Viragoking returns! And, gas is right out...

I stopped over to Viragoking's house today to check in with him about the purchase of the Maxim650. He wanted my opinion about what I thought.

The 650 was in pretty rough shape. It's a 1980 "daily runner" and looks the part. Exhaust will eventually have to be removed and replaced (rust, pitted corrosion and the posts look as if they have no thread, so getting them off is going to be a lot of work), the left rear shock is leaking oil. Carb boots loose (easy fix, but he runs it like that, sucking in dirt and debris, so who knows how the inner carbs look) manifold boots in poor shape, Suzuki headlight, aftermarket plastic mirrors, aftermarket exhaust... the list goes on.

I'm not one to say no to a good deal, but this guy wanted to trade VK for his 1985 xv700 which just had a lot of work done to it (new starter, jets, carbs rebuilt, new boots, plugs, speedo and more) plus he wanted VK to replace a poor coil. Come on! No way, dude.

He decided instead to keep the virago, and get it running. Good idea. I'll help! There is a set of coils on ebay that I've bid on... I hope I win and that they aren't too expensive...

In other news...

I was riding FauX yesterday, marveling at it's superb handling, it's agile maneuvering and snappy throttle response when suddenly, it started sounding really, really bad. NO matter how much throttle I applied, the bike refused to respond. I checked the odometer and noted 118 miles on the ticker (wow! nearly 47.2mpg!). I'd always wondered how far a full tank of gas would get me. Now I know. I rolled slowly off one side of the road, onto the shoulder.

Brothers, I'd run out of gas. And before you ask, no, for some reason my fuel indicator light did not come on, at least not that I noticed. I tried flipping to reserve, it fired once, then refused to run.

I was about 7 miles from home, no gas stations in sight. Sighing in resignation, I started pushing the bike in the direction I figured a gas station must be hiding. The temperature was in the high 80's, I had full riding gear on (what the heck was I supposed to do with my helmet? I ended up wearing it..) and I was trying to decide if I should park the bike and hoof it, or just keep rolling.

4 different individuals stopped to ask if I needed any help. 2 guys with a truck, and 2 cars. One of the guys with a truck were willing to help me lift it into the back of his pickup and give me a ride to a station (only 2 miles up the road). The other guy was willing to drive up to a station and get some gas for me. (he didn't have a gas can, and would have had to rent one/buy one... I couldn't do that to a kind stranger due to my inattentiveness.) I ended up using his cell phone to call for assistance. I didn't relish the idea of trying to lift the bike into the bed of the first guy's truck, but I was awfully impressed of his generosity.

I counted no less than 5 HD motorcycles that drove by me, 3 sports bikes and one Yammie of some sort. Sadly, none of them even gave me more than a passing glance. I ALWAYS stop and ask a biker if they need help. I think it's the law of the road. "Do unto others cause, brother, eventually it's gonna happen to you."

My assistance finally arrived. It took a fair bit of riding to get the crappy handling/throttle response issues ironed out. Before I got home, however, I was zipping along nicely.

Done and done!

Received my parts today! Bad news? I didn't take any pics of the oil pan gasket replacement! It wouldn't have been very exciting anyway, just very messy (which is one reason why I didn't take any pics... my hands were covered in oil.)

When we last left the bike, it was sitting with the exhaust on the worktable. I tried cleaning the pipes up a bit but they're pretty badly pitted. Let's just say they look better. I took off all the bolts holding the pan on, then had difficulty removing it from the bike due to a couple of what appear to be grounding connections. I also removed the oil sending unit which was bolted on with two bolts. Apparently you can remove this part without removing the oil pan, but of course I didn't know that at the time. Anyhow, it came off, with some coaxing, and I replaced the o ring.

There's a pretty good chance that the inside of my oil pan hadn't seen the light of day since it was installed. After I cleared away the sediment. it looked brand new. I got intimately familiar with the different parts of the oil motor, not that I'll ever pull the pan off again. Scraping the old gasket off was a bit of a job. Especially upside down, But, I got it done.

I put the new gasket on the pan, after oiling the edge, and slipped it into place. It took a bit of finagling, and through the whole time I kept thinking that the gasket was slipping out of place. However, all was well.

The tough part was getting that exhaust back in place. After prying out the old gaskets (and let me tell you, they were wedged in there tight) I put the new ones in place. Then, trying to line up the exhaust pipes to the header was difficult. They just didn't want to line up with the bolts. I finally had to loosen a few bolts lower down on the pipe, thereby adjusting the upper part of the pipe. I had my son help me put the pipes in place, and finally it was done.

I added oil to the bike, 3 quarts, and readied myself. I slipped some heavyweight paper under the bike, just in case of leaks, and started it up. It started right up, with a bit of choke, of course, and I warmed it up. I noticed a couple of drips, but hoped against hope it wasn't anything serious. It sounded pretty good (except for the squeak toy.. gotta pull those carbs off soon) and the oil continued to drip.

I took it for a quick run around the neighborhood and it ran pretty good, but when I got back, the oil continued to drip. I decided to pull the oil cover off and check to make sure there wasn't a break in the o-ring seal, and lo and behold, I noticed the oil filter was in backwards! Stupid rookie mistake.

It's now several hours later, and the bike still hasn't leaked. I am going to let it set overnight and check it in the morning. I psyched about having a bike again. Looking forward to riding it...

Viragoking is no more!

Spoke with my friend Viragoking yesterday. Seems like he found a great deal on a 1980 xj650 Maxim and will be trading straight up for his xv700 on Friday. It seemed he was having problem after problem with that virago, had a lot of work done on it, and still needed to do some more before he could get it on the road. We were going to use one of my old coils to replace one of his, but looks like we won't have to do that now. Those Maxim's are a dependable lot.

I keep thinking about my poor bike sitting out in the garage all alone, in pieces, and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new parts. I was reading up on chrome polishing and am going to try a few more things to remove some of the corrosion on the pipes before I reinstall. IT's not bad, and certainly not worn through, just not very visually appealing.

I also got an email from DW regarding his progress on his X. It looks even better than before! He's slowly putting it together, and I'm jealous. Beautiful work. I'm eagerly waiting to see the final product. He also offered up the use of his spray gun and the assistance to get my side cover painted (correctly, I might add). All I need to do is pick up some black paint and I'll be ready to rock.

It's hard to believe that Summer is nearly over. Although I often ride until November, it's strange how you can't wait for riding season to arrive, then lament it's passing far too soon.

If all goes well, I'll have my bike back on the road by Friday.

Tear down

Today's post is pretty pic heavy.

I did it. I pulled the exhaust off my bike, and accessed the oil pan. I was pretty surprised that the bolts came off as easily as they did. I've heard horror stories from other people who have had broken studs and all sorts of problems. Not so with this bike. In fact, the first set of bolts were loose, as in hand loose. Not sure why, but it made it easy to take off the first set. The rest required very little force to remove. Nonetheless, I will be applying a liberal amount of anti seize to those studs.

I ordered 4 replacement gaskets for the exhaust. There was literally no sign of the previous gasket on either the pipes or the manifold. I'm not sure what that means in terms of performance, but when the new set goes on, everything will be torqued to spec.

I hope the reinstall goes as easily.

I also replaced my oil filter bolt as it was pretty stripped. Oil change and filter change as well. Might as well do it all while that stuff is off. I'm going to be replacing pretty much everything that has the potential to leak, considering the stuff is 24 years old. It's held up pretty well.

As you can see from the exhaust collector, there is quite a lot of oil on top. None had dripped on the ground, but I still didn't like it being on there.
Hope this fixes the issue.

So, doing my daily inspection of my bike, I've noticed oil leaking from somewhere down below, ending up greasing up my chrome pipes. I'm not sure exactly where it's coming from, and there aren't any drips on the ground under the bike, plus my oil level hasn't changed much... But I'm still going to change out the oil sending unit, the gasket, the exhaust seals and shine up the chrome near the manifold. I've been told I can ride the bike as is and wait until winter, but I can't do that. I'm also going to pull off the carbs again and check my manifold boot seals (since I'll have the bike torn down anyway). That squeaking is still with me, like an old friend, once the bike warms up.

Hopefully the guards will arrive in the next few days. I am going to be spending about $25 to fix the oil issues (deargodletitbesimple) and maybe another $50 to get some hiway pegs and I'll be good to go. It sounds like a really involved process pulling everything off but heck if I can do carbs this should be a piece of cake.

Raining like... well, heavy rain.

Lots of rain the last couple of days, and since I don't like riding in wet weather (not only for safety concerns, but also those wet pants legs drive me nuts) I've kept the bike in the garage. Waiting for my engine guards to arrive, just a bit of repair, and I should be good to start looking for highway pegs. There are lots available, some really expensive, some not so bad. Guess which ones I'm going to get?

Hope to do some riding today, if the weather holds. Kids are here, so I won't be able to go far.

I do want to start up with my Americana rides again, exploring little villes. Lots of little towns around here, and I've found some great twisty roads to ride. Will post pics as soon as I'm back on the road.