Saturday, September 8, 2007
Clutch Cable Replacement
Snapped the clutch cable at the handlebar, luckily I wasn't too far from home. To get her out of gear and into neutral so I could walk her back, I rocked her back and forth a bit while pushing on the shifter with my hand.
The new cable from O'Hanlon's Motorcycles was about $19. The Powerbuilt impact driver was $15 from Kragen. All the forum posts were right, don't try to do this without an impact driver. The four screws holding the countershaft sprocket cover will not come off without one. I'm going to replace them with hex screws as soon as possible.
Now that I've replaced the cable she seems to shift better than ever. This could just be because I did a better job with the adjustment this time, or because there is less grease and gunk inside, but for $35 and a couple hours, it's worth attempting before major clutch work.
Note: Leave the old clutch cable in place as a guide until you've routed the new one.
Remove Old Clutch Cable
The impact driver. If it doesn't seem to work at first, make sure you've got it set to loosen, not tighten. I thought I'd followed the simple directions well enough, but I had it set wrong at first.
What we're dealing with. You can see three of the screws that require the impact wrench, the other is hidden by the shifter.
Remove the foot peg. Take note of the order of the five pieces.
Remove the nut holding the rear of the shifting arm.
Remove the bolt holding the front of the shifter, where it attaches to the clutch. Take note of the angle of the clamp that the bolt cinches. When I put the shifter back on I couldn't shift above neutral because I had the angle wrong.
First of the four screws that are loosened with the impact driver. They're different lengths, so pay attention to which goes where.
Second.
Third.
Fourth. Nevermind the shift lever, I went out of sequence.
The innards once you get the screws off and turn the plate around. It's nice to finally see what I've been dealing with when doing clutch adjustments. From this point on I'd suggest wearing gloves, there is a lot of thick grease around the ball bearings.
I ended up having to cut the end off of the clutch cable to get it backed out through the plate. The metal bulb at the end refused to come out of its slot. I also ended up unhooking the spring to get a better angle.
Plate and arm. You can see the unhooked spring and the metal bulb from the end of the clutch cable still in the arm.
New Hotness
The new cable.
Routing it under the tank alongside the old one.
Inserting it through the handlebar adjuster.
Slotting it into the handle.
Take off the rubber grommet to get the new cable into the plate.
In the plate, grommet back on.
Hooked the new cable back into the arm, then reattached the return spring.
From left: plate screws, shifter and its bolt, foot peg bits.
Plate back on, ready for the screws.
Put the shifter back on. Adjust the angle of the shifter so that it will shift through all the gears. Another way to say that would be that the clamp that I'm about to bolt together in this photo can be rotated clockwise to make it easier to shift up, and counter to shift down.
Nut on the rear pivot point of the shifter.
Another view of the order of the foot peg pieces. After putting the foot peg back on do a clutch adjustment and yr done. I'll take some photos of the adjustment next time I do one.
The new cable from O'Hanlon's Motorcycles was about $19. The Powerbuilt impact driver was $15 from Kragen. All the forum posts were right, don't try to do this without an impact driver. The four screws holding the countershaft sprocket cover will not come off without one. I'm going to replace them with hex screws as soon as possible.
Now that I've replaced the cable she seems to shift better than ever. This could just be because I did a better job with the adjustment this time, or because there is less grease and gunk inside, but for $35 and a couple hours, it's worth attempting before major clutch work.
Note: Leave the old clutch cable in place as a guide until you've routed the new one.
Remove Old Clutch Cable
The impact driver. If it doesn't seem to work at first, make sure you've got it set to loosen, not tighten. I thought I'd followed the simple directions well enough, but I had it set wrong at first.
What we're dealing with. You can see three of the screws that require the impact wrench, the other is hidden by the shifter.
Remove the foot peg. Take note of the order of the five pieces.
Remove the nut holding the rear of the shifting arm.
Remove the bolt holding the front of the shifter, where it attaches to the clutch. Take note of the angle of the clamp that the bolt cinches. When I put the shifter back on I couldn't shift above neutral because I had the angle wrong.
First of the four screws that are loosened with the impact driver. They're different lengths, so pay attention to which goes where.
Second.
Third.
Fourth. Nevermind the shift lever, I went out of sequence.
The innards once you get the screws off and turn the plate around. It's nice to finally see what I've been dealing with when doing clutch adjustments. From this point on I'd suggest wearing gloves, there is a lot of thick grease around the ball bearings.I ended up having to cut the end off of the clutch cable to get it backed out through the plate. The metal bulb at the end refused to come out of its slot. I also ended up unhooking the spring to get a better angle.
Plate and arm. You can see the unhooked spring and the metal bulb from the end of the clutch cable still in the arm.New Hotness
The new cable.
Routing it under the tank alongside the old one.
Inserting it through the handlebar adjuster.
Slotting it into the handle.
Take off the rubber grommet to get the new cable into the plate.
In the plate, grommet back on.
Hooked the new cable back into the arm, then reattached the return spring.
From left: plate screws, shifter and its bolt, foot peg bits.
Plate back on, ready for the screws.
Put the shifter back on. Adjust the angle of the shifter so that it will shift through all the gears. Another way to say that would be that the clamp that I'm about to bolt together in this photo can be rotated clockwise to make it easier to shift up, and counter to shift down.
Nut on the rear pivot point of the shifter.
Another view of the order of the foot peg pieces. After putting the foot peg back on do a clutch adjustment and yr done. I'll take some photos of the adjustment next time I do one.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Idle Problem
Damn. She was running so well yesterday, but today she's gone bonkers. As soon as I started her up she had trouble idling. Figured she'd be a little better once she warmed up, but no such luck. Spent fifteen minutes in a deli parking lot messing with the idle and mixture screws to no avail. She would either die or jump up to 2,000 or 3,000 rpm on her own. The random jumps and drops in idle made me think air leak, but I also noticed the blinkers weren't blinking correctly. They were blinking irregularly and too fast, even though all the bulbs were working. So maybe it's electrical?
I'm going to go spray some WD-40 around looking for an air leak, and then poke around with the multi-meter. I feel sorry for Dave's neighbors who are going to have to listen to my bike some more.
Update
Well, it seems to be a leak in the boot between the left carb and the head intake. If I pull on just the left throttle it doesn't increase the RPMs, it just makes a loud thwup-thwup-thwup. After I let go of the throttle the RPMs increase slightly for a few seconds. While it doesn't backfire, I'm assuming that the thwup-thwup-thwuping is the mixture too rich, and the momentary increase in RPMs is the mixture passing through a proper ratio of air to fuel on its way back down to being too lean due to the air leak.
Spraying DW-40 on the boot doesn't do anything at first, but after ten or fifteen seconds the RPMs shoot up. It took a few tries for me to put two and two together, as I expected the DW-40 to act more quickly.
I wonder how this happened between yesterday and today. The only things I can think of are that the plastic cover was pressing on the carb and putting pressure on the boot. Or maybe I tightened the hose clamp too far. Now to find out how much a new boot is, and if there's a temporary fix that'll get me back to SF.
Re-Update
Rode over to Auto Zone to get some liquid gasket to see about sealing up possible air leaks. Also picked up some fuel line to replace the old ones as they've started to leak. She had problems accelerating/maintaining speed the whole way over. Came out of Auto Zone to find fuel leaking from the left air filter. That about drove me bonkers, but then I realized that the overflow hose passed above the air filter, so it wasn't that the overflow was clogged. Hammered on the bowl to loosen the float and rode to get a bite to eat. After eating I came out to find that she was running well again.
I'm not so sure that the problem was an air leak any more. Maybe it was that she was running too rich. Still not sure why she would just start running well again. Gonna see how she's doing tomorrow. I'm actually hoping the problem comes back. I'd like to get to the bottom of it rather than just be glad it disappeared randomly.
I'm going to go spray some WD-40 around looking for an air leak, and then poke around with the multi-meter. I feel sorry for Dave's neighbors who are going to have to listen to my bike some more.
Update
Well, it seems to be a leak in the boot between the left carb and the head intake. If I pull on just the left throttle it doesn't increase the RPMs, it just makes a loud thwup-thwup-thwup. After I let go of the throttle the RPMs increase slightly for a few seconds. While it doesn't backfire, I'm assuming that the thwup-thwup-thwuping is the mixture too rich, and the momentary increase in RPMs is the mixture passing through a proper ratio of air to fuel on its way back down to being too lean due to the air leak.
Spraying DW-40 on the boot doesn't do anything at first, but after ten or fifteen seconds the RPMs shoot up. It took a few tries for me to put two and two together, as I expected the DW-40 to act more quickly.
I wonder how this happened between yesterday and today. The only things I can think of are that the plastic cover was pressing on the carb and putting pressure on the boot. Or maybe I tightened the hose clamp too far. Now to find out how much a new boot is, and if there's a temporary fix that'll get me back to SF.
Re-Update
Rode over to Auto Zone to get some liquid gasket to see about sealing up possible air leaks. Also picked up some fuel line to replace the old ones as they've started to leak. She had problems accelerating/maintaining speed the whole way over. Came out of Auto Zone to find fuel leaking from the left air filter. That about drove me bonkers, but then I realized that the overflow hose passed above the air filter, so it wasn't that the overflow was clogged. Hammered on the bowl to loosen the float and rode to get a bite to eat. After eating I came out to find that she was running well again.
I'm not so sure that the problem was an air leak any more. Maybe it was that she was running too rich. Still not sure why she would just start running well again. Gonna see how she's doing tomorrow. I'm actually hoping the problem comes back. I'd like to get to the bottom of it rather than just be glad it disappeared randomly.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Carb Rebuild
Picked up two carb kits for $25 each, and the correct main jets for another $6 each, for a total of $31 per carb. Now, instead of topping out at fifty-five, I'm shifting into fifth at fifty. She makes sixty at just about 5900 rpm, seventy at about 7k. Acceleration is better too. Hot damn.
Right Carb
The rebuild kit for one carb. Had to buy a separate main jet as the one in the kit was 115, and I needed 105. Not that I would've known that, but Charlie hooked me up.
Disconnect the air filter, throttle cable, and choke linkage. Remove the carb, stuff a shop towel in the intake to keep anything from getting in.
Removing the diaphragm/slide assembly (after removing the top cover and diaphragm return spring).
Removing the float bowl.
A view of the float bowl, floats, jets.
Removing the primary and secondary main jets and the holder. Just pull on them with your fingers.
Main jet holder, needle jet, primary and secondary main jets. To remove the main jet holder and the needle jet which are under the primary and secondary main jets, you reach down through where the diaphragm/slide assembly was and press them out with your finger or a toothpick.
After removing the above.
Pressing the float assembly pivot pin out with a toothpick.
Removing the float needle.
Unscrewing the float valve seat retainer clip.
Not shown: remove the float valve seat by grabbing it with needle nose pliers. I used a shop towel to protect it from the pliers. Then remove the 'pilot jet' which turned out to be just a little rubber plug. Under that was the slow jet which just unscrews. I don't know why Clymer's says to push out those two, because there's no pushing involved. Also remove the idle mixture screw and spring, and the float bowl drain plug. Then use a pair of needle nose pliers to reach down inside the diaphragm/slide assembly and compress the retaining clip. Just grab one side and pull in inwards instead of trying to grab both at once. Remove the clip, the little plastic piece, and the jet needle. Hit everything with carb cleaner and compressed air. Make sure to spray through all the little holes and passageways in the jets and carb body. Carb cleaner is nasty stuff, so if you don't have goggles use the safety squint.
Cleaned up, in the process of being reassembled.
Measuring the float height.
Pilot jet.
From top left: needle jet retaining clip, a silver thing and washer that I didn't end up using, main jet holder, primary main jet, o-ring, needle jet, secondary main jet.
The jets before pushing them in.
The hard part is over.
Jet needle retaining clip after bending it to match the old one below it, plastic thingy, jet needle.
Reassembled diaphragm/slide assembly.
View inside the diaphragm/assembly. You can see the plastic thingy and retaining clip.
Float bowl and new gasket. Didn't bother with sealer.
Putting the diaphragm return spring in after putting in the diaphragm/slide assembly.
Nice clean carb back on the bike. It did leak gas through the overflow at first, but hammering on the float bowl with a screwdriver managed to unstick the float.
Left Carb
A view inside of the main jet holder and the needle jet poking up. They're to the left of the butterfly valve in this shot.
Inside the float bowl. Note which side/hole of the primary and secondary main jets is facing out.
Cleaned and reassembled.
Right Carb
The rebuild kit for one carb. Had to buy a separate main jet as the one in the kit was 115, and I needed 105. Not that I would've known that, but Charlie hooked me up.
Disconnect the air filter, throttle cable, and choke linkage. Remove the carb, stuff a shop towel in the intake to keep anything from getting in.
Removing the diaphragm/slide assembly (after removing the top cover and diaphragm return spring).
Removing the float bowl.
A view of the float bowl, floats, jets.
Removing the primary and secondary main jets and the holder. Just pull on them with your fingers.
Main jet holder, needle jet, primary and secondary main jets. To remove the main jet holder and the needle jet which are under the primary and secondary main jets, you reach down through where the diaphragm/slide assembly was and press them out with your finger or a toothpick.
After removing the above.
Pressing the float assembly pivot pin out with a toothpick.
Removing the float needle.
Unscrewing the float valve seat retainer clip.Not shown: remove the float valve seat by grabbing it with needle nose pliers. I used a shop towel to protect it from the pliers. Then remove the 'pilot jet' which turned out to be just a little rubber plug. Under that was the slow jet which just unscrews. I don't know why Clymer's says to push out those two, because there's no pushing involved. Also remove the idle mixture screw and spring, and the float bowl drain plug. Then use a pair of needle nose pliers to reach down inside the diaphragm/slide assembly and compress the retaining clip. Just grab one side and pull in inwards instead of trying to grab both at once. Remove the clip, the little plastic piece, and the jet needle. Hit everything with carb cleaner and compressed air. Make sure to spray through all the little holes and passageways in the jets and carb body. Carb cleaner is nasty stuff, so if you don't have goggles use the safety squint.
Cleaned up, in the process of being reassembled.
Measuring the float height.
Pilot jet.
From top left: needle jet retaining clip, a silver thing and washer that I didn't end up using, main jet holder, primary main jet, o-ring, needle jet, secondary main jet.
The jets before pushing them in.
The hard part is over.
Jet needle retaining clip after bending it to match the old one below it, plastic thingy, jet needle.
Reassembled diaphragm/slide assembly.
View inside the diaphragm/assembly. You can see the plastic thingy and retaining clip.
Float bowl and new gasket. Didn't bother with sealer.
Putting the diaphragm return spring in after putting in the diaphragm/slide assembly.
Nice clean carb back on the bike. It did leak gas through the overflow at first, but hammering on the float bowl with a screwdriver managed to unstick the float.Left Carb
A view inside of the main jet holder and the needle jet poking up. They're to the left of the butterfly valve in this shot.
Inside the float bowl. Note which side/hole of the primary and secondary main jets is facing out.
Cleaned and reassembled.
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