Vickersguy

I'm thinking this is as bad as it gets............. or can get....

My first was a two tone blue '84. Sold it to my brother, who eventually sold it to a retired fire chief. The fire chief was scared of it and parked it behind his barn, outside, no cover, in 2005. It's still behind the barn, twenty years on.

At 40 years on, they're getting rare ! Wasn't me ! Still enjoy mine. Gotta get that 4 brush starter motor, though. The original just won't spin it hard enough anymore.

I'm suprised no one has responded to you. As for the alignment, most folks install these parts about last on the list. As per the illustrations in the manuals, this would be a good place to start. Remember to keep the arms 90 degrees from the direction of thrust. Well, as best you can. The final adjustment will have to do with how your foot engages the shift lever, where your foot is on the foot peg and so forth. I have an "83 myself. Welcome to the fold here.

Comon, I can't be the ONLY guy still riding an original ! Anybody ? LOL.

I thought Made2care and luvmy40 would show up.........

The original models, '83-85 s are now 40+ years old. How many guys are still hitting the asphalt with these antiques ? We can still get batteries, tires and there are plenty of spare parts on e-bay. Well, except for rear master cylinders. They are cheap enough you can buy a whole bike for parts anyway, if you look around. Downside, you have to be able to do your own maintenance. I enjoy my '83 and get to enter it in antique Auto Shows ! Awesome ! How 'bout you ? I know there are a few of us here, How about a roll call ?

Thanks for all you do here, Happy Birthday ! I'm 71, it's not over ! Enjoy !

I wouldn't second guess your judgement on the option of resetting the floats but doing so without a careful examination of your plugs is ill-advised. I had ignition problems on my bike I erroneously attributed to a carb problem. I reset the floats and after having no improvement, found other reasons for my poor engine performance. Now I'm super lean and have to do it all over again. Only modify your float levels after reading the plugs.

Welll, I got the year wrong. Midway thru 85 is correct, not 84. Reread my last post. On a bike with 2500 miles on the clock, there will be no failure. You are wasting your time looking for it. I have 38,000 miles on my 83 and 2nd gear still fine. IF you are looking for a way to talk the guy down, this isn't going to work for you. Explain to him, you need new tires, brake lines, piston caliper seals, carb work and so forth. What is he asking ?

Like I said, the problem was fixed on late '84 bikes. If this one has a high serial # it has the hardened split washer that fixed the failure point. That cut off number is somewhere on the forum.

Well, If you are a normal rider, this will not be a problem, 2nd. gear will not fail you. The transmission will start to pop out of gear between 35,000 and 45,000 miles. If you ride about 2200 miles a year, which is about average, you will be faced with this crisis in about 16 years. If, however, you get real excited and ride more the first two years or so, you can get there faster. You might face the 2nd. gear failure in 10 years. I have 38,000 on the clock and my 2nd is fine. I don't ride much. If it fails, I don't care. One of the guys here used to buy bikes with failed 2nd. gears cheap and would put 100,000 more miles on them with no second gear function at all. He's just run the bike up to about 40 mph in first gear, then shift to 3rd. Don't worry about 2nd gear.

Oh yeah, tires... Well I run Shinkos. They have plenty of stick and that trumps long life in my book. Low price too.

OK, Ray First of all, color me Bright Green with envy. What a find ! 2500 miles ??? Not even broken in ! We need pics you selfish SOB ! I can't even imagine ! OK, gotta calm down... Wheeew, deep breaths... OK, OK,, About the wheel bearings. The grease in those bearings is 40 years old. 40 years of evaporation, hardening, soap coming out of the oil in the grease. Moisture, oxidation and so forth. The ability of the grease to form boundary lubrication is certainly degraded. They may well last several thousand miles but they will fail without being relubed. As for valve stems, check for corrosion where they go through the wheel rim, and install short stems, metric stems, for the wheel. Rubber ones would be fine, I'm sure. Don't tell me what you paid for it, I'm sure it would give me heart palpitations. Oh, and check to be sure the brake fluid isn't draining down on that rear master cylinder from the reservoir. They are really pricey, and you want to save yours from damage.

As I see you are looking at the tech forums, I will add a list of things you should probably " renew " Tires don't forget the valve stems Brake lines: they are 40 years old. Don't trust them. Rebuild the brake calipers. Their seals are 40 years old as well. Probably the front and rear brake master cylinders. Carbs, Wheel bearings fuel filter and gas lines check to see if the right front engine case guard has worn a notch in the pipe elbow for coolant grease the control cables and speedo cable, but not too close to the speedo. ( the grease tends to travel ) The output from the alternator goes to a plug to the left side of the bike. It tends to burn up. Hard-wire across the plug. Take lots of pictures of your carbs when you get them out of the bike, before you take them apart. Lots of pics. If you only took 10, that's not enough. You'll need them to get it back together, trust me ! Let us know if you get it. Tom