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Phy posted:Short story: 3.8L with oil and filter change, 3.3L if you only change the oil, and they'd like it to be at least semisynthetic 10W40 or 15W50 that meets API SH and JASO MA spec. So like a decent motorcycle oil. Great! Thank you ! My next question is , the fellow I bought this off gave me extra oil and it’s conventional. I’ve already purchased some quality full synthetic . The bike has 22k miles but , by the receipts he had, seems to have been fairly well maintained Would it be ok to switch over ?
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Jun 28, 2021 23:22
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, so be it, I'll eat a probe. There's a non-filez link to a Speedmaster manual copyright '10 on Triumph's own website, here: 
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Dr.Caligari posted:Great! Thank you ! It's 'ok' in the sense that it makes no difference to anything, yeah. Literally doesn't matter, the viscosity and standard are all that matter.
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Jun 28, 2021 23:32
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To hear people in the last 30 years talk, it separates like oil and water lol.
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Jun 29, 2021 20:57
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Coydog posted:To hear people in the last 30 years talk, it separates like oil and water lol. The conventional wisdom I always heard was if you switched to synthetic in your crusty old coked up Toyota that's been getting the cheapest dino oil available on a schedule of roughly "when I remember to", all the detergents and additives will cause it to blow past all your seals and rings and you'll start burning/leaking it where you didn't before.
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Jun 29, 2021 21:17
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Finger Prince posted:The conventional wisdom I always heard was if you switched to synthetic in your crusty old coked up Toyota that's been getting the cheapest dino oil available on a schedule of roughly "when I remember to", all the detergents and additives will cause it to blow past all your seals and rings and you'll start burning/leaking it where you didn't before. I experienced this on my bike. What I've heard is that mineral oil contains additives that causes gaskets to swell which makes them seal. While synthetics don't, so older gaskets get more prone to letting things through. Could be hokum and a coincidence, but after a few thousand k's on synthetic it started leaking out the shift shaft seal and the head cover bolts.
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Jun 29, 2021 23:05
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What's the go to for LiFePo batteries now? It seems to me like EarthX is more expensive, but has a solid warranty. Antigravity is the cheapest "good" company. And Shorai is the same price as EarthX without the warranty. This is going in my DRZ, so the weight difference might actually be noticeable.
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Jun 30, 2021 20:28
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I put a Shido in mine with no issues. I imagine they’re not at the point where bargain-bin brands are ready to make them shittily enough to be a problem. It would be nice if someone made a “true size” LiFePo4 battery, where the casing was just big enough to fit the electronics, but had a clip-off casing to bring it up to the size of the OEM. It’d be the perfect place for a dashcam or GPS tracker.
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Jun 30, 2021 22:20
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How bad is it if I adjusted my clutch lever down at the clutch instead of at the handle first? Couldn't get the thumbwheel open but did have a wrench. Manual is kinda stern about not doing that but I don't think it should be a problem. Right? Also, greasing the lever did not fix my squeaky clutch lever and I feel like I should just take it to the dealer. SEKCobra fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Jun 30, 2021 |
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Jun 30, 2021 22:46
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Stupid question, is there anything to look for or be wary of when looking for aftermarket rotors? My dilemma: my stock front rotor is worn and my mechanic suggested replacing it when I next do my pads. Despite making me look like a massive twat, wavy aftermarkets are cheaper than stock round or aftermarket rounds. I'm guessing as long as they don't look too good (cheap) to be true then I'm probably alright?
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Jun 30, 2021 22:57
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SEKCobra posted:How bad is it if I adjusted my clutch lever down at the clutch instead of at the handle first? Couldn't get the thumbwheel open but did have a wrench. Manual is kinda stern about not doing that but I don't think it should be a problem. Right? Do the following: Lube the cable and check your grease, also grease the pivot eye at the engine end Back off the perch adjuster completely Set the case adjuster until you have about 10mm gap between the perch and the lever when you take up the slack Do the rest with the perch adjuster Redvenom posted:Stupid question, is there anything to look for or be wary of when looking for aftermarket rotors? Wave rotors for street bikes are extremely hit and miss, mostly miss, and they sometimes give a terrible grindy lever feel depending on the caliper and pad dimensions. I don't really understand why conventional round ones are cheaper but they work much better. Metallurgy wrt warping and shudder seems very hit and miss as well unless you're forking out for name brand stuff like EBC.
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Jun 30, 2021 23:29
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Fair, that's a bit poo poo but I'll keep looking for round ones. Thanks!
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Jun 30, 2021 23:53
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Horse Clocks posted:I put a Shido in mine with no issues. Lol shido is the most chinese name for a battery
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Jul 1, 2021 01:23
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Deeters posted:What's the go to for LiFePo batteries now? It seems to me like EarthX is more expensive, but has a solid warranty. Antigravity is the cheapest "good" company. And Shorai is the same price as EarthX without the warranty. Earthx warranty is so good. And they have the same restart as antigravity. Definitely worth it IMO if you’re spending that much on a battery because gently caress it breaking in a year and a half and getting $8 back instead a brand new one two day aired.
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Jul 1, 2021 03:34
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Horse Clocks posted:I put a Shido in mine with no issues. I'm on my second, the first one at some point the bottom of the casing started to swell up. Maybe someone used a wrong charger, the bike had been out of my hands for a while. Anyway, I got a new one under warranty and my dad is using the swollen one without issues, lol.
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Jul 1, 2021 08:29
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Shido looks good (despite the name that I assumed was an Amazon knockoff), but I can't find a US supplier of them. I think I'll give the EarthX a go
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Jul 1, 2021 15:56
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High Protein posted:I'm on my second, the first one at some point the bottom of the casing started to swell up. Maybe someone used a wrong charger, the bike had been out of my hands for a while. Anyway, I got a new one under warranty and my dad is using the swollen one without issues, lol. Swollen lithium batteries are liable to catch fire spontaneously at any time. Please dispose of it correctly immediately.
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Jul 1, 2021 21:16
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Steakandchips posted:Swollen lithium batteries are liable to catch fire spontaneously at any time. Please dispose of it correctly immediately. And by "correctly" you mean hit it with an ice pick and then throw it in the nearest body of water while filming it, of course.
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Jul 1, 2021 21:34
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Steakandchips posted:Swollen lithium batteries are liable to catch fire spontaneously at any time. Please dispose of it correctly immediately. I'm 99.9% sure that this is not LiFePO batteries (motorcycle batteries) that do this and is instead, uh, the other lithium whose name I'm forgetting.
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Jul 2, 2021 02:06
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Lipo. Lithium polymer.
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Jul 2, 2021 02:33
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:What’s the call here? Dredging this up from way back but I finally got some closure on this (I think, fingers crossed) last night. Settle in for a boring wrenching story! I pulled the whole front end of the Goldwing apart in a misguided attempt to fix my temperature gauge. It has an issue where it will intermittently cut out while I’m riding, dropping to cold temp, then shooting back up to the actual engine temp. To me that meant the wires were either shorted somewhere or a connector was loose/dirty. So off came the lower bodywork, the radiator (and coolant of course), pump housing cover, and thermostat housing cover. My goal was to get to a plate that sits behind the radiator and above the engine and essentially keeps rain and road water from passing through the fins of the radiator and pooling on the engine. In order to pull this plate I had to remove all the above mentioned stuff, plus two engine mount bolts  The wiring for the temp sender goes under this plate between the valve cover and the plate and is prime territory for an exposed wire with the jacket rubbed clean through. I have a feeling it’s not supposed to run this way and it’s PO fuckery because Soichiro Honda (rip king) wouldn’t make it that way. Anyway I get all that done only to find that the plate is also secured from the top of the frame in a way that necessitates taking the upper fairing, airbox, gauges, windshield and a ton of other stuff off. No. Way. Not worth it. That $50 Motion Pro temp sensor and LCD readout I found on Amazon is starting to look a lot more appetizing. So I checked the wires in place as best I could with about 2mm of room to investigate them. They seem…..fine? I guess? I did all this work to get here only to discover id only done about a tenth of the work I really needed to do and it was late already and do I really need to know the temp of the bike? So I thought about what else I could do while everything was torn apart? Aha my weird idle issue! So I pulled all the plugs, they all look pretty good to my eye, they aren’t jet black or bright white, so I’m somewhere pretty OK with the jetting and carburation  I did a compression test. All of the cylinders hit 150psi which seems high and I really don’t trust my pressure gauge these days since it’s probably 30 years old and has never been calibrated, but the important part is that they all hit the same psi, meaning they’re probably all OK and there isn’t one problem cylinder. So that’s good! I cleaned up the plug electrodes with some light sandpaper and reinstalled them. Then I spent an hour and a half reassembling this mess  Then I changed the oil, filled the coolant back up, but not before realizing I hadn’t reattached the pump housing cover and dumped coolant all over my garage floor, got it all back together and took it on a shakedown run. Started right up and ran great As near as I can tell, I may have solved the problem by cleaning the spark plugs  this is literally the first time in my 30-something year history of motorcycling that spark plugs have actually been the problem. I have cleaned and replaced so many spark plugs only to have them make no difference. We’ll see though because the one variable also in play is that while doing the compression tests the engine turned over tons without firing, so that means that it pumped a bunch of gas into the cylinders. So if my problem comes back, it’s probably time to replace the spark plugs AND look into why it’s starved for fuel on startup. But that’s a worry for future Jim Silly-Balls. The best part? After all this the temp gauge mysteriously works fine now Beve Stuscemi fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 3, 2021 |
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Jul 3, 2021 15:48
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Those plugs look basically worn out, they're what $7 each?
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Jul 3, 2021 20:01
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Oh yeah they’re toast. The only reason I cleaned them and put them back in was because it was almost 1am at that point and while I probably could have gone to Walmart and gotten something that worked, I just wanted to button it up, take it on a quick shakedown run and go to bed I’ll get some new ones for it.
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Jul 3, 2021 20:29
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The Harley dealership has confused the poo poo out of me. I went in to buy oil for all of my holes and they asked if the oil in the transmission/primary was conventional or synthetic. I assumed it was conventional, but said the engine was definitely synthetic - I had a different dealership do the 1k service, and I know I specified synthetic motor oil, but regardless I've changed it myself since then. Dealer said if they put synthetic in the motor, they definitely put synthetic in the transmission and primary, and gave me two bottles of 80W140. That.. seems high, but okay. When I got home I checked the print out from the 1k service and they put conventional in the transmission and primary. Not a big deal, I can switch from conventional to synthetic. Service manual says if you're going synthetic to put 20W50 in the transmission and primary, same as the engine. I'm just going to do what the service manual says and also never take my bike back to a dealership. I know when in doubt consult the service manual, but just to confirm, there's no harm in going dinosaur->synthetic as long as you never switch back, right?
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Jul 5, 2021 17:05
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Slavvy posted:It changes the height by adjusting the length of the pushrod, if you have an uneven number of turns between the two ball joints you'll end up with a lever that's never in the right place. I am confus. The pushrod is just a rod. Say it's 100mm long and you screw both ends in 8mm. How is that different from screwing one in 6mm and the other 10mm? In both cases you've consumed 16mm of thread and the length of the rod between the fittings is 84mm. The center point of the rod relative to the ends doesn't matter in this application. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jul 5, 2021 17:15
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Finger Prince posted:The conventional wisdom I always heard was if you switched to synthetic in your crusty old coked up Toyota that's been getting the cheapest dino oil available on a schedule of roughly "when I remember to", all the detergents and additives will cause it to blow past all your seals and rings and you'll start burning/leaking it where you didn't before. In college I had a shitbox MX-3 that started burning oil one day. It smokescreened the whole street when I started it up and left a contrail like a B-52 as I drove it to the shop. I took it to the Good Mechanic in town and they said it was totally hosed, needed new pistons and rings and maybe a new top end too. They quoted three thousand dollars. I said I'd take it into consideration and went across town to Herman, the more...working-class mechanic. He drove it around for 10 minutes, came back and shrugged, and said "yeah it's kinda hosed, but here's what you're gonna do: get the cheapest oil you can find in the thickest grade the engine allows. It'll coke up and plug most of the leaks and in a few hundred miles you'll just have little puffs of smoke now and then. Keep a gallon jug in the trunk and top it up every time you get gas. It'll keep you going through college." He was entirely right. Thank you Herman
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Jul 5, 2021 17:32
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Sagebrush posted:I am confus. I think I understand it, but I'm having a hell of a time coming up with the words to describe it. It's one of those things that in theory, yes you're right. But because of how you install it and adjust it in-situ, you kind of have to pre-rig it beforehand or you're going to have a bad time. Because once it's installed you can only lengthen or shorten the rod by turning it clockwise/counterclockwise (because of the opposite threads on either end), and I guess if one of the ends is 180deg out, it's going to throw the adjustment off. Basically one end will always be one half turn more or less than it needs to be. I may be completely rear end backwards about this though so feel free to disregard.
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Jul 5, 2021 17:33
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Screw threads are infinitely adjustable. As you turn the rod, both ends will move in and out simultaneously. Obviously you do have to set it up so that you have enough adjustment range. But as long as you don't run out of thread, you can set the rod to any length you need down to a fraction of a millimeter. Imagine a meter-long rod that's attached to the fittings with clamps instead of threads. You can slide the rod back and forth in the clamps as much as you want without affecting the mechanism, because all that matters is the distance between those endpoints.
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Jul 5, 2021 17:43
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Sagebrush posted:Screw threads are infinitely adjustable. As you turn the rod, both ends will move in and out simultaneously. Obviously you do have to set it up so that you have enough adjustment range. But as long as you don't run out of thread, you can set the rod to any length you need down to a fraction of a millimeter. Yeah I get what you're saying now. I still think it's one of those "in practice" things where tribal knowledge says pre adjust it 6 threads, 3 either side, and install it, then adjust it half a turn, and bingo bango job done. If you do it 3 one side and 2.5 the other, it's not going to fit right initially, and your half turn once it's installed is going to be all wrong, and you'll spend the afternoon tweaking and twisting trying to get the right dimension (which you might not be able to measure in place), and if you'd just gone 3 and 3 plus half a turn, you would have saved yourself a lot of headaches. You're absolutely right I think, but there's the right way and then there's how you actually do it and that's probably what's going on here. Either way it'll be fun to see what new curse words we all learn when Slavvy wakes up and reads this.
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Jul 5, 2021 18:37
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Fwiw I had taken the shift rod off before and put it back on without any care, and my up shifts will slip out with some frequency. Downshifts are always fine. I’ve attributed this to just not moving the lever all the way thru its travel. I’ve ordered an entire replacement. The lever needs to be bent back more still. It’s like a $5 part so may as well just replace it.
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Jul 5, 2021 19:06
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Strife posted:The Harley dealership has confused the poo poo out of me. I went in to buy oil for all of my holes and they asked if the oil in the transmission/primary was conventional or synthetic. I assumed it was conventional, but said the engine was definitely synthetic - I had a different dealership do the 1k service, and I know I specified synthetic motor oil, but regardless I've changed it myself since then. Dealer said if they put synthetic in the motor, they definitely put synthetic in the transmission and primary, and gave me two bottles of 80W140. That.. seems high, but okay. Gear oil and engine oil have different viscosity testing regimes, 85/140 is pretty much the same consistency as 20w50, you just can't use it in an engine and it has shear additives to help with gear cuttyness. It may change your clutch feel slightly or change the size of the friction zone, it may also change the kind of noise the gearbox or primary make. The driveline will run 20w50 just fine cause it's from 1947 but you really are much, much better off with the dedicated gear oil. There is actually a dedicated Harley primary oil that is perfect for the stock clutch. The dealer is naturally hopeless or they could've told you all of this. And while we're here: the synthetic/not thing is a myth, if your poo poo starts leaking it was always going to and the usually slightly thinner consistency of synth is what's started making it gush out of every hole. If the engine is in good nick and from the last thirty years you can't hurt it going back and forth, provided the minimum standard isn't some 5w60 KTM bullshit. Certainly a Harley engine will not care much, it isn't an issue outside of the internet, and triply so for the driveline which genuinely honestly doesn't give a flying gently caress. You can run dextron 3 or GM ATF IV or 30wt in the primary and it will not give a gently caress, in fact it's a useful way of customizing clutch feel. Run what you bought it will serve you well. Finger Prince posted:Yeah I get what you're saying now. I still think it's one of those "in practice" things where tribal knowledge says pre adjust it 6 threads, 3 either side, and install it, then adjust it half a turn, and bingo bango job done. If you do it 3 one side and 2.5 the other, it's not going to fit right initially, and your half turn once it's installed is going to be all wrong, and you'll spend the afternoon tweaking and twisting trying to get the right dimension (which you might not be able to measure in place), and if you'd just gone 3 and 3 plus half a turn, you would have saved yourself a lot of headaches. You're absolutely right I think, but there's the right way and then there's how you actually do it and that's probably what's going on here. Either way it'll be fun to see what new curse words we all learn when Slavvy wakes up and reads this. It's this. There are opposite threads on either end and if you don't have them wound on exactly the same it becomes a titanic pain in the scrotum to get it right. Especially if it's one of those pointlessly blingy ones that go through a hole in the frame and make pit mechanics sad. You can do all this small stuff from first principle and take ten days to replace your handlebars when it's your bike and you're tinkering for fun, or you can get exactly the same result in a few minutes by applying metis and get a result in a timely manner. I've recently gotten into bicycles and found myself on the other side of this fence. Asking the bicycle fixer Very Reasonable Questions, being told to try it my way, struggling for half an hour only to watch him do it the right way in thirty seconds. Bicycles are hard! And quite drastically different to motorbikes in practice despite being pretty much the same thing on paper. Imo this effect is a result of a society that values metrics over wisdom + Google making everyone think knowledge is the same as expertise and I'm just as susceptible as anyone to being a big brain dumbass but I'm trying not to be! Slavvy fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jul 5, 2021 19:49
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Well, new coil finally came in this morning and I braved the high humidity and ridiculous heat to install it. Went ok! Didn't take long to get in and wow. Just WOW. Completely new bike, even with those two ratty plugs! Revs amazingly, no hesitation between 3 and 4 thousand. Just a complete transformation! Still idling high, so I need to figure that out, but I'm hoping that with my new found extra cylinders that I'll get better than 24 mpg as well!
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Jul 7, 2021 03:32
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Now prepare to undo everything you've done to the carbs to compensate for running a parallel twin.
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Jul 7, 2021 03:40
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I put out a question on the zrx board cause it seemed a little more model-specific, but they're taking a while to answer: On the Rex's tank, the upper stripe is a decal while the lower stripe is painted on. Yesterday I noticed there was a little green patch poking through the purple of the lower stripe, right along the crease for where your knees go. There's also a suspiciously purplish spot on the knee of my leather pants. I put two and two together and swore copiously for a minute or so. My plan is to dab touch-up purple over top of the green, and then spray clearcoat onto both sides around the knees. My issue is this: the last time I tried touching up the paint on the tank, I bought it from Touchupdirect. They supplied brush-on color-matched paint (which I know isn't actually going to be an exact match, that doesn't bother me) and a brush-on clearcoat to go over the repair. The paint went on fine, but when I tried adding the clearcoat it ate into the both the old and new paint and started smearing it around, so I dabbed off what I could and didn't use any more of it. The bike's a 99, any idea what kind of clearcoat I should be looking for to play nicely with the paint? Or if clearcoat isn't the answer here, what could I use to stop loving up my paint just by riding the bike?
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Jul 7, 2021 16:44
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I don't know why the clearcoat is eating into the paint, but if you don't get a good answer in here try the detailing thread in AI. I do know from past research that SprayMax 2k clearcloat had the best reviews for someone doing it at home, BUT you absolutely have to have the proper respirator to use it.
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Jul 7, 2021 17:56
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Going back to my emails with the paint company at the time, both the touch up paint and the clearcoat were urethane based. If urethane paints contain a solvent to make the paint liquid, then upon reflection I could see the solvent in the clearcoat attacking the urethane in the color layer. Especially if the original paint was also urethane. Anything I know about painting I've picked up from lurking plastic modelling threads, where you definitely do want to use different compositions for each layer to prevent the next layer from attacking the last one (or, heaven forfend, the plastic.)
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Jul 7, 2021 18:15
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I have a Lotus/Caterham 7 knockoff with a 2006 Yamaha R1 engine and am in need of a clutch cable. The stock R1 cable is too short to reach the pedal box. Are there other bikes that use the same clutch arm cable ferrule thing but would be longer? I need at least 4.5ft of cable but closer to five would be ideal and give me plenty on the end to modify to work with the pedal box.
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Jul 8, 2021 15:32
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NitroSpazzz posted:I have a Lotus/Caterham 7 knockoff with a 2006 Yamaha R1 engine and am in need of a clutch cable. The stock R1 cable is too short to reach the pedal box. Are there other bikes that use the same clutch arm cable ferrule thing but would be longer? I need at least 4.5ft of cable but closer to five would be ideal and give me plenty on the end to modify to work with the pedal box. You should be able to get a custom length cable made by Motion Pro or possibly a local shop near you
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Jul 8, 2021 15:38
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Motion pro all the way
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Jul 8, 2021 23:46
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NitroSpazzz posted:I have a Lotus/Caterham 7 knockoff with a 2006 Yamaha R1 engine and am in need of a clutch cable. The stock R1 cable is too short to reach the pedal box. Are there other bikes that use the same clutch arm cable ferrule thing but would be longer? I need at least 4.5ft of cable but closer to five would be ideal and give me plenty on the end to modify to work with the pedal box. Do you have an AI thread for this thing or have you posted it here?
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Jul 9, 2021 00:10
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| # ? May 16, 2024 16:18 |
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NitroSpazzz posted:I have a Lotus/Caterham 7 knockoff with a 2006 Yamaha R1 engine and am in need of a clutch cable. The stock R1 cable is too short to reach the pedal box. Are there other bikes that use the same clutch arm cable ferrule thing but would be longer? I need at least 4.5ft of cable but closer to five would be ideal and give me plenty on the end to modify to work with the pedal box. I bet that's  as gently caress. Please post pictures or videos so we can hear it. Do you have a bangin big race shifter for the sequential gearbox?
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Jul 9, 2021 21:34
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