The Beast

Jacking up a sport bike for front end work

One main thing your going to want to check for is to make sure that the sport bike has a center stand. A special front end jack is required for any sport bike that does not have a center stand

If you try to jack up a non center stand bike by the oil pan you run a very! High risk of damaging the oil pan.

However if u do have a center stand put the bike on it by lifting as you pull backwards. If needed get some help. The center stand petal will be right next to the kickstand.

Once the bike is up you can  use a jack to shift the weight to the rear by finding a suitible jack place underneath in this photo you can see we used a sisor jack from K&L supply as well as block of wood to grab the exhaust pipes.

B-17 AMERICAN SUSPENTION Fork seal replacment

Here we have a hand built Chopper  with a S&S Sidewinder motor in it. Its got  A B-17 Mach 5 Suspension on it from American suspension

-One of The First things Your going to want to do is get the forkin things off the bike. there is an Allan clamp bolt on the back of the lower triple tree that needs to be loosened and then u can spin the whole fork out of the threads shown in the above picture

-From there your going to want to put your allan socket in an impact gun. and hold the  upper tube in your hand while you impact this cap off in reverse its regular threads.

- This stuff will basically fall out in you hand along with a bunch of 10 weight oil. top out spring a metal pip that lets the main spring contact that top cap.


Now if you have a B-17 suspension you will have this metal dust cap halfway down the tube. you will need to use two rubber strap wrenches to remove this cap twisting it off as lefty loosy.

Now i should have already said this but this job is in no way for the novice I consider myself to be a very good technician and this job took my 5 hours start to finish with a few breaks and having to make a few special tools.

that will be used for the next step

I used the one on the left as it was quicker to make  it held up just fine.

- When looking in the upper tube you will see a part where  that special tool will fit inside. You will need to put the axle in the fork and in a vise and use an impact on high to get the lower leg to separate.
from there its smooth sailing remove the  little key chain clip that will be right in front of you and pry out the seal don't be shy its a pain to get out.

Put it all back together use a plastic bag over the inner tube when reinstalling also a pain.
 ad 850 ml  and put it back in the bike.

RED LOCKTITE EVERYTHING!

Seriously this suspension is ridiculously simple therefor everything is a pain in the ass to get apart just take your time i was very concerned with the chrome finish so it took quite a bit longer than expected.

Out of pocket Wrecks!

Insurance jobs are normally by far the easyest because they everything brocken gets replaced.

However if you run into fixing a bike that is not insured it emediatly becomes a numbers game. For the average person.

In this case we have an 04 kawasaki 636 that has been wrecked/ had folks working on it that had no idea what they where doing

Its in need of a radiator, headlight and a nose cowl  and alot of peicing together.

This bike was just dropped off today i will keeo you posted on the radiator situation and will be doing a segment on radiators shortly.

Thanks for reading guys. If you have a 636 or have any questions  dont hesitate to comment me your questions!

Float needles

In the first picture above you see a crush washer float seat and float needle. Making up the Float needle assembly. This when working properly has two main functions with the help of the float itself. (the float being the number 16031 in the center of the last picture.

       These two functions are however to
               a. Stop fuel from entering the Carb when it is no longer needed
               b. keep the fuel in the float bowl  at a constant level  to keep a constant fuel mixture with the help    
                    of the jets.

       Float needles can really send the newby motorcycle mechanic for loop as they can do some pretty quirky things. The problems you can have with a Float needle assembly  Can be grouped into 3 groups
               1.Sticking
               2. Wont seal
               3 Seals when it wants

        Sticking is probably by far the most obvious visually when you take a carb appart. basicly  if the float is hanging and the needle wont pop out of the seat its stuck in there...
           If its one thing if learned JUST REPLACE IT!  because  i hate doing things twice.
However  you can use some carb clean and a que tip  and cleaaan clean clean! untill you see brass you can put the que tip in drill and spin it inside the seat to get a really good clean.

         Wont Seal.  wont seal is not good and frustrating and not always easy to diagnose but its not one of the worst problems your bike can have. There are a few ways to know this is occurring. The main thing is a strong smell of fuel. The bike may not turn over  or it  may turn and sputter a little bit with quite of bit of black smoke coming out of the exhaust. Sometimes you can get the bike to fire up if you leave the fuel petcock off and crank crank crank. Once fired turn on the petcock and wait for the bike to die  if it doesn't turn it off anyway wait 5 minutes and try to start it... i bet as long as u left the petcock on the bike is flooded out again and  sputtering and trying to start at best.  Another way to find this problem is by noticing gas in your oil!  as it leaks thought the Carburetor through the cylinder past the piston. and into your oil!
   REPLACE THEM!
       Seals Sometimes :/   This will have you yanking your hair out sometimes the bike will run fine other times it will feel like the choke is on and the bike will smoke and run poorly. They can also  seal sometimes while sitting creating hard starts with a puff of black smoke as the bike comes too. Now some older inline fours with center stands DO NOT LIKE to be on the kickstand if you have one and you are getting a leak in any way try the center stand for storage. check the plugs for black soot  and the gas for oil. when in dought.
REPLACE THEM it cant hurt.

      Rusty tanks can cause a lot of seals sometimes instances as  rust particles between the needle and seat.
If you are short on cash try clean clean cleaning them with  carb clean spray and a que tip use the que tip in a drill on the seat to polish it clean. Run an inline filter to cut down on rust particles.


                  Are you mid carburetor clean and are curious if your needle and seats are worn out? Even though you haven't had any running problems.?
            The main part that wears out is the needle in the last picture the rubber cone is what you need to look at. if it has any even slight indentations I recommend  that you go ahead and replace it as it is close to needing replacement. The seat however is a little different   basically it just needs to be clean especially where the cone meets it if you cant get it to a decent brass polished clean it should be replaced.  One more place to look is in at the little pin in the second picture it is spring loaded and absorbs the vibrations of the motor. if it wont spring back or even depress you are in need of a new needle.

New float needles can be purchased at a variety of places.
Online
www.mrcycles.com
www.bikebandit.com
OR
At your local dealer!
FIND ONE ON GOOGLE MAPS!



                             
                          I hope this little article on on Carburetor Float Needles was helpful  I will be glad to answer any questions left in the comment section please +1 me if you found it helpful as well

Vulcan 750

Shes a 97 however still up and kicking just like alot of bikes that have sat for quite some time it needed a few things.

Battery- easy fix pop the seat after removing the 2 bolts for the seat from inside the rear glove box. Then remove the negative cable first then the positive. This bike takes a CB14L-A2 from parts unlimited. When you install a battery positive cable first then negavtive.
MAKE SURE THE KEY IS OFF!

Clean the carbs- basicly cleaning carbs is a tedius task that may need to be done more than once if not cleaned right. Ill be puttin a basic carb cleaning section up tomorrow

Install new float needles- Float needs are an essential part of a carborated bikes fuel system. They can be thought of as maybe a fuel preasure regulator or even more simply the finger in the hole to stop a leak.
There are a few thing that can cause them to fail and those will also be explained in a later post signes of bad float needles and seats as well!

All and all this vulvan 750 is back on the road and I woule love to here some woahs of your vulcan so more can be on the road.

98 TRX450es Is going to be our first project

I have a few things that are going to  need to be taken care of on this four wheeler but feel free to comment and let me know anything you would like covered