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`Nemesis posted:Riding in severe weather isn't that bad. I rode for 30 minutes in a storm so nasty that the rain was blowing sideways, the spaces under overpasses were packed with stopped cars, and traffic in the freeway was going like 30mph. The bike ran fine and always felt stable and I felt very comfortable driving faster than the speed of traffic. As long as you have decent rain gear so you don't get cold and hypothermic, and you avoid lightning, you will be just fine. I love riding in torrential rain, as long as I've got everything set up properly. There's no fun to be found if you're worried about being cold, wet, blind due to a steamed up visor, stranded or your luggage is leaking. But as long as your luggage is waterproof, your kit is waterproof, your visor is freshly cleaned and waxed, your tyres are good and your bike is reliable, it's absolutely brilliant. Speaking of which, I need new gloves, trousers and boots. I'd have thought my boots would be waterproof, but I need to find where the drat water is coming in. The trousers are a couple of years old, and have been crashed on a few times, so they're looking the worse for wear. Thinking of which, my helmet's about the same age and looking very much the worse for wear, eurgh, more replacements.
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Jul 26, 2009 13:25
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 08:41 |
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I use this wierd pink stuff to clean my visor, and it keeps it clear of the rain and the fog. I've since smelt paraffin and guessed it's some sort of paraffin wax. If it's just coloured paraffin wax I'm going to be mighty annoyed.
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Jul 27, 2009 16:33
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My friend's 1993 Honda CB400 Super Four had a problem with the old battery not charging. I reckoned it was either because of a dodgy battery, not being giving enough time to charge (he liked starting it up in the garage since he cannae ride it atm) or the charging system being faulty. So I checked the charging system (using the ever reliable point at garage door, rev bike and see how bright(er) the light gets), seemed to be working, so we bought a new battery. Seemed to be all fine and dandy, with maybe a small amount of hesitation sometimes when starting after lots of short trips. Then the bike decided to die when he was pottering around the local estate, and the worrying thing was that it wouldn't bump start plus the battery was too low to even turn the starter over, so we pushed it home and put it on charge. Just wondering if it's likely that the charging system is working, but not well enough. Been mighty busy at work, so not checked the bike since we put it on charge. Really got to cram it into his brain not to run the bike in the garage. Hopefully that will soon be a moot point, he's doing his DAS now (mod 1 tomorrow).
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Aug 15, 2009 20:52
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w00t w00t. I feel so drat proud. This is in followup to the previous questions about my friend's R/R. We transplated the battery from my bike into his and cranked away. Starter was fine, but it refused to start. Turns out that the vacuum hose from the crankcase to the petcock at come off at some point, probably during the intial attempt to bump start the bike. I credit tek for her thread giving me that knowledge. Tried to do some trouble shooting with the bike running and testing the R/R and stator voltages and resistances. Seems that there's an infinite resistance between the stator wires and the frame, but about 3 Ohms between the stator wires themselves. Which is odd as the troubleshooting manual we were following said they ought to be 0.5 to 2 (I think). Oh, and the stator wires had a whole 10 volts AC between them when the bike was revved. Bad news was that the needle didn't even flicker when measuring across the battery, no matter how much it was revved. Oh well, we've got an electrician friend coming over to have a poke, but I'm assuming the stator is gone (we think the R/R was fine, apart from some values slightly outside the guide's values, it seemed to check out).
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Aug 27, 2009 20:38
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I always used to use the sidestand on my old bike, mainly because it didn't have a centrestand. Then I got my new bike and, wham, new thing. So I used the centrestand. Then the bike fell over after the tarmac beneath one side disintegrated when I was at a job. I was bitching about it in here and someone said that the sidestand was actually more stable. So now I use that. I'm confused now. To be honest, if I had to guess, the sidestand being more stable makes sense, the distance between the sidestand and the wheels is longer than the width of the centrestand.
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Aug 29, 2009 19:09
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ohwandernearer posted:I priced out a number of companies recently when looking at new bikes. I am 22, have a perfect driving record, took the msf, have great credit, and live in Baltimore and basically no one will insure me for less than 800 on a 500 cc+ bike. If I want comprehensive with a less than 500 deductible it's over a grand. If I get a bike that is remotely "sporty" I am staring at 2 grand a year. Admittedly I am in the UK, so it's probably different, but we're normally the ones gouged instead of yous lot. I'm 23, have perfect credit (not sure what that has to do with it?), I have a full and un-restricted bike license, been riding 3 years without a single claim and live/lived in the middle of Edinburgh. My CB400 costs me 130 quid a year for third party, fire and theft. My friend with almost identical stats has fully comp (and me) on his CB400, that's about £350. For comparison, me insuring a 1986 1.6L VW Golf would be about £1200, me on an R32 (my wish car) would be £4500 per year. So yeah, it's far far cheaper than a car, at least for us. (That said, I just threw a 2008 R1 into gocompare.com, £1400 for fully comp, which is bad in terms of pure cash, but not terrible when you compare it to the cars) vvvv Oh, it's definitely an age thing. It's well known that you get raped on insurance payments if you're a bloke under 25. Which is what makes 1400 quid a year for me for an insanity machine like an R1 so mad. Orange Someone fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Oct 20, 2009 |
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Oct 20, 2009 12:49
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As I mentioned in the "What did you do to your ride today?" thread, my friend's CB400 decided to boil the battery on him last night. Cue us pushing the bike a mile home, though at least some of it was downhill. We replaced the battery when we/he/I (don't ask) bought the bike in May as it wasnae charging properly. Then it killed that battery in July, so we did some troubleshooting, found the recitifier was misbehaving, thus replaced that and the battery. So, question, what the gently caress boils a battery? VVVV Hahaha, first time I've laughed out loud about something someone said on the internet in ages. My step-dad said the exact same thing after he asked where I'd been this morning (I'm normally in bed until 9, I was out the house before 7 this morning, had to give my friend a lift to work). I suppose my question ought to have been, why is it overcharging? But thanks 
Orange Someone fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Oct 21, 2009 |
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Oct 21, 2009 08:59
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8ender posted:So is it an old enough CB400 to have a separate rectifier and regulator? Because if thats the case then its definitely the regulator. 1992-1993 The part we replaced was defined as a rectifier, small part about inch and a half by inch and a half, with cooling fins on the top. *fake edit* That's what I get for going out and leaving the reply window open echomadman posted:regulator is not working and putting way too much voltage into the battery at high revs. common fault on the superfours. Thank you very very much. That part looks like the part that we've already replaced once, so that's frustrating. No idea if it's an R/R or just the rectifier. Odd that it blew the battery when it did, he was just riding around town, we've done hundreds of high-revving miles before this week and it never boiled. Hmm, now to work out which CB400 it is. None of those are late enough, and the closest is the CB400 CB-1, which was the previous model. Common enough problem, seeing as the bike is an import from Japan. We are in the UK, and that's a US website, but if I know what part I'm looking for, it's going to help loads.
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Oct 21, 2009 14:21
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echomadman posted:maybe too late now but any modern honda on will do, the one for the fireblade works as a mate of mine has both bikes and swapped the blade regulator to his superfour It's not too late, we took the R/R back to the shop we bought it from and they replaced it for free. Replaced the chain riveter for free as well. We actually bought a new battery though, there was a reason for paying for it at the time. Turns out the R/R we're using is from a CBR 600. Spent the weekend tracing wiring looms and freaking that we weren't finding anything wrong. Gave up, threw the new battery and R/R in and he rode to work on Monday, fretting all the way. Had an electrician friend of ours come round monday evening, he thinks that the chain we use to secure the bikes had shorted the battery terminals under the seat (there's no battery cover, there's meant to be but it's missing on this bike). So that's some good news.
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Oct 28, 2009 12:00
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Z3n posted:It's easy enough to check if the bike's charging system is working right, just turn the bike on, rev it to roughly 1/3rd of total RPM, and check the voltage at the battery. It should be around 14v, if you're getting significantly more or less, there's a problem. Yeah, I know. The problem was that the battery had fried and we weren't finding anything wrong. Thus we had no reason for the battery to have fried. And if we didnae have a reason, we couldnae fix anything, and so it could happen again.
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Oct 29, 2009 10:12
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Z3n posted:Yeah, you're not supposed to beat the poo poo out of it or anything. I'd keep an eye on it. I'm banned from ever touching a breaker bar, or putting the last few nuts back on at the end of a job. I have a habit of going a bit too far. But it wasn't me that broke the chain riveter, that was my friend.
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Jun 3, 2010 19:16
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Gnaghi posted:Are the wheel alignment markings on the rear axle a good guide to use, or is there a more precise method for alignment? I use a bit of string tied to some axle stands. Axle stand in front of the bike, one just behind, make sure the string is only just touching the wheel. Then you'll be able to tune up the alignment. If you have 4 axle stands, it's easiest to do it with two bits of string, but you can do it with 1. Just have both stands in front of the bike, take the string from one stand, down past the bike, around the back wheel and back to the 2nd stand. Once you've done it, you ought not to need to do it again for a while, just make sure you adjust each nut the same amount at the same time (I was taught 1/4 turn each time). The garage uses a long bit of metal, and I guess you could use a laser pointer somehow, but the string is simple, and easy to use, and it stays there when you let go.
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Jun 5, 2010 00:32
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Gnaghi posted:Oh ok. Didn't quite understand but I found pics of the string setup, thanks. Oh cool, that looks clever. I have no idea why I didn't think of taping the string down, I use duck tape on almost every other job. In fact, my underseat toolkit is duck tape and an adjustable spanner. I did think of the measuring the axle way, but logic told me that the error was too large to make a meaningful measurement. It'd be easier to see at the front with the long lever arm.
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Jun 5, 2010 10:03
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MooseNoose posted:the DRC edge tail light is the bees knees. Pretty much everyone with DRZ at Thumper Talk has it. Easy to install and sturdy as it comes. I had a small issue because the -E has no metal subframe under the tail to install the Edge to and it was too skinny to slide over the wee knubs that the previous kit was installed on. So ghetto Orange (and brother-in-law) drilled straight down through the tail to attach the two bolts. You can just see their shiny heads.  Wish I'd had time or inclination to come up with a better solution, but it works and doesn't look too shabby
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Oct 5, 2012 08:57
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I use washing up liquid, hot water and a plain sponge. Just make sure you havn't left spaghetti bolognese on the sponge; it makes a mess. I just carry a bit of kitchen towel when I'm out. My friend's got a pinlock on his visor. It was working fine, then it got a wee bit of fog in the corner. He took it off to clean, reinstalled it and now it all fogs up. Anyone got any ideas or tips?
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Oct 7, 2012 09:03
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Xovaan posted:The reason I feel heated grips wouldn't work well in my case is because the only part of my hands that get cold are the parts the grip wouldn't even touch. Every other part of my hand feels warm and toasty no matter what glove I use, but the wind chill completely destroys the tips of my fingers. My commute starts before sunrise when it's very cold and misty. It's proving difficult to find a solution for this. Not sure I've ever come across heated glove liners (but I'd love to get my hands on some) but it sounds like heated gloves are what you're looking for. I have issues feeling the cold, so it's always odd for me to understand this sort of stuff. Having said that, getting off a bike with hypothermia is a more interesting experience.
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Oct 22, 2012 20:55
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My brother-in-law just failed his Mod 2 big bike test and thus has to retake it. Unfortunately, due to the change in the tests in January, his local test center is all booked up until Feb. So, he has to go to a non-local one, and his instructor doesn't know the routes. So he'll be going in effectively blind. Anyone done their test on unfamiliar routes? I'm convinced it'll be fine, just keep an eye out for gotchas, but he's a bit more than a wee bit worried, particularly after failing the last one (he missed a de-restricted sign buried in a hedge, so was doing 30mph in a 60 zone, plus he forgot to cancel an indicator). 2 bike tests and a car test, I honestly can't remember if I was familiar or not, and if it made a difference. I think it might be easier in some ways; my sister picked up a minor on her bike test because her tester told her to take the first exit and she was expecting the second, so set herself up for #2, then realised and headed directly for #1.
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Nov 22, 2012 10:02
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I will second, third, tenth and nth the idea, Don't Work On Your Only Vehicle. Particularly something like valves or carbs, where they'll stop the bike working if they go bad. Stuff you can bolt back together isnae so bad. You never know when either you or nature will gently caress it up. Corollary: Feel free to work on it if you are sure you can fix it before you need it next time. Plus, having a second vehicle (or a friend) means you have the ability to leg it down the the shop when you've broken your last x or the y you bought doesnae fit. The friend also means you'll get less bored or frustrated, even if they aren't more knowledgable.
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Dec 16, 2012 21:05
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As the guys in the supermoto thread know, my supermoto'd DRZ-400 E's engine decided to add more power by intaking extra air (that is how it works?) So I guess I'm in the market for a new engine. I'm on holiday at the moment, and the bike was recovered to a friend's garage. It's on the cards to strip the old engine down and have a look inside, but I'm assuming the whole engine is toast. I'll keep the carbs, because they're the E ones and are (so I've been told) better. Two questions: 1) Where's the best place to get a new engine? Either -E or -S/SM, don't really mind. I've had a quick glance at eBay, but they don't seem cheap. Was mainly sanity checking that there's no easier way, and I can't just get the dealers to get me a cheap new engine. As a follow up, if I were to acquire an -S/SM engine, what bits from the old -E engine would be worth swapping on? 2) How involved would swapping engines out be? I'm not completely mechanically inept, just mainly avoided the engines/carbs beyond oil changes. And how long would it take? That's assuming I could just buy a nearly working engine, fill it with oil and drop it in? Is that how it works? God, I hate being clueless
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Aug 9, 2013 12:19
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JP Money posted:1) Ebay is my best guess. Try Thumpertalk and SupermotoJunkie forums as well as sometimes people part out bikes there for cheap. Thanks for the reply. I've done some browising of TT and SMJ, nothing jumps out at me. Best option at the moment is an S/SM engine on eBay for £950 or so. Absolutely nothing on Craigslist. Patience I normally have. Especially as it's not my primary bike. And that's a good list of bits I'll make sure to hang on to. I haven't got a manual CCT, would it be worth getting one if I'm doing all this work already?
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Aug 10, 2013 18:44
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Give a really good brief before you both get on the bike. Make sure you know what she's going to do in every situation. Cornering, stopping, getting on/off, overtaking, waiting at traffic lights. Explain where to hold on (I prefer my pax to hold on to me, some people don't like it), when to (not) put your feet down, when not to wriggle. Work out some basic hand signs, and where to show them. I like my pax to tap me on the stomach, then make the sign. I can look down and see it easily. My best mate prefers that you tap his left shoulder and then make the in front of him, shoulder height, left hand side. Even just a thumbs up and stop sign. Regards control of the bike, be more cautious with the controls. You'll have a lot more weight, so braking/acceleration will be massively changed. Watch out for the helmets to bump. The bike will tip in a lot quicker when cornering, so particularly watch low speed manoeuvres. Lastly. Make sure she's happy. It's hard to make a good impression if they're terrified. *edit* poo poo. Re-reading that, I may have been slightly over the top. If it's just a putter down side streets, take it easy on the brief. Don't overwhelm her. I have a tendancy to transmit too much, so I'm trying to rein myself in.
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Aug 31, 2013 10:45
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I'd forgotten about roundabouts. I don't tend to mind where they position themselves, as long as it's consistant. I've had complete newbies stay perfectly perpendicular to the ground for the whole trip, and I've had mates who are leaning off more than me. Helmets in line is a good way to describe it. Now my question. After burring off one of the screws in my brake reservoir, where can I get a new screw? Just wander into a Honda dealer? Or anywhere with a good parts counter?
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Aug 31, 2013 14:49
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 08:41 |
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My best mate has what looks a cargo net but it's made of grippy rubber type material. It's sized such that it fits over the back of the seat, just for the pillion. I'll ask him where he got it from.
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Aug 31, 2013 21:34
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