EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
Ugh, so my bike has been in and out of the shop for the past few weeks. Fouling plugs and spitting gas out of the overflow like crazy. FINALLY narrowed it down to a bad Mikuni carb. I mean, it's literally the only thing it can be. Pinching the line of the particular carb causes the gas to stop spitting out. We're guessing some sort of defect in the float. Fingers crossed.
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EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
edited July 2013
So, it turns out paint was flecking off from where the gas cap screws on and getting into the lines, into the carbs, and causing them to stick. The painter shouldn't have done that area of the tank :v: . A flush and a gas line filter cleared up the problem.
Esh on
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EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
Sadly I got no good idéas. If you get stuck for a long time in rain you are going to be wet in my experience. Still any time you can stay dry just a bit helps. I got an ugly coverall that I just put over my normal clothing and some protection for my gloves but its not that good.
Image below of my sister and her boyfriend on a not so sunny day. 6 hours or rain ftw!
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PolarisI am powerless against the sky.Registered Userregular
I bought a Teknic rain suit a few years back. 100% rainproof, good seals, etc and packs up small so you can sling it into a backpack easy enough and therefore always have it with you. After a cursory google, looks like they can be had for anywhere between $40 and $120 online. Some good drystars for the hands and I stayed as dry as you can be in the rain.
Because I'm looking to get a house with the wife, we decided to sell my Harley to clear out the loan. Well, same day I sold the Harley I picked up a 2004 BMW R1150RT-Police for a really good deal. It only has 19,000 miles on it, 5k more than my 2008 Fat Bob.
Love the ride, it's gonna be a great commuter bike, but I need to find an owner's manual and a service manual. I was able to buy a pdf version of each for my Harley, but I can't find anything for this bike. BMW's website doesn't have anything for the 1150, it's all 1200. I've looked on amazon and ebay, couldn't find an owner's manual. Anyone know of someplace I can find one?
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
Replaced the battery in my Shadow over the weekend. That thing was a PITA. Also, holy crap EXPENSIVE.
Just got back from a motorcycle trip through Ecuador with my wife and a friend. Some amazing roads out there, although everyone drives crazy. Definitely worth it for the winding roads through the Amazon. If you get the chance to go I highly recommend it.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
Man, there have been some developments with my "lightly used" BMW police bike. Did you know that on those speedometers, when you change them, you can't manually advance the odometer to match the previous mileage? I do now!
What I thought was a 19,000 mile bike is now a 112,000 mile bike after doing some research! I'm getting some info together and after the shop takes a look at it and lets me know if there are any serious issues I have to decide what I'm gonna do.
Problem is, bike rode amazing. Coming from a Harley Dyna with no protection, riding a BMW with a fairing, heated grips, Integrated ABS and a much more comfortable ride, it's gonna be hard to give up.
@Daedalus what brand did you get and how do you power them? I've wanted to find some battery powered gloves because I'm lazy and don't want to connect stuff to the bike.
@Daedalus what brand did you get and how do you power them? I've wanted to find some battery powered gloves because I'm lazy and don't want to connect stuff to the bike.
I got the Gerbing G3 gloves. I was so impressed by them that I decided to buy their vest. Except I couldn't buy their vest, because they're releasing a new model (that appears to be the same as the old one only more expensive) and the new one isn't out yet and the old one is out of stock everywhere. So I bought a vest from TourMaster instead. They plug into the bike. As I understand it, the ones that use a separate battery pack have a separate pack that you put in your pocket or something; it's not like the battery is in the gloves. Plus then you have to keep that battery pack charged. So I really don't see how it would be less of a pain in the ass than plugging into the bike, although it would be useful for skiing or something when you don't have a bike.
Some observations:
TourMaster and Gerbing use the same connector type, which was a pleasant surprise. You can plug one brand into the other no problem.
Gerbing tries to charge a hundred dollars (!) for their "heat controller", which is a PWM dimmer switch and a mosfet in a plastic box. There is no way that the materials cost for this thing is more than seven bucks. I was so insulted that I resolved to build one myself out of parts from Radio Shack or Mouser or something. Then I bought the TourMaster vest, and they threw the same thing in for free. Seriously, it's the same shape and a different color plastic, probably from the same extrusion molds in a factory in China somewhere.
The two-knob temperature controller lets you set the vest and gloves at different temperatures, which is good, because the gloves cool much more quickly. Also it means you only plug one wire into the bike.
The vest is far more important than the gloves. I wish I realized this before spending the $160 on the gloves, although they're pretty well built and will probably come in handy when it gets even colder. Basically, your extremities don't really get cold from a lack of insulation, they get cold because your core is cold and so you decrease blood flow. When your core is warmed by the vest, it pumps warm blood everywhere. My legs and feet and arms are way warmer, even with less insulation than usual, when I have the vest on.
Man, there have been some developments with my "lightly used" BMW police bike. Did you know that on those speedometers, when you change them, you can't manually advance the odometer to match the previous mileage? I do now!
Yes you can advance them. But 112K miles not a ton of miles on a BMW with good service history. Price should be MUCH MICH lower though.
It's (technically) Spring so this thread should come back.
The ride from the dealership back to my house yesterday was chilly, and now it is going to be hanging around freezing for the next several days. Such torture.
Its finaly warm enough to ride where I live. Feels good to be back on the roads again. Love my BMW but I cant help but to look at the fancy new Yamaha MT-09, I think I have to testdrive one.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
Okay, so I was a moron and left my bike over the winter in the garage without ever starting it. I figured since it gets warm here early, it'd be no problem for the few months it's cold. However, spring came, and we decided to put our house on the market. Things happened, I didn't get to ride and forgot about the bike.
Stupid, I know. No excuses.
I finally faced the music last week and rolled it out to the driveway to see how bad the damage was. It had a little trouble starting, but once I opened the choke up it came to life. I ran it for a while, slowly closing the choke a little at a time. The engine eventually was running well enough that I could close it maybe 3/4 of the way and it would idle nicely. But when I closed if all the way, it would die pretty much immediately.
Now this evening, I decided to take it out and run it a bit and see if that helped. I rode it maybe 10 miles or so. I still had to run with the choke a quarter open or it would die on me as soon as I idled. It sputtered a good bit in first gear, but generally once I got into second and above it did alright.
I know I've probably caused issues with the carburetor. My question is, does this sound bad enough that I'll need to take it out and pull it apart to clean it, or could I just run some kind of fuel additive like Sea Foam or something through it and probably be okay? Based on the behavior I described above, how bad do you think I screwed up?
I recently took the MSF course and got my license. I'm in the process of buying gear and find the right bike so reading through this thread should be really helpful.
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Can you explain this more? I'm not super mechanically inclined but I am trying to learn.
A likely result of the bike being stored with fuel in it over winter is that the waxes in the fuel have precipitated out of solution, and have coagulated in the ports/jets/venturi nozzles, partially clogging them. You can experiment with putting some fuel system cleaner in the tank with a fresh batch of fuel and hope it will clean out the gunk, and it may.
If it doesn't, then you're going to need to disassemble your carburettors and clean them. And while they're apart, you may as well put rebuild kits through them, because the kits are cheap and new gaskets and seals will have your carbies operating like brand new again.
Rebuild kits almost always come with an 'exploded' diagram that shows all the parts relationship to each other, but a proper repair manual will make the job infinitely easier. As will some cotton rags, an empty plastic bucket, an old stiff bristled paintbrush, some parts cleaning solution, and the requisite tools (probably a #1 and a #2 Philips screwdriver, and a couple of small spanners, and probably some circlip pliers).
Well, my bike was stolen last weekend. It was my first bike, my Ninja 250. I had it for about four years.
I feel like I've come full circle. This wasn't just my first bike, it was my first long-distance bike trip, my first time getting unavoidably drenched with rain, my first crash, my first speeding ticket, and so on. I had this bike before I got married. Now it's my first bike theft.
But I've had a couple days to cool down and I resolved not to dwell on it. Instead, I bought another bike! I found a 2005 CBR600F4i in what looked like decent condition.
Now, I've only rode this around briefly today; it's still on the temp tags, but holy hell this is quite the power jump from my EX250. I'm pretty sure I'm going to eventually get Maryland's largest possible speeding ticket on this thing.
I also bought a big-ass chain lock for it. Anything else I should get? And how the hell do I chain this thing up anyway? I can't loop it around the frame because the fairings are in the way, and locking a wheel to a post seems sort of pointless.
I'm required by my insurrance to have two locks on my bike. So I lock the steering and also use a break lock on the front wheel. At my place its also ofc always in a garage thats locked.
Fall has arrived big time where I live. Not many days of riding left this year.
Since I haven't seen this thread get updated in a while, I thought I'd show a project bike that I've been working on. None of the modifications are that serious, and I barely spent any money on it at all, but it does look very different compared to the original look. Being from the 70's it has plenty of little quirks, but I love riding it around.
Oh, a motorcycle thread! I just got my learners a month ago and have barely got to ride thanks to the weather. Currently trying to decide between a backpack or tailbag so I can ride to work during the summer.
I picked up a new set of wheels a few months ago. Been my daily transport since June.
Perhaps the most interesting part of it is how unlike it's reputation it is. These things are far more reliable and easy to look after then they're made out to be. It's sort of an odd bike - racy, super-stiff chassis mated to wheezy, air-cooled engine that makes maybe 60 horsepower - but I'm smitten. Put around 6,500 miles on it since purchase and I'm just gonna keep rackin' em up.
Trying to decide how I want to paint it - red bodywork on gold frame, or white bodywork on blue frame.
why hello motorcycle thread. How appropriate. I actually rode yesterday, which hurt, because it was sub 40 yesterday morning. I'll link a picture later, but I got a 2014 Honda CTX700ND. the N stands for naked, and the D stands for the Dual Clutch Transmission. Yup, it's an automatic. Put about 4k miles on it after getting it early july. I love this bike.
Posts
Walkaround of my girl.
Awesome bike!
So now I'm looking to buy rain gear. Any suggestions?
Image below of my sister and her boyfriend on a not so sunny day. 6 hours or rain ftw!
Love the ride, it's gonna be a great commuter bike, but I need to find an owner's manual and a service manual. I was able to buy a pdf version of each for my Harley, but I can't find anything for this bike. BMW's website doesn't have anything for the 1150, it's all 1200. I've looked on amazon and ebay, couldn't find an owner's manual. Anyone know of someplace I can find one?
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
What I thought was a 19,000 mile bike is now a 112,000 mile bike after doing some research! I'm getting some info together and after the shop takes a look at it and lets me know if there are any serious issues I have to decide what I'm gonna do.
Problem is, bike rode amazing. Coming from a Harley Dyna with no protection, riding a BMW with a fairing, heated grips, Integrated ABS and a much more comfortable ride, it's gonna be hard to give up.
@Daedalus what brand did you get and how do you power them? I've wanted to find some battery powered gloves because I'm lazy and don't want to connect stuff to the bike.
I got the Gerbing G3 gloves. I was so impressed by them that I decided to buy their vest. Except I couldn't buy their vest, because they're releasing a new model (that appears to be the same as the old one only more expensive) and the new one isn't out yet and the old one is out of stock everywhere. So I bought a vest from TourMaster instead. They plug into the bike. As I understand it, the ones that use a separate battery pack have a separate pack that you put in your pocket or something; it's not like the battery is in the gloves. Plus then you have to keep that battery pack charged. So I really don't see how it would be less of a pain in the ass than plugging into the bike, although it would be useful for skiing or something when you don't have a bike.
Some observations:
TourMaster and Gerbing use the same connector type, which was a pleasant surprise. You can plug one brand into the other no problem.
Gerbing tries to charge a hundred dollars (!) for their "heat controller", which is a PWM dimmer switch and a mosfet in a plastic box. There is no way that the materials cost for this thing is more than seven bucks. I was so insulted that I resolved to build one myself out of parts from Radio Shack or Mouser or something. Then I bought the TourMaster vest, and they threw the same thing in for free. Seriously, it's the same shape and a different color plastic, probably from the same extrusion molds in a factory in China somewhere.
The two-knob temperature controller lets you set the vest and gloves at different temperatures, which is good, because the gloves cool much more quickly. Also it means you only plug one wire into the bike.
The vest is far more important than the gloves. I wish I realized this before spending the $160 on the gloves, although they're pretty well built and will probably come in handy when it gets even colder. Basically, your extremities don't really get cold from a lack of insulation, they get cold because your core is cold and so you decrease blood flow. When your core is warmed by the vest, it pumps warm blood everywhere. My legs and feet and arms are way warmer, even with less insulation than usual, when I have the vest on.
Yes you can advance them. But 112K miles not a ton of miles on a BMW with good service history. Price should be MUCH MICH lower though.
The ride from the dealership back to my house yesterday was chilly, and now it is going to be hanging around freezing for the next several days. Such torture.
Stupid, I know. No excuses.
I finally faced the music last week and rolled it out to the driveway to see how bad the damage was. It had a little trouble starting, but once I opened the choke up it came to life. I ran it for a while, slowly closing the choke a little at a time. The engine eventually was running well enough that I could close it maybe 3/4 of the way and it would idle nicely. But when I closed if all the way, it would die pretty much immediately.
Now this evening, I decided to take it out and run it a bit and see if that helped. I rode it maybe 10 miles or so. I still had to run with the choke a quarter open or it would die on me as soon as I idled. It sputtered a good bit in first gear, but generally once I got into second and above it did alright.
I know I've probably caused issues with the carburetor. My question is, does this sound bad enough that I'll need to take it out and pull it apart to clean it, or could I just run some kind of fuel additive like Sea Foam or something through it and probably be okay? Based on the behavior I described above, how bad do you think I screwed up?
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
I recently took the MSF course and got my license. I'm in the process of buying gear and find the right bike so reading through this thread should be really helpful.
How do you feel about putting rebuild kits them?
Can you explain this more? I'm not super mechanically inclined but I am trying to learn.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
It made it really hard to steer for a while.
A likely result of the bike being stored with fuel in it over winter is that the waxes in the fuel have precipitated out of solution, and have coagulated in the ports/jets/venturi nozzles, partially clogging them. You can experiment with putting some fuel system cleaner in the tank with a fresh batch of fuel and hope it will clean out the gunk, and it may.
If it doesn't, then you're going to need to disassemble your carburettors and clean them. And while they're apart, you may as well put rebuild kits through them, because the kits are cheap and new gaskets and seals will have your carbies operating like brand new again.
Rebuild kits almost always come with an 'exploded' diagram that shows all the parts relationship to each other, but a proper repair manual will make the job infinitely easier. As will some cotton rags, an empty plastic bucket, an old stiff bristled paintbrush, some parts cleaning solution, and the requisite tools (probably a #1 and a #2 Philips screwdriver, and a couple of small spanners, and probably some circlip pliers).
(my bike is the white one on the left. Behind mine is my sisters Suzuki and on the left her boyfriends Triumph)
I had this happen a few weeks back. Same setup but with a hornet instead.
I bought a '98 Nighthawk CB750 just over a month ago. She's still in pretty great shape and I've loved every moment out on it.
I fucking love your bike.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
I feel like I've come full circle. This wasn't just my first bike, it was my first long-distance bike trip, my first time getting unavoidably drenched with rain, my first crash, my first speeding ticket, and so on. I had this bike before I got married. Now it's my first bike theft.
But I've had a couple days to cool down and I resolved not to dwell on it. Instead, I bought another bike! I found a 2005 CBR600F4i in what looked like decent condition.
Now, I've only rode this around briefly today; it's still on the temp tags, but holy hell this is quite the power jump from my EX250. I'm pretty sure I'm going to eventually get Maryland's largest possible speeding ticket on this thing.
I also bought a big-ass chain lock for it. Anything else I should get? And how the hell do I chain this thing up anyway? I can't loop it around the frame because the fairings are in the way, and locking a wheel to a post seems sort of pointless.
Fall has arrived big time where I live. Not many days of riding left this year.
http://adventuresofjb2.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-great-destroyer-building-bratstyle.html
Perhaps the most interesting part of it is how unlike it's reputation it is. These things are far more reliable and easy to look after then they're made out to be. It's sort of an odd bike - racy, super-stiff chassis mated to wheezy, air-cooled engine that makes maybe 60 horsepower - but I'm smitten. Put around 6,500 miles on it since purchase and I'm just gonna keep rackin' em up.
Trying to decide how I want to paint it - red bodywork on gold frame, or white bodywork on blue frame.