Motorcycles

The other morning I started up the FJ1200 to ride to work. As it sat idling while I suited up, I noticed a spreading puddle of gasoline underneath it.

Damn it. I know what that is. When I rebuilt the carburettors last year, the one wear part I didn't replace was the inlet needle valves and seats. They looked pretty worn, but I didn't want to spend the money. And it ran fine all fall.

So I shut it off and drove the hack in to work instead.

I found a guy in New Zealand selling some needles and seats on eBay for a reasonable price, and I bought a set. They arrived a couple of days ago and tonight I decided to put them in.

I've taken the carbs off enough times now that it's not a huge deal and it goes pretty quick. I had the new parts in and the bike back together in about two hours. I also learned a new assembly trick for putting the crabs (sic) back on - if you mount them to the air box first, and then mount them to the cylinder head, it's a lot easier.

I cranked the bike over a few times to prime the carbs and then let it start. It was idling nicely, then it started to run rough and then I noticed a puddle of gasoline spreading underneath it again.


Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot?

So, since it was almost 9:00 in the evening, and I know all about gumption traps, I shut off the bike, put away my tools and went inside to write this blog entry.

Robert Pirsig coined the term Gumption Trap in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

The book isn't really about Zen, and it's not really about Motorcycle Maintenance, but it does talk about some interesting things, and it is about a motorcycle trip to Montana - a trip I've made a few times. So I enjoy reading it.

A Gumption Trap is when you are working on something and something goes wrong. It takes the wind out of your sails and then you get frustrated and start to make mistakes. This turns into a downward spiral and things just get worse and worse.

It took me a long time to learn when I should just stop working on something instead of forging on and getting more and more frustrated until something major breaks.

But I did learn it.

But I still have to figure out why the bike is leaking gas.

And I noticed the fork seals are leaking pretty badly. Sigh.

A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away... no, wait.) Mark and I were discussing changing the carburettors on the 82 BMW R100RS to Fuel Injection.

The major stumbling block at the time was the EFI controller. There just wasn't really anything available.

HackADay just put up an article about putting EFI on your motorcycle. And there is an open source EFI controller out there called the MegaSquirt!

On the forum page of success stories there is a conversion of an R50 with R100 cylinders that uses the MegaSquirt and a pair of R1150 throttle bodies.

Just what I need, a new project.

So, sell the K bike, fix up the R bike and convert it to EFI? That could be fun. Not cheap, but fun. I bet Mark would like to help out.

Eddie finally dropped off the freshly painted parts for the K1100RS on Saturday and man do they look nice.

Now my only concern is that once I get all this pretty plastic on the K1100RS I won't want to sell it anymore...

Grr.

On Saturday I synced up the carbs on the FJ. They were not far out of adjustment, just a little tweak.

Then I noticed that the fuel filter was leaking. Must have cracked it putting on and taking off the fuel line so many times. It looked pretty old anyway.

I headed over to Midwest Cycle to pickup Liz' new tire and while I was there I bought a new fuel filter.

Did I bring the old one along? Of course not.

What size is the fitting? Hmm. Well, the fuel line I bought was 1/4", so I bought a fuel filter with 1/4" fittings.

I didn't put the filter on on Saturday, other things grabbed my attention. So imagine my surprise on Sunday when I discovered that the filter needed 5/16" fittings on it. On one side anyway.

This confuses me. The fitting on the petcock is 5/16". The fitting on the fuel pump is 1/4" So does the stock FJ filter have a 5/16" inlet and at 1/4" outlet? I suppose it's possible.

In any case, I was fooked. Midwest is closed on Sunday.

So yesterday I stopped in at Midwest and exchanged the filter for one with 5/16" fittings. You can push a 1/4" hose onto a 5/16" fitting, so that worked out.

On Saturday I also changed the oil and filter on the FJ.

Man, who figures out where the damned filter goes? Morons? I thought the K bike location was stupid.

The filter on the FJ is located on the side of the motor right in front of the sprocket and over the kickstand, the kickstand switch and the exhaust pipe collector under the bike. Sure, there's a drain bolt at the bottom of the housing, but does all the oil drain out of it? Of course not.

Even with my McGyver'd piece of cardboard to deflect the oil I managed to make agood sized puddle on the floor and get oil all over the exhaust. Damn it.

I put in the new filter and put in three quarts of oil. (The engine case says it holds 3000l.) The sight glass is a nice dirty brown, so it's hard to see the oil level. I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked full up to the top.

This morning I started up the bike. Man it's idling fast, wtf? Hmm. Maybe it will settle down when it warms up.

I head down the alley. About half way down the Oil Level light comes on! Hit the kill switch. Look at the sight glass. I can't tell if it's full or empty.

So I push the bike back to the garage (in my 'stich - hot!) and get some oil. I pour some it. Oh, look, there it is at the very bottom of the site glass. So I add more. And more. It took a whole nother quart to fill it. Hrm. That's annoying. And the sight glass is almost exactly the same color as fresh oil.

I climb back on and head to work. As I reach the first stop sign and pull in the clutch, the engine revs up to 2500 rpm. The choke is off. Damn it, now what? If I snub the engine with the clutch it will pull down to 1200 and stay there. Vacuum leak?

I decide to ride to work anyway. It continues to misbehave all the way in.

So why is it doing this? I sealed the carb mounting boots to the head with RTV. I replaced the carb diaphragms (all four.) The choke is fully releasing. The carb mounting boots don't appear to be cracked.

There is a chance that the vacuum spigot covers are cracked and leaking, I'll look at that, but does anyone else have any ideas? (Did anyone else read this far?)

On the other hand, I spent about an hour yesterday cleaning the wheels. Who knew they were painted a nice silver/blue to match the body paint? They looked black when I got the bike. (Sorry Charles.)

There are two current theories right now:

One: I may not have gotten all the needles into the carb diaphragms correctly - I have my doubts, as it was running better before the sync.

Two: that I messed up the sync - this is more likely as it was running pretty well before I synced it.

I got a "free" 1990 Yamaha FJ 1200 a few weeks ago. It needed a little work, so I have been cleaning and repairing it a bit.

Last night I took it on the final shake-down cruise and today I rode it to work!

Here is the list of what I ended up paying for my "free" FJ 1200:

Description	Cost
Title Transfer Fees and Taxes	$85.00
Givi Tail Bag and Mounting Rack	$255.00
Carburettor Diaphragms and Slides	$220.00
Valve Cover and Bolt Gaskets	$38.00
Float Bowl Gaskets	$19.00
Valve Shims (4)	$18.00
Valve Shim Tool	$40.00
Foamy Engine Brite (4 cans)	$10.00
Misc Electrical Parts	$15.00
Total	$700.00

$700.00. Still, that's a pretty damned good price for a pretty nice motorcycle. And if you remove the Givi bag from the equation (since it wasn't really required to "repair" the bike,) then the cost drops to $450.

And it's a pretty nice ride.

I still need to sync the carbs and change the oil, and it's still not fully clean, but it's almost there.

(Sorry for the huge white space above the table, I'm not sure what's causing that.)

Well with five motorcycles (one with a sidecar on it) the garage is pretty darned full.



Left to right: '90 Yamaha FJ1200, '93 BMW K1100RS, '83 Yamaha Seca 750 with Velourex sidecar.
In the back on the right you can barely make out the '83 Kawasaki GPz305 (it's red) and stuffed in the corner against the wall is the '81 BMW R100RS.

The shell game is this:

1. Fix up the FJ1200 to make it the daily driver and figure out the best way to schlep the laptop on it.
   
2. Swap the bodywork on the K1100RS, fix it up and sell it. (I have another entire set of almost pristine bodywork for it.)
   
3. Use the proceeds from selling the K1100RS to buy new carb slides and diaphragms for the FJ1200 and misc parts for the R100RS to get it running again. The 750 Seca also needs new coils and plug wires I believe.
   
4. Use the remainder of the K bike proceeds for starting the Electric Motorcycle project. I'm not sure if I want to use the FJ for the base, it's pretty fun to drive as an ICE powered bike... But a liter bike is a good base for an EV conversion.

Anyway, that's the plan today.

On Saturday I got a new motorcycle. Yes, another one. This makes five currently.

It's a 1990 Yamaha FJ1200 with 93,000 miles on it. And it was free. Free motorcycles are the best.


My new FJ1200 with my 1998 Dodge Neon R/T behind it.

There is a story about this motorcycle.

About two weeks ago I was at a poker party with some friends. (No I didn't win it in a poker game, but that would have been a good story.)

At one point, Al asked if anyone wanted his FJ1200 for free, as he hasn't been riding it at all since he bought his BMW K1200LT. Of course I stuck my hand up and indicated that I would love to have it. Then I mentioned that I might want to use it for my Electric Motorcycle project.

Then Charles and I made a deal where he would take Al's FJ (which is a 1989, but only has 30,000 miles on it and looks brand new) and I would take Charles' FJ (which has 93,000 miles on it and doesn't look so new) since I was thinking about ripping the motor out anyway.

On Saturday Charles was done transferring his Givi bags and other stuff from his FJ to Al's old bike so I got to take Charles' FJ home.

Charles had even cleaned the carburettors for me. What a guy. Unfortunately, the carbs still need some work, all four of them have holes in the diaphragms. And the diaphragms only come mounted to the slides and cost about $110 each. Ouch. That's going to have to wait for a while.

It also is leaking oil from the valve cover. This is fortunately easier and cheaper to fix. It needs the valve clearances checked so I'm going to get the gaskets and do that right away. That's only about $30.

I have to say the FJ1200 is a pretty nice bike. It's got a hellofa motor. I'm going to like riding this thing around.

Now begins the shell game to get all the bikes fixed up and sorted out. But that's for another post.

I seem to have this wild idea all of a sudden that I need to build an electric motorcycle.

It all started when someone sent a link to the El Ninja electric motorcycle site.



I thought to myself, "hey, I could build one of those."

It seems to be possible to build one that goes about 60MPH and has about a 40 mile range. And the parts are about $1700 (or so) plus locating a donor motorcycle.

They want you to buy their book for $45 at that site. I don't know if I'll do that. And I don't think I'll hang the motor off the side of the swingarm either, having it exposed like that just seems like a bad idea.

I had a plan all worked out where I was going to sell the sidecar to generate enough cash to finish fixing up the R100RS. Then when that was fixed up I could fix up and sell the K1100RS to generate the cash to build the electric motorcycle.

I figure that since all I'm really doing on the K bike these days is commuting anyway, I might as well build an electric commuter. And I can keep the R bike for longer rides.

But when I brought up this plan at dinner the other night, both Liz and Roz (Steph is currently in Quebec) objected to the thought of selling the sidecar.

But Liz thought the electric motorcycle was a cool idea. So I'm not sure what kind of shell game I'm going to end up playing to generate the required cash.

I'll be setting up a section of my main website like the sidecar section to track my progress. (Though it will be slow for a while.)

And yes, I need another project like I need a hole in the head.

No, not Barney.

Those of you keeping score at home know that I have four motorcycles. You should also know that at the end of the year none of them were ridable.

The hack was sidelined with a flat front tire. That got fixed on Thursday.

The R100RS is sidelined while I rebuild some stock carbs to replace the Mikuni's that have never been jetted right and then I need to replace the oil pan gasket.

The GPz305 is sidelined because I didn't get it out last year at all. I'm going to get it out this year because Liz wants to start riding.

The K1100RS was sidelined with an oil leak from parts unknown.

Today I was cleaning the garage and I decided I needed to figure out where the oil leak was coming from. The only sign I had was that there was a puddle under it last fall. So I parked it until I had time to look at it.

Today I dropped the belly pan. No sign of a leak. Sure there are some gaskets that are weeping, but nothing that would leave a puddle.

So I fired it up and rode it around the lakes to get it nice and warmed up. When I got home I pulled into the garage and left it running while I looked for drips.

Nada.

So I put the belly pan back on and I'll just ride it I guess. Where did the oil on the floor come from last fall? It's a mystery.

Last fall the hack was sidelined with a flat front tire. This was doubly annoying because I was hoping that I could ride it a few times in the snow and I couldn't find any reason that it was flat. Coupled with the facts that I don't have a heated garage, and we were doing a remodeling project over the winter, I just didn't get a chance to fix it.

Well last night I decided it was time to really look at the issue, so I yanked the wheel off and plopped it into the laundry tub full of water.

Just look at all the nice little air bubbles streaming to the surface from all along the bead area. And I mean ALL along the bead. It was leaking almost all the way around on one side and at least 30% on the other. Well, well, well.

So last night I taught myself how to remove and replace a tubeless tire.

I had heard that it was difficult and I had heard there were a few tricks to it. I already had a pair of tire irons that I bought a long time ago and used to carry in my toolkit on other bikes, but I had never used them. I have changed quite a few bicycle tires, so I have the basic concept down. But a tubeless tire is a little different.

The first step is to pull the valve out of the valve stem. For which you need a special tool. Luckily I knew that I had a valve cap on one of my bikes that had the tool built in, but where was it? A few minutes of searching turned one up on the R100RS. Excellent.

Then you need to break the bead. For this I laid the tire down on a couple of 2x4s to protect the brake discs and then used a 5 foot long piece of 2x6 to break the bead by jumping on it. That wasn't too hard.

Levering the tire off the rim, now that was a hassle. I knew that the key was to keep the bead on the tire down in the center of the rim while you worked off the other side, but it seemed a lot easier said than done.

Eventually I discovered that if you knelt on the tire to keep it squashed down into the center it was actually pretty easy. So I got one sidewall off.

Then I had to get the other sidewall off to get the tire all the way off the rim. This was another hassle until I figured out that putting the rim on a milk crate was a huge help. But it still took a bit of work and muscle to get the damned thing off.

Finally I got the tire off and proceeded to clean the rim and the bead of the tire with an industrial strength ScotchBrite pad. The rim was pretty dirty, but it cleaned up well.

When I started to put the tire back on I realized that I had missed a step in the removal process. I had forgotten to mark where the valve stem was on the tire, so I had no idea how to line it up so it would still be balanced! D'oh!

Oh well, nothing to do but put it back on anyway. So I did.

The tire is directional (as many front tires are these days) and I was careful to figure out which way to put it on. Using the milk crate to put on the first sidewall made it pretty easy, but it was still a struggle to get it over the rim.

Then I had to lever the other sidewall on again. Setting it on the 2x4s and kneeling on it was the trick here again.

Then I double-checked that the tire was on the right way. And it wasn't! Damn it!

I'll tell you what though, the tire came off and went back on again much faster the second time. I guess practice does make perfect.

Then, of course, the bead didn't want to seat. But I knew what to do about that. I rubbed the beads with soapy water and we were in business.

I put the tire back on the hack, filled it to the right pressure and went to bed.

This morning the tire was still full, so I fired it up (took a bit of cranking, but it started) and rode it to work! Whoo-Hoo! The front tire didn't feel too out of balance, but I should probably track someone down with a balancer and check it. The motor was running pretty strong too.

And now I know how to change a tubeless tire.

Next I should change the oil and filter, and give the rig a bath. It's filthy.