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Martytoof posted:I’ll try the dremel idea and I’m gonna go run out get some pb-blaster right now. Once you've dremeled a slot, just make sure you use you hammer impact driver on it. Those things are great and it's good that you have one. Every mechanic needs to learn how to cope with stuck fasteners. It's like a lottery that can turn a five minute job into a multi-day ordeal. Penetrating fluids usually help a little and cant hurt so everyone uses them - sometimes a little help is all you need. If you get any movement out of the thing it can be a good idea to coax it back and forth a little to work the fluid into the thread before backing it all the way out. Heat is also your friend. Thermal expansion causes movement and heat makes the corrosion oxides soft. Oxy torches, map gas or butane torches, welders or even electric heat guns are commonly used for this by amateurs and professionals alike. If there's plastic, rubber or paint nearby heat isn't always possible to use obviously.
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Aug 25, 2021 05:58
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The Project Farm guy has done a whole series on the subject that sheds some light on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjT3B9r2z3fWiqVPUH6xL1n_JMwH6FMm2
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Aug 25, 2021 07:24
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Skyarb posted:I have a VRLA GT4B-5 battery in my SR400 and its dead. It doesn't have standard leads on it, it uses an adapter. Can I just buy any old battery tender/charger and hook it up the the weird prong leads anyhow? Any suggestions? You can absolutely use any suitable charger i.e. a charger that can charge motorcycle batteries and similar small stuff. Dumb chargers exclusively meant for car-sized batteries will destroy smaller batteries. Cases become puffy and inflated, acid gets hot. How you go about connecting the charger to the battery is entirely up to you. Splice into the existing wires in your bike and install a charge port, or remove the bike's cables and adapt your charger with some flat female cable terminators that fit (these can be bought in various sizes wherever automotive electric stuff is sold, buying a crimp tool for them helps too but you can stick them to cables without this in a pinch). Or you can use alligator clips of suitable size (this is what I would do for a once-off), or wrap your charger leads around some old bent nails or something and just sort of jam them into the terminals so they don't lose contact. Depends how fancy/convenient you want to do it and how often you intend to charge, but anything metal making contact between your charger and the battery will work fine as long as you don't mess up the polarity. You are unlikely to burn your house down even if you do something a little bit janky. Just don't short circuit the two battery poles with anything that isn't fused whatever you do. Lots of current there so if it happens things can get really hot and fiery in a hurry.
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Nov 13, 2021 20:32
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Skyarb posted:My bike can be started with the kick stand down and clutch out at long as it's in neutral and it's in neutral. Kill switch is also in the operate position. Believe me I wish it were that simple I forget, but you did verify that you have spark, right? Otherwise it's multimeter time. I don't know dick about motorcycles, but I know a bit about gas engines in general. Spark, fuel, compression is what you need for an engine to run. If you've verified that you actually have spark it's one of the other two, most likely fuel. I like to verify this by giving it a squirt of fuel by other means than carb/injectors. It can be a small dribble of gas down the spark plug hole or more conveniently a squirt of ether from a spray can straight into the air intake. If it'll run like that, fuel is indeed your problem. Since it's EFI this would also mean it's multimeter time. Reading a wiring diagram for the first time can seem a bit daunting but they're entirely logical. Printing them out and taking your kid's color pens or crayons to the lines that interest you the most can make them easier to read to the untrained eye. Boring anecdote: My little honda is entirely conventional and won't crank (or indeed run) unless certain electrical conditions are met - much like or exactly like your bike - kill switch, clutch switch, neutral switch and sidestand switch. I'm fixing a colleague's piece of poo poo 50cc Chinese scooter for fun. Cleaned the carb, got it to run, messed with some other things and then it wouldn't start any longer. It needs a brake lever pressed to crank, but it turns out the side stand switch only cuts the spark but doesn't prevent cranking. Took me way too long to figure that one out. Assuming things work the way you think they should work doesn't make it so is the takeaway I guess.
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Dec 18, 2021 10:50
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(Also you don't have to quench copper when you anneal it. It goes just as soft if you let it cool down slowly after heating it.)
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Dec 28, 2021 08:23
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This is a dumb question to ask the internet but I'm doing it anyways: What tires should I buy for my CBR300R? The current ones are original. They have plenty of meat on them (bike has seen 8000km, 3000 of which was me) but the rear is pretty squared off and they're at least 7 years old so I figure new ones isn't a bad idea. The selection is large, the price difference is insignificant. I read here that bad tires break brains which I don't want to happen. I don't need to optimise for cold wet grip or durability but I don't think I want something super soft and track oriented either. I'm a noob who mostly rides to work on boring streets and likes twisties when I can find them pretty much, and I have yet to scrape my footpegs.
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Dec 31, 2021 10:40
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If I only look at the Germans I usually buy car tires from they are kind enough to enable listing only the tires that are available for both front and rear dimensions, they offer: Avon Roadrider MK II Dunlop Sportsmart TT Heidenau K80 Metzeler Sportec Street and Roadtec 01 Michelin Pilot Street Mitas Sport Force + as well as Sport Force + SOFT Pirelli Sport Demon I can also buy front+rear Bridgestone Battlax Racing Street RS10 or Continental ContiAttack SM EVO from a different place, for example.
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Dec 31, 2021 14:52
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Toe Rag posted:110/70 and 150/60? Or something these? Is there a tire type you’re looking for? RS10 and the ContiAttack are way different from the rest of those. 110/70 and 140/70 both 17" according to a cursory glance of the internet. Bike and.user manual are both far away right now, but I'll triple check before ordering, natch. RS10 and Contiattack were from different site, likely to use different filters. Ze Germans are likely to gladly sell me anything that's on the market, I just have no idea what to get. Reading user reviews on the vendor sites I've looked at is useless. Car tires is easy to buy cause I've been driving for 25 years and I know what I want and need. Moto tires is a complete mystery to me. Edit: looking at yet another (local) vendor I can also get a set of Pirelli Diablo Rosso III or Michelin road 5, for example. Or Pirelli Diablo Superbike slicks (lol) Invalido fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 18:41
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Toe Rag posted:If you’re not concerned with getting high mileage the Rosso III is a fine choice IMO. At this point in my learning journey I'm much more interested in gaining confidence and not having my brain broken than high mileage. Also not getting hurt or dead. If the rear last a season that's plenty good for me right now in the grand scheme of things. If it doesn't then that's okay too if that's the price I'll have to pay to have psychic powers available which sounds great even if they'll outperform my abilities by a large margin. Margins are good. Edit: Slavvy posted:Ok so those are roughly, in order: Awesome, thanks a lot. Please tell me more about the effects of going to a wider front tire if you can be bothered. I value this advice and will take it under consideration. There's no real hurry though, spring is probably a hundred days away although I'd like to get the bike sorted ASAP so I won't have to think about anymore. Oil, brake fluid and tires on the to-do list. Invalido fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 20:31
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Slavvy posted:It's not a huge difference, it just makes the contact patch a bit bigger in exchange for very slightly slowing down the steering. At most you'd have to bump the rear preload by a step to sharpen it back up, though if you're coming from factory tyres (IRC? Shinko? Malaysian pilot streets?) just the fact that you're on pirellis will be a much bigger change to the handling than 10mm more front tyre. There is probably little to no 'real' gain to a 120 if you were going by lap times, but the reduction in wobbling and nervousness has a good effect on your confidence and that in itself is worth a lot. I went by where the bike is in winter storage today, and the answer is IRC RX-01 Road Winner. Still on the fence whether to take your advice on bigger front tire. You clearly know these things, but I assume the same is true for the engineers at Honda. Since I don't know poo poo it's a question of whom I should listen to, but since internet opinions differ I'm leaning towards factory size since that seems the conservative choice. I don't care about the looks much and I kind of like the sharp steering feel, that's not what scares me about fast corners. I've never experienced any wobbling tendencies so far but it seems unpleasant and I'd rather not have it happen. There's definitely clearance for 10mm extra rubber with fork and fender so that's no issue.
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Jan 1, 2022 15:17
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I just ordered a set of Pirelli sport demons. I'm sure I'll be very happy with them come spring. Thanks for the help.
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Jan 2, 2022 13:08
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Bro and I flushed brake fluid on our bikes yesterday. Both his Kawasaki and my Honda have a small washer-like sort of cup-shaped doodad of formed thin sheet metal that sits right where the front brake fluid reservoir drains in the bottom. I cant find the thing in the service manual. Does anyone know what it is /what its purpose is? (Just curious.)
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Jan 3, 2022 11:58
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Slavvy posted:I think they're to stop the brake fluid splashing out in a little geyser every time you pump the lever with the cap off. That makes sense at least. I couldn't figure out how they would have anything to do with the normal operation of the brake.
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Jan 3, 2022 22:11
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 This front sprocket (bro's versys 650) is obviously hosed. Bro aims to replace sprockets and the chain. There is potential for all sorts of P.O. fuckery here. Questions: -Is there a clever trick other than overwhelming force to get the nut off? Are we being idiots in an obvious way? Doing the procedure by the book didn't work at all. Electric and pneumatic impacts failed. Breaker bar with cheater pipe and a steel bar through the (newly replaced) rear sprocket across the swingarm got too exiting with potential to damage both swing arm and sprocket so we gave that a rest to consider our options. The book says the nut should be tightened to 125 Nm, a guesstimation is we put 4x that or so on it through the breaker bar when we backed off. Options under consideration: A: Better setup and more force on the breaker bar. Lock the chain around a naked rear axle, possibly turn a temporary axle up on the lathe to avoid bending the real one, prop the swing arm against the frame or something to avoid flex there, pre-compress the fork with straps or hang the front of the bike from a cailing hardpoint, support the middle of the bike and the socket extension with jackstands and really wail on the breaker bar until something gives. B: Better setup with the pneumatic impact. The compressor we use is high flow but a bit low on pressure so we could try to remedy that. C: Bring the bike to someone with the right tools and skills, whatever those may be. Any suggestions are welcome.
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Jan 14, 2022 09:25
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epswing posted:Are you turning it the right way? Triple checked that one pretty early on in the process, yeah. As for heat we have an electric heat gun, an oxyacetylene torch and a few things in between. I just figured that there's bound to be a seal behind the sprocket and whatever else that's sensitive to heat that's bound to migrate along the shaft. Potential for more parts to replace afterwards so we'd rather not if it can be avoided. Perhaps it can't. I kind of like the idea of gently heating in case of thread lock actually. I mean, the washer behind the nut was staked over the nut just like the book says to do, so it's not impossible someone locktited it when torqueing to spec. Maybe that's all it is. I'd like to try giving the pneumatic nut fucker a few more atmospheres of pressure before going completely ape on the breaker bar though.
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Jan 14, 2022 15:33
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Yeah the cush drive can't be involved, that's why we put the bar through the sprocket and not just the wheel. There was also a bunch of swing arm deflection and fork compression happening. These issues can be dealt with at least to an extent, we just wanted to think on it, ask you people and not break something unnecessarily. If it takes an hour or two to set up the next serious attempt then that's what we'll do. There's no kill like overkill sometimes.
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Jan 14, 2022 17:18
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Speaking of which I finally received my front tire for the crb300r. I'm guessing 110/70-17 really is an oddball dimension after all because I had the rear after two days but the front took 3 weeks so they might have come straight from the factory in Indonesia for all I know. All's well that ends well, plenty of winter left to get them mounted. I'm jonesing pretty hard to the point that I started looking at the possibility of getting a beater winter bike (thinking about a light dual sport like a 250 or something) and put it on appropriate tires, but what I'm pretty sure I would want on such a bike doesn't seem to exist - at least I can't find them. There's a few options for nordic-style snow tires, but if I want that kind of rubber and thread pattern there is nothing I can find that comes with short studs too. Long enduro studs (available and super pricey) would be worthless on asphalt, and while I have studless car winter tires and they're an excellent compromise for where and how I drive I wouldn't want to go without on two wheels. People put studs in existing tires themselves but that's a whole can of worms. For those who live in more sensible locations than I do this is what a studded car tire looks like, trapped pebbles and everything. The soft rubber and the lamellar pattern grips well on anything except slick ice, which is where the studs come into the picture to at least provide some traction, pretty much.  For my pedal e-bike I can choose from 3 different makes for this type of tire so I'm surprised I can't find anything at all roughly equivalent for motorcycles.
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Jan 21, 2022 10:03
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I can parse Norweigan well enough to get the gist and there's always google. I found retrostudded Mitas in at least some dimensions locally and Heidenau snow tires at my usual getting place, but that site is better than any other I've seen so I've bookmarked it for future use, thanks Still, a blocky tire with either factory or retrofitted studs isn't what I want. I want lamelles and studs. Like I have on my e-bike (chicken strips clearly visible) :  If I get to choose between either a proper lamellar snow tire or a studded blocky tire it's not completely obvious what the best choice is honestly. For a car I'd choose lamelles for my local conditions every time though. Good tires is sort of what the whole idea of a winter beater bike hinges on and the available selection I've found so far is disappointing. I guess maybe it's a tiny potential market not worth pursuing for manufacturers sadly.
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Jan 21, 2022 11:05
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builds character posted:. But why not just get tired and sipe them yourself? Because I am not aware of what you want being a thing.
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Jan 21, 2022 14:34
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Mitas MC32 looks like the best option I can find. It seems like it's made to accept post-factory studs with interruptions in the sipes and even pilot holes for studs molded in.  Most (all?) vendors sell them as "moped tires" but they're rated for 170km/h  Maybe it's some kind of legal thing, studs generally aren't allowed in the EU outside of the Nordic countries because of road wear/pollution. It's available in all sorts of scooter dimensions and also in 100/80-17 and 130/70-17. Nothing in say 21" though, so if I understand this right something like a drz250 is out and I must look at scooters (NO!) or motardy bikes for those to work. Maybe a loving GROM or something if I can find one lovely enough. They'd probably fit on my little Honda just fine but to my minds it's too nice and I don't want to give it a salt bath lasting for months on end or crash it repeatedly at low speeds. Guess the most sensible option right now at least is to keep jonesing and just deal with it. Maybe next winter I'll lose my mind and do it. With a bit of luck it's only two months left to dry roads and some sunshine.
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Jan 21, 2022 21:04
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builds character posted:Part of the problem (and this is based on what I read and learned putting carbide studs in dirt bike tires myself which I am absolutely not an expert at) is that you want a hard tire to hold the stud in and you want a relatively thick tire for the same reason. That's fine for dirt bike knobbies on snow where the traction comes from the knobs themselves going into the snow but doesn't work nearly as well for what I think you're looking for which is that the rubber also be soft enough that it has better traction on the ice. Again, just in dirt bike tires, softer tires = wear out crazy fast on roads. You can buy absurdly sticky mx tires that will chunk in like 50 miles of easy freeway riding. I have no dirtbike experience but I've been driving cars and riding bicycles on snow tires during season for most of my life at this point, so it's decades of winters since I'm getting old. I've learned three main lessons. The first is that winter roads are tricky. Grip can vary drastically and unexpectedly from all sorts of factors. The second is that the difference in performance between bad and good tires on snow/ice is huge. Enormous even. They don'y age well since they turn too hard after a few years and lose performance. They wear super fast if they get too hot from warm weather/overloading/low pressure/high speed/whatever. They throw studs easily if you don't treat them gently. Treat them gently in mostly cold conditions (preferably below 5c/40F or so) and they'll last for a long time. The third thing I've learned is that short car-style studs are only really useful on ice, and only absolutely necessary on smooth or wet ice. In all other conditions they actually hurt performance at least marginally compared to an equally good studless snow tire. I've winter e-bike commuted to work almost daily for years and years. A trick I learned (or think I've learned since it's anecdotal) is the importance of seating the studs in a new tire. This (on a bike) involves a break-in of some 20km of gentle S weaving at max tire pressure and since I started doing that on new tires I hardly lose any studs at all on my e-bike before the rubber wears out. I see no reason why short studs in soft tires shouldn't work for gentle motorcycle commuting, which is mainly what I want do do. If I get similar wear from moto tires as I do from bicycle tires it wouldn't be the end of the world since I'd ride about the same distance and the price difference per tire isn't huge. Ripping around on a dirtbike with lots of wheelspin or something like that is an altogether different matter though, I can see why a soft studded snow tire would have a hard time dealing with that. I read a thread on a Swedish language machining forum about studding moto tires yourself, and the consensus there at least was that screw-in studs are useless and only double flanged press fitted ones mounted with glue is worth doing. I've only studded one tire in my life - on an electric wheelbarrow with a tractor style tire and a top speed of walking pace, and those screws have stayed in the tire just fine, though they're getting pretty worn down since they're from aliexpress and used all year round mainly on gravel.
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Jan 22, 2022 15:21
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captainOrbital posted:There's nothing wrong or dumb about replacing my bike's (front) brake lines AND pads at the same time, right?
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Jan 26, 2022 19:51
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SEKCobra posted:Oh this is actually https://www.reifendirekt.at/ I think. I have bought car tires before from them, but I don't want to mount my own tires, I don't think anyone does bike tires sold through third parties around here. Those guys have all sorts of websites in all manner of european countries and languages. They have warehouses all over too, not just in Germany. I recently bought tires from them and had them mounted/balanced at a local tire place (southern Stockholm). They were happy to do it but it was expensive, like €80 for both front and rear.
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Feb 9, 2022 10:27
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Arguably you can be mechanically inclined without knowing anything about carburetors or motorcycles. Maybe the dude is a skilled machinist or great at repairing clockwork or something. I've been wrenching on things all my life and I'm mostly pretty descent at it but I still know almost nothing about motos. Which is why I love this thread, and YouTube and service manuals.
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Feb 10, 2022 19:36
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Maybe there's an advantage in not having as large a hole in a skinny road bike rim. Maybe. I don't mind presta but schrader is better for the gas station air of nothing else. gently caress Dunlop valves completely though.
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Feb 10, 2022 23:19
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goddamnedtwisto posted:110 nm is a fat bloke standing on the end of a metre-long bar. It's a *lot* of torque. It's more like a toddler standing on a metre-long bar. Near as makes no difference it's 10 newtons to the kilogram.
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Mar 15, 2022 11:10
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My clutch lever buzzes at certain RPMs. I only notice this when not wearing earplugs i.e. when going the slow boring way to work. It's a bit annoying - is there an easy fix like shimming it or something or should I just live with it? It's an econobike mechanical CBR300R non-adjustable lever if it makes a difference.
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Mar 21, 2022 17:34
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Ain't that the truth. I've only done it on a motorcycle twice but it's laughably easy do do alone with just a piece of clear hose so you can see the bubbles. On a car you need an assistant to pump the pedal, on a bicycle you need the little extra reservoir cup thing and also stretch your arms far apart when doing the rear caliper. Also maybe the syringe if things are completely dry to get the pumping action going. Moto brake bleeds are cake.
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Mar 31, 2022 19:21
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Megabook posted:They look like nylocks. I'm not sure the locking would survive welding. That may or may now matter.
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Apr 6, 2022 13:26
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^^^imagining this:
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Apr 10, 2022 05:51
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I'm not much for washing, waxing and polishing but if I ever get around to it I wonder what to do about the gigantic chromed muffler on my CBR300R. It's getting less shiny by the day and the car shampoo I use half-heartedly and sporadically on the rest of the bike won't cut it. How to get it clean without scratching it up needlessly? (One particularly bad spot used to be part my pants).
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Jun 21, 2022 14:23
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Remy Marathe posted:Oven cleaner worked very well for me on chrome to remove melted bike cover, but I ended up wishing I'd been way way WAY more paranoid about overspray and covering the rest of the bike with wet rags before I started, because the fine mist also permanently etched the aluminum engine. Thanks for the warning. I'll apply it carefully. Or just as likely I won't apply anything and keep ignoring the dirt/melted pants and just ride.
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Jun 21, 2022 18:52
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the angle grinder is great if you're a bike thief though
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Aug 6, 2022 18:54
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I use regular 95 euro octanes e10 as per the manual but last few fillups at the end of last season I splurged for 98 e5 that can still be had and one gas station chain - not for the octane rating but the lower ethanol content. Probably made no difference except a few wasted monetary units and peace of mind I'd done what I could. I'll probably do the same again this fall. All small carburated engines in my life run fancy alkylate fuel which is very stable and don't gum up the carbs so that's nice. A bit pricy to run in a motorcycle though.
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Aug 12, 2022 17:20
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Slavvy posted:You're in luck because an analogue meter is much better for diagnosing intermittent issues, CKP sensors, things like that. While this is true, I hold the belief that most people should have a cheap-rear end digital multimeter. I'm talking one of those that's so cheap that the probe leads aren't even removable and there's very few settings on it. Ideally it should have DC voltage auto range, same for AC, beep for continuity plus resistance auto range and that's it. E. so do you it seems. Remy Marathe posted:I'm the proud owner of this little poo poo, but my grasp of electricity is nonexistent, so its uses for me thus far have been to confirm the death of1.5v batteries and to guestimate 12V battery health using the 50V range. If you grasp that you can use a tool to diagnose battery health by actually measuring a voltage you're halfway there. Once you figure out that the same tool can also safely check for the presence of electricity where you are unsure if there is any and also tell you whether electricity can flow through a thing where you wonder if it can actually flow (and even how much resistance the thing offers to the flow) that's really all you need to know to solve many of life's mysteries. Invalido fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Aug 28, 2022 |
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Aug 28, 2022 07:36
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Lego Minifig I thought to myself "surely a product like this existst" and sure enough: https://www.amazon.com/Compatable-Universal-Perforated-Motorcycle-Sticker/dp/B087NYFN4P
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Sep 29, 2022 05:33
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Wrenching on the not-mine lovely chinese moped again. It was falling on its face when given throttle. I know fuckall about carbs but this was the culprit: My question is how does that even happen?
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Nov 21, 2022 18:26
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Slavvy posted:It didn't fit so someone forced it. I thought as much. Story is I fixed the thing last winter and it reportedly ran great until the sidestand cutoff switch broke. The operator who I know not to be great at wrenching probably took the carb apart a little trying to make moped run and made moped more broken in the process. I had that needle out last go around and it was straight then.
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Nov 21, 2022 18:32
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Megabook posted:I'm just trying to fight the urge to put a top box on it.
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Nov 22, 2022 19:23
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What are some actually good moto wrenching youtubes for pleasure watching? I watched Ronald Finger's kawasaki series and liked it, and I'll occasionally watch mustie1 when he's doing something interesting but that's it.
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Dec 19, 2022 08:22
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