Motorcycle Alabama

I was wrong.  The weird, semi-harmonic noise was caused by a missing fairing bolt.  My KLR has lost its first bolt.  Good thing I have a metric bolt kit....

This one above the radiator was gone.

New chain & sprokets today. Got over 28,000 on the last ones, so I went back with the same thing again.

Installed a new rear shock on the Kazuma Viper. Must have made a math error or the shock got shipped with the wrong spring as my 270 lbs barely creates any sag... But for 30 bucks it's a heck of a lot better than not being able to get a credit card between the coils with anyone over 180...

Spent last Saturday prepping my ole Road King for the trip from Huntsville to Dodge City, KS (Motorcycle Cannonball) to Dallas, TX (Family Reunion) and then back to Huntsville over the next week.
- Replaced the rear tire
- Oil and Filter change
- Primary service (clutch adjustment, oil change)
- Trans oil change

Shook it out on a Sunday ride, and the bike is running great.  Time to head to Kansas!

Two notes for other cruiser riders (Harley, Victory, Indian, Honda):
- J&P Cycles sells an oil change package.  I ordered one, and found it super-simple.  In this case, the package was all Milwaukee Twins products, and they were even packed into Ziploc bags--one with engine oil, one with primary fluid, and one with tranny oil.  Couldn't be any easier!
- I installed a Shinko rear tire (Shinko 712) that I ordered thru J&P.  This is the third Shinko I've put on this bike, and I've gotten 5~8,000 miles out of each one.  At $70+/- per tire, I don't see how I could do any better.  I've never tried a Michelin, but I've run all the other major brands, and none of them have lasted any longer, or offered any better traction.  I think I'll keep running the Shinkos.

I've been really happy with J&P Cycles and their products for years.

More work on the viper after vintage fest. Found out that lights would have been very helpful. So I tossed some on quickly they are wired up nice just need a better mounting solution.








My cellphone doesn't really do the brightness of the led lights any favors.  But I'll iron out the details tomorrow and adjust the valves and maybe even see if there is anything inside the forks...

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Added some Hepco Becker 40L hard cases, now it's an FJ-07 !  ;D

So this happened! When is the next gymkhana?



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So the other day heading home from work it decided that it didn't want to shift down into neutral or first gear, I made it on home just taking off in second. Getting to really know the bike now.

I had basically 66,740 trouble free miles. Even that the motor still run good I decided just to replace it instead of fixing it. Found one that had only 7100 miles on it. Good to go now. Best part only down for 1 weekend.

Quote from: mojo1 on November 05, 2016, 05:53:19 PM
So the other day heading home from work it decided that it didn't want to shift down into neutral or first gear, I made it on home just taking off in second. Getting to really know the bike now.

I had basically 66,740 trouble free miles. Even that the motor still run good I decided just to replace it instead of fixing it. Found one that had only 7100 miles on it. Good to go now. Best part only down for 1 weekend.

The best part is you can tear into that tranny, fix it and have two good motors. Glad you are up and running.

James

Quote from: mojo1 on November 05, 2016, 05:53:19 PM
...I decided just to replace it instead of fixing it...

You did that yourself?!  :o

Quote from: Nice Goat on November 06, 2016, 07:22:55 PM

Quote from: mojo1 on November 05, 2016, 05:53:19 PM
...I decided just to replace it instead of fixing it...

You did that yourself?!  :o

Yeah. It wasn't that bad. I took the old motor out October 29 and the new one come in Friday so I took off work at 11. Got home about 12:30 with it , had it in and running before 5.

Nice time to reinstall.

Drove over to GA last night and picked up a new-to-me dual sport (2005 TE510). Got home @ 10p, and spent several hours poking and prodding around on it before going to bed. Got out today for a couple of hours for a shakedown run...






Hit some double and single track (and pavement)...it's light enough to be flickable through the trees, and has gobs of tractable power.

A couple of issues/farkles I'll address in the near future...

- Installing a Nomadic rear rack and a tail bag.

- Experiment with gearing. I may go up 1 tooth on the front to see if it helps on the pavement.

- The kickstand:

It's is a joke (and apparently a well known one on the Husky forums). The stand itself if self-retractable (instead of using a sidestand switch) to avoid riding off with it deployed. That means you can't just swing it down with your foot and it stay...you have to bend over, deploy it by hand, then lean the bike onto the stand.

Also, the mounting bosses on the frame for the mount, and the mount itself, are apparently made from Swiss cheese (maybe Mozzarella since it's Italian?). The holes are wallowed out, and the tab on the mount has bent from the weight of the bike...when on the stand, the bike sits at a precarious angle. Notice I leaned it on a tree for the above pic.

This pic really doesn't do the angle justice...






The whole assembly is like a reverse Rube Goldberg contraption (under engineered and accomplishes nothing). I may drill out the mounting bosses and install a Helicoil, but there's not really much meat left to drill into. Another option is to buy a swingarm mounted clamp-on stand (supposedly one for an '02 KX250 will work).

I took a zen day to wrench on my RT. I come up with a unique running light arrangement.

RT's really do not have any running lights, so any way to get people to notice you at night is a good thing (as we all know).

So I did this today:

When I mounted my larger luggage rack, I didn't have any spacers so I just bolted it straight to the OEM luggage rack, but that made it impossible to use some of the pre-cut holes for tie down spots.  Also, it made it impossible to mount the Pelican box correctly, so I just used extra-large zip ties.  That worked fine until I dropped the bike last week, so....

Today, I fixed it.  Went to Lowes and got the spacers, rubber washers, bolts and lock nuts.  Took about two hours, including the trip to Lowes.  The hardest part was threading the bolts in the very tight space.  It's not a "quick release" system, but I'm okay with that for now.