What did you do to your ride: forensic welding

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Cycle Asylum > What did you do to your ride: forensic welding

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Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

took my tranny apart!

this is why i thought i should:

and it wasn't as bad as i thought on the inside but it still was kind of a mess. most of the bearings in it are in bad shape.

and then there are these things. i don't know what they are but i assume they shouldn't be rattling around loose inside the transmission.

so far it's going quite well for my first tranny rebuild. i thought it would be a lot harder.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2009 16:28

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:57

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

loaded my 1955 BMW up today for a 1000mi ride to the BMW club rally tomorrow morning.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2009 21:23

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

got some LEDs for my 6v bmw. hell yeah.

next i need some HIDs up front.

i did a before photo but installing it required caulking it into the reflector, believe it or not, and the sun went down in the time the caulk dried so the ambient light was all off.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2009 00:21

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

"[working title posted:

"]
This is awesome.

are you serious about putting HIDs on that ? I hope you are.

no.
i would, if they existed, and didn't draw more current than the normal (35w) bulb. but they don't, and even if they did, HID draws more current don't it? i'm hopeful about LED headlights in the future, having read about it in car&driver or something. but it sounds like the technology is real expensive right now.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2009 03:15

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Chairon posted:

I gained access to the Voodoo that is my transmission. Really wish I could find the charger for my camera, but the iPhone will do.

too many gears!

# ¿ Dec 9, 2009 07:47

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Gnomad posted:

Spent Christmas eve day putting the studded knobbies on the GS, went for a ride on Christmas Day.

what sort of studs and what sort of tires exactly? how do they work in different surfaces? would asphalt without ice but with some snow cover still get traction? i recently saw on a guzzi forum a guy who runs a cheng shin trials tire, unstudded, in snow. also on dry pavement too, i was amazed it worked.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2009 22:25

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

made my guzzi a new windshield

old:

new:

4-5" taller, a bit wider, angled a little more back. still looks lovely. but only $16! haven't rode in it yet.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2010 23:21

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

400sm? i must admit i've been wanting one...

# ¿ Oct 16, 2010 04:20

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

That's news to me. I thought it was basically the same material as brake pads, and somebody would be in trouble if brake pads did poo poo like that when it rains.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2012 14:47

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

No.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2012 21:25

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

the walkin dude posted:

It's so tiny!

And they have split rims so you don't even need tire irons. Who knew the Italians were so good at engineering!

# ¿ Feb 5, 2012 03:29

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

clutchpuck posted:

While those are away, probably tomorrow, the whole bike is going to be ultra-cleaned under the seat and tank. We're talking toothbrush, pipe cleaners, and simple green.

That sounds very BMW. I approve.

Bloody Queef posted:

My '73 350f reads "almost exactly" 10% above actual speed as well. The 69(?)-74 Honda gauge clusters were all the same and had the exact same speed difference. I'm assuming this is not the case for all UJM's because in every old review of that era CB bikes the testers whine constantly about the 10% optimistic speedo. (Seems moto journalists have never changed)

My 1955 BMW is precisely accurate. And metric.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2012 00:46

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

For the 4th of July I dewinterized a bike made by the greatest country in the world: Italy! Starter hesitated and stopped for the first second or so of hitting the button, had to gently caress with the choke to get it to fire. So it runs just like it did last year. A well-tuned Ducati. Viva L'Italia!

# ¿ Jul 4, 2012 19:43

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

There's nothing you can stamp on it that will make BMW people like you.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2012 02:31

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Saga posted:

Tyres should also be shiny at all times with hairs on. Tyre hair can be bought from e-bay (araldite to attach them)

In contrast to that, I remember reading a thread on the BMW club forum about whether you should remove those hairs from your tires with a razor blade.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2012 02:03

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

XYLOPAGUS posted:

There really is no easy way to get the chain adjusted other than trial and error, right?

What do you mean, trial and error? There's a measurement that should either be on a sticker on the swingarm or in the owner's manual. Or the internet.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2012 02:06

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

One Honda for each time the word "Honda" was used in the Beach Boys song.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2012 01:02

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

n8r posted:

Sell all your bikes that you were planning on working on because you will never work on anything of your own ever again.

n8r this is not true and you are a very negative person. You own a Mille R, you should be happy.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2012 21:10

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

The first recorded instance of a clever graffiti vandal in history. Why did he break convention? Why didn't he just write some esoteric meaningless moniker for himself on everything? His community will reject him now.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2012 17:31

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

AnnoyBot posted:

Oh yeah- I found that the fuel line from the pump to the carbs was leaking. It was only 3 years old and basically rotted all to hell at the carb. Weird. (I had thought from the smell that I was running rich...)

Where'd you get it? I've had major problems with rubber cracking and turning to poo poo after like 1 year on my OEM classic BMW fuel lines and driveshaft boots. loving annoying.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2012 03:49

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

We use Rick's all the time at our shop. The range of poo poo they make and can rebuild is wonderful, from a service dept. perspective, but I don't know much about their longevity.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2012 01:30

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Geirskogul posted:

Now, there are many bad things about moving to Phoenix from Idaho, but one good thing I'm looking forward to is year-round motorcycling. I mean, I motorcycled year-round before, but now instead of looking crazy in the snow, I'll look crazy in the occasional rain (overall a better crazy:normal ratio, though).

I commuted on a bike in ~110 degree weather in Phoenix a couple times. I think it's debatable whether that's any better than riding in 15 degrees.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2012 04:17

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Sagebrush posted:

The hottest fins on an air-cooled engine get up to what, 500 degrees? If the bike is running decently in 90 degree weather, I don't think an extra 20 is going to make a whole lot of difference to cooling system efficacy. Maybe on the racetrack, but not commuting.

500 is more like exhaust pipe temp. The running coolant temp of a happy water cooled engine is like 170-200. Air cooled won't be too far off from that, but will fluctuate more.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2012 13:23

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Reassembled my Ducati for the first time. It's been looking like this since about 2 owners ago when someone totalled it:

Until today after I got the parts back from a painter and put them back on:

The paint still has some issues that will hopefully be resolved this winter with some more clearcoats. And the bodywork has more issues due to what looks like a bent radiator (???) causing the panels to not line up with each other under the engine. Not sure what I'll be able to do about that. Also needs a wash and a new left muffler that's in the mail curently.

Anyway, as when you launch ships you have to hit them with a champagne bottle, when you inaugurate Ducatis you have to go here:

Jesus christ those coffees are expensive.

But then while I was riding for a few hours I stopped and noticed something was a bit funny. Did you see it in the second photo? I didn't notice it until about 45 minutes after that photo:

Amazingly enough, the axle, despite being entirely out of the right side adjusting block, was still in the swingarm slot. So my drivetrain didn't explode. So I rode the 70 miles back home, looking under my right knee to see where the axle was, and stopping every 30 minutes to kick the axle back in from the left side. No biggie. But now I'll have to wait 4 months to get the parts from Italy.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2012 21:43

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Not my bike, but worth posting. We've got a 1991 BMW K100RS in our shop with a mysterious running issue. It's been there since about June and just in the last dew days we finally found the issue. It's a high mileage bike and may have been neglected for a while. Owner said he replaced the fuel pump not long before he brought it to us.

The bike runs like poo poo, as if 2 cylinders are cutting out. We did all kinds of diagnosing to it trying to figure it out, found all kinds of things wrong, but never fixed the problem. Tested the throttle position sensor, the ignition timing, compression, fuel pressure. All good. Pulled the fuel rail off and cranked the engine to watch the injectors spray into the air, and then did the same on my own K100, and the spray looked different on the problem bike. Thinner stream, less atomized. So we thought we found it there, and sent the injectors off to be cleaned. They came back with a report from the cleaner showing lovely flow before and good flow now. Put them back in the bike, took it on a long test ride, and the problem came back after a few miles.

Checked the valve clearance, found a bunch of them way off spec. Found the cam chain a bit stretched. Thought that was it again. Replaced all that poo poo, which was no small job, given it's DOHC and the valve shims are the buckets, so you have to special order all that poo poo. Put it back together, still ran like poo poo.

Luckily for testing purposes we had my K100 in the shop and another K bike with an identical ECU and coils. I swapped the ECU and coils out of the bad bike and into the other good bike, they ran great in the good bike. Put em back into the bad bike, bad bike still runs like poo poo. So at this point I was thinking, airflow sensor? Coolant temp sensor? What else could it possibly be? Spent a whole day redoing some poo poo and brainstorming with the shop owner on it, stopped working on my other projects, emailed my instructors back at MMI. Cause the bike had been here about 5 months now, and racked up a thousand dollar bill, and we still didn't even know what the problem was. Checked fuel pressure again, decided to swap out the injectors with my bike. It started up and ran good again, but then I took it on another long test ride, and the symptoms started to come back. Put the bad bike's injectors in my bike, now my bike runs like poo poo.

Ok, so injectors. But we had them cleaned and the cleaners tested them and they worked good for a while...? And it's always got good fuel pressure...? Tried swapping my entire fuel tank to the bad bike, which was some work because the electrical connectors are in the wrong place. Had to wire in some custom patch cables. Took it on a long test ride again, twice over, ran perfect. The tank did it. So now we know what the problem parts are. But why the problem?

I had always kind of ignored the tank because it had good pressure and we knew the pump had been replaced. So now we removed the cap and took a closer look at the tank. It's almost all aluminum, so not much in there to rust, but lo and behold, there was a significant amount of rusty looking sediment in the bottom of it:

That brown poo poo near the glare in the bottom right isn't a shadow, it's rust or something else with the consistency of sand.

And presumably all of it came from the single non-aluminum piece in the tank, the fuel level float arm, which looked like the underside of a truck in a junkyard:

But it's got a filter, and it's got good pressure...?

Took the filter out, it looked fine. It was new, even. Manufactured in 2011. But then I cut it open:

Doesn't look right. It's bent.

Oh, well that explains it then. You can ignore the gray specks, that's the result of me hacksawing the filter case open. But look at that filter element. I didn't bend it to get it out, it was like that before. And the poo poo on the surface:

I touched it on the spot in the middle and some of it came off, so now you can see how thick it was. Nasty poo poo. Looked like mud. After I let it sit on a counter for a while, it dried up and cracked like a dried river bed.

The pump on these bikes is supposedly capable of about 150psi. So, looks like there was a huge amount of crap in the tank that clogged the filter, and then the pump simply blew the filter out, and the crap has been clogging the injectors ever since. What's amazing though is that if the timeline the owner gave us is accurate, this filter ran for about a couple months before it came to us. It got that bad in a couple months. And the pump survived all that. Crazy. I'm just relieved as gently caress that we finally found the problem. Now we get to see how happy the owner is about another few hundred $ added to the bill for disassembling and cleaning out the tank and de-crusting that float arm.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2012 00:49

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Z3n posted:

Good story. My mechanic friend always says "check the last thing fixed" when there's some weird issues with a bike...it's almost never wrong.

True enough, I shoulda done that. But without knowing what I know now, I think I might have looked in the tank, saw the crap, and thought, "so what? There's a filter and it still has good pressure." Not knowing how the filters are constructed, I would have assumed a clogged one would simply stop the fuel flow, rather than blowing out and letting unfiltered gas through. Are most EFI fuel filters vulnerable to this kind of failure?

# ¿ Nov 3, 2012 13:34

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Did a little ride on my bike today. Took a pic in all 4 corners of the state:

About 592 miles, 14 hours.

My road book, since I don't have a GPS mount on the Duc yet:

Starting out at dawn:

About an hour later, northwest:

2 border patrol SUVs showed up about 1 minute after that photo. Apparently strangers on bikes with cameras makes the locals nervous. But they were all chill about it, we chatted about bikes and the evils of ethanol for a while and I left. That's Canada on the other side of that log, btw. A strange foreign land of luxury taxes and no guns.

About 3 hours later, northeast:

About 4 hours later, southeast:

Or real close anyway. Road was blocked by these guys for reasons I don't know:

About an hour later, southwest:

A more accurate representation of what time it was:

And about 4 hours later after a little snack, back home:

You can see the exact geotag on all the photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/103239720696843243039/Vt4corners

Bike was fairly reliable. It decided it wanted to idle a couple hundred RPM higher all the time by the end of the trip. And there was a funny intermittent rattle feeling in the left foot peg during hard cornering. Still investigating that one.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2012 04:41

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Nintendo is for sucks. I had a Sega Master System.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2012 14:20

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

What did I do with my ride today? I left it in a gas station parking lot overnight in another state and rode home on a friend's pillion seat because the charging system poo poo the bed! It's a Ducati with 27k miles, I guess it was due for something like that.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2012 04:48

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Wootcannon posted:

Can you explain that first bit again, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding it. Sorry.

Use some allen sockets for use with a ratchet, rather than just an allen key for use by hand. Find one slightly larger than the hole in the bolt head and force it in there with a hammer. Or torx sockets. Then use a hammer-powered impact driver to loosen it up.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2012 14:39

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Finally got the 6v USB power supply working for my Garmin on my 1955 BMW.

Now I just have to solder it together without melting it, and figure out a way to hide it somewhere on a bike with no fairings, and heat sink the fucker cause drat it gets hot.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 03:35

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

No I'm putting out 5.19v to the GPS because USB is 5v and the bike is a 6v system as you can see in my text and my photo which shows a battery with three 2v cells. Your electric-fu is weak, my friend. Your move.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 04:42

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

ReelBigLizard posted:

You see folks, old things should be thrown away, because you know, they're old and obviously newer is always better.

He does have kind of a point though. My old one has no turn signals so if I need to make a left I have to sit in the middle of the road stopped in neutral with my left arm out until there's a gap in traffic. I've done panic stops once each on my '55 BMW and my '98 Ducati, and one of them is an experience like, "oh my god oh my god I'm not going to stop oh Jesus thank god I barely stopped," and one was like, "oh my god oh...I'm stopped already. nevermind." There is a bit of extra risk involved there. For me it's worth the reward.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 14:40

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Finished my 1955 USB adapter.

Bolted a little heat sink on the IC, put it in a box with a lot of holes.

Fits great in the headlight shell. Even some space left over.

Didn't wanna drain the system all the time, cause the 60W generator isn't all that beefy even for stock usage, so I added a vintage on/off switch. So no one will be able to tell I've got modern accessories on my vintage bike. Impossible to tell.

See? Can't tell at all.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2012 03:53

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Didn't feel like doing any work at work today so instead I decided the shop needed a vintage pit bike for our vintage race days. Found this thing sitting in a corner and got it running.

Then spent the rest of the day riding it from one end of the shop to the other at walking speed, since I can't ride it outside in a foot of snow.

Productive day.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2013 23:11

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Ola posted:

Nice metal panniers, people sure didn't need to carry that much poo poo back in the day.

No poo poo, right? I've got huge panniers on all my bikes and they're still not big enough for all the poo poo I commute with. Did people just like, not eat or buy anything back in the day?

# ¿ Jan 9, 2013 21:32

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Got some more sidecar welds for you guys!!!

Homemade clip-on welds :supaburn:

Steering damper mount welds :supaburn:

Subframe support welds :supaburn:

Front suspension welds :supaburn:

And found a nice strong sidecar platform material!! and some fairings lying around to throw on there.
No welds :saddowns:

Still gotta do exhaust and fuel tank and controls and battery and LOTS MORE WELDS :supaburn:

and painting and wheel bearing preload and...

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 23:54

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

High Protein posted:

I got a USB cable so I can reset my TPS. Is it rare for ECU bikes to have a manually adjustable idle and/or manually adjustable timing (as opposed to a cam sensor)?

I'm not familiar with any who have that. But I'm really only familiar with Yamaha and BMW and some Ducati factory ECUs.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2013 23:58

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Did some more work on the sidecar! Made a whole bunch of fiberglass parts. But no more welds. Sorry, I know you guys like my welds

Reinforcing the side wheel fairing, and the driver knee cups:

Sidecar nose piece, bottom side, needs a lot of cleaning up:

Rear cowl:

JUST KIDDING MORE WELDS :supaburn:

# ¿ Feb 7, 2013 00:04

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:57

Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester: Oct 3, 2000

Yeah, to officially get bike tows on AAA you have to buy the RV+bike+boat+truck+poo poo package which is like double the price. Because people commuting on ninja 250s are obviously loving rich like people with $100,000 RVs towing Jeeps so they should have the same coverage package.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2013 19:21

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