat tire. Well now I'm up to six. At least this tire, the OEM rear on my Tiger 1050, had a respectable lifespan of 14k miles. I know there are worse possible places to get a flat tire (Darfur, Ciudad Juarez, Spokane), but an hour down a gravel road, miles and miles away from not just pavement but the nearest vestige of civilization, is far from ideal. It proved impossible to locate the source of the flat so I couldn't use one of the mushroom-type plugs I carried. At least the tire got semi-inflated with a CO2 cartridge, and another a couple miles later, and so on. I finally limped the Tiger into a gas station once I reached tarmac, aired it up completely, and just kept stopping for air at every gas station all the way home. This being Saturday evening by the time I got back into town, there were no motorbike shops to help me out so I just took it home and put it up on a rear stand. I screwed around trying to patch it enough to ride it to get the tire replaced but evidently my efforts made it worse and it wouldn't hold any inflation at all. Finally got a new tire on it today. Removing and re-installing a wheel is easier than I'd anticipated. I know such things are simple in the wide world of motorcycle repair but I still feel like a badass biker mechanic when I get through it and have no extra pieces when I'm done. 
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Jul 20, 2012 05:35
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Commodore_64 posted:I have a grey import with the lettering all in moon runes, km/h speedo, gas nipples on the forks, and single 320mm front disc brake. It also uses a different output spline than US market models, so finding a new front sprocket was fun. KEDO to the rescue. I've heard of the 2 to one manifold deal, but these dual 33mm CV carbs still seem to work great over most of the range. I guess I get to learn more about carb tuning. I've heard pods tend to lean things out. Thank goodness I came across a website with a BSR carb tuning procedure. I have no airbox or battery tray as the PO removed them and replaced them with pods and a capacitor, respectively. I intend to at least fit a battery, possibly one of those tiny LiFePo units. Haha that's awesome, I'm in Europe and mine's an American grey import. So next to my mp/h speedo I've got a bicycle speedo that does km/h and as a great bonus, shows the time. Does yours have the speeding nag light? I do bet pods lean things out, just putting in a k&n panel filter has leaned mine enough to get some bangs on engine braking. As for the battery, note that the ignition system runs directly off the alternator so it isn't critical. An addon I'd heartily recommend is an oil cooler, KEDO sells (expensive) kits, and the cooler off the later monoshock model and the SRX400 fits fine too. I just made a bracket and put on a random oil cooler. I've got the earlier block that's got the oil cooler reroute plugs on the crank case, running lines from there looks pretty sweet.  Also you probably already know this, but the Yamaha 600 engine's got a notoriously weak 5th gear, the single's thumpiness wreaks havok on it below 4000rpm. I changed sprockets so 4000RPM in 5th is ~45MPH instead of ~50, I had to keep downshifting in slow traffic.
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Jul 20, 2012 18:55
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Do people do 17" conversions on SRXs (a 1980s or even a later TZR wheel maybe?) or are you just stuck with 18s?
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Jul 20, 2012 20:15
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Saga posted:Do people do 17" conversions on SRXs (a 1980s or even a later TZR wheel maybe?) or are you just stuck with 18s? There's one dual shock SRX model with a 17" front wheel, and the later monoshock one used 17" wheels all around. I think the SRX400 had a 17" front wheel too. Afaik there's only one front tire being made that fits the stock front wheel, Bridgestone BT-45 110/80-18. My local tire house tried to get one for me but said Bridgestone themselves had told them they'd stopped making them, but then I asked KEDO and they said they didn't have any trouble providing them at all.
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Jul 20, 2012 21:05
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Fitted OEM mirrors and fixed a buzz in the headlight. Had a great ride. Having no buzz anywhere in the rev range is sooo nice. Before there was a substantial buzz which kept me from hanging out in the powerband. (I was new, this was a good thing) but now I can cruise in the meat of it. Which is great. The new OEM mirrors have built in vibration dampers. This also smooths out some vibes on the bar. Great! So happy to have a smooth bike.
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Jul 21, 2012 04:53
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Just got my bike this past Saturday ('89 CBR 600) but it's been a little bit of an ongoing process. Over the past couple days I've been cleaning it up. I cleaned and lubed the chain the day I got it back. There was a whole mismatched set of screws/bolts holding on the fairings, and some screws were missing so I replaced them all with allen screws. The fairings weren't aligned and poo poo was overlapping and it looked bad so I pulled everything and cleaned them up and put them back on the right way. Yesterday I took the dremel to the rear fender and ordered a little LED light strip for my plates. I really want to cut the front fender cause it looks ugly as poo poo right now but I'm going to cut a few templates first to see where I want to go with it first.
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Jul 21, 2012 10:18
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I did my regular day-trip on the WRX for the first time. 330 miles and it was a lot more comfortable than the 636, mostly because I can move around on the seat more. Not as much fun in high-speed sweepers obviously but I can tear through   Then I come home and see this. I was right there, though later in the afternoon.
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Jul 21, 2012 22:11
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| # ? May 28, 2024 18:04 |
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I passed muster to become a PA MSP RiderCoach trainee! We had to complete a group interview a couple weeks ago and a BRC2 today. Got 5 points off because I went out of the box once (I was trying to use the small solid box only because I can usually do a figure of eight within four parking spaces). Unfortunately it was hot as hell today in full gear, and the one coach (who is the side coordinator) took forever to give feedback, causing us to sit around forever in the later single-rider exercises. The next step is to devour the MSF material we were given and then eight days of training at like 12 hours per day. Barring my loving up tenderly, I'm pretty stoked to get paid $19/hr to teach people how to ride motorcycles!
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Jul 22, 2012 02:32
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