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Gearhead

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Everything posted by Gearhead

  1. Gearhead
    Dad and I have been doing our tires ourselves for years with irons, on an old car wheel mounted to a bench (sized so that it supports the mag spokes). Works, but a major pain, and prone to dinging up the rim. We decided a couple years ago to improve the process, and we bought a HF tire changer and MC attachment. Since then HF has discontinued one or both of these products. But really, all you need is a way to hold the tire down. Anyway, the stand allowed us to walk around the tire while working it (no bench in the way), but using the irons still sucks. We'd been eyeing the No Mar bar for a couple years but it's spendy. After one final fight with the irons, we succumbed to the fancy bar. Well, almost. We did a websearch and found that there are a couple competitors to No Mar in the biz now. The thing about an MC tire bar is it has to have plastic surfaces to contact the wheel or you'll gouge it. I suppose that applies to alum car rims as well. Enter the No Scuff Tire Tool, http://www.no-scufftiretool.com/. Same principle, slightly different design, $87 shipped. I'd tell you about it, but you can learn all you need to know on the web site. Watch the vids. I can tell you, it made the MC tire change job MONUMENTALLY easier. I'm not as fast as the vids, after doing only 4 tires, once everything is lubed and ready to go, I can get a tire off in a couple minutes and another on in less than 5 minutes. The irons were a wrestling match. The bar is much easier. The vids on this site show the seller, Dave, doing the job on a car-wheel-type holder like I used to use, mounted on a picnic table. All you need to do is hold it down securely and have a center post to lever around. I've now changed both 87 VR tires, Virago front, and Dad's Voyager rear. Highly recommend the no-scuff tire tool! Jeremy
  2. Gearhead
    Well, Mike, this is one of the weirder problems I've heard...
  3. Gearhead
    The only other thing I can think of is kind of a long shot. Have you cleaned up all the electrical connections on the bike? I've found that many of the major connections get a little corroded in the connector or even where the wire crimps in. I've enhanced my grounds, some of the hot feeds and many of the connectors. On the major ones I've added additional grounds, resoldered some of the wires in, that kind of thing. On smaller connectors I unplug and plug, scraping the terminals, and putting back together with vaseline on them. It's helped certain things. If you're getting a weak voltage to the ignition system, maybe it's super-dependent on having great plugs. Does this issue affect any other aspect of running besides starting? Is your battery good? Jeremy
  4. Gearhead
    Mike, I don't really know, but it's not normal in my experience. I have the NGK's in the Venture and I run many thousands of miles on a set. In fact, I've put 50k on my 87 VR (bought with 45k, now have 95k) and I think I've only replaced them once. And when I did, it ran the same. I've put almost 100k on my 87 Virago. Ran NGK's sometimes, Champions sometimes. Never made a difference to running, starting, or MPG, and I track MPG for every tank. The only thing that consistently affects that is the attitude of my right wrist... So when you pull them, they look good, right? Tan, still sharp edges on the electrodes? Yet there's a dramatic change in the starting. Weird. Does it affect other aspects of the way the engine runs - smoothness, power, MPG? The only thing I'd change, as someone suggested, is run the gap at .030-.032. If I'm not mistaken, the spec is .028-.032. Jeremy
  5. Gearhead
    I was thinking the RSTD doesn't have the power that the RSV has.
  6. Gearhead
    Hey Bob, I bet you do have this going on. Does your pedal seem low, and does pumping help? That's been the case with mine and I thought I could never get it bled right. But now I'm thinking that with the rear AND the left front grooved such that the pads were hanging up on one end, that was causing the need to pump the brake. Theory: when your pads were new, they were nice and thick and lined up with the caliper grooves so it wasn't a problem. When they started to wear, the grooves started holding them off the rotor. Jeremy
  7. Gearhead
    Yup, piece of cake.
  8. Gearhead
    Hey Earl, I thought I'd bring this back to the forum so others can benefit. I checked the caliper out and sure enough, the pin holes are egged. Not as severely as I thought they might be, though. It doesn't take much. The pins are also worn from .185" in the "non-wear" areas down to .180". I checked my fronts and actually they have a bit of the problem, though not as severe. You said in a PM that the left front caliper has smaller pistons than the right front - is this to give the right front greater stopping power with the hand brake alone? So the FJR caliper is a bolt-on solution and can be used with the linked brake system? Finally, because I have 3 calipers in some stage of this condition, I am thinking more about drilling out the pin holes and installing bronze bushings. I can get bushings that are 3/16 ID (just right for the pins) x 1/4 OD, drill out the holes on a drill press, light press the bushings in and stake them in place on both ends. I'm going to check in to new pins also. Jeremy
  9. Gearhead
    So it broke the dogs off the gear. Weird. Wow, you're fast! Jeremy
  10. Gearhead
    87 VR, lots of miles. I figured I'd post this in General Tech because I bet the calipers are about the same. I had noticed that my rear pads were worn thin at the aft end, but much thicker at the forward end. It had me wondering if the forward pistons were seized, but they are not. Then I noticed significant grooves, maybe 1/32" deep, in the forward surface of the brake-pad-cavity in the caliper. The braking forces shove the pads forward against these surfaces whenever the rear brakes are used, and the backing plates have worn these grooves. They then get caught in the grooves, not allowing the pads to clamp any closer to the rotors at the forward edge, causing the wedge-shaped wear on the pads. Make sense? Anybody else seen this? I thought about filing the surrounding material down to make it smooth again, but then the cavity will be bigger than it's supposed to be and the pads might not contact that surface like they are supposed to. But I don't know that I have any choice, short of replacing the caliper. Ideas? Thanks, Jeremy
  11. Gearhead
    Well then, who needs fifth?? Not your clutch, no way that is causing the 5th gear problem. Could be a bent shift fork, which are the arms that move the gearsets back and forth along the shaft. When you shift a tranny, you don't actually change gears that are engaged per se. All the gears are always engaged (in terms of the gear teeth turning another gear), but only one set is locked to the shaft at a time while the rest are spinning freely on bushings. There are 3 or four "dogs" or protrusions off the face of some of the gears which engage with a set of corresponding slots in an adjacent gear. This happens when the gears are slid along the shaft to be right next to each other. They are disengaged when they are slid apart. The shift fork is the piece that does the sliding, which is controlled by the shift drum which is rotated as you shift through the gears. When a shift fork is bent it may not move the gears close enough for the dogs to engage; they may clink against each other like yours are and not produce much in the way of metal shavings. One other thing that is curious is that the back-most gear in your video does appear to wobble around, as you mentioned. It should not do that, whether or not the dogs are engaging. You are in for splitting the cases, methinks. Sorry to bear bad news Jeremy
  12. Gearhead
    Hey y'all, I haven't been around in a while. Glad to see things are still hoppin' here! My 87 has always been like this with the brake pedal. Works OK, but not great, and a couple pumps on the pedal every time really help. Braking overall using the foot and the hand is pretty good. I've put enough miles on it now to observe that I'm wearing out the rear pads and the front RH pads (hand brake), but not the LH front pads. So, I'm assuming the air hanging out in the foot brake is in the front line, causing that caliper to develop very little force. You guys mention that they are sometimes a real bear to bleed, and that a vac pump or speed bleeders can help (I have a Mity Vac), but you also say you've been frustrated by it all the same! Is there any trick or process, that can improve on how we bleed these things? Also, do y'all have a trick for keeping the rear MC reservoir full? I really don't like the solid metal tank with the little fill hole. Jeremy
  13. Gearhead
    I'm betting one of the beads didn't fully seat the first time around. Jeremy
  14. Gearhead
    Hehehehe....me too! Jeremy
  15. Gearhead
    In the approximate words of an old college professor: "When I was a kid my brother and I used to play with mercury and nothin' happened to me, nothin' happend to me..." Jeremy
  16. Gearhead
    Remember that mains meter heavy throttle, hi rpm, while the needles meter most of the mid-range. So the max HP will depend on the mains, while MPG is tied much more to the needles. Jeremy
  17. Gearhead
    People say a lot of things I'm no different; these are just my thoughts and ramblings. I've also heard that EFI doesn't give more power than a well set-up carb, but it does give just the right mixture for all occasions which increases MPG, decreases emissions, makes the engine run optimally at any altitude, barometric pressure or temperature, meaning you do get better power when conditions stray from those under which you set up your carb. And if you look at the evolution of automotive EFI, TB injection was ousted in favor of port injection, I assume because it is more precise. Also, wet-flow manifolds (as in carb or TB injection) sometimes suffer from the problem of fuel dropping out of the airflow and puddling, whereas dry-flow manifolds (port injection) don't have this issue. Back to carbs, there are examples of race engines with individual carbs and others with central carbs. The more exotic stuff tends to always be individual carbs, I think (other than NASCAR). Manifolds tend to have preferential flow to one cylinder or another unless REALLY carefully designed and tested. I think the Japanese MC industry has just always been in the mindset of using a carb per cylinder, which tends to be consistent with an exotic hi-performance image. Way back, they used to make only singles, with one carb obviously. Then as they started adding cylinders, they added carbs, partly 'cause it's what they are used to doing. They use small, sensitive CV carbs that are designed to work with the pulsing, low-flow characteristic of a single-cylinder, so I'm not sure it's a valid assumption that it will work better if you "smooth out" the flow with multiple cylinders pulling from one carb. Another thing to remember is air demand is really low 'cause it's only 1300cc, even being hi-perf compared to a car. Using the formulas somebody already posted, and assuming the race engine (which really isn't the case), the air demand of our engines is less than 200 CFM. A Q-jet would probably never get into the secondaries. I'd think a 250 CFM or so 2-barrel would be more appropriate. Now if you could do it and make it work well, get most of the stock performance, and only have one simple automotive carb to set up, I agree that just might be worth it for the sake of ease of maintenance (as the original poster was thinking). But I don't think you can build a sound performance argument. Just my 2 cents Jeremy
  18. Gearhead
    I have one coming, thanks guys. Jeremy
  19. Gearhead
    I agree with Condor, doubt it's the fork pressure. Generally raising the front of a bike makes it more stable, while lowering makes it turn quicker. Jeremy
  20. Gearhead
    I did the slipping clutches in my Venture and Virago, each around 50k miles, with the same results: the old friction discs showed absolutely no wear at all. Neither did anything else - steels, springs - all were right in spec, toward the safe end of the spec. In both cases I just installed new stock (Yamaha or EBC) friction discs and haven't had any slip since. That's 30k miles ago on the Venture and 80k ago on the Virago. I can't explain it, but it's true. Jeremy
  21. Gearhead
    I have an 87 VR. The front brake light switch is broken (plunger stuck in), which means my cruise won't work either. The switch is one assembly with the harness that goes behind the headlight. Do any of you parts-bike-dudes have a spare assembly you'd sell me? Thanks, Jeremy
  22. Gearhead
    I'm coming in kinda late here, but it seems to me that if you've found burnt wires and/or connectors, you've probably found your problem. If there's resistance between the wire and the connector at the crimp, you might get full voltage with no load. But as soon as you start passing current (charging) through, voltage will drop, temperature will rise, things will burn and melt. Here's an option that totally eliminates that variable - cut the connector out and solder the wires up direct. You could simply twist and tape them together for a test. Check for a bad battery ground like this: put one lead of VOM on neg terminal, the other lead on the engine or frame, with the engine running (load on the system). You should read very little voltage drop, I'd say less than .2V. You can always run an auxiliary ground wire from the batt to any part of the frame or engine if there's any doubt. You certainly could have a bad RR unit, but given what I've read my money is on a connection. Jeremy
  23. Gearhead
    I just installed one of these DEKA batteries this morning. I have to say, the wet-cell Yuasa that was in there outlasted any MC batt I've had before. Usually here in the desert they are good for 3 years or so. I bought my Venture about 4 years ago, and the PO is a friend who had it 6 months, and neither of us installed this battery. But all good things come to an end, and though it never outright failed on me, it was getting really tired. Some mornings recently I had to pull the hood and put the charger on it 'cause it was too sluggish to start and needed just a bit of extra OOMPH. I was lucky and this never happened at work at the end of the day (no batt charger here!) I ordered this Deka battery, received it lickity-split (4 days or so), fully charged. The bike cranks like a mad dog now - very nice. Now it has to stand the test of time. And I need to wire in that 2.2k resistor. Jeremy
  24. Gearhead
    Thanks, Mike. I haven't been around in a while, but need a batt for my 87. Did a little search for what's recommended now, and your post was very well-timed for me! I just ordered one. Jeremy
  25. Gearhead
    That is my impression. I've read it in engine-tuning books. Plug reading was always an art, and nowadays it's lost some validity. Jeremy
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