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I hoisted up the bike and took the wheels and tires to the tire place   I also spent a bunch of time building the bracket to hold a pair of new horns for the cargobike. Then I failed to make them toot, the wiring needs a rework. The aliexpress 36v-12v stepdown that was supposed to deliver 10A doesn't - it could only drive one of the horns (and poorly at that) which I measured to draw 3.5A when fed from a car battery. poo poo. I'll try using the 12v circuit only to pull the relay and send 36V to the horns wired in series and see how they like 18V. If they burn up they were cheap. I suppose three horns in series should work. That would mean a new bracket though  Maybe just a beefy resistor in series solves it if 18v is a problem.I have some of those laying around somewhere.
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May 17, 2023 08:24
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LimaBiker posted:They'll survive 18v for quite a while. You could just wire a big resistor in series if they draw a too obscene amount of current. Someting like a hidden headlight bulb with both filaments wired parallel, in series with the horns. Or a real fat wirewound resistor of something between 0,47 and 10 ohms, idk. It's an automotive relay, I think 30A, so it should be fine. I wouldn't dare wire these horns straight through the switch though, that would likely end in contact welding. I'll try straight battery pack 36v (via the currently 10A fuse for everything that isn't the motor) in series and see how it sounds (or burns), as long as it's reliably loud enough to speak to car drivers for a few seconds at a time in a language they understand I'll be happy Slavvy posted:Hopefully they sound like a French ambulance That would rule. I looked into arooga klaxons but all good quality antiques cost megabux (most are 6v too) and the cheap plastic retro stuff seems lovely, also an obsolete inferior way to build a horn. But it would be funny. With the disappointing stepdown current available the point is moot anyways.
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May 17, 2023 12:19
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I just went on a bus ride and picked up the sv sitting on new angel GT tires. First impressions are very favorable. There was no pushing and very mild leaning and they never reached temperature but the bike obviously turns in better, balances better and just the fact that these new tires don't telegraph every single thing in the road surface is worth a lot for the overall experience too. It's like the bike is finally riding the way it's supposed to, which is what I wanted.
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May 21, 2023 21:38
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I put my bike on the new pit stand for some chain lubing and promptly sliced my palm open on a sharp cornered metallic surfaced foam sticker some idiot put on said stand. Lots of blood, hard place to tape up. This made me mad.
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Jun 17, 2023 06:57
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Today I worked on building more parking space for my ride(s) And yes that's a block of concrete sitting in the box bike. I wanted to buy three but they were real heavy and two was all I dared carry. Now imma ride the moto back there for the third time in two days for some more bracketry. I suck at thinking ahead. Also it turns out building several vertical meters of stairs is much more complicated than level decking. Stairs will have some kind of gutter for bike wheels along one edge, probably not suitable for motorcycles though.
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Jul 11, 2023 14:50
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First I was surprised by a really intense rain shower, rode through more standing water than ever before, laughing like a maniac while my bottom half got soaked through - I was wearing mismatched gear with the warmer rainproof jacket and the mesh pants. Bike took it without issues though. Later I rode past bro's garage for some emergency metal work and figured I might as well adjust the chain tension a smidge since he's got torque wrenches and 27mm spanners/sockets, which I don't. I was being sloppy when moving the bike around around, it came off the side stand and fell on my thigh muscle somehow so now I have a bruise there just above the knee (caught the bike by pure luck though). No biggie injury wise but it could easily have ended a lot worse both for me and the bike. Finally I hit a jarring pothole when heading home via the grocery store that I didn't even see. It was in a busy parking lot exit so I was looking around me instead of ahead, thankfully I was going real slow so nothing was damaged. All in all a pretty bad riding day.
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Jul 18, 2023 07:38
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Ordered some new oil filters since I just realized I've ridden more than the service interval (6000km) since late April when I last changed it. Good for me I guess.
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Aug 7, 2023 08:20
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I replaced the Oxford Evo heated grip that failed sometime mid July at an inopportune moment. The vendor I bought it from sent me a replacement grip with no hassle so that's well and good, but I'm a bit wary about this newfangled fancy thermistor control. Bro also had a grip fail recently, same model, likely the same fault. If this happens again I'll probably downgrade to a simpler model - I'd rather have dumb hot grips that need the heat setting adjusted often but can be relied upon to work.
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Aug 31, 2023 16:09
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All I've done lately is look longingly at the bike sitting dormant in the shed while it's properly cold and almost a foot of snow outside. I should probably pour that fuel stabilizer I bought for the purpose into the tank and slosh it around a bit and also bring the battery inside and give it a charge I guess. Around this time last year I was still riding but this winter has been very different so far.
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Dec 5, 2023 10:06
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I rode my bike yesterday! It's been cold, snowy and icy for over a month but its been thawing lately and yesterday there was a very marginal weather window on a day off work to ride it to its intended winter hibernation place at bro who has way more space than I do. I had scouted the road well and it went all right but the first and last few hundred meters on small residential streets were sketchy. There was some ice and slush and enormous amounts of road salt. Then I washed it real good, now its sitting inside drying. Fuel stabilizer in the tank, battery ready to come out once its moved to the shipping container where it will sleep under a blanket for a hundred days or so. I have to get the mandatory inspection done before April 1st if I want the bike to remain road regal so that kind of sucks but it is what it is, I have no reason to believe that it won't pass as it sits now.
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Dec 18, 2023 06:28
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Ain't that the truth. It's getting to be the time of year when I'm jonesing for a good long ride pretty severely. The ice is melting right now and should be gone soon if this weather holds and I saw a brave soul on a Kawasaki yesterday but the salt spray just isn't any fun (also unsafe visibility-wise) so I'm waiting for dry asphalt this year I think. It could be a while, or it could be saturday.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:15
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I took a bus ride and brought the sv650 home from remote winter storage. Tire air was a bit low, chain was a little slack, battery was a bit undercharged but I got those things sorted, plopped the battery in and rode in lovely drizzling mist, though zero precipitation was forecast. Oh well. My previously squeaky clean bike is now dirty but at least it wasn't salty and the bike is home and ready for some nicer weather. I have to get it inspected before April 1st or it will stop being road legal for anything other than a ride to the inspection place but that shouldn't be a problem as long as the weather serves and they actually offer moto inspections, which are currently unavailable for booking this month 
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Mar 1, 2024 17:18
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Yes, I should wash the bike. I know better than I care to what salt does to my winter commuter e-bike. Nothing that slides or spins lasts long, and I even have some (aluminium) frame rot going on. The rural roads are pretty nice already since it rained a bunch the last couple of weeks but the urban roads are full of gravel and grime, and the grime stays salty. Really nice local asphalt won't be around until after the first big rain after the second street sweeping so probably sometime in April. Until then it will be a ride-and-rinse sort of life.
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Mar 2, 2024 10:33
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Weather today and tomorrow looks fine and asphalt looks dry but nights are still cold. I'm off to work and I want to ride my motorcycle but it's like -3c right now so I think I'll stick to ebikes on studded tires for a while yet. Sadly this weekend when I have time to ride at midday it's supposed to be overcast and cold. Riding in early march is a rare treat indeed.
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Mar 6, 2024 06:26
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I learned on last year's Norway trip that my boots aren't waterproof anymore (if they ever were) - I've never ridden in so much rain for so long before, or had wet feet for so long. New boots before this year's trip, also hoping for better weather but not banking on it. For the purpose of drying boots i finally installed one of those machines that force warm air through hoses at home and it's great, but it's not coming to Norway and drying boots when camping is difficult and tedious, also demoralising when they get soaked through again the next morning. Hoping this summer will involve riding glorious twisties without wet socks flapping in the wind all over the rear of the bike, one way or another.
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Mar 7, 2024 06:31
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Yeah, that seems sketchy. It would provide both heat and air circulation which are both good things but I'm doubtful a candle would stay lit down there. Maybe worth testing on a sacrificial boot sometime, possibly experimenting with some kind of candle holder/chimney for safety. Other options I've seen recommended are hot water in bottles, or warm rocks from the fire. There are also at least three different principles of pocket heaters one could try. The supersaturated salt solution forming chrystals ones are probably useless, but the iron oxidizing ones or the something-burning-inside-a-metal-case ones could possibly work maybe. E: I'll probably stick with the tried and true method of soaking up the worst with successive loads of scrunched up newspaper (although it's getting harder to find in this digital age) and driving out the last moisture with body heat the next day. Invalido fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Mar 7, 2024 |
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Mar 7, 2024 09:51
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I looked over my sv650 ahead of a mandatory inspection that needs to happen real soon - the bike stops being road legal on the first of april which is also the first day when the inspection places start doing motorcycles (they want reliably ice free ground for the short test ride that's part of it). Lights all work and the chain slack and tire pressures are within spec, so that's good. While I was at it I also greased the squeaky kickstand and som other stuff, flushed the brake fluid and replaced the engine oil and filter. Last time I released the oil I had all kinds of silvery looking sparkles in the drain pan, but I was 97% sure that was because the pan had a dollop of anti-seize in it. Those remaining 3% of doubt has been nagging me just a little. This time everything looked fine with a reasonable amount of metal sludge on the plug magnet so that was a relief. A pretty small relief perhaps but I'll take it.
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Mar 27, 2024 20:17
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Slavvy posted:A few small steel shavings are usually just gearbox debris and not worth worrying about Yeah. The contaminated drain pan last time around was real dirty. Likely both the aluminium and copper variety of anti-seize in it, so I saw streaks of what looked like what I image powered pistons and lots of bearing material would look like swirling around. I bought this 2020 model year bike with just 6 megameters on the clock and I doubt anyone has touched the brakes since factory until I did so yesterday. I found a small amount of air in the rear caliper which I thought a bit weird. The pedal feels real stiff and nice now so I'm happy about that. Also like usual shifting feels great when the oil is super fresh, and spring has sprung in earnest. Life is good 
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Mar 28, 2024 06:55
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I got my SV650 inspected this morning so now it's road legal again. Nice enough dude who did it, really liked to talk about motorcycles. Technically I failed due to my low beam shining too low. The dude got a screwdriver to adjust, but the screw was pretty tight and all he had was Phillips drivers so we agreed I would do it myself with a JIS driver to avoid damaging anything. No need for a re-inspection for the light though (everything else was OK) so I'm good to ride for 25 months without this particular regulatory hurdle.
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Apr 8, 2024 08:01
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I haven't done poo poo today other than provisional planning and a bit of research but I've got several hours of garage time scheduled tomorrow when I will finally get to commune for real with the new-to-me DRZ400. The plan is to revert the ride height and a few other things back to stock and look over anything that might cause it to fail its roadworthiness inspection. I'll have to figure out a way of getting it off the ground though, I haven't bought any gadget for this yet. There's always a hard point in the ceiling and a chain hoist or the two post car lift so its coming up one way or another if I cant bodily muscle it up on some kind of stool-shaped object yet to be determined or possibly built. Exiting times ahead!
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Apr 13, 2024 19:11
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Fun time in with the new/old DRZ in the garage today! I'm on lunch/coffee/posting break. I've learned the hard way not to wrench hungry/tired, in a hurry or needing a piss. That's when bad things happen in my brain that causes bad things to happen to vehicles or whatever. Block and tackle got the bike onto some kind of step stool. I needed the bike off the ground to get at the suspension links. I needed the tank gone to get at a good lift point, but it wasn't a complete loss:  Signs of a coolant leak. I haven't looked into it yet but hopefully it's just a loose hose clamp or something simple. I got the links sorted without drama and also put on the stock footpegs, then decided to look into what's up with the kickstand so the bike will hopefully lean nicely when back on the ground.  Yup, that's some quality P.O. fuckery right there! Thankfully the piece that was zawsalled out was in the box-o-parts so I'll do some forensic welding after lunch. I'm confident I can fix it good enough for whom it's for, and if the worst should happen and the kickstand repair fails catastrophically it's not the end of the world, it's a 20 year old DRZ after all. I haven't found anything catastrophic with the bike yet so I'm pressing on. Oil was a bit low, tire pressures way high, some screws not stock, some a bit loose and some plastic panel fasteners are missing outright. Maybe they're in the box-o-parts too, I'll have to look into that.  Yeah, that will weld up fine I think. Invalido fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Apr 14, 2024 |
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Apr 14, 2024 13:07
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 Good enough after a splash of paint. I had a productive second stint: -Fixed the chain slack (too tight). -Flushed the brakes. Rear reservoir was empty, both fluids extremely dark. Like used motor oil dark. -The coolant leak is probably fixed. The hose clamp wasn't very tight, but I think the root cause might have been that the radiator bolts weren't tight so the whole things was sort of flopping around. -glued up a cracked rear blinker housing passably and did a neater duct tape job than was there before. Taped the other side too because both housings were full of dust/dried mud. Also symmetry. -adjusted brake pedal and shifter downward to what I think is stock. They should probably come down ever further but they're at least closer to right. -lubed and adjusted clutch cable. It should probably be replaced. -emtied the tank, fuel was green and had some floating gunk in it. Sloshed fresh fuel around until it came out clean. Filled up from a jerry can. There's no filter between petcock and carb, I wonder if that's bad. -verified that the speedo works. -re-checked all lights, reflector, horn and those kind of things that might cause it to fail inspection. The Steering damper isn't coming off right now since the whole steering head watchammacallit needs to come off for that and I ran out of time/energy. I couldn't mount the second mirror since the thread don't fit and the adapter that is present on the left side is nowhere to be found. The mirrors are the local Harbor Freight equivalent cheapo parts, but these are no longer sold. Bro who just got back home after travelling is probably gonna fabricate some kind of adapter (unless there's something available at a local store) since we're both impatient to get this thing inspected and hopefully found road worthy.
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Apr 14, 2024 19:14
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Chris Knight posted:Got it from storage Blessed day! May your battery be charged and your fuel stable. I'm jealous of your and Steve's gangtag. Suzukis are all I ever ride, purely by happenstance. Bro is taking the DRZ for inspection tomorrow, it's taxed and insured and all is ready with two mirrors and everything. Hope it goes well, the only think I know about which might possibly be an issue is exhaust noise, but I think almost everything is loud compared to my stock muffler SV. But it's usually the things you don't know about that will usually get you. In the meantime I'm looking longingly for interesting gravel roads on google maps. There's next to nothing where I live but lots and lots where I will spend a large part of my summer break from work. I've been fiddling with shifter and brake position on the SV brought about by getting new boots. It took a few tries to get it just right but now I'm happy with the ergos again I think.
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Apr 17, 2024 05:22
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I adjusted the headlight angle on the SV. Inspector dude was wrong, it wasn't the JIS screw on the bezel (which is for side to side) but rather the 10mm bolt under the can - I learned this from watching possibly the world's worst youtube video but it was good enough for the purpose. I rarely ride at night so it might be a while until I get to see what the light pattern actually looks like IRL but according to the note I took last monday and the tape on the wall I used it should be in the ballpark.
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Apr 18, 2024 07:58
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DRZ just passed inspection without any issues whatsoever and is officially street legal until May of 2026. Hooray!
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Apr 18, 2024 14:11
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no it's a periodic thing for any motor vehicle over 50cc. Always safety, sometimes emissions, sometimes OBD codes depending on vehicle. How often also depends, my car is old enough that it needs to come in every 13 months but motorcycles are every 24, unless brand new when it's twice that for the first inspection (which is what my SV "passed" last week) - it's every 24 henceforth. Once they get old enough motorcycles are exempt.
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Apr 18, 2024 14:23
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Yeah inspections are annoying and cost time and money but I view them as a net good. They force me to look over my car at least once a year even though I don't really want to because I don't like cars or working on them very much. I'm fairly mechanically literate and at least somewhat sensitive to things being wrong with vehicles compared to most people I know, but I've still failed for stuff going bad I didn't know about but needed to know about, like ball joints, tie rod ends, asymmetric braking and once a rear seat belt that was completely chewed through by a mouse tunnelling for sound deadening foam.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:14
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I may be misinformed but I think bikes in Sweden used to be every year but they lengthened the interval, for the similar reasons. The average bike leads a very different life from the average car. Very few miles ridden, no road salt corrosion, rarely ridden at night when lights are important for real, fewer things that can go wrong and more obvious when they do. Less incentive to use a vehicle that's obviously broken too since most bikes are toys more than transportation. One of the things I had to learn (and carry out in part under scrutiny) before getting licenced to drive or ride was how to do a safety inspection of the vehicle. If done by the book it would check pretty much the same boxes as they do at the vehicle inspection when looking at a motorcycle. But ain't nobody got time for that. Still a good thing to know how to do If riding something for the first time(/in a long time) guess. I sure checked the bearings, shocks and brakes to the best of my abilities before test riding or buying that DRZ, for example. Which I'm gonna ride today for the first time for real even though it's bitterly cold because I'm a child at heart and motorcycles are super fun.
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Apr 19, 2024 05:19
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Fwiw my sv filter got blasted by road debris, paint failed, there was some rust. I plan on doing absolutely nothing about this other than regular oil changes. Cheap digital watch on the bar is brilliant. Both my motos have clocks (don't know how to set it on the DRZ yet though, that UI is a bit weird) but on my e-bikes one has no clock and the other has a clock on the display that's so inaccurate I have to set it once a week or its useless. Also I have two casios in a drawer (one with a failed strap and a new watch was about the same price as a replacement strap) with years of battery life presumably left that I never ever wear.
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Apr 21, 2024 09:54
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Bro and I removed the steering damper and associated bracketry from the DRZ. We learned in the process there are bar risers installed. The original bits were in the box of parts but can't be used since the Renthal brand bar that sits on the bike appears too fat in the mid section. Also looked into the heated grips, which appear to work like they should - I had removed the fuse until I had time to check them out. They don't have any intelligence to switch off unless the alternator is charging like the Oxford ones i'm familiar with, and they only have off, low and high settings. Anyways they were wired to switched power and everything was neat enough to leave as is so I'll run them and see how they do in real life. Hopefully better than nothing which is probably good enough for this bike. Also I set the clock to the second because I could. Thanks for the walkthrough on that procedure.
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Apr 23, 2024 18:12
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I woke up half an hour before the alarm today because I'm dumb like that and used the time to take a meandering DRZ ride to work. I think I just fell in love with this bike. Yeah it sucks at puttering around in traffic on asphalt, but the thing just begs to be hooned and riding it as much like an rear end in a top hat as I dare at this early stage makes it it obvious that it's a very fun bike. I've messed with pedal ergonomics several times and now I'm happy with them. It's obvious the bar is higher than it needs to be but I'm not sure it's enough of a problem that I need to spend money on a stock-like bar to remedy it immediately. I want to try this bike's originally intended ergos at some point though. Heated grips work but they're pretty weak on a chilly +3C morning. There's some hand guards in the parts box that I haven't looked at much less mounted but all the other stuff that came with the bike seems to be quality name brand parts so hopefully these are too. I'll give them a try for wind deflection until summer weather maybe.
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Apr 24, 2024 08:37
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knox_harrington posted:The bike is looking pretty good imo.
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May 1, 2024 16:08
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I adjusted almost all of the slack out of the clutch cable on my sv. It shifts noticeably smoother now and I feel like an bonehead for not doing this sooner. A happy bonehead though.
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May 3, 2024 08:17
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I made sure, it made no appreciable difference with everything warmed up. Thanks for the heads up though! Today was mesh gear premiere for the season. Felt real good. The only bike work I did was scraping off a bit of the adhesive foam stuck all over the sides of the large plastic aftermarket DRZ tank, then I got interrupted and never finished that job. I did notice that all the threads in the tank are metal inserts, so that's good I guess. Someone in the question thread raised the possibility that the screws might go straight into plastic and wear down the threads over time but that doesn't seem to be anything to worry about at least. 
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May 4, 2024 15:55
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I spent some time removing a very stuck adhesive foam substance from the plastic Clarke DRZ tank I got included in the bike purchase with a plastic scraper and solvents. Then I mounted a new chinesium petcock - this took some fettling with a file to get the holes to line up right and some RTV on the non-reserve riser tube to give me any confidence it will stay in place, but now it's in there and it holds water at least. Realistically 14.5 liters or so (obviously I won't ever fill it right up to the brim which is more like 15.3) with a reserve of 1.2 liters and 0.7 that won't come out because of geometry in a static test at least. I presume more will flow out when in motion but the very last drops will probably stay put in the recesses of the starboard side of the tank unless I lay the bike on its side or do mad wheelies or something. Hopefully it never comes to that but it's good to know there's the reserve and the reserve I suppose. I hope to put the tank on the bike tomorrow or friday and see if it I like it better than stock. There might be snags, we'll see.
Invalido fucked around with this message at 19:33 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 19:17
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 Tank fits. Just barely, but it fits. It's ugly but I don't care, how it functions will decide wether it stays or not. Now the choke is even more fiddly to pull out and the current very temporary fuel line routing sucks but it seems good enough for a test ride, probably tomorrow. A nice bonus is that I now have a very obvious visual fuel gauge (at least operable when off the bike). I also found I have lost a saddle bolt, found an ugly but serviceable replacement in the stash. I've found a bunch of loose bolts on this bike, is it a thumper vibration things or just bad wrenching or a bit of both?
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May 9, 2024 17:41
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I oiled the chain and checked tire pressure for the first time in a while. It was way high, almost 3 bar in the rear rather than 2.5 which is spec. I pumped tires last before spring sprung and it was cold. 20+metric degrees more of ambient plus some sunshine ought to make a difference but I didn't think it would be quite so dramatic.
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May 14, 2024 10:32
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