Airhead "Tips and Tricks"

[kbasa]

Keep it up and I'll lock this thread, gentlemen. I expect this type of behavior from my 13 yo niece, not a bunch of middle aged men.

If you have personal disagreements, take them elsewhere, or get a nice long vacation from ADV to work on your bike.

Seriously.

Kbasa
Mod.

[Plaka]

Originally Posted by kbasa

Keep it up and I'll lock this thread, gentlemen. I expect this type of behavior from my 13 yo niece, not a bunch of middle aged men.

If you have personal disagreements, take them elsewhere, or get a nice long vacation from ADV to work on your bike.

Seriously.

Kbasa
Mod.

Ouch. I'm waiting on bearings andd it was a perfect day to work today too...it's ugly.

I'll throw out a new one while I'm thinking about it (as soon as I figure out how to do it.

[Plaka]

Alternator rotors often go open. I have a theory about where and I applied some reinforcing to my last good rotor and it hasn't failed. Doesn't say a lot about my theory but..well, I used to blow them up a lot and now I don't.


If you look at the rotor you will see two small fiberglass tubes insulating the wires as they go to the slip rings. Skive one of these open with an exacto knife (making a small oval hole) and look inside. If you see a wire with no potting compound around it (the stuff on the rest of the windings) this is not good. The wire can vibrate in the tube and eventually fatigue and break. The rotor goes open. Hard acceleration and deceleration of the motor makes this worse (all you light flywheel fans...). it can be difficult to tell what is happening inside the tubes by just poking the outside because potting compound on the outside can make the tubes very stiff.

The fix is to fill the tubes with hot epoxy. Skive open the other tube so you have a small oval hole. Find a beer can with a smooth indentation in the bottom. Some have embossed letters or something, no good. You may have to sample many brands. Use the inverted beer can as a disposable mixing dish and mix up a small quantity of ordinary 2 hr. epoxy. I use a popsicle stick, it scrapes the curvature of the can nicely.

Warm up the fiberglass tubes with a hair dryer. If you get them as hot as a hair dryer will go that's fine. You can even use a heatgun on low but I would experiment on something else first.

Now put drops of epoxy in the hole in the tubes with a toothpick. When the epoxy contacts the hot tubes it becomes very fluid and will flow in. It will also set a whole lot quicker so don't dawdle. Fill the tubes completely, let it set overnight and you are done.

Depending on where you skived the hole and how the epoxy behaves for you, you may need to do a couple of rounds. Whatever. You got plenty of beer cans.

if your tubes were full of potting compound in the first place you are in good shape. A drop of epoxy (5 minute, cold) to seal the hole you made and you are done.

[Beemerboff]

Good tip -most rotor failures are in either the this first two or three inches of the wire or the soldered joint at the slip ring

If you can work out how to press off the slip ring it is just a case of unwinding a turn of wire, replacing the slip ring and re soldering the wire, and often just re soldering the wire will do.

You can check for continuity on the remainder of the windings with the Fluke and a couple of box cutters to cut through the lacquer on the wire

If you have to buy epoxy for the job most electronic supply houses have a potting compound, although I dont know if it is any different to normal epoxy.

[Plaka]

This transmission got banged on something and the clutch cable eye was fractured. This is a cold home repair with steel pins, brass sleeves and epoxy. I opted not to recut the deep chamfer on the leading side because I was getting a good rocking action out of the cable end and there is enough tension to keep it from going sideways. Always room to cut it later if the cable is run slack and it comes out the slot. The epoxy is a homebrew of 2 hr. Devcon and a lot of flake aluminum. A glass filler could be used also, like milled fibers (a more common material than flake aluminum). You want as much filler as you can get consistent with a workable paste. I usually apply it warm/hot to get more flow and adhesion. For this reason use the 2 Hr. Heating accelerates the hardening and 5 min. material will kick faster than you can work it.

http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/tranny%20repair.htm

[Plaka]

After 100K miles the gear shift lever on my '83RS is getting pretty loose. It flops sideways more than I like and makes gear changes feel sloppy. The pivot is pretty worn. it's snowing and I'm waiting on engine parts so I got some quality shop time in repairing it.

Pulled the lever off and scraped the crud off. There is a very thin bushing pressed into the aluminum lever. This rides on a steel shoulder bolt. You have to take it apart to clean/lube it.




First, the bushing gets pressed out. I set the lever on a big socket and used a Craftsman 10mm deep socket to press with. Size was perfect and the bushing came right out.



The bushing has a seam in it. it was set up in a vise on the drill bress and I cut the bushing along the seam. Just slide the vise into the saw. 2 passes. .032" slitting saw. You can use a Gryos slitting saw in a dremel but they are very thin so you either stack blades on the mandrel or do a couple passes. With a .032 slot I could push the bushing into the lever by hand but not enough clearance for the next move so I made another pass to widen the slot.



Finally it's wide enough. Took a couple of fittings with the bolt.



Next I sacrificed a .002 feeler gauge blade. I cut it to length to wrap around the bushing. I got it stuck in place with some tape and then I did a tight twist of wire to compress the slot in the bushing closed and hold the gauge stock tight. The inside of that bushing has a special texture, the gauge stock has to go on the outside, not to mention it's stainless rather than bronze.



Then I stuffed the bushing back into the lever bore. I used the twist of wire like a ring compressor.



Then I deburred the inside of the cut in the bushing with a scraper. The shaft of the shoulder bolt was worn concave and it was tight in the middle. A little more scraper work relieved the center of the bushing until the fit was just right. Slightly stiff lubed with 90 wt.



Next up was dealing with the bolt and the lubrication hassle. The bolt gets set up in the drill press and a 5/32 drill is positioned so the tip is at the midpoint of the shaft length (by eye). The drill press depth stop then gets locked down.

EDIT: Don't do this. No clearance for the grease gun. The hole has to go from the other end of the bolt. I changed that later (not shown)



I didn't know how hard the bolt was..seemed medium hard. I selected a cobalt drill bit just in case. It went through it like dry sand.

Lacking proper layout fluid I used a Sharpie marker on the side of the shaft and scribed the depth of the drill bore. Next a very slight concavity is cut with a grindstone in the Dremel.



Bolt gets set up in the press again and the position of the grind is compared to the drill which is still against the stops from the drilling. Looks good. Take the bolt out and center punch it for the cross drill.



After some eyeballin' and a lot of agonizing I do the cross drill, go all the way through the bolt. Will the deities of intersecting holes favor me?



Yeah baby. Reminder to self: Do Not Have Any One Of Those Holes Pointed At Your Face When You Spray Carb Cleaner Through Any Other Hole To Clear The Chips. (That was so dumb). Well, they intersect anyway. Both exit holes get deburred and polished out a bit with some crocus cloth.

I get the greaser out and try it. Perfect. Get grease out the far side, none out the near side (I pushing on that side) and not a lot of kickback out the injection hole. The lever is very smooth on the bolt and there is zero rocking. Jus' like new again.



By now staring at those parting lines is really bugging me. They get smoothed out while I have it at the bench.



It's getting out of hand. I'll have to replace the cracked shifter rubber next. Beer thirty, walk away.

[melville]

Originally Posted by Plaka

By now staring at those parting lines is really bugging me. They get smoothed out while I have it at the bench.



It's getting out of hand. I'll have to replace the cracked shifter rubber next. Beer thirty, walk away.

Yeah, watch out for that--you may not have enough winter for this:



It's removed here, but my Kinematic shifter has a zerk on it. Different year? Mine is not original to the bike.

[mark1305]

That's a clever fix for the bushing - and better than simply replacing it with a new one. I bought a new one to replace the sloppy bushing on my ST. The new bushing was as sloppy as the old one, so I didn't bother changing it.

[Plaka]

Originally Posted by melville

Yeah, watch out for that--you may not have enough winter for this:



It's removed here, but my Kinematic shifter has a zerk on it. Different year? Mine is not original to the bike.

WOW, pretty stuff. But now you gota keep it that way.

[Plaka]

Originally Posted by mark1305

That's a clever fix for the bushing - and better than simply replacing it with a new one. I bought a new one to replace the sloppy bushing on my ST. The new bushing was as sloppy as the old one, so I didn't bother changing it.

On mine there was a lot of wear on the pin. I would have had to replace both. Only about $35 but then I gotta spend money and wait for parts...again.

[StmbtDave]

Originally Posted by CaribouCases

Testors Yellow 1114 enamel, very close match....

I just purchased a '92 R100GS Bumblebee. Are the forks and the Roo bar supposed to be the same color? My forks are a much lighter yellow than the Roo bar (which is a bit of an orange/yellow) and I'm wondering if one or the other has been repainted.

Dave

[darmahman]

I think so Dave - Mine were the same. Both of em...

Originally Posted by StmbtDave

I just purchased a '92 R100GS Bumblebee. Are the forks and the Roo bar supposed to be the same color? My forks are a much lighter yellow than the Roo bar (which is a bit of an orange/yellow) and I'm wondering if one or the other has been repainted.

Dave

[StmbtDave]

Originally Posted by darmahman

I think so Dave - Mine were the same. Both of em...

Thanks Mike. Give my regards to the WF group. Oh yea, you should have sold me yours.

[Plaka]

So I have this clutch side switch assembly...was sitting in a bucket of water in someones backyard for...awhile. I evicted snails. Needs cleaned up. First I pull the guts out. One phillips flathead (4x50, lost it and had to buy another) takes of the turn signal knob from the lever. A circlip inside releases the light switch (it's euro spec with the off-parking-headlight switch). The hi-low rocker just pops off. Another phillips on the inside releases the guts from the outer housing. Takes some wiggling and vocabulary to get it out.

Guts on the bench. Already did a light wash on the housing and two knobs.



It's a mess.
1- light switch
2- horn button
3-Hi-Lo rocker
4-turn signals



Do the light switch first. it just pulls apart. has a bore in the inner moving plastic piece with a spring and detent ball. Weapon of choice here is an air eraser running household baking soda. Essentially a sandblaster the size of a fat airbrush. Best thing going for cleaning any electrical contact anywhere on the bike. Also etches glass and gets ink lines off paper; silicon carbide grit for the former, pumice for the latter. The baking soda is gentle on the plastic but gets the copper nice and bright.



The horn button assembly is held with small posts on the metal that go in hole in the plastic surround. Just prys out. I didn't want to take it down further than that, had some goodly holes and cracks and I could see a spring in there I didn't want to fool with. So I blasted in through the openings while working the button and hoped that would do. Checked the resistance with the button clamped down, warn't any.



Put that back and went to the Hi-Lo rocker. This has a bore through it parallel to the pivot pin. Spring in the bore with a detent ball on one end and the contacts on the other. Rotated it up and took out the ball, spring and contact plate and had perfect access to clean everything. Putting it back together was ugly tho'.

The empty bore from one end.



And the contacts on the other end. They lift off.



Last was the turn signal switch..and here my troubles began. The metal box with the switch has tabs and is sandwiched in the plastic body. Pry the right side outward and it lifts out. Then spread the metal of the box to release the slider and the contact plate. The lever is riveted in. Fair amount of corrosion on the lever but it cleaned up. The contact in the slider lifts up and has a spring behind it---or there used to be one. it was in bits. There is also a bore in the slider with a spring and detent ball. Lost the spring. Game over.



Cleaned it up and put it back in loosely. Need some springs which is going to either involve doing a hack to get samples off some manufacturer or stripping down some other switch...maybe a badly sun damaged one.

Lesson learned---do the turn signal switch first.

Sigh.

Anyway the end game was going to be to hit it with the water pic to get out any traces of soda, blow it dry and then some contact cleaner, which has a lubricant in it. Some other day...

[Plaka]

The most important control on the left bar is the horn button. if you can't dim the lights or hit the turn signals exactly when you want no big deal, but the horn is critical when some asshat is about to turn in front of you. Right hand hits the brake, left hits the horn and both initiate the swerve. But where is the horn button? Highest control on the bar, farthest reach for the thumb and requires you to break your grip too much to initiate the swerve. The idiot thing could be on your elbow for them apples. I like to cover the horn approaching intersection of if I see someone backing out, etc. I don't like my thumb high to do it.

Bad:




I got to look over the left bar controls on a CHP bike one time when the nice officer and I were chatting on the shoulder. (" mommy, why is that man lying under his motorcycle?" I was trying to cut out a strap wound around the rear axle. This drew LEO attention). Anyway the extra controls for the lights and radio were under the bar. Duh. So I have been contemplating a relocated horn button.

Bracket cut out of a piece of aluminum angle, piece of aluminum tube, stainless bolt and nut, cheap switch from Radio Shack.



Some wire soldered to the switch, lotsa heat shrink then the tube, which is a standoff gets stuck on with some epoxy because I was tired of dropping it on the floor (unheated shop, cold fingers, whine, snivel)



Bolt goes through the vestigial mirror hole on the left side. If you have a mirror there change the bracket so it bolts up to the mirror stud.



I'll have to paint the backside black someday.

Front got some polish.



Good:



You need to watch tank clearance with under bar controls. The switch is wired to the horn relay along with the original button so I can use either. I may split the two with the OEM switch working the beep-beep horn the the low switch working the air horn. Have to get the horns reworked first. Putting an air horn behind the fairing was unwise.