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When I was a kid there were these lovely little proto Starburst candies called mojos. They cost 5¢ apiece like something out of the friggin Depression. Probably made out of corn syrup and melamine. I could go to basketball practice with a quarter, suck rear end at it, and at least come home with five mojos in my pocket. I still sometimes frame small amounts of money in terms of how many mojos it could buy me. (Although I'm p sure they wouldn't cost 5¢ any more.) I would gladly trade you twenty mojos for that compressor.
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Sep 1, 2021 21:11
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First oil change owning the DRZ. A lot of it taking a long time was just because I was doing it for the first time, but it did take a while. I did the works, however — pulled the frame reservoir filter and hose, etc. I think I have it down enough that it’ll go a lot faster next time. Torquing it up definitely felt weird. 16-20ft lbs feels like almost nothing, or I need a new torque wrench. Technically my wrench only starts its calibration marks at 20 ft-lbs so I just kind of turned the handle a few mm down below that. But it definitely felt like I felt the wrench tick over just as I BEGAN to put pressure on the bolt. Like, a very “uh really? that’s all?” feeling. loving bless whoever said kerosene for engine degreasing — I took a pan of kerosene and a parts brush to the case and there was black cake just sloughing off. It’s not CLEAN by a long shot, but I can definitely see an engine where there was just a big void of old grease and gunk. I have that early 2001 DRZ where the engine casing was painted a dumb dark gray, and one of the cool side effects of the kerosene was that it got under some paint scratches and started to flake it off. Nice shiny metal underneath. I guess I’d love to go at the whole case some day and get rid of that grey paint but it’ll have to wait until I have a need to pull the engine. Not nearly desperate enough to do it JUST to get rid of the grey. some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Sep 2, 2021 |
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Sep 2, 2021 02:56
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Strife posted:there was nothing they could do but sell us $1200 worth of air compressors for $4 Sorry that it's probably going to blow up in your face, try not to think about it Withnail fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Sep 2, 2021 |
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Sep 2, 2021 03:47
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I’ve never bothered using a torque spec on an oil filter. More specifically, I’ve made sure never to use a wrench to put on an oil filter. * Put the filter on hand-tight and only use the wrench for removal, and you will have a long and happy life. * you poor saps with unreachable filters are exempt from this but you know who you are and what you signed up for.
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Sep 2, 2021 05:50
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Martytoof posted:First oil change owning the DRZ. A lot of it taking a long time was just because I was doing it for the first time, but it did take a while. I did the works, however — pulled the frame reservoir filter and hose, etc. I think I have it down enough that it’ll go a lot faster next time. Ok so I'm going to use clairvoyance here: you are using a 3/8 drive torque wrench. You need a quarter drive one if you want to do small stuff like that, they only work properly in the middle of their range. You don't need a torque wrench for an oil filter cover but I won't try to stop you. Ulf posted:I’ve never bothered using a torque spec on an oil filter. More specifically, I’ve made sure never to use a wrench to put on an oil filter. * It's a cartridge filter with three little bolts but your statement still broadly applies.
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Sep 2, 2021 06:26
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Welp, the patch on the cross pipe didn't hold and the throttle chop is back. It was nice while it lasted. Should have gone with my original plan of grinding the centre stand stop off and covering the holes with a proper metal bandage and a bunch of gun gum. There's no way to get in there to do it now without a skylift or something, and I'm not taking these pipes off again until it's time to replace them, so gently caress it, I'll just live with it.
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Sep 2, 2021 12:29
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Slavvy posted:Ok so I'm going to use clairvoyance here: you are using a 3/8 drive torque wrench. You need a quarter drive one if you want to do small stuff like that, they only work properly in the middle of their range. You don't need a torque wrench for an oil filter cover but I won't try to stop you. Yeah this is definitely a case of "using what I have and hoping for the best". I ended up ordering a digital read quarter drive adapter after posting that partly because I kind of guessed that was the answer but also because it's super annoying adapting a 3/8 drive wrench to 1/4 sockets all the time. e: Not sure if I explicitly stated that I torqued the filter cover in my word salad above but if I did I didn't mean to -- the over was just torqued to German "gutentight" specs, everything else was torqued roughly to factory specs within limitations of my crude tools. I sort of guessed that would be how to do it since the clymer's manual didn't give any explicit torque specs for the cover bolts. I haven't ever torqued the filter on my Ninja either, just as tight as I can get it with my gloved hand that is usually covered in oil and grime by this point in the operation. some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Sep 2, 2021 |
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Sep 2, 2021 13:23
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Phy posted:When I was a kid there were these lovely little proto Starburst candies called mojos. They cost 5¢ apiece like something out of the friggin Depression. Probably made out of corn syrup and melamine.
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Sep 2, 2021 16:00
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Martytoof posted:Yeah this is definitely a case of "using what I have and hoping for the best". I ended up ordering a digital read quarter drive adapter after posting that partly because I kind of guessed that was the answer but also because it's super annoying adapting a 3/8 drive wrench to 1/4 sockets all the time. A hwhat
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Sep 2, 2021 20:17
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Slavvy posted:A hwhat 
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Sep 2, 2021 20:28
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Ya know, the thing that does stuff
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Sep 2, 2021 20:53
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Was it cheaper than buying a 1/4 torque wrench? God I hope so, that thing looks like an as seen on tv boondoggle. Also digital = bad. Also good lord look at the size of it! It'll take even longer than a normal unnecessary torque to do even small jobs.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:04
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I dunno man, I ordered it from a reasonably reputable brand I've heard of before so I'm not buying some aliexpress thing (though I wouldn't be surprised if they were made in the same factory) but I'm not a mechanic so saying I should just know a digital torque adapter is bad is kind of weird. I have a bunch of tools that are probably substandard but they seem to do the job, and one of my multimeters was literally from the dollar store because I couldn't find my good one but I still use it all the time for some stuff. I guess if it really sucks I'll just replace it.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:12
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Keep in mind Slavvy has strong opinions about torque wrenches, and the use of them, because his job involves turning bolts all day erry day. What constitutes an unacceptable waste of time for him may not for you doing small jobs. That said, while a digital extension can be useful for certain jobs, for this I'da just grabbed a Princess Auto/Harbor Freight shitter. Even if it's not strictly necessary, a torque wrench can help you educate your wrists on what constitutes an appropriate amount of torque for a given connection. You've already seen that a 3/8ths drive on a small bolt can cram in way more foot-pounds than you need or want to be there.
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Sep 2, 2021 22:17
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Martytoof posted:I dunno man, I ordered it from a reasonably reputable brand I've heard of before so I'm not buying some aliexpress thing (though I wouldn't be surprised if they were made in the same factory) but I'm not a mechanic so saying I should just know a digital torque adapter is bad is kind of weird. I have a bunch of tools that are probably substandard but they seem to do the job, and one of my multimeters was literally from the dollar store because I couldn't find my good one but I still use it all the time for some stuff. I guess if it really sucks I'll just replace it. Digital stuff is just unreliable, I'm assuming that a digital accessory that seems tailor made for DIY will be worse. I've seen $2000 snap-on digital torque wrenches arbitrarily change reading or disagree with one another for seemingly no reason, I've seen other expensive ones just stop working properly and give blatantly wrong readings, I simply don't trust them anymore. A normal torque wrench uses spring pressure so even if it's not calibrated correctly, it will be consistent across it's range and you can eventually work out the reading offset you need to do it perfectly. Also it will tell you nothing about how tight is actually tight because you'll be using a giant lever to torque tiny fasteners, with a small wrench you can learn the feel and stop needing them at all. Cheap multimeters are great, you aren't doing any electronics stuff so having 100% perfect readings and fast response time don't really matter cause most of the time it's just being used as a continuity checker or voltage test light; I deeply regret spending hundreds on a snap-on one a decade ago when I could've just been buying a compact $20 shitter every couple of years. Phy posted:Keep in mind Slavvy has strong opinions about torque wrenches, and the use of them, because his job involves turning bolts all day erry day. What constitutes an unacceptable waste of time for him may not for you doing small jobs. Yeah this is what I'm talking about. Even if you have a really bad margin of error on the tool, if it's appropriately sized for the job you can FEEL if something is going to strip or fall out.
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Sep 2, 2021 22:31
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I recall seeing a YouTube comparo of the harbor freight digital torque egg vs a spring wrench and honestly, if you aren’t making your paycheck using a torque wrench, it’s fine.
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Sep 3, 2021 01:12
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I’m not really fussed about being told I’m wrong, just didn’t really have a frame of reference for why it would be bad or why I shouldn’t have bought one. Now I know, next time I’ll opt analogue but unless I get annoyed at how it works or it breaks I’ll just keep using it for now 
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Sep 3, 2021 03:14
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I just realized that's a 1/2" drive torque meter. I see it comes with stepdown adapters for 3/8 and 1/4... If you're gonna use it for all your torquing needs I'd recommend grabbing a couple of step-up adapters as well, if you don't have em, so you can use your 3/8 and 1/4 ratchets with it. Get that feel for things. I don't want you to get an m6 bolt on torque with the 1/2 ratchet, and then accidentally tweak it a little bit too hard, giving yourself a real angry weekend.
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Sep 3, 2021 03:30
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Mine is actually 1/4”, I’m not sure where that specific photo was taken from but I get your meaning. For now I think the 1/4 will handle like 99% of the smaller torque items and the 3/8” adapts well to 1/2” for the higher torque items but as soon as I get into a grey area I’ll probably pick up another tool and it sounds like it’ll be analogue this time. Once the bolt kit arrives I want to switch as many rusty or lovely unmatched screws and bolts out for standard bolts so I can buy a cheap 1/4 t-handle driver and socket set and throw them in whatever panniers or tail bag I install on the DRZ. Tired of guessing which socket/bit to use for which body panel or frame connection.
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Sep 3, 2021 04:01
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Forgot to retighten the header nuts after the first heat cycle and now everything on the #2 header fell off somewhere on the motorway  Need new collets and new nuts but there's no way anyone in walking distance is going to have the right ones in stock, so I guess I get to limp 15 miles home with a half open pipe and just hope nothing explodes
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Sep 3, 2021 09:00
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Renaissance Robot posted:Forgot to retighten the header nuts after the first heat cycle and now everything on the #2 header fell off somewhere on the motorway I'd ring a van-of-shame to come pick the bike up and order the parts to fix it another day.
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Sep 3, 2021 09:12
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Renaissance Robot posted:Forgot to retighten the header nuts after the first heat cycle and now everything on the #2 header fell off somewhere on the motorway I've ridden home with a loosened exhaust flange before. It's just loud. Although, mine didn't fall off completely...
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Sep 3, 2021 12:38
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Yeah this is what I'm working with I gave the header a tug and it doesn't seem like it's going anywhere, so I'll be crawling home in 2nd with the throttle barely off idle to try and keep the exhaust pressure low. Which honestly isn't that much different to my usual commute because traffic round here is ridiculous. Daft mistake but at least one I won't make twice.
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Sep 3, 2021 12:48
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Tales of the DRZ, continued: - Replaced the Speedo cable - Installed my new dzus fasteners - Attached case savers - replaced all the mismatched fairing bolts with ones that I magically found lying around. God knows when I ordered them, but they must have been from when I still had the Ninja 250. At any rate, I can now remove all my bodywork with just one 12mm socket so that’s a victory. For the torque wrench krew, you’ll be happy to know I did order an analogue wrench. The digital one read just fine but the one thing that immediately put it into “ok no” territory was that torquing small things often requires you to be in tight spaces and nothing says fun like trying to jam a giant digital cube into a narrow area. I got the job done but it wasn’t pleasant.
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Sep 3, 2021 21:35
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My kid's 2012 Ninjette is back for round 2, this time we hit the carbs. I could already smell the varnish as I wiggled them out the left side. Holy hell, I expected to see green on the inside but I did not expect to see the main and pilot jets blackened like a rich spark plug. The float valves were also jammed into the seats and not allowing in fuel, which I also expected. I'm soaking the carb bodies now and it's going to need some rebuild parts.
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Sep 4, 2021 00:42
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I ordered a new chain, the Regina HPE 'maintenance free' chain BMW also offers (as the BMW M chain or something). Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any real reviews of it, only countless websites repeating the press blurb. I figured the BMW crowd would have posted about it on their forums by now. The only 'review' I was able to find was Ari in the Common Thread podcast saying a friend of his trashed one in 10k miles and that he's going to do a postmortem some time. BMW actually tell you to clean/lube the chain when the bike's serviced, so that's not completely maintenance free but it's quite a long interval. Still, many questions remain. Will it last 3x as long as a normal chain if I do regularly lube it? It's twice as expensive as a normal chain, but still, that's not THAT expensive, it's worth it to me to find out how good it actually is. Talking about chains, the last couple of bikes I've had all had them go in different ways: KTM 690: chain lost a couple of O rings, rust particles around those links. Never had to adjust the chain. 701: Also lost an O-ring. Never had to adjust the chain, also never had to adjust the new chain in 10k miles. Versys 650: Chain developed major slack, impossible to adjust correctly because there was also a much tighter spot. Pretty much how I actually expected chains to go. Still, before it got really bad, never had to adjust it. Got new chain/sprocket set, had to adjust that after a couple thousand miles - which is what I expected, but not the case for the 701. Tracer 900: Chain developed major slack, but could be correctly adjusted. In a thousand or so miles, again got very loose - maybe I set it too tight and it just wore down the sprockets? Didn't bother re-adjusting because lost one O ring, others starting to tear.
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Sep 5, 2021 22:49
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Did a coolant flush on the DRZ but I think I did it wrong. I forgot to open the bleed screw on the left radiator so there’s undoubtedly still a metric ton of air in the system. I’ll re-do it tomorrow since coolant is super cheap. Also, had this exchange with myself today: - Hey Suzuki did a pretty good job of hiding the coolant overflow reservoir. - Huh like, a really good job of hiding it. Where the heck is it? *realization that PO removed the overflow box and just had overflow tube pointing right at rear tire* - Aw hecc Thankfully this is actually something I could next-day order from Amazon so that’s coming. In the meantime I’m just dumping into a spare reservoir I just happened to have lying around from my old Ninja 250. Fun! I mean, I thought I looked the bike over fairly well but apparently I missed the critical step of “check to see if parts of the bike are missing” so uh
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Sep 5, 2021 23:23
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High Protein posted:I ordered a new chain, the Regina HPE 'maintenance free' chain BMW also offers (as the BMW M chain or something). Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any real reviews of it, only countless websites repeating the press blurb. I figured the BMW crowd would have posted about it on their forums by now. The only 'review' I was able to find was Ari in the Common Thread podcast saying a friend of his trashed one in 10k miles and that he's going to do a postmortem some time. All nonsense bollocks on par with bmw's sealed for life auto transmission that you never need to change the fluid on* *during the warranty period No such thing as maintenance free chain, no such thing as reduced maintenance chain. It won't last 3x as long, because a correctly maintained o-ring chain lasts the life of the sprockets, which is largely dependant on sprocket design and the bike's weight and power and how you use it. The design of the o-rings is entirely irrelevant and just marketing bullshit in my experience. If you're having o-rings fall out you aren't lubing or cleaning anywhere near often enough and a unicorn chain won't change that. Think on this: the chain is made of much harder steel than the sprockets. If you're losing a chain before you lose a sprocket, it's cause you aren't lubing it often enough. The fact that this is normal isn't an indication of how long chains last, it's an indictment of people's maintenance habits. If it's really difficult and your can't be bothered, get a scottoiler and you'll never need to adjust or lube anything in exchange for having a bike covered in oil. This is very similar to trying to lengthen service intervals using special oil.
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Sep 5, 2021 23:31
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Slavvy posted:If it's really difficult and your can't be bothered, get a scottoiler and you'll never need to adjust or lube anything in exchange for having a bike covered in oil. Mind this isn't really a trade-off so much as a secondary bonus, because a bike that's covered in oil is a bike that won't rust.  Of course it only really gets the lower left side, but it's something!
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Sep 5, 2021 23:44
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In the days of total loss oil systems, every bike had a built in scottoiler! In fact the most recent bike I can think of is the 70's Norton commando, it has a dripper controlled by a knob that literally lets engine oil from the dry sump tank dribble onto the chain.
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Sep 6, 2021 00:00
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I wouldn't want any dribbling from my dry sump when I'm going Commando but that's just me
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Sep 6, 2021 01:55
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Gorson posted:My kid's 2012 Ninjette is back for round 2, this time we hit the carbs. I could already smell the varnish as I wiggled them out the left side. Holy hell, I expected to see green on the inside but I did not expect to see the main and pilot jets blackened like a rich spark plug. The float valves were also jammed into the seats and not allowing in fuel, which I also expected. I'm soaking the carb bodies now and it's going to need some rebuild parts. I can add another nonrunning bike success story to the list. I noticed the Hawk GT's float valves are the same as the Ninja 250's and I had an extra pair so finished cleaning up and putting the carbs back together. Bench tested them and they didn't leak, but the test did reveal that the bowl drains were plugged (JFC!). Cleared those so the bike can be properly winterized, installed the carbs and all the goofy vacuum lines. Did a quick carb sync and it runs quite smoothly. Took it around the block a few times and I remember now how these motors make almost zero power until 10K+ then it comes on in a rush. Very fun. I doubt this thing has ever had the valves looked at but that is going to wait.
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Sep 6, 2021 04:26
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Slavvy posted:All nonsense bollocks on par with bmw's sealed for life auto transmission that you never need to change the fluid on* I did always maintain my chains, though I skimped on lube on the o-rings, believing that only the rollers need lube on an o-ring chain. Ari just posted his review https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/bmws-maintenance-free-m-endurance-chain-put-to-the-test and what's interesting is that this chain does greatly decreases sprocket wear.
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Sep 6, 2021 15:50
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some rear end in a top hat in BMW marketing posted:“The claim is now going to be ‘low-maintenance chain’ and not ‘maintenance-free chain,’ since depending on the riding elements (dirt, salt exposure, etc.) you experience, it could cause stretch or wear to the non-DLC-coated elements on the chain which would then require cleaning/relubrication as well as slack adjustments.” the goalposts go that way
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Sep 6, 2021 21:53
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Oooh they're using DLC lmfao. Just another German engineering graduate looking for a wheel to reinvent for his CV. I can see exactly what's happened here. German brain has looked at the o-rings and decided they're effectively sealed for life so the only remaining issue is mechanical wear on the rollers where they meet the sprockets. Cover those boys in DLC, problem solved, bing bang boom. Lmfao.
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Sep 6, 2021 21:58
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Lubed my throttle cable today. This can of Motion Pro cable lube recommends lubing your cables after every ride (or every other ride, depending on conditions). 
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Sep 6, 2021 23:01
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also chain maintenance is snake oil; i've never oiled a chain and yet every chain i've owned has lasted for the life of the chain. think about that.
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Sep 6, 2021 23:03
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Slavvy posted:I can see exactly what's happened here. German brain has looked at the o-rings and decided they're effectively sealed for life so the only remaining issue is mechanical wear on the rollers where they meet the sprockets. Cover those boys in DLC, problem solved, bing bang boom. Lmfao. Sometimes baby mechanical engineers will find out that aviation engines are broadly extremely conservative designs using very old technology. Carbureted, air-cooled, magneto-fired, gravity-fed fuel, pushrods, 6:1 compression ratio. Why don't you use all the amazing new technology like lean-burn and VVT and GDI like what's in my car? Okay, okay, air-cooling is more reliable than water cooling I guess, and magnetos mean you still have ignition if the battery dies, fine. But can't you at least swap on some high-compression heads or something? Just make some little mods and surely you can get better than 110 horsepower out of 3.9 litres! And the reason this is not done is: over many decades and millions of hours of use, we have figured out exactly what breaks in these engines and how. We have a maintenance schedule that inspects each part based on how quickly we know it wears out, and ensures any problems get caught before they happen. If we start changing things around, we put the engine under new stresses and now we have no idea what's going to let go first. Even replacing one piece with an updated stronger version might just push the wear and stress onto a different part, and now that's going to be the first part to fail but we don't know when. I think there's a lesson here, or perhaps a forthcoming one, for whoever designed this "maintenance-free" DLC chain. Ulf posted:Lubed my throttle cable today. Well, of course. They sell the cans of cable lube.  Consider how the back of the toothpaste tube (and your dentist) says "use a pea-sized amount," but in every toothpaste ad they show people putting five times that much on the brush. Same intention.
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Sep 7, 2021 00:58
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Sagebrush posted:Sometimes baby mechanical engineers will find out that aviation engines are broadly extremely conservative designs using very old technology. Carbureted, air-cooled, magneto-fired, gravity-fed fuel, pushrods, 6:1 compression ratio. Why don't you use all the amazing new technology like lean-burn and VVT and GDI like what's in my car? Okay, okay, air-cooling is more reliable than water cooling I guess, and magnetos mean you still have ignition if the battery dies, fine. But can't you at least swap on some high-compression heads or something? Just make some little mods and surely you can get better than 110 horsepower out of 3.9 litres! Philosophy and IRL considerations > engineering fever dreams. See also: Buell, bimota
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Sep 7, 2021 03:51
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If BMW really wanted a maintenance free drive chain they'd have designed a fully sealed chain cover so they could run a heavy machine chain in an oil bath and slap an auto-tensioner on it. Replacement procedure step one: remove the headlight
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Sep 7, 2021 09:25
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