What did you do to your bike today?

[Eveready1100]

Finally decided to give the old girl the once over. Had been running the 17" rear wheel off my spare bike for a while and decided that fuel economy hadn't changed a bit, so I went back to the original 16 incher. While the wheel was out, I went digging further after reports of the driveshaft actually stripping the gears off them and found this.-



The teeth weren't worn to the point of having a razor sharp edge on them, but they had a definite step in them which probably would've been through the hardened faces, so future life expectancy was drastically shortened.

To date, all I'd done with this was pull it from the housing every 70,000 klms or so, fill the female drive socket with grease, and plug it back in.
this time, I actually cleaned all the old grease off it, and saw how much the splines had been worn. To be fair, the bike has just clocked over 300,000klms and this is the original shaft, so that's not bad mileage for a sliding joint that moves with every movement of the suspension. I went out and pulled the shaft from my donor "E' and saw that it was in nearly new condition.
While all this was happening, I removed the swingarm and checked the tapered roller bearings in the pivots, washed them out, repacked them and reassembled as it all checked out ok.
Repacked the diff flange with moly grease and reassembled, then refitted the 16" wheel.
Took it for a run to work today, and all I can say is, "What was I thinking?"
The acceleration off the line is awesome with the lower gearing, and overtaking without downshifting will be something I'll have to get used to doing again. Engine braking is much stronger, too, which will take a load off the brakes in the long run, which is good, eh? Plus the fact that these motors love to rev. I can feel it, alrighty!
Combined with stripping off all the rack, panniers, towbar etc. which has made the bike about 30kgs light er makes it all the better. The fairing's coming off this weekend, so I can take full advantage of the newfound, old performance.
Roll on Sunday!

[cywelchjr]

Here's a pic of the old pads.

I should have changed these out sooner.

Hmm, I don't see any rivets in those pads . I do however see metal to metal contact having been made .

[petejw]

finished doing the top end today,
had replaced pistons, rings, serviced the head, honed the cylinders
and put a new cam chain in,
also ran the engine in, wow what a difference in power and
smoothness, theres no smoke and i dont need to stick a litre of
oil in each time i run it.
the only problem i encountered was when i removed the sump
to clean it a peice of bakerlite was sitting in the sump, from what
i can tell its part of the guide for the hi vo chain, i had a knock
at idle but thats now gone, so ill run it and see how it goes,
overall really happy.

[cywelchjr]

I replaced the round light fixtures on my trunk that were partially melted and were starting to not work properly.

Replaced them with a set of semi-oval lights I got from Walmart of all places. The install didn't go too bad and they look decent in my opinion. Here's a picture of the finished job.



Forgive me for the messy garage. Got too many people sharing it, I have just about enough space in there for the bike and my tools .

[jwhughes3]

Looks good cy

Great work!
JW

[planedick]

On my b-day

I changed the oil and removed the oil cooler as I don't need it in the winter and I was tired of dealing the small hose leaks. I also installed the lowers 'cause the morning commute was getting a little chilly.

[natemoen]

Forgive me for the messy garage. Got too many people sharing it, I have just about enough space in there for the bike and my tools .

I think I see that oil cooler over here on the left....

[cywelchjr]

I think I see that oil cooler over here on the left....

Actually you do, it's in that plastic bucket. I gotta find a box to pack it in now. It's your's, I just gotta get it shipped to you . No way does anybody else get it and even if I decided to do an oil cooler it's not mine anymore, it's just not been delivered to the new owner.

[cywelchjr]

I replaced the round light fixtures on my trunk that were partially melted and were starting to not work properly.

Replaced them with a set of semi-oval lights I got from Walmart of all places. The install didn't go too bad and they look decent in my opinion. Here's a picture of the finished job.



Forgive me for the messy garage. Got too many people sharing it, I have just about enough space in there for the bike and my tools .

I thought I'm mention I just went for a test ride (night ride) and I'd say they put out at LEAST 50% more light than the original light pods with LED's did. This is a note for Catatonicbug who has the same trunk and the same LED bulbs I did. I found that the springs in the sockets in the original lights were weak which was my problem. I also noticed (and I know the LED's didn't do this) the fixtures were ALL partially melted at the top, one of them worse than the others.

I'll also mention that the cut to fit them in was just ever so slightly wider than the original round holes, and just a bit more across than the two together.

[cywelchjr]

Cy, you got a picture of that brace?

Yeah, here is a picture I got of it while I had the trunk off while I was installing the new lights. As you can see it comes up off the hard bag frame. You might be able to fab up something similar seeing that you have hard bags on columbo as I recall which means you have mounting hardware in the right area to create a brace like this.

[3Phase]

Thank you, Cy!

That's definitely something I can do when the bags are mounted. I'll have to think about how to make it work when I don't use the bags.

[cywelchjr]

Thank you, Cy!

That's definitely something I can do when the bags are mounted. I'll have to think about how to make it work when I don't use the bags.

Ahh, my framework stays on even if the bags are off, the only difference is that the bags are not mounted on the frame when I'm not using the bags.

[cywelchjr]

Ok, I guess I finally found my round tuit. I finally built my garage door opener into my fairing this weekend. Now I can just push the square red button on the fairing to open my garage door instead of fumbling into the fairing pocket and trying to find the garage door opener so I can squeeze it to open the door.

Works pretty cool, and not being marked nobody knows what it does, and it only works within about a half a block anyways.

[CatatonicBug]

I thought I'm mention I just went for a test ride (night ride) and I'd say they put out at LEAST 50% more light than the original light pods with LED's did. This is a note for Catatonicbug who has the same trunk and the same LED bulbs I did. I found that the springs in the sockets in the original lights were weak which was my problem. I also noticed (and I know the LED's didn't do this) the fixtures were ALL partially melted at the top, one of them worse than the others.

When I put the LED's in, I completely rebuilt each of the sockets. Took all the wiring and springs out and re-soldered everything with new wires. They were all cracked and just about to let go. Nothing was melted in mine though.

Ok, I guess I finally found my round tuit. I finally built my garage door opener into my fairing this weekend. Now I can just push the square red button on the fairing to open my garage door instead of fumbling into the fairing pocket and trying to find the garage door opener so I can squeeze it to open the door.

Works pretty cool, and not being marked nobody knows what it does, and it only works within about a half a block anyways.

I know I've seen a system that uses the high-beam button to activate the garage door opener. Might have been a little cleaner than a big button.

[cywelchjr]

When I put the LED's in, I completely rebuilt each of the sockets. Took all the wiring and springs out and re-soldered everything with new wires. They were all cracked and just about to let go. Nothing was melted in mine though.

I wish mine were not melted, but all of them were at least a bit melted. A couple of them were significantly melted, so I figured it was time to give up, as I couldn't find anything similar enough. These things are bright too. I think they actually stand out more. Now I'm looking for a wig-wag module for them. I want as much light out there as I can get. I want to find red lenses for the rear turns and put 1157 type bulbs in them along with the trailer module like psychoreefer has, the more lights I got back there the better I feel, I want a christmas tree back there when I step on the brakes and I want some of them to wag back and forth for a few seconds when they activate too. (specifically the trunk and main brake light ones.)

I know I've seen a system that uses the high-beam button to activate the garage door opener. Might have been a little cleaner than a big button.

I know several guys that have those, and most feel they are pretty cumbersome to use. Plus, our high beam switch is rather awkward to use compared to modern bikes, most who use that use the flash to pass button. I may do a button on the bars at some point, but for now it seems to work pretty well. It's a bit step up. And it's a pretty small button, and it was there in the fairing when I got the bike, used to be the starter button thanks to the PO, so I just re-purposed it, it's less than 1/2 inch square and easy to miss if you don't know it's there. The fairing also already has a toggle installed for fog/driving lights, just gotta install the lights .