- 3 weeks ago
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00:00:00Welcome back to the Cycle World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer, Editor-in-Chief. I'm with Kevin Kamen, our technical editor.
00:00:06Our technical topic today is getting old junk running. It might be old junk that you parked yourself in your garage
00:00:14and neglected for some period of time to a very long period of time.
00:00:19It could be something you bought that hasn't run and you have no idea about the backstory or the owner was like,
00:00:24yeah, it ran great when we parked it and, you know, I just don't have time or it could run.
00:00:30All the wonderful descriptions and sale ads, you know, great restoration project, easy resto.
00:00:38What does it all mean? It means you got your work cut out for you.
00:00:42Now, this is something that is so close to my heart because it's one of my favorite things in life, is reviving things.
00:00:49The first tune-up is my most excited time with a vehicle that's crusty.
00:00:54I got an 853-mile Ducati a couple years ago and 900 SS.
00:01:01And, yeah, I just bought it and then I opened, I didn't even look in the tank.
00:01:07I opened the fuel cap and horrors of gum and rust.
00:01:12And then I knew carburation for sure, like if you see that in the gas tank.
00:01:16So, anyway, there's so many places that we could start with this, but I always start with the gas cap.
00:01:24That's my first thing is like pull the gas cap before I buy it now.
00:01:28But no matter what, pull the gas cap and then don't stick your nose in it, but take a waft of what that smells like.
00:01:34And if it smells unlike gasoline and has this kind of like, I don't know, old hammy kind of, what does that smell?
00:01:43Well, stale gas.
00:01:44If you smelled it, you know what it smells like.
00:01:47And you know you've got your work cut out for you.
00:01:51Yeah.
00:01:52You've worked on a few things.
00:01:53All your stuff is pristine race bikes though, right?
00:01:56They've never had any problems.
00:01:57Well, every spring I've had to get a tiller going or a mower.
00:02:06So, those are the same problems basically.
00:02:09Not very romantic though.
00:02:11No, they're not romantic.
00:02:12They aren't barn finds and you can't ride them.
00:02:20But this is the terrible thing about a fuel system, which is that gasoline does not consist of one molecular structure.
00:02:31Ethanol, every molecule is the same.
00:02:36Water, every molecule is the same, has the same structure.
00:02:39But in gasoline, you have a range of molecular weights and therefore a range of volatilities.
00:02:47The front end of the gasoline is the volatile part, the part that you smell first.
00:02:55And it is that stuff that lets the engine start when you enrich it with the choke.
00:03:01But when you leave a bike, when a bike is put away wet, as the horsemen say,
00:03:10the fuel in the carburetor gradually begins to evaporate through the float bowl vents if it's a carbureted engine.
00:03:21If it's a fuel injected engine, there is no free surface in the engine or fuel system south of the gas tank
00:03:28from which fuel can evaporate.
00:03:32So you are, to an extent, protected.
00:03:36It just takes longer to go wrong.
00:03:40Yes, because it will go wrong.
00:03:44So as the gasoline evaporates, it becomes increasingly high molecular weight.
00:03:50And finally, what the fuel industry calls
00:03:54existent gum.
00:03:56Heavy molecular weight stuff that somehow got in there.
00:04:01And there are your tiny idle jets submerged normally in the float bowl.
00:04:08You've taken the carburetors off, pulled the float bowls.
00:04:13Precautionary move.
00:04:15And inside is white powder, maybe brown, horrible stuff.
00:04:20And when you pull out the idle jets, whose orifices are quite small,
00:04:27you may not see light through them.
00:04:31And I had a set once that needed to go in the ultrasonic cleaner for hours.
00:04:42Before I had the ultrasonic cleaner, of course, they always tell you, and rightly so,
00:04:46do not poke wires through jets because the end of the wire has been cut off with diagonals.
00:04:54It's created a sharp edge.
00:04:56You're going to poke the inside of the jet.
00:04:59It's not hard.
00:05:02So what I've done in the past is shave a little wood chip
00:05:08and push a wood sliver into the jet if I can.
00:05:16But, of course, the first thing you do when you're interested in getting something going is,
00:05:24does the engine turn?
00:05:27And, of course, Mark is talking about looking in the tank as a diagnostic.
00:05:31Is this a badly abused rust pile?
00:05:36Because that's a branch operation in the program of your work.
00:05:41Is it a rust bucket?
00:05:42If so, next, please.
00:05:44Or if you've just got to bring it back, you can.
00:05:49This is going to be an unintended validation of chemicals and other things that are unsponsored.
00:05:56And this will just be free information and free validation to companies that make chemicals that I adore.
00:06:05And one that I don't, M-E-K.
00:06:07I don't.
00:06:07Methyl ethyl ketone.
00:06:08And so what Kevin was talking about, the scuzz inside the carburetor and clogging the jets,
00:06:14it's changed with ethanol and particularly what we have in California.
00:06:18And it really would bear a phone call to someone at a big oil company to maybe tell us what's changed or why it's so bad.
00:06:24But there's also the green fuzz that comes of ethanol-absorbing water.
00:06:30The things that you can find when you open up a carburetor are horrifying.
00:06:35Worse than they used to be.
00:06:37And I have found that the scuzz that is left behind can be cut by some M-E-K.
00:06:43But I don't like M-E-K.
00:06:45It's not, it's one of your less, I would take tulline, tulline?
00:06:52Tulline?
00:06:53Yeah, tulline.
00:06:54Any day over M-E-K.
00:06:55But sometimes M-E-K is the only thing that will unstick a stuck slide or something like that,
00:07:00where it's just really, really gummed up.
00:07:03But I guess Kevin's direction was more fundamental.
00:07:08Kevin was going to say, does the engine actually turn?
00:07:12Yeah.
00:07:12Because we're really interested in that.
00:07:16Because not all of us are eager and willing to, let's take top end off.
00:07:21Let's pull the pistons off.
00:07:22Let's see what the crank is like.
00:07:24If you're that person, hurrah, excellent.
00:07:29But lots of people are buying used bikes because they want to ride them.
00:07:33And they don't want to pay $25,000 or even $10,000 for new.
00:07:40And we all have financial limits.
00:07:47So, hence, does the engine turn.
00:07:52And is there oil in the engine?
00:07:55As he mentions, take out spark plugs and look at the business end.
00:08:02Because if there has been a blow up, there won't be stuff packed into the end of the spark plug.
00:08:11The electrodes will be hammered flat.
00:08:14I had a few of those in racing.
00:08:16They looked like the piston had detonated away, creating a rain of aluminum particles,
00:08:23which then inhabited the spark plug.
00:08:26It was dreadful.
00:08:28But the chances are that you'll just find spark plugs.
00:08:31And they'll give you some key.
00:08:35If they're uniformly black from edge to edge, a lot of rich running.
00:08:45If they're...
00:08:47Oil control on the way out.
00:08:48Yeah.
00:08:50Bye-bye oil control.
00:08:51And usually, you'll find that they're just a sort of beige-y brown color that says everyday life.
00:09:04So, if you have rotation, you'd next check for compression.
00:09:11Are the spark plugs in place?
00:09:13Yeah, I want to pause on rotation.
00:09:14So, if it's been sitting a long time, you want to find a way to gently discover whether the engine turns for Lee or not.
00:09:25If it has an electric starter, you don't necessarily want to just whack the starter.
00:09:29Because the rings could be stuck in the bore.
00:09:31You can hurt it.
00:09:33So, if I have something that is...
00:09:36I know for sure has been parked a long time.
00:09:39I pull out the plugs.
00:09:40I look at the plugs.
00:09:41If they indicate what Kevin said, like, oh, yeah, maybe it was rich or maybe...
00:09:46As long as they're not smashed, right?
00:09:48Okay, these look pretty good.
00:09:49The gaps are reasonable.
00:09:51The plugs...
00:09:52I just replace plugs typically once I know that, you know, the engine's probably going to be able to run.
00:09:59I found a product called Arrow Croil.
00:10:01I got that from Dale Waxler at Wheels Through Time Museum.
00:10:03So, it's Croil, K-R-O-I-L.
00:10:06But Arrow's in a can.
00:10:07And it's a great penetrating oil.
00:10:10It works great.
00:10:13Freeing up an engine.
00:10:14Stick your bike in the sun.
00:10:15Make it hot.
00:10:16Put that stuff in the cylinders.
00:10:18Let it pool in there.
00:10:19And then just do something gentle.
00:10:21You know, you can get a wrench on the end of the crank if you take off one of the covers.
00:10:26If it's got a Kickstarter, problem solved.
00:10:28If it has a center stand, put it in gear.
00:10:31I usually check for the gears if I can get it up on a center stand.
00:10:35Check to make sure that, you know, it shifts through.
00:10:38Do all that.
00:10:39Get into a tall gear and then just rotate the wheel.
00:10:42And if it starts to turn the engine, hey, great.
00:10:44And if it doesn't, you know, give it some time.
00:10:46Be gentle.
00:10:46Try and get the rings to set free.
00:10:50You know, on a single cylinder bike, you can kick it through if you're going to park it.
00:10:54But no one intends to park it.
00:10:55That's the thing.
00:10:56We could talk about the spiritual side.
00:10:59The ride that never ends.
00:11:01Yeah, but, you know, you park a single, you can kick it through until it's on compression.
00:11:05And your one cylinder, the valves are closed.
00:11:08And so you have a better situation than if the valves are open.
00:11:11You just can't.
00:11:12If you have a V12, like, forget it, right?
00:11:15There's going to be some stuff open.
00:11:16Even on a twin, typically, you're going to have some valves open.
00:11:20So in any case, like, make sure the engine turns freely.
00:11:25And once it does, good to go.
00:11:28And then we can move on from there.
00:11:30Does it have a compression?
00:11:33That is a, you know, I followed my friend Bill.
00:11:37We rode 780 miles on 50s Triumphs.
00:11:41He had a 54 T110 and I had a 58 Triumph Trophy.
00:11:45This is a weekend camping trip to Death Valley in the winter.
00:11:48And we camped off Kelbaker Road.
00:11:52Bill, for years, ran JRC Engineering, which is an aftermarket British parts company.
00:11:59We went out there and did our long trip, camped in the desert.
00:12:04I forgot water.
00:12:05He was a scoutmaster, so he had extra water because he always takes care of his kids.
00:12:09And we got into Death Valley and it was pretty hot.
00:12:14And we're going up a grade toward Stofite Wells.
00:12:19And I'm following him.
00:12:21And there's a big puff of gray, that horrible kind of gray that with the smell that's indicated some severe badness as in hold piston or something like that.
00:12:33But we always remain optimistic and he did.
00:12:35He's like, oh, I think the mag slipped because he came to a full stop and went over.
00:12:39And so he went through and said, okay, I'm going to pull, he pulls the plug and he happened to pull the plug on the good side.
00:12:47And he was checking that the points were opening, just kicking it through.
00:12:51No electronic things, nothing, no papers, no timing wheels.
00:12:56Just kick it through to do the points spark when they should.
00:13:02And it was roughly in the ballpark.
00:13:04He's done this a long time.
00:13:06He says, okay, go ahead and kick it through.
00:13:09And it was just as easy as could be, no compression.
00:13:14So that's even just kicking it through or turning the wheel against the plugs.
00:13:19You can have a pretty good idea of what's going on.
00:13:22You don't necessarily need a compression tester to thread.
00:13:25No, absolutely not.
00:13:26Yeah, right.
00:13:27And if you have a four cylinder and it feels sort of weirdly uneven at one point, that could be an indication.
00:13:36How else would you approach it?
00:13:38I mean, we're not trying to diagnose it.
00:13:39We're not going to put oil in the cylinders to see if it's the rings.
00:13:42No, we're just following a general procedure here.
00:13:49It's not a prelude to a full rebuild.
00:13:52We're just taking a superficial interest in this motorbike to see if we can, how difficult is it going to be to make it run?
00:14:01And, of course, if there's no compression, it's going to be difficult.
00:14:08But if the compression is a little weak, there are rings, there are valve jobs, but those are marks against.
00:14:17It's not going to be an easy one.
00:14:18But, of course, he spoke about bikes equipped with magnetos.
00:14:28That is 70 years ago, those models.
00:14:34Nowadays, everything requires a battery.
00:14:38So this brings us to the horrible electrical system.
00:14:43Well, magneto, I don't know.
00:14:48I mean, our demographic here has probably seen a magneto.
00:14:52But for folks who haven't, a magneto is a self-generating sparking device.
00:14:57Yes, the full name.
00:14:58The full name is magnetodynamic generator, meaning that it uses magnets to generate electrical current.
00:15:09And if you were, did things as a young person, as I did, wrap a couple of coils of wire around a compass.
00:15:23And you could generate current with another coil poking a magnet through it.
00:15:30And the compass needle would deflect.
00:15:33So it's, you know, just a rigorous application of a basic principle.
00:15:38So the great thing about a magneto, as long as the shaft turns and the points are reasonably adjusted, it will make sparks.
00:15:47As long as the capacitor is good.
00:15:49Oh, the capacitor, yes.
00:15:52But, so it's just, it's self-generating.
00:15:54You don't have to worry about a battery.
00:15:57You don't have to worry about a charging system.
00:15:59It just does its own thing.
00:16:00You might not have lights, but you would have spark.
00:16:03And there are also CDI magnetos.
00:16:05Same principle.
00:16:06As long as the rotor turns and the electronics are good, you have sparks.
00:16:11No battery.
00:16:14But most motorcycles do have battery-dependent systems.
00:16:20So the battery is one focus of get running.
00:16:25You have to be prepared to supply a battery.
00:16:28So, motor turns.
00:16:31Yep.
00:16:32Compression.
00:16:33Compression.
00:16:35Now we're interested in spark.
00:16:38Yeah, we're going to have to clean.
00:16:39We know we're going to have to clean the carburetor unless, by some miracle, fuel is getting into the engine.
00:16:45But we'll get to cleaning carburetors.
00:16:48But we have compression.
00:16:49We're looking for spark.
00:16:52Go ahead.
00:16:53So, when you have a good source of current, either the original battery charged, which means it's not terribly old, or a fresh battery that you've brought for the purpose, you can make a check for does it run.
00:17:14And this sort of sends us back in a recursive function to the carburetors.
00:17:24If everything looked pretty good and we do get the engine started using some source of current, what if the engine won't run down below just above idle?
00:17:39Well, that is a diagnostic for blocked idle jets.
00:17:45And my pregnant wife and I drove to Daytona in 1980 in her Volkswagen.
00:17:52And the whole road was frozen solid south of Richmond, Virginia.
00:17:58So, all this jolting freed up the sediment in the fuel tank and blocked up the idle system completely.
00:18:07So, we had this car that wouldn't run under 2,000 RPM.
00:18:12So, when we got a hotel room, I took the carburetor off, cleaned it up, good running again.
00:18:20Now, many people are going to hear this and say, oh, well, I'm not really comfortable with all this mechanical work.
00:18:28Now, if you're going to mess with motorbikes a good deal, you're going to learn this someday.
00:18:36Why not now?
00:18:38Just plunge in.
00:18:39Because it's a used machine.
00:18:44You're not destroying your daily driver.
00:18:48You're learning.
00:18:50And you get the manual or you get another instructive source.
00:18:55And have at it.
00:18:57Because, as I'm fond of saying, this is a great period because tools are not expensive now.
00:19:05And there are rebuild kits for carburetors that come with the flow bowl gasket or O-ring, replacement jets, all the parts you need.
00:19:15And it's hard to go wrong with that kind of forethought from the manufacturer.
00:19:24And it's a good skill to have.
00:19:27So, if now, if you have a decently carbureting engine and it does run, you can hook your thumbs in your armpits and say, job well done up to that point.
00:19:48So, there are lots of little details.
00:19:52For example, when you remove the carburetors, you may find that after you've taken the carburetor off of its mounting studs, that it doesn't hang down from the fuel line because the fuel lines have turned solid.
00:20:08This is particularly true of older British bikes, which had that transparent fuel line that gradually becomes more and more brown until it finally turns into solid, hard plastic.
00:20:23And you can't get it off without destroying it.
00:20:27Yeah, the old Italian stuff was sort of blue-green, and it would do the same thing.
00:20:30It would kind of shrink and it would become rock hard.
00:20:34Yeah.
00:20:34Bellmetric, folks, if you need 7mm fuel line, Bellmetric in the Northeast, they've got all kinds of different fuel line.
00:20:45When I was redoing my Ducati, I needed submergible.
00:20:48I wanted to get the right rubber hose that could live inside a gas tank, and they sell that stuff.
00:20:56BELmetric.
00:20:57It's a great resource.
00:20:59So, another thing to bear in mind is spark plugs.
00:21:07Nobody sees spark plugs anymore because they're down inside a tube between the camshafts under a single cover, and on top of the spark plug is an ignition coil.
00:21:22So, they're invisible.
00:21:26Nobody takes the spark plugs out.
00:21:28In racing, nobody takes the spark plugs out.
00:21:31We used to because on the business end of the spark plug was evidence from the combustion chamber itself that you could look at that gave insight into how the engine was running.
00:21:43But there are right and wrong spark plugs, so this is another point at which a manual is good.
00:21:52It will tell you the heat range of spark plug that this engine should have.
00:21:58And I have seen people go out into practice at a road race with number seven NGK plugs in and just wreck their engines.
00:22:14Now, they put those plugs in to warm the engine up or what have you.
00:22:18It wouldn't run well on B10 ENs.
00:22:21But if the end of the spark plug, let me begin again here.
00:22:27Spark plug heat range is a measure of how hot the spark plug electrodes will be in the running condition.
00:22:41Some of them have quite a long center insulator with the center wire poking out of it.
00:22:48And some, the center insulator is quite stumpy.
00:22:51That's a colder spark plug.
00:22:53It runs colder in the engine.
00:22:57And so it's good to know that you have the right heat range spark plug in so that you don't have a misfortune.
00:23:06Well, don't assume.
00:23:07I guess what that brings up to me is don't assume what's on the bike is correct.
00:23:11Yeah.
00:23:12You got to go back to some, you know, form of truth.
00:23:15And if you can, if you can find a paper manual, they are great to have.
00:23:20If you can cut through the signal to noise ratio on YouTube, et cetera, forums, finding, finding that diamond among all the other stuff is can be, can be difficult.
00:23:32But there are a lot of times you got to spend a little time on a forum.
00:23:35You'll find that person who actually knows what they're talking about often.
00:23:41And sometimes you just have to average everything that you would get off of a forum or I'd say the level of how to on YouTube has elevated spectacularly.
00:23:52And, you know, something very specific, like timing your Yamaha XS 650, if it has points, the original points ignition, what are the problems that would have, you know, you would have in that type of ignition and how to solve them.
00:24:07There's a lot of great information that way, but don't assume that what you have is correct.
00:24:16I've had cars I bought.
00:24:18This is your dream is you want to go find that MGB that will not run and it misfires and you buy it for very little because it doesn't run.
00:24:28And when you diagnose it, somebody put the distributor in 180 degrees out.
00:24:34And so you turn the distributor around and then the compression's perfect.
00:24:38You clean the carburetors and you got a car.
00:24:40You do that with a motorcycle.
00:24:41XS 650, I had a free one out of San Francisco.
00:24:48Said to have run when parked.
00:24:49So we did a program on the Motorcyclist YouTube channel, ran when parked on this XS 650.
00:24:54And I got really lucky with that bike.
00:24:56It had, it's, you know, the plug showed a little bit of oil, lack of oil control, but not bad, like pretty good.
00:25:04Compression was good.
00:25:06Carburetors, you know, somebody had put some love into it.
00:25:08The ignition system, I never checked the timing on that bike.
00:25:12I just started the process.
00:25:15So my process would be, here's a bike that doesn't run.
00:25:18In the case of the XS, it's got a kickstarter and an electric starter and a center stand.
00:25:27So I open the gas cap.
00:25:29Yeah.
00:25:29I open the gas cap.
00:25:31I smell the fuel and it smells horrible.
00:25:33I'm like, okay, this is old gas.
00:25:34I'm expecting problems, but it's not rusty in the tank.
00:25:38So like, okay, this is a great start because I don't have to worry about the particulates in the rusty fuel tank.
00:25:45This is a plug here.
00:25:47If you do have a rusty fuel tank, like I had on my Ducati, Evaporest is this product.
00:25:52It's amazing.
00:25:53It's pretty benign.
00:25:54Like, I don't leave it on my paint, but it's not like putting acid in to etch the tank, which people will do.
00:26:02Or you'll put, you know, you can do it with vinegar.
00:26:03You can use vinegar and washers and shake it and do all this stuff, but Evaporest, it's kind of expensive, you know, 28 bucks a gallon, I think.
00:26:13But I just sucked it up because it's an original paint, beautiful Ducati tank, and I filled it with that stuff.
00:26:20And I left it, you put it in the sun, it works a little bit faster, but I left it in for about a week.
00:26:25And it's just pure gray metal.
00:26:28It's converted.
00:26:29It was amazing.
00:26:30And then you just hose it out, and then I just hit it with, you know, WD-40 or any, pick your MPPL, Motion Pro, plug to Motion Pro for motorcycle-specific products.
00:26:42Hose it off in the inside of the tank.
00:26:44So anyway, back to the XS, though.
00:26:47XS, ooh, smells bad.
00:26:48Okay, I know I'm going to deal with fuel system.
00:26:51Is the motor stuck?
00:26:52It wasn't stuck, but I still pull the plugs, put some oil in there just to make the process that much smoother.
00:27:00I take off ignition cover maybe, but I show up with a jump box and starting fluid.
00:27:07Now, starting fluid is pretty harsh stuff, but what I wanted to find out was, would it pop?
00:27:15That was it.
00:27:16And it did.
00:27:22It would make noise on starting fluid, and I could keep it going.
00:27:25And now, that's kind of a hard way to go.
00:27:27Starting fluid is a wash your bores off kind of proposition, which brings me to the fuel that I would use,
00:27:35which is typically I try to find non-ethanol.
00:27:39You know, go to your aftermarket race fuel guys.
00:27:41They'll sell you non-ethanol.
00:27:43Now, for those of you fortunate to live in a part of the country where you can get 93 at the pump with no ethanol,
00:27:49good on you.
00:27:49Can't get that here.
00:27:50Not in California.
00:27:53But I try to use non-ethanol, and I mix a little two-stroke oil in, or you can buy that.
00:27:58You can buy stuff from the auto parts store that's already pre-mixed.
00:28:02You want 50 to 1 or something.
00:28:04You just want a little bit of oil in there to kind of help it out.
00:28:07The reason for this, the need for being helped out is that when you put your motorcycle,
00:28:14you park your motorcycle overnight, and you go out and ride it the following day,
00:28:19oil has drained from working parts.
00:28:23But there are additives in the oil that seat to it that enough remains that it's good.
00:28:30It starts, it runs, it doesn't damage itself.
00:28:34But if it's been sitting for years, have sympathy for all those moving parts which may be devoid of oil.
00:28:46You may remember a few years ago that there was a great scandal over a particular motorcycle
00:28:51that wiped out its cams because it took so long for oil pressure to reach a particular part of one of the cams after startup.
00:29:01So pre-oiling of the kind that Mark is talking about is a really good idea for something that's been sitting in a while.
00:29:10Yeah.
00:29:11So the gum that gets inside your carburetor, you can also have residue on the valves.
00:29:15And so you can have an intake valve that might have some scuzz on it that would be a little sticky.
00:29:20And putting some oil and fuel can assist with making sure everything spins around.
00:29:27I'll go ahead and say it because I know you guys are thirsty.
00:29:29But on a Velocet, I have the oil feed to the rocker, as many people do, has a section of clear hose.
00:29:38And it takes about 50 kicks on a Velocet oiling system to get oil to show up in that tube.
00:29:44And so if it hasn't run in a long time, A, it'll have wet sumped.
00:29:48So I'll have to, if it's a dry sump, you know, you have a tank up here and it's meant not to be in the engine.
00:29:53It's in the tank.
00:29:55There's a scavenge pump that puts it back in the tank and it hopefully rests while it's running.
00:29:59It gets a little cooler and then goes back into service through the engine.
00:30:04With the Velo, you know, you make sure the pump is primed and all that.
00:30:07But I kick that thing through for exercise.
00:30:10Feel good.
00:30:11Get that right leg back in shape because you're going to need it.
00:30:15Yeah.
00:30:16And you kick it until oil goes up into the rocker feed.
00:30:19XS 650, same thing, man.
00:30:22I'm going to kick that thing through a zillion times to make sure that there's oil circulating.
00:30:27You could go crazy and pull rockers off and put some oil up top.
00:30:31If you had something truly exotic with parts that are hard to find
00:30:35and it wasn't sort of a work-a-day motorcycle like an XS 650 or something,
00:30:39you're going to want to go to great lengths to make sure you don't break something.
00:30:43But in the general terms.
00:30:47I want to back up a little bit and talk about old gas because it's tempting to,
00:30:56well, it's got three quarters of a tank.
00:31:00No.
00:31:02And I want to tell you why.
00:31:03Get rid of me.
00:31:04Because if you live in a suburban community and there is a town dump every spring when people
00:31:12are looking for lawnmowers, you'll find that the dump super has a row of quite recent model
00:31:20looking lawnmowers for sale at attractive prices.
00:31:23How does he get them?
00:31:26People throw away lawnmowers that don't start in the spring.
00:31:32My mother's lawnmower didn't start in the spring.
00:31:35I said to her, what did you do?
00:31:37She said, I put it in the sun.
00:31:41And after it had been in the sun three hours of a warm afternoon, it started right up.
00:31:46Now, here's the reason.
00:31:47Earlier, I said gasoline consists of a range of molecular weights.
00:31:54The first part to evaporate is the very part you need for cold starting, the so-called front
00:32:01end of the fuel.
00:32:04And gradually, gradually, what's left over is sort of the lamp oil part of the gasoline,
00:32:11which in a volatility test may not come off until 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
00:32:19So, engine's not going to start on that stuff.
00:32:23This is why fresh gas often solves problems with machines that have been down for a while.
00:32:33The other thing, of course, that those dump supers know, a fresh spark plug may do the job
00:32:40just as well, because the owner has fouled the spark plug somehow, and they get even by
00:32:48taking the $300 mower to the dump.
00:32:52So, that's my lecture on fresh fuel.
00:32:56I think it's a good idea to start an engine that is being revived and get running.
00:33:02It's a good idea to provide it with fresh fuel right from the start.
00:33:08100%.
00:33:08You might be lucky.
00:33:12Don't count on it.
00:33:14Yeah.
00:33:15I did get lucky with the Yamaha.
00:33:17I didn't have to get too deep in the carburetors.
00:33:19I pulled the float bowls and cleaned them out eventually.
00:33:23But the rest of it was pretty good.
00:33:25The fuel lines had gone rock hard and crusty and just sort of...
00:33:29Well, one of them actually swelled up.
00:33:32The rubber had swollen, and it was the crossover between the carburetors.
00:33:37It swelled up, and it was just...
00:33:39It was this black...
00:33:40So, whatever it was, it was this black gummy stuff that was not the right...
00:33:43It wasn't good fuel hose, so I got good fuel hose on it.
00:33:48Sonic Cleaner is a good investment, as Kevin was saying.
00:33:50You can put the whole carburetor in there.
00:33:52I bought one that's kind of big, so I could put a large carburetor in it.
00:33:57And I use the aerospace or aircraft simple green with a dilution of water and then cook those.
00:34:08It tends...
00:34:09I didn't do that the first time I did some carburetors.
00:34:13I used regular simple green and a lot of heat, and I let go a long time, and it turned the aluminum black.
00:34:18And what I discovered through reading was that the aircraft stuff has a different chemical makeup, and it tends to do that less.
00:34:27You don't want to do it forever, but you'd be shocked at what comes out of there.
00:34:36Get an air compressor.
00:34:38Blow out your passages.
00:34:40I often wish we had compressed air in the kitchen.
00:34:43Yeah, air compressor is good.
00:34:49What Kevin said about poking, particularly your idle jets, because they're so small, is that you can make a difference in the performance of the jet by scratching the little orifice.
00:35:01Nonetheless, sometimes I have used the finest guitar string, because it's very straight.
00:35:14I would cut it in an angle, but I would be incredibly careful about getting the hole started.
00:35:20Yeah.
00:35:21And then take it from there, because sometimes, what Kevin said, using a sliver of wood, it's possible.
00:35:25My luck would be that I would clog the hole with the wood, and then I would have to get tweezers or something to get it down.
00:35:30I would have another problem there.
00:35:34But you want that stuff to be immaculately clean and beautiful.
00:35:38Throttle shaft seals.
00:35:39If you have a bike that has throttle shaft seals, some exotic Webbers use sealed bearings for their throttle shafts.
00:35:49I mean, my goodness.
00:35:50Most of what we're dealing with is a brass shaft and an aluminum body with maybe an insert, a bearing-type insert on it.
00:36:01That problem went all the way to the top.
00:36:03In the war, the 3350s on B-29s were converted to rolling bearings on the throttle shafts, because they had troubles with it.
00:36:14But then you're going to move along down the driveline.
00:36:19Does the clutch release?
00:36:20And if you have a center stand, you can put the thing in an upper gear and see if you could pull the clutch, have someone pull the clutch while you try to turn the rear wheel.
00:36:37And you can increase the severity of this method by rolling the bike through its backlash to see if you can break the clutch plates loose.
00:36:49And there was a friend of mine who regularly had the plates of his older Triumph stick.
00:36:56He lived on a hill.
00:36:59He put the thing in an upper gear and he pulled the clutch, rolled down the hill, and then clunked it into gear.
00:37:13So, each morning.
00:37:16I had an old Kawasaki that did that.
00:37:18I think it was a KU-100.
00:37:20And I actually had to get it running and hammer it with the clutch pulled in until it finally broke free.
00:37:31And then it worked fine.
00:37:33I was sort of surprised.
00:37:34I had no idea.
00:37:35I mean, I'd never taken apart a clutch at that point.
00:37:37So, I was just trying to solve the problem without peering into the dark places.
00:37:43Into the dark places.
00:37:44Speaking of which, one of the things that I learned as a novice would-be racer was that if you have to service the clutch, remove the fairing, lay the motorcycle on its non-clutch side.
00:38:00And this way, you don't have to drain and refill the oil.
00:38:04You can pull all the screws, lift the clutch cover, do whatever you have to do in there.
00:38:09And incidentally, when you look at a clutch, you will probably notice that it has plate separators.
00:38:14Sometimes they are a steel wave spring that is put between each pair of friction discs.
00:38:22Or it may be a rubber piece.
00:38:26But the purpose is that when you lift the clutch, that those flexible elements will pull the plates apart for you.
00:38:38That's what they're for.
00:38:40That's the old dirtbiker's trick, kicking it on its side.
00:38:45That's what's great about a dirt bike.
00:38:46You just lay her down.
00:38:47But you're probably going to want to drain the oil.
00:38:49If you just got this thing out of the shed, you want to drain the oil.
00:38:52Yeah.
00:38:53On this Yamaha, why was the oil so thin?
00:38:56Because carbs had stuck and fuel dripped into the cylinders and got past the rings and diluted the oil.
00:39:06The oil in this thing was like pond water, black, brackish, very thin.
00:39:10And it smelled like gas.
00:39:11It was very clear.
00:39:13What had happened?
00:39:15So I did a short run.
00:39:16This, you know, an XS has a sump plate.
00:39:18You take off the sump plate.
00:39:19It's a big square piece.
00:39:20And you can get your finger up there and just rake out any scuzz in there.
00:39:28Old oil, I've found, can have a very high wax component.
00:39:33I don't know how it happened.
00:39:34I don't know when my 58 Triumph last ran when I got it.
00:39:39But I would bet it was 40 years.
00:39:41And the bottom of the oil tank was a solid mass of gunge.
00:39:49It was terrible.
00:39:50Yeah.
00:39:51I found out I got very lucky with that.
00:39:53I didn't know what I was doing.
00:39:54Didn't know what I didn't know.
00:39:56I got that bike running.
00:39:58I did the top end.
00:39:59I actually got it running without doing the top end.
00:40:01It had incredibly what I thought was a very high compression.
00:40:04And it did.
00:40:05It ended up having like 11 to 1 pistons in it with a 10 thou clearance.
00:40:12It turns out.
00:40:14But before all of that, I was like, oh, yeah, ran when parked.
00:40:19And I kicked through and it had compression.
00:40:20I was like, wow, that's, I've never felt that.
00:40:22But I will try and get it running.
00:40:24So gas tank was in good shape.
00:40:26I didn't take the carburetor apart, put fuel in it, didn't drool out.
00:40:30It's like, hey, this is pretty cool.
00:40:32Just see if it starts.
00:40:33Did my fresh gas, a little bit of oil in the cylinders and all that.
00:40:37And it was very hard to kick and it kicked back.
00:40:43Man, did it kick back.
00:40:45Threw my shoe off of my foot in the yard.
00:40:50So it would pop, though.
00:40:54I'm like, I'm going to make this thing run.
00:40:56This is real high compression.
00:40:57I got it running and it was blowing back out the carburetor.
00:41:01There was mixture coming out and then going back in the carburetor.
00:41:07And it made this horrific sound.
00:41:09And I'm like, I shut it down.
00:41:11I'm like, what is going on here?
00:41:12I had never pulled the valve caps off.
00:41:15I was just excited.
00:41:16So I pulled off the valve caps.
00:41:18The push rod on the right side had come out.
00:41:23And so it was not opening the exhaust valve.
00:41:26I got it to run and it was, I mean, it had the other piston helping it,
00:41:30but it was cycling through the intake valve and it still ran.
00:41:36Yeah.
00:41:36So it did the top end.
00:41:37But what I didn't know is I got this thing running
00:41:40and I took it on the Hanson Dam ride that the Norton Club puts on every year.
00:41:45And I ran into a guy, Mike Haney.
00:41:47It's also where I first met Phil Getty of JRC Engineering.
00:41:52And they were like, man, I can't believe this bike because it was really original.
00:41:57It was a 58 Triumph Trophy and it still had the quick disconnect headlight.
00:42:02So back in the day, they had a QD headlight with a big plug so that when you rode to your race,
00:42:08you could take off your headlight.
00:42:12You just unplugged it.
00:42:13It still had the QD plug.
00:42:14And they were like, I can't believe that.
00:42:15It had all the washers in the right places and everything.
00:42:18And I rode it.
00:42:19I rode it to the Hanson Dam ride, which is probably like an 80-mile ride from down south where our office is.
00:42:26And Mike Haney asked me like, oh, did you clean the sludge trap?
00:42:30And I'm like, what are you talking about?
00:42:31Because I had no idea what a sludge trap was.
00:42:33But inside the crank, there's a sludge trap.
00:42:35And sometimes they're so full.
00:42:36And then you get the bike running, you re-oil it, you do all the stuff.
00:42:41It goes out and it seizes in the connecting rods.
00:42:46It stops the engine from turning.
00:42:47And I said, oh, no.
00:42:49Oh, did I do it wrong?
00:42:50He's like, no, no.
00:42:51It's running?
00:42:51I said, yeah.
00:42:52He's like, you're fine.
00:42:53Yeah.
00:42:55But there is a lot you don't know.
00:42:57And I guess the encouragement that I have is like, I've always kept my eyes on the prize of wanting to ride something so bad, wanting that experience, like with the Vela set, with my Norton Commando.
00:43:11I don't know.
00:43:12I just gotta.
00:43:13What is that?
00:43:14I just gotta.
00:43:16That motivation to want to get that feeling and hear the sounds and experience the experience, that's always driven me to buy the tool when I needed it or if I could afford it.
00:43:26But to make the tool, if I could make the tool, like highly motivating to me, for me to want to get on the bike and hear the sounds and have that experience.
00:43:36And that's what drives me.
00:43:37But don't give up, you know, take your notes.
00:43:41We're so fortunate now with cell phones and limitless photographs, video, video the daylights out of it.
00:43:51I got this Ford F250 89, bought it used from the original owner.
00:43:56It was pretty beat down.
00:43:58I'd never worked on this era of Ford pickup truck.
00:44:01I didn't know anything about it.
00:44:02I took a zillion photographs.
00:44:04I walked around and video things, videoed it so I had a reference.
00:44:09If I start a specific job, I do that.
00:44:11I still write notes.
00:44:13You put all that stuff together and then you build your understanding and what is like pulling a cylinder head.
00:44:21It was such a huge deal to me, not on the truck, but, you know, years ago, it was such a huge deal to me to pull the cylinder head off of something.
00:44:29And now it's just like, yeah, pull, let's pull the head.
00:44:32Yes.
00:44:33No, let's just pull the head.
00:44:34When guys were, when the Norton Manx was the privateers ride in 350 and 500 cc's, it was normal to pull the head after Isle of Man practice because then you could see the whole piston crown.
00:44:51And it was a trivial job to do it because you could have the head off in just a few minutes, make your examination, and put it all back and make sure that it's properly timed and start the engine to be doubly sure.
00:45:08So, it does seem like a tremendous mountain to climb when you first do it, but for so many people, it's routine.
00:45:22I met these guys who were running, I think there were three of them.
00:45:25They were running a 600 Supersport engine and they'd been doing really quite well.
00:45:30And I said, what are you guys doing here?
00:45:32He said, well, we found that the engine lost a lot of power after it had run for a couple of hours.
00:45:38So, we freshened up the top end every weekend.
00:45:42Just pop the cylinder head off, reseat the valves, check everything out, put it back together, time it.
00:45:52And then they basically had a fresh engine at every start.
00:45:57Makes you long for the days of two strokes.
00:45:59You're going to have to mess with those stupid valves.
00:46:01Yeah, yeah.
00:46:04But that's something that...
00:46:06$12 piston.
00:46:08Well, there's this...
00:46:09I remember two guys who needed a crank change.
00:46:13One guy had just come in from practice at Thompson, Connecticut.
00:46:17And he's pushing his bike.
00:46:19And he said, as he pushed by, huffing and puffing, crankshaft.
00:46:25Under an hour later, here he came back with a fresh crank in his motor, running.
00:46:31This is an RD 350.
00:46:33So, this was a job he'd done several times.
00:46:36He was good at it.
00:46:37He could do it in a jiffy.
00:46:41Two fellows called me up on the phone and said, would you be willing to receive calls from us answering questions while we change the crank in our RD?
00:46:51It took them two weeks.
00:46:54But they did a fine job.
00:46:56Their motor ran.
00:46:57They were very pleased with it.
00:46:59And I was pleased to help because they climbed the mountain.
00:47:04And a lot of people moan about all the little parts in the carburetor.
00:47:13Buy yourself one of those trays that has 50 little places in it to put all the parts.
00:47:19And don't let the cat walk in it.
00:47:21Just to keep everything where you know what it is rather than saying, well, what's this thing?
00:47:32You'll know after you've been through the job once and you'll never forget.
00:47:36But that first time, give yourself every assistance.
00:47:42Yeah.
00:47:42Don't mix your carburetor parts with one carburetor to another.
00:47:46You know, SUs, AMOs, like the slide lives in the carburetor.
00:47:50Don't mix them up.
00:47:51Yeah.
00:47:52Especially if it's used.
00:47:53I mean, if you're replacing the slide in the body or something like that, whatever.
00:47:57But I always use, I use trays per carburetor, cooking trays, stainless, like stainless little kitchen trays.
00:48:08And then Sharpie on it.
00:48:11Oh, sure.
00:48:12As long as I'm not putting solvent in there, you know.
00:48:15But grouping the parts, laying them out in the order they came out, things like that.
00:48:19Making note of what's the number on the needle.
00:48:23That's the other great thing is like, look at these glasses, right?
00:48:25These are great glasses.
00:48:26I'm 20-20.
00:48:27I can read down here.
00:48:28I can see Kevin.
00:48:29I can see off into, I see the moon.
00:48:32But I can't read a carburetor jet, even with these sometimes.
00:48:36But you can use your phone and zoom that camera in.
00:48:42I have a hundred pictures of jets with their numbers.
00:48:48I guess assuming, you know, here's the thing about assuming what you're taking apart is what it purports to be,
00:48:54is that my XS650 had racked carburetors on it.
00:48:59So they were not, this is a 1972, it's an XS2, they were not racked.
00:49:04Yeah.
00:49:05They had a dual throttle cable.
00:49:06This bike had, in a good way, been converted to racked later carburetors.
00:49:12The jet kit I bought was wrong.
00:49:15Yeah.
00:49:16And so I ordered, I had to, I had to go through that.
00:49:18The forensic research of reading and reading and like, what's different?
00:49:22I'm like, oh, this is a 72.
00:49:24These are racked.
00:49:25Oh my goodness.
00:49:26And someone also pointed that out in comments on the video.
00:49:30Watching it.
00:49:30Oh, you've, you've got, you've been upgraded to later carburetors.
00:49:33This is why we don't assume everything is as it was, you know?
00:49:36Yeah.
00:49:38After the clutch release test, you're going to check for gearbox speeds.
00:49:43And you probably won't find any difficulty there, but it's a good thing to check.
00:49:51The next thing along, oh, another point, of course, is, is there leakage from the gearbox output seal?
00:49:59Some people are going to do something for their, for their older bike and put modern synthetic gear oil in, for example, into a two-stroke with a separate gearbox lubricant.
00:50:11And it causes the seals to shrink away from the thing they're sealing against and drip, drip begins to leak.
00:50:21Have no fear.
00:50:23Drain out the modern, highly recommended synthetic lubricant and refill with ordinary old lubricant and the seal will perform like new.
00:50:35So, so the chains and sprockets, is the chain a filthy mess, rusty?
00:50:43Look at the front sprocket in particular to see if the, if the teeth of that front sprocket are symmetrical or whether they are hooked over.
00:50:55As the sprocket wears, it wears on one side of each tooth so that gradually the, the tooth begins to look like it's hooked over.
00:51:05It's worth, it's worth replacing sprockets on an older machine if there's any question about it.
00:51:12Nice to start with a new chain, but if the chain that's there is flexible and seems serviceable, well, you could re, re-operate it as the Pratt & Whitney manual said.
00:51:28So, but it's a good thing also to check installation torque on rear sprocket bolts.
00:51:38Now, my middle son is doing a get running update on a 1988 GSX-R.
00:51:48It was written intensively by its owner for a period of time, but the tires on it, he looked up the codes, they are 24 years old.
00:52:00So, that's something to bear in mind.
00:52:03Tires may look fine, but chemical change goes on inside the rubber.
00:52:09Fighting against that chemical change is a legion of anti-oxidizing soldiers who are fighting against the hardening of the rubber.
00:52:20I have some old race tires that takeoffs from years ago up in the shop.
00:52:27They are hard.
00:52:29So, good idea, you know, starting fresh with oil, starting fresh with fuel, starting fresh with rubber, and very likely starting fresh with chain and sprockets.
00:52:47The sum of all of these changes is not expensive if you compare it with having someone do it at over $100 an hour.
00:52:59So, learning not to pay $100 an hour.
00:53:02Or $200.
00:53:04Yes, or $200, or maybe a figure.
00:53:06You can go to dealers in Southern California and pay $200 an hour.
00:53:10Yeah.
00:53:11Great.
00:53:12But you get that satisfaction of also knowing your machine.
00:53:16I would do, I didn't, I was lucky with the XS650.
00:53:19I did not have to change the chain and sprockets.
00:53:22I would like to because it is geared on the short side.
00:53:24I'd like to give it more legs, but it's perfectly fine.
00:53:29It's an old diamond chain.
00:53:32Oh, an old diamond, yeah.
00:53:33Big old honking diamond chain.
00:53:35Very big for a 650, to be honest.
00:53:38But it's doing the job.
00:53:40I lube it frequently because it's an auto ring chain.
00:53:43But it's one of the things that I love about the XS650 is that it has a drum brake,
00:53:48which you don't have to mess with brake fluid because it's a mechanical drum brake.
00:53:52That's why I like vintage British so much, 50s, 60s British.
00:53:57Yep.
00:53:57Cable brakes, no hydraulics.
00:54:00I mean, hydraulic brakes are vastly superior, but so often you've got to rebuild them.
00:54:07You're checking for leakage.
00:54:09You know, they're pretty reliable, but there's a point where the master turns into white powder.
00:54:14Yes, or unidentifiable semi-solid substance.
00:54:20This 88 GSX-R had a front brake line that was blocked solid.
00:54:27Air pressure wouldn't touch it.
00:54:30Well, they swell on the inside sometimes, and they can form.
00:54:33This is a really interesting thing I learned on an Austin Healey many years ago.
00:54:36So the brake line turned into a check valve.
00:54:40Ah, yes.
00:54:41Because it had swelled on the inside.
00:54:43So you would apply the brake, and you could force fluid through, but guess what?
00:54:46It wouldn't come out, and the wheel locked.
00:54:49Well, one year, Suzuki were having their panicky fuel stops at Daytona.
00:54:58And this is back in the days of overhead refuelers, not a dump can.
00:55:03And it turned out that what was happening, oh, the bikes came in, and they clicked the fueler in,
00:55:09and the guy puts the air release fitting in, and they're counting off the seconds the engine's running there.
00:55:17Moment of tension.
00:55:19The rider roars off, then runs out of gas.
00:55:22Then they ran the next rider out of gas.
00:55:24It wasn't delivering any fuel because a section of the liner in this three-inch hose had come loose
00:55:34and was like a free agent tongue.
00:55:39In one direction, it was a check valve, and in the other direction, it delivered.
00:55:45So no fuel came down into these bikes.
00:55:50So this is why the 88 GSX-R has new brake lines, because the notion of, oh, we're going to be lucky this time.
00:56:01No.
00:56:03Correct it correctly.
00:56:07The oldest tires don't have date codes on them.
00:56:13Often brake lines will have a date on them.
00:56:15Not always, but there's often a date on them.
00:56:19The DOT number, it'll have like a 43-12, and that'd be the 43rd week of 2012.
00:56:27It's usually an oval pellet-shaped thing on the side of the tire, and you can find out how old it is.
00:56:34The brake lines on my pickup truck were so old that the rubber was turning into kind of a black chalk,
00:56:41and you could see the fabric weave that was once covered by black rubber.
00:56:46Yes.
00:56:46And the fellow was driving around with those brakes.
00:56:48Can you believe it?
00:56:496,000 pounds.
00:56:53One of the things about brake service, of course, is you may need some snap ring pliers,
00:56:59and you must remember that no brake rubber part can touch hydrocarbon solvents.
00:57:11So if you're cleaning, clean in brake fluid or isopropyl alcohol,
00:57:16because it is EPDM rubber, which stands for ethylene propylene diene monomer.
00:57:25And it's horribly, it swells horribly in petroleum solvents.
00:57:32So if you're throwing all the parts away and starting new,
00:57:37the temptation to try to wash up bad parts is no longer present.
00:57:44And the rebuild kits are a lot cheaper than running into something because your brakes didn't work.
00:57:51So sometimes you'll find things like one piston and a caliper, the brakes work,
00:58:01but only one caliper piston is working.
00:58:04The other one's stuck.
00:58:06So it's a good idea to bear that in mind when looking at such parts.
00:58:11Yeah, getting out stuck pistons, boy.
00:58:16Oh.
00:58:18So sometimes in my early days, I was like, well, I'll use compressed air.
00:58:22And there's a lot of dynamic energy in compressed air because it recompresses.
00:58:29It comes out of your compressor, and you stick it in.
00:58:32If it's really stuck, you can build up 100 psi in a heartbeat,
00:58:36and then the piston has 100 psi behind it, and let's go.
00:58:39So not a good situation.
00:58:41So knowing I'm going to rebuild something and I've got to get the caliper apart,
00:58:46I've got to get the pistons out, I will use a grease gun, a hand-pump grease gun,
00:58:53and I'll pump grease into the piston.
00:58:55And then that way, you get a slow push out,
00:59:00knowing I'm going to replace the rubber parts and all that.
00:59:02There's nothing springy inside to expand suddenly.
00:59:05And send the piston across the shop.
00:59:10So, yes, good suggestion.
00:59:13I think it's also useful to do the ray plum test on the suspension,
00:59:21which is sit on the bike, hold the front brake on, and push up and down.
00:59:28It should go down easily and come up with some restraint,
00:59:33indicating that the rebound damping function is present.
00:59:37I took apart a fork on a 1967 bike and found that the check valve in one fork leg was upside down.
00:59:48So I think that it's useful to test some things without the spring.
00:59:59If you're taking the front fork legs out, there are all sorts of tests that you can do.
01:00:05But, of course, now we're getting into the realm of assembly.
01:00:08And that's not our subject at the moment.
01:00:11Our subject is checking.
01:00:13Yeah, checking the front end.
01:00:14I mean, I had a neighbor with a little monster, like a 620 monster, 35,000, 40,000 miles.
01:00:25And he had a host of difficulties that I was helping him with.
01:00:33But I was like, dude, your tires are ancient.
01:00:36You've got to get some tires on this thing.
01:00:38So he ordered tires, and I was helping him with the tires.
01:00:42And I compressed the front end.
01:00:47And it went down and stayed.
01:00:52Yes.
01:00:52And then I pulled it, and it came back.
01:00:55I was like, huh.
01:00:57I said, well, my friend, this is a weird situation.
01:01:00This is not good.
01:01:01You rode this here.
01:01:02Yeah.
01:01:03Okay.
01:01:04Let's just take, we're going to get in here and take it apart.
01:01:08We've got to take the wheel off.
01:01:12There was a bit of a pop taking the axle out, and it was highly friction, highly frictionable.
01:01:19So ideally, your axle would just go in without too much trouble.
01:01:23Like, if you support the wheel so there's not bearing gravity down it, you can pull the axle out.
01:01:29Yes.
01:01:30It should slide out.
01:01:31Maybe in the pinch bolts, it's a little tight, but you do undo the pinch bolts.
01:01:34It really, it shouldn't go, ugh.
01:01:37And it was doing that, and I was like, check this out.
01:01:39So I undid the lower triple clamp bolts, and I did it, and it went pop.
01:01:47And the fork had been twisted, and who knows how long this kid had been riding that bike, and he doesn't know any different.
01:01:53He's a newer rider.
01:01:54He just doesn't know.
01:01:55So there's that.
01:01:58There's the steering head bearings.
01:02:00I just make it a rule to take steering heads apart.
01:02:03I just, because of being picky, and I used to say I was a snob, but then my friend said, no, you're an elitist.
01:02:12You know, you, an elitist appreciates the finer things.
01:02:18The snob just wants them because they're fine.
01:02:20I'm like, ah, fair enough.
01:02:22But, yeah, so I, I change, you know, like on a Yamaha XS, Valisette, you can get tapered roller bearing conversions because they typically have uncaptured balls, a lot of the old bikes.
01:02:37And if you change your seats to tapered roller bearings, man, you get a, it's like a changed motorcycle.
01:02:44It's like a railroad wheel, wheel bearing.
01:02:48Yeah, so you get, you know, you get a flat roller on a tapered service.
01:02:53And, and when you adjust that correctly, that's the other thing is you're going to, you want to check for play.
01:02:57Any kind of click, if you feel a click when you apply the brakes and you know that your steering head may be.
01:03:02Or you can stand in front of the bike with the wheel between your knees, put the brake on and pull it toward you.
01:03:07If there's looseness, you'll feel that clicking.
01:03:09Yeah, you'll feel it.
01:03:11This is, this is the tech inspection.
01:03:13Yeah, these are.
01:03:13Kneel, kneel to the side of both front and rear wheels, grasp the top or the fender and go.
01:03:21If there are loose spokes, loose bearings, wrong spacer in place, you'll feel it.
01:03:29Yeah.
01:03:30The Yamaha, just, I keep saying Yamaha, is this a drinking game?
01:03:33I don't know, but it's just the recent thing that I revived.
01:03:36So it's top of mind, but it has all the problems, plastic swing arm bushes.
01:03:41That's what they came with from the factory.
01:03:43And so I'm like, okay, it's on the center stand.
01:03:45I'm doing the wheels.
01:03:47So I pull, you know, I'm going to pull the wheels, but I do what Kevin said.
01:03:52Bike's on the, on the lift, hold the seat, hold the frame, grab the back of the rear wheel at the very rear.
01:03:58Works great on a Norton Commando for ice elastics as well.
01:04:03And you go, and I think the spec was like two millimeters and it was probably like five or 10.
01:04:08I mean, it was a lot.
01:04:10And so, yeah, okay.
01:04:12We got to do swing arm bushes.
01:04:13You know, that's a, you, you don't want this movement on your back wheel.
01:04:18You don't want that thing wagging around.
01:04:20Because it's competing with your steering.
01:04:22Yep.
01:04:23It has its own opinion about where the bike should go.
01:04:26And on a bike like that, like I did with my RD350 tapered head bearings and bronze bushes, because you can buy those.
01:04:35Put them in the freezer, moderately warm up your swing arm with like a propane torch.
01:04:40Don't burn the paint off.
01:04:41But man, they just slide right in.
01:04:44Grease them up, put it back together.
01:04:45You wouldn't believe the difference in your motorcycle.
01:04:48When I was doing AMA Tech, I encountered two motorcycles that had aftermarket swing arms put on them.
01:04:59And the owner had not put any bearings in them.
01:05:04They were really loose.
01:05:06Oh, geez.
01:05:08So, these are reasonable checks to make.
01:05:12Everybody has different standards.
01:05:16It's shocking.
01:05:17You know, I use it when I go to the airport.
01:05:20You know, I go to the general aviation airport.
01:05:22My son's taking flying lessons.
01:05:24We just go to the restaurant.
01:05:26We eat.
01:05:26And then we walk around and look at planes.
01:05:28And you think, huh, this guy's flying that?
01:05:32I mean, front knuckle of the tricycle landing gear, covered in dirt.
01:05:38Every pivot covered in dirt.
01:05:42A lot of the planes have a generator or alternator that's run off of a wheel on the propeller.
01:05:49And so, the fan belt, basically, it's a V-belt and goes over to a generator and it makes the electric power.
01:05:55And you can see them because they're in the front of the cowling.
01:05:58And you look at this rubber belt and you're like, ooh, I wouldn't trust that on my board.
01:06:06I wouldn't drive with that.
01:06:09And here's someone going up in the air and flying with it.
01:06:11There's just people who are like that who, eh, it'll be fine.
01:06:14That's good.
01:06:15It's worked before.
01:06:16Or whatever.
01:06:17I don't know what the thinking is.
01:06:18So, everyone has different standards.
01:06:20That's why when you buy a bike, sometimes people say, like, oh, no, it's great.
01:06:23It's really fun to ride.
01:06:24And then you get it and the swing arm bushings are shot.
01:06:28And it's terrifying to ride.
01:06:30Or they don't ride it hard.
01:06:32And if you do, if you want to go, you know, it might be fine.
01:06:36A lot of things are just fine at 60%.
01:06:41Even brand new bikes.
01:06:43You know, when we go to test a motorcycle, 60%, 80%, virtually everything, especially brand new, is great.
01:06:50It's when you take it up to that, you know, 99th percent that you begin to see the problems.
01:06:56We had a test bike years ago.
01:06:57So, really fun bike, pretty comfortable on the street, got it on the track, front-end chatter, like deadly front-end chatter.
01:07:07Wow.
01:07:09Not designed to do this, I guess.
01:07:12There were no problems.
01:07:13But even prepped motorcycles, prepped motorcycles for magazine testing, they generally put a lot of effort into that.
01:07:20You know, we're going to test the bike and we're going to, we're making the defining statement about the motorcycle in a road test.
01:07:27We use tools, we measure, we dyno, we go to the drag strip, we do all this stuff.
01:07:33You'd think they'd be perfect, and they are perfect or not.
01:07:38Front wheels mounted backwards.
01:07:41Tires mounted backwards on front wheels facing the correct direction.
01:07:46Things not torqued.
01:07:48Loose brake calipers has happened.
01:07:50You know, they put new tires on it and went through the whole thing, torqued the axle, and did not torque the bolts for the calipers.
01:07:58Here's something that I strongly recommend, and that is go over a motorcycle with a cloth and clean things.
01:08:08Because this will cause you to look at everything.
01:08:14And it is remarkable how many negatives you can find.
01:08:20I used to find, see so many cracked exhaust systems on race bikes.
01:08:24People would say, don't come near my bike.
01:08:27Just, just get away from here.
01:08:29Because I would see cracks even at a distance.
01:08:34And it's a good idea to have your eye on such things because cracked parts can let you down.
01:08:44Firm believer in cleaning your bike, for sure.
01:08:47And not so much out of fastidiousness as a means of disciplining yourself to look at everything.
01:08:58Ting the spokes if you've got an older bike that you're looking at.
01:09:02Get the wheel off the ground, give it a spin, and ting the spokes with a metal tool.
01:09:12Are they dull?
01:09:14Are they irregular?
01:09:15Or do they nicely sing a nearly constant song?
01:09:19It gives you some insight into whether this is a badly neglected wheel.
01:09:27You can also, when you spin the wheel, see if it's turning straight or if it's doing a shimmy, shimmy, cocoa bop.
01:09:37Yeah, it's nice.
01:09:38It's a good thing to look at.
01:09:40I guess my description of what I do with a wheel on a used bike is I make love to the wheel.
01:09:45So if I'm, if it's in my shop already and I'm going to work on it, I take the wheel off.
01:09:51I spin it as Kevin describes.
01:09:53I spin it, I stick my finger on the swing arm and I'll spin it or a screwdriver and just look at the deviation, whatever there is.
01:09:59As my sort of truing stand, makeshift truing stand and on a bike like the XS, it's got a nano ring chain and a drum brake.
01:10:08And you spin that rear wheel and it just, it just goes on and on.
01:10:13Whereas with an o-ring train, there's a little bit of drag.
01:10:15It kind of wants to push through.
01:10:17I do that then pull the axle off, note all the spacers, do all that stuff, get the wheel out, check the wheel bearings.
01:10:25Just stick your finger in there and spin the wheel bearing like this.
01:10:28Is it perfectly smooth or does it go?
01:10:31And if it does that, you're probably going to want to replace that wheel bearing.
01:10:34And it's not hard.
01:10:35You know, it's a little bit of coldness, a little bit of warmth, it goes right in.
01:10:40Don't worry about it.
01:10:41But it will make such a difference.
01:10:43Wheel bearings, swing arm pivot, steering head bearings, motor mounts.
01:10:49All pivots.
01:10:50Yeah, all pivots.
01:10:52Check for existence of engine bolts.
01:10:54Again, in tech inspection, I found numerous motorcycles that had fewer than all engine bolts fitted.
01:11:04And these were people who were frantically trying to get their bike ready for an event.
01:11:08And they just, they took a call or the wife said, this is, I'm throwing the dinner away if you don't eat it.
01:11:21The engine bolts were never all installed and torqued.
01:11:25So, these are things that you will discover if you go over a motorcycle in fine detail, which I strongly recommend.
01:11:34It is a way of getting to know it, quite literally.
01:11:38These problems, one of the things that I discovered to my amusement, Kawasaki's H1R, which was a 500cc triple two-stroke production racer, had a reputation for terrible handling.
01:12:03And, I bought one that had come out of a field among tall corn.
01:12:12And, I decided to take the springs off the rear shocks.
01:12:18One rear shock went, it just went up and down without resistance.
01:12:24Had no lubricant, had no damping oil in it.
01:12:27And, when I took the, it was a threaded together type of damper.
01:12:31And, when I put a hook spanner on the top plug and unscrewed it, I found that the O-ring had evidently been put in dry.
01:12:43And, the last tightening had caused it to do this, to become a D-ring.
01:12:49And, the first several strokes of the suspension pumped the oil out.
01:12:55The other damper was normal.
01:12:58Goes down, compresses easily, and rebounds slowly, which is normal.
01:13:07So, this is why I recommend the no spring test, both front and rear.
01:13:13And, as Mark has noted, it's possible that fork tubes may have been bent and straightened.
01:13:22Or, the whole thing may have been put together a little off.
01:13:27And, when you compress the front suspension, it stays down.
01:13:31I just read the other day that Les Graham was, in his, in the first ride of the season, on an MV factory bike, that it stuck down.
01:13:44And, he was, he was killed.
01:13:49So, these are not casual matters.
01:13:54You want things to be functional, as they're intended to be.
01:13:58So, that, you have a good ride.
01:14:04Yeah.
01:14:06A quick, quick vote for the GIS screwdriver, Japanese industrial standard.
01:14:11If you're working on Japanese bikes, the screws like you, they'll have a little dot on them.
01:14:15But, sometimes they don't.
01:14:17Looks like a Phillips, but it's not a Phillips.
01:14:19The angles and everything are different.
01:14:22You can cheat it with a Phillips, but you'll recognize the screws that have been cheated,
01:14:26because they'll be hogged out horribly.
01:14:28GIS, when you, in a new GIS screw, with a new GIS screwdriver, the fit is beautiful.
01:14:35It's a solid drive.
01:14:37It's so wonderful.
01:14:38It's great.
01:14:39So, GIS screwdriver.
01:14:41I wanted to talk about the actual physical battery.
01:14:45Some vintage bikes, charging systems.
01:14:47Some vintage bikes have mechanical voltage regulators, which, after 50 years, could work.
01:14:53Or, they could stick, and you could rev your bike up, and you could have 21 volts.
01:14:56And then, a misfire happened on my RD.
01:15:00The XS650 seemed to be working okay, but I thought, you know, we have regulator rectifiers that are solid-state, and they're wonderful.
01:15:10So, let's just go ahead and use a brand-new solid-state one.
01:15:16And it was a little challenging to figure out the wiring, but the company that I used had a good tech resource,
01:15:22and I rearranged the plugs and got everything going again, and now it charges reliably at about 14.2 volts.
01:15:33Battery types.
01:15:34I'm a big fan of the AGM lead-acid sealed battery, AGM-absorbed glass mat.
01:15:41They are more expensive.
01:15:44There's brands that have an Odyssey battery in my Ducati that's an AGM battery.
01:15:50It's eight years old, and it's going strong.
01:15:53It could be as much as double the price or more of a flooded lead-acid battery.
01:16:00So, that's like your typical plates, little plugs in the top.
01:16:05You buy it dry-charged, and you get a tub of acid, and you fill up each one of the things.
01:16:11You leave the cells.
01:16:12You leave the caps out.
01:16:14You let it settle.
01:16:16Put a little more in so that the heights are correct.
01:16:18Then, you have a vent tube, and the part number of the battery will describe where the terminals are.
01:16:25It'll describe the voltage.
01:16:26It'll describe the amp hour, and it'll also describe the orientation of the vent if it is a vented lead-acid battery.
01:16:34Perfectly acceptable.
01:16:35I put one on the Yamaha.
01:16:37Vented lead-acid UASA.
01:16:39It's fine.
01:16:40They just tend to make corrosive gas, and if you have a situation where you overcharge the battery or something happens, that's why the tube is there.
01:16:48You want to try and run that below the bike, but the tubes always fall off or, you know, take whatever happens.
01:16:53And then that's why that very same bike has acid etching on the chrome of the exhaust pipe, and the paint is damaged on the frame.
01:17:04You just have to know that going in, that if you're buying a vented lead-acid battery, particularly when they get old, they can make more gas, and they can corrode the terminals faster, things like that.
01:17:15When you get a sealed AGM, it's all inside the battery.
01:17:19It's its own kind of, like, weather system, I guess.
01:17:22It's designed to take care of whatever's happening with hydrogen and moisture and all the things that go on inside, chemically.
01:17:31And you can orient them in any way.
01:17:33They do not spill.
01:17:34So I spend, if I really love the bike, I spend the money.
01:17:39On older bikes, you can sometimes be challenged on finding the battery in the parts finder.
01:17:45Like, you go to a battery manufacturer, and it doesn't go back to 1972 or it doesn't go back to 58 or whatever you're trying to do.
01:17:53So assuming that the battery fits well that's on the bike, like, if you open it up and it's got correct hold-downs or it's got a bungee cord and it looks like it's in the right spot and the positive is on the correct corner of the battery and the negative is on the correct corner of the battery and the wires are oriented in a nice way, you can take that battery and say, here's the plus, here's the minus, here's the dimensions, and you can go and you can find a battery's dimensions and get close.
01:18:22It's better to buy one a little shorter and put something under it to buff it up than to stick one that's in too tall and then close your seat and weld the terminals together.
01:18:34The moment I was telling our shop guy a couple years ago about what not to do with the modern lithium battery and electronic ignition and stuff, I was like, you don't want to shock this.
01:18:51You take this negative off first because then if you touch the positive, when you're undoing the positive, if you touch the frame or some ground, if the negative's already undone, that's where you just undo the negative.
01:19:04You can touch the wrench to the negative in the chassis because it's already connected, but you don't want to do that to the positive because you make a spark.
01:19:10And I told him, this is how you do this with a battery.
01:19:14And then he takes the wrench and he fumbles it and drops it and it goes across the terminals and goes, duck, and shoots off.
01:19:23Lithium batteries, love them for their lightweight.
01:19:26Their self-discharge rate is much slower than a lead acid battery.
01:19:30You're looking at like maybe 1% per month or something.
01:19:33So they can go between charges for, you know, practically ever.
01:19:39But if you invest in a lithium battery, you want to have a charging system that's designed to work with a lithium battery, which is generally at a lower charge rate.
01:19:47A lot of the lithium batteries have circuitry inside the top of the battery that helps balance the charge.
01:19:55You need to use a charger.
01:19:57Like I've got a battery tendered junior trickle charger or not trickle charger, smart charger.
01:20:03And it has a button to change the lithium because I believe in a lower the voltage going in.
01:20:08So you don't want to just take your mechanically voltage regulated Yamaha XS650 and go, yeah, man, I'm putting a lithium battery in there.
01:20:17I'm going to save nine pounds or whatever you're going to save out of it.
01:20:20You could also overcharge the battery or do something like that.
01:20:24So good old lead acid is great.
01:20:26If you have an application that is designed for lithium, like they're selling, you know, lithium iron is a nice, safe chemistry.
01:20:33And lots of new bikes are coming with those because they are lighter and they have such a tremendous amount of energy in them.
01:20:42But it's got to be, you can put it in an Avenger bike if you get a voltage regulator rectifier that's smart, MOSFET's nice.
01:20:50And then also it's specifically stayed into work with lithium.
01:20:56I'm remembering that in classical times, the 1960s and 70s, you could always identify the setup kid in a shop because of the holes in his T-shirt, which resulted from acid spills when filling new batteries.
01:21:17Yeah, nasty business.
01:21:18Well, I think we'll call it, Kevin.
01:21:24Okay.
01:21:25I hope your bike is running.
01:21:30You can see some of this process in the Ran When Parked episode on the Motorcyclist YouTube channel.
01:21:35I did that.
01:21:35I did two episodes.
01:21:36We did another one on a XT500 and there's more to come there.
01:21:41I love working on old stuff.
01:21:43I appreciate your perspective, Kevin.
01:21:45And made a few things run in your day.
01:21:50I always feel good when I looked into the dark place and that which was baffling and terrifying is no longer.
01:21:59And I love the confidence of putting something together and knowing and not wondering if I got it right, knowing I got it right.
01:22:06And having the judgment built by doing it over and over and making all the mistakes.
01:22:11It's your quote from many years ago, basically, that the view, what is it, something like the view I've established is due to me standing on the mountain of broken parts that I've been associated with.
01:22:26And it's true.
01:22:27You just try things.
01:22:29My dad said to me, with skepticism in his voice, what makes you think that when you put all these pieces together that this thing can never run again?
01:22:40And I said, I hope mildly to him, if it has compression, fuel, spark, and timing, it has no choice.
01:22:54It has to run.
01:22:54And when you get it right, when you make sure that you have those things, it will run.
01:23:03It's not an opportunity for caprice.
01:23:10You will find exceptions, but you will also become adept in diagnosing and correcting them.
01:23:21Good times.
01:23:23Get out there.
01:23:24Work on it.
01:23:25And then ride it.
01:23:27Throw a light in a dark place and then feel that freedom.
01:23:30Is there anything better than a bike that starts on first kick after you work on it?
01:23:34That's true.
01:23:36Starts, runs.
01:23:38It's good.
01:23:39Yep.
01:23:40Ignition advanced springs.
01:23:43Lubrication of things that have not been lubricated.
01:23:46And then it just runs.
01:23:48So nice.
01:23:49Well, thanks for listening, folks.
01:23:51We'll catch you next time.
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