Let's see those bikes

Oh yes! For many years in many many bikes. It has the correct certs. And yes the oil is shared with the trans. Give it a try. If it's good in a KLR it is good for anything

F650GS is shared. Rotax single.

 

That's what was in the back of my mind that you had...getting something else?

 

Nothing in my immediate plans. I have a Kaw Super Sherpa and a Yammy TW200 that I am going to putz around locally on this summer with the wife. After 10 years of Xcountry bike trips I've had enough travelling for awhile.

A buddy of mine who works in healthcare was looking for something to commute 40 miles each way on. All 4 lane 65mph zone. The Beemer was perfect and gets 7o mpg if not flogged. I basically gave it to him compared to the crazy price's folks are asking for toy's these day's. He deserved that after the rough stretch he has endured in his chosen career.

 

I forgot you had that...need to get mine out again too.

Good on you!

 

I’m 2 up from center. It was centered when I started, I raised it one, but still wasn’t quite right when I was cruising and light on the throttle. I raised it one more and it’s pretty happy there.

 

Someone has screwed with the jetting then...or the float level is too high...or sometimes the needle and emulsion tube that it "seats" into wears and causes a rich condition on high mileage/hour machines. Center groove is the stock position, and moving one groove is a lot...they actually make shims to put under the e clip to give you "half step" adjustments, needing to go 2 is really unusual.

 

I would consider testing/replacing the needle/seat assemblies if they are miraculously original. Nifty old iron. I just back tracked to see what machine you were working on.

 

I dug a little deeper, and deeper yet... and discovered that in addition to the cable adjustment on the perch, and the one where the cable goes into the case, there’s this one. An inconspicuous jam nut and a shaft with a screwdriver slot in it. I loosened up the nut, backed the shaft off (by turning it clockwise) tightened the nut and bingo. The clutch grabs as it should.

 

Ah ha. I’ve only serviced newer ones and they are/were all one oil, trans in case.

Little plug patch action for a friend. Tire had about 600 miles and he picked up a finishing nail.


This is what they look like.

Here you can see the metal tip for pushing through the carcass.

 

Well, it's time to put some longer legs on my bike. The current factory gearing is 16T up front and 38T rear. Yesterday was the first time getting it on the highway and at 62 MPH the motor was spinning at about 6,200 RPM. Too high for my liking if I'm going to use it to commute back and forth to work. I just ordered a 17 tooth front sprocket. I'm willing to sacrifice a little low end acceleration to gain some more top end speed. Really I think I might be asking a lot of this small bike but I'll take any improvement I can get. I went through this a couple years ago when I was riding my XR200 on the road. I couldn't find high enough gearing for it so I ended up making a front and rear sprocket, then making another set even higher LOL. In the end I ended up at +2 teeth from factory in the front and -8 in the rear What I learned was you can only compensate for displacement deficiency so much. So I'll settle for incremental improvement. Even if it only drops 500 RPM at that same speed, I guess it was worth a $20 sprocket.

 

My sprocket came in this afternoon and I swapped it out. I didn’t take it back on the highway yet but I did head out into the boondocks to some open roads with no houses around and got up to highway speeds. Looking at the tachometer it was exactly where I calculated it out to be. 6% gain in speed at the same RPM. I supposedly lost 6% torque at the rear wheel but honestly I didn’t feel much loss in acceleration. Overall I think it’s geared close to perfect for my style of riding.

 

Rode the Hawk to work today.


Had a somewhat local guy message me about selling his ‘03. Only 8,5xx miles!






Super super clean. I love it! Haven’t discussed his asking price yet.

 

Boy, what an old rag!

Didja buy it yet?!

 

Not yet.

 

She’s a cream puff. 8,511 miles.

 

SOLD SOLD SOLD!!

 

Sad day yesterday. Last year I never road because of occular issues (retinal tearing)as well as vision issues. Things quieted down over the winter but I still have massive floating debris in my left eye that takes out half my vision in that eye at times. Scary even when I'm driving a 4 wheeled vehicle and isn't something that lasts for a couple of minutes, but days at a time. That eye also has 2 different tpes of cataracts on top of distorted vision from karateconus. The cataracts aren't advanced enough for surgery (do it too early and chances are better than 50/50 they will come right back), I wear special contacts to help control the distorted vision, and the debris is something they don't try to abate unless there are sever consequences to qualtiy of life.

I took a quick ride in April down to the next town and back (about 14 miles), but that has been the only time I've ridden since I took it to winter storage November 2019. I put it up on CL a couple of weeks ago but with no bites except for scammers (actually, worse since they wanted my email address, which is never a good thing to give to a stranger since they can use it for nefarious things). Yesterday I got a call about 3:00 pm, and the dude was driving off with it shortly before 5 (he had an hour drive to get to my place). Funny becuase he said his son just got a 2011 that looks almost exactly like this one, which is one of the custom colors called Merlot Sunglo.

1st 3 pictures were taken last year of how the paint color changes in different lighting conditions. The last two are of her being loaded up for her new owner. I hope he gets as much enjoyment out of her as I did!

 

Sad days indeed. I can empathize. I've had Harleys of one size or another (had nine at one time) all my adult life. I hadn't rode much for a few years due to ongoing health issues related to injuries sustained in Iraq so I sold my last bike (a custom Street Glide) in 2019. At first I was ok with the sale, since I wasn't riding, however motorcycles had been such a big part of my life that it just felt like there was something missing. I finally picked up a used Softail Custom (my favorite HD) last summer. I've only taken it out a couple times as I am still concerned about being on two wheels with the health issues, however I don't care if I only sit on the bike in the driveway, it still brings back a lot of good memories.

Hopefully your vision will improve to the point where you feel comfortable riding again. Once it's in your blood, it is tough to be without a bike.

 

Sad to see this bogieb but kudos to you for doing the safe thing.

 

Guess I have a fleet now?