Bike 0, Elderon 1Follow

With the riding season fast approaching and the warm weather we have been lucky to have lately, I had been itching to get my bike ready especially with the upcoming Friday 13th ride coming soon. I tried turning it over and not a sputter, the battery had died. No worries, 24 on the trickle charger and we should be good to go. The next evening, I pop in the battery and the bike very hesitantly came to life; not as a rip roaring muscle machine, but rather more like an old man with tuberculosis. I checked the carbs and found that only cylinders 3 and 4 were firing; the first two were dead. Not good. I had had enough and decided to pac it in until the weekend.

This afternoon, I decided to give it another kick at the can. One by one I went through checking the plugs, cleaning them or replacing them as required. Finally, all four cylinders come to life and the bike roars like the great beast it is.
Success! But wait! What's this? There is an oil leak coming from the valve cover gasket!

I take a trip down to the bike shop and get 4 quarts of oil, a filter and a new gasket and make my trek back to my garage to fix the ******* leak. For those of you who have worked on DOHC, 4 Cylinder classic bikes before, you know that you basically have to tear down the bike to free the valve cover. Oh the joy of it all!

An hour later the bike is apart, the oil is drained, the cover is off and I'm scraping the old gasket sealer from the engine and cover. Then I smell the distinct smell of fresh gas evaporating into the air. Working on a bike, you expect some smell, but this smelled like someone was pouring it all over the floor. Low and behold, the gas tank which was sitting over on my workbench decides it wants to leak at the petcock connection. The worst part is the tank was FULL and it is a two person job to drain the tank when it is off the bike.. Luckily my wife is not afraid to get her hands a bit dirty and was able to help hold the tank while I drained the blood and performed minor surgery on the petcock connection.

With the tank fixed, I got back to changing the gasket on the valve cover. Long story short, I had all the bolts back in when I realized that I had forgotted to put back in the small gasket around the tach drive and had to pull the damn thing apart again. 4 hours later, the cover is back on, the tank is working and I have most of the messes cleaned up and I try turning over the bike. It won't fire again. Again through the plug check cycle cleaning each plug I found that the engine had flooded. Eventually, I got it working better than when I put it away last fall and I took it for a scoot on the highway to see how it was going to run.

The bike had more power than I remembered. I was able to go from 0-160kms/h in about 5 seconds. The bike had more, but I didn't so I laid off the throttle and found my way back home.

I think the only thing better than tearing around on a powerful motorcycle (apart from hot marathon sex with twins) is tearing around on a powerful motorcycle that you brought to life with your own two hands. Friday the 13th is going to kick *** this April.

I think he said it was either a huffy or a schwinn?

Good job on not killing the motorcycle more!

Thats a pretty one, I love motercycles, but I'm too much of a ***** to try and ride one :) My grandpa has a couple of Touring style Harley's that he rides to work, and all over the place in CA. Those are soooo pretty :)

That's why I don't have a Harley, I prefer to ride more than I wrench.

Every season I say I'm going to buy a bike. Every season I find some reason not to.

FUcking Canadians.

You're going to want to at least know how to check the oil, plugs, tire air pressure and the general status of any bike you ride. You only have 2 wheels, so if you run into a problem, it's far more dangerous than in a car.

Barkingturtle? dat joo?

How can you call it boring (Motorcycle Maintenance - I could give a flying fuck about the philosophy part.) ? Last night, after writing this, I went outside and took a picture of the sides of the bike without side covers on and then opened photoshop and created a new sidecover design. Tonight when I get home, I plan to make a cardboard template based on the design I came up with and I'm going to make some new custom covers for the 2007 riding season. Next week I'm going to re-do the seat and paint.




Edited, Mar 26th 2007 12:58pm by Elderon

Go spend more of your life on FFXI mooglefucker. I hear the cat women calling you.

How about you get the fuck out of the Asylum, your weabooness is juvenile and uninteresting. You'll be better off spanking it to your anime movies.

lol I guess he thinks he phases me.

But I'm worried that if I ignore him he'll go away :c

I'd like to see pics of the new design, when you're done with it. Those are nice bikes, despite the horrible ad pics.