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Yes this is finally happening so GnarlyCharlie doesn’t kill me in my sleep. Also one place for your all to laugh at my fool’s errand as more and more crap is discovered and a sort of containment unit for my shitposting. Last summer I decided I had too much free time and too little stress and decided to buy a second bike. F3s have always been a favorite of mine, probably because they were brand new when I first really started to think “Man bikes are awesome” sometime around age 13.  It’s a 96 F3 with under 10k on it. As best as we’ve been able to tell I’m the fourth owner and have probably been the second most invested in it man hour wise. My friend/most recent PO put a lot of time bringing it back from garage find to very entertaining. And it did, for some time, run just fine.  Clearly when he announced his plan to sell it, I couldn’t just just let it back into the wilds of DC craigslist. I grew up helping my dad work on or restore various cars, but had never really attempted any project of my own. Instead I figured it would make a fun second bike and would provide a good opportunity to learn about wrenching. Bike developed some hesitation off idle and a little bit of stumble but otherwise ran fine. Unfortunately the fuel system got gummed up while I was laid up for a few months with some health issues last fall. So it was time to see about that learning to wrench thing It's my first time dealing with a carbed bike so this will no doubt be an adventure. As an added bonus, I'm doing all of this in my building's parking garage, opting for the forgiveness vs. permission approach. Thus far as long as I throw a cover on it when I'm not working on it and clean up all my crap nobody seems to care.  First faired bike so the realization that any kind of unmolested OEM replacement was basically out of the picture certainly didn’t add to any stress. Nope, none. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, though it did lead to the first of many treasons by the Haynes manual with regard to omitted material on fastenings.  Next order of business was to get to the carbs. Siphoned the vast majority of the fuel out of the tank and got it off the bike pretty easily and unfortunately had a fuel hose split on me in the process. I also learned in this process that "Off" on this particular 20 year old petcock is a very broad term. Dribbled like it needs a prostate check and it was pointed out this may have had a hand in fuel system fuckery while it sat. Suffice to say I was bathed in dead dinosaurs throughout this whole process until I could get the tank off and propped into a position that stemmed the tide. New hoses and petcock were ordered and installed. Note the lovely color of the old sock filter.  With all that installed, the system holds fuel swimmingly, and the action on the new petcock is much smoother. The old one actually seized shortly after I took it off of the tank and was fiddling around turning the dial. So I feel like I may have dodged a bullet. So let's skip ahead to the carbs, brilliantly designed for maximum efficiency of space by the dark lord himself. Lots of swearing ensued until at last I was able to get a screwdriver to the clamps. Got them pretty damned loose but had no joy.  After much frustration and probably an excess of gas fumes I decided to take a break and post up in the Questions Thread. While I waited for thoughts I got the battery tested, turns out it had a bad cell. Suggestions were given and at last I was able to pry them free  As I mentioned, I’m doing all of my work in my underground, dubiously ventilated parking garage. So not only is my car my giant rolling tool chest, but finding a place to clean the carbs was something of a challenge.  Luckily GnarlyCharlie very generously allowed me to exchange beer for use of his garage and consultation on things carbureted. Also a generally rad dude with whom to drink beers and shoot the poo poo with while swearing at your respective projects.   Not pictured was the shrink wrapped bundle of carbs I very tiredly loaded into my passenger footwell at like midnight on a weeknight for the hour ride home from Woodbridge. As things do, work got lovely and the bike had to go on hold for a bit, but two weeks back the PO was in town visiting family and came by to help with some things. We got the bike back together and firing. As we fiddled with the idle we noticed a leaking coolant hose going from the water pump to the head. No big deal, I'd just order the part and fix it after vacation. Cut to last night. Drained the coolant, swapped the offending hose, topped up the coolant using a proprietary non-front-fairing removal method comprised of creative tubing use and profanity, and fired it up. What smells like gas? poo poo. Looked down to find a nice little puddle forming below the carb drain tubes. Consultation with noted stoichiomancer and general oldbikes/txt enthusiast GnarlyCharlie suggests it's probably a stuck float/float valve. On the plus side at least the removal and evisceration of carbs is fresh in my mind. Tonight I had another look at things and found the culprit. I’d thought the carb drain hoses to be routing short and making overflow run down adjacent pipes. Turns out there was another hose that stopped way short and was only able to see it by lying on my back and sticking my head under the bike. Decided to pull the drain hoses and this new hose free, separate them out, and fire it up to see what leaked. Turns out it was the guy on the right of this picture:  Where does it go? Turns out it’s a drain hose that hits after one of the air filters in the air injection system.  The black box here is on the air line that runs from one of the intakes to a solenoid valve that in turn feeds the carbs. I’m guessing this means the carbs are flooding and pissing fuel back into the air system, which would support the stuck float/valve/needle theory and generally be a Not Good Thing. So, time to prepare for another carb strip down I suppose. Bikes are fun! Casualties To Date: Petcock Inline Filter All lines between the Petcock, fuel pump, filters, and carb fuel rail Old battery Coolant Line The OEM battery box lid I will most likely dremel a slot in for tender cables Most of the relatively clean concrete in the parking space around this thing Some of the weaker brain cells (thanks, lovely garage ventilation) The_Maz fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 03:32
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 02:02 |
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 90's bikes are awesome. You are doing God's work. As far as the carbs are concerned... we may never know if we huff gas because we love these bikes, or we love these bikes because we huff gas.
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Sep 15, 2015 10:00
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At least we know the jets are good and clean! It sounded pretty rad for the two minutes of run time before The Coolant Leak (tm) made itself known. Keep up the good work man. Pulling carbs sucks, but you're well on your way to wizard status in that regard. That bike will ride again.
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Sep 15, 2015 21:55
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My 599 shares that same engine and carb setup, only the frame goes overtop of the carbs. Many a bird was flipped at it earlier this year when HNasty and I removed it for cleaning and adjusting a few times. It still has a mystery vacuum leak somewhere but runs well enough to ride now 
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Sep 16, 2015 01:19
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The more I think about it the more I shouldn't really be surprised about having to fiddle with this. Planning to pop the carbs off tomorrow evening and have a look. My goal is to have it up and running by the October bikes and breakfast so you DC/NoVA folks can all laugh at my riding skills or something. That said, even just walking by the bike with all the fairings in poo poo off it still makes me happy. So I guess I made the right decision for my broken sensibilities. Bonus picture of the effect I've had on that once pristine concrete, featuring gas can that has somehow not yet been stolen.  quote:As far as the carbs are concerned... we may never know if we huff gas because we love these bikes, or we love these bikes because we huff gas. This, pretty much.
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Sep 17, 2015 16:08
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So today was the reckoning. Having had this bike in pieces for most of the season, it was time to do some drat work. Again we return to the scene of the crime.  Popped open the airbox and began to find the first tracks of our offender.  Signs pointed initially to the #3 carb. It had the most residual gas on the jets and slide. I was surprised however, when I opened them up...  Yeah. That's what you think it is in #4. This, boys and girls, is why you don't reassemble your carbs at midnight after a full day of work.  A fine reminder that we all carry the latent virus of "The God Damned P.O." Bonus shot of the kitchen workspace.  After that it was jut a matter of reassembly. Took a while and gently caress those throttle cables forever but at the end of the day... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drjWpJKelHw Sorry for the shaky cam but I was just too tired to shoot something proper. The idle is still not quite ideal but this is the most it's run in the past 6-8 months. I can chase that idle issue or just ride the drat thing and see how it settles in. I've been through the carbs twice now so I know which one I'm picking. Already took it for a few laps around the parking garage and I need to air it up badly, but once I remembered how to ride an I-4 at low speed it seemed to be doing alright. Still to come. Fairings. And hopefully a picture of the bike somewhere other than the garage. 
The_Maz fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Sep 20, 2015 |
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Sep 20, 2015 04:22
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The_Maz posted:
That's some mighty fine grease you have there. That knife looks pretty sweet too. Grats on getting her back up and running. I hope I can convince you to mod her a little bit this winter.
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Sep 22, 2015 20:18
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Didn't want to update this until I had some real progress and some pictures of the bike not in my garage. Took the bike for an shakedown before I got the fairings on and much to my delight I found no leaks, creaks, rattles, or other tomfoolery. I did generate a little bit of a smoke show for the first 10min or so thanks to:GnarlyCharlie4u posted:That's some mighty fine grease you have there. Even before I got the idle dialed in the low speed handling on the bike felt like night and day compared to when I first bought it. Looking back a lot of my nervousness riding it last summer was probably due to the fact that it would die/stall/hesitate during low speed stuff, of which there is no small amount of in the DC area. At any rate. Fairings have been put back on and for the first time in a far too long time it looks like a bike again.   Spent too much time riding it today and was running out of light, so here's some quasi industrial decay BS courtesy of the first decent pullout I could find. Had wanted to get one on the Potomac from Old Town but a spring tide had other ideas about street accessibility.  It was this or "CBARGH" So there it is. Prettier pictures to follow but it runs and is a real hoot. I feel like an excited 6 year old when I'm riding it and a decrepit 60 year old after. By the by if anyone wants a good lumbar mobility routine hit me up. The_Maz fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 01:49
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 02:02 |
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gently caress that's the best plate, and I had... 
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Sep 28, 2015 13:31
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