4/27/11 Getting Artsy

I've been pretty busy so I haven't updated in a few days. Luckily, I've been busy in the shop more than anything else.

Saturday, I arrived at the shop to find J.B. working on his motorcycle and A.Y.'s uncle working on art project. Remember those boxes I welded up the other day? Well they went from rusty and ugly,

to this,

To this.

J.B. was working on replacing his big ugly front turn signals with some clean LED signals I gave him. This required a little bit of electrical engineering as the LED's pull much less current than the old incandescents, making the flasher flash much to fast. A trip to RadioShack later and things work basically back to normal.

When A.Y. arrived, we moved his car into its spot in the shop for its complete reconstruction.

On Sunday I took off the leaking FZR exhaust, cleaned it up, welded in a patch and painted it black.

On Tuesday I rode to the shop on my bicycle with the new FZR tire on my back.

It really isn't a bad ride and I think I'm gonna make a habit of it. I brought the FZR's wheel and new tire to the motorcycle shop for installation and did a final tune on the carbs. The bike is now running great. Clean, smooth revs and no more flames out the exhaust with the intake installed. I can't wait to test ride it today.

A.Y. also left his DSLR in the shop so I took some artsy photos of things. I'll end this post with a selection of these photos.

-W.W. SBSS

4/23/11 Spittin' Fire!

In the past few days I haven't been spending the usual 5 hours or so in the shop, but the nice thing about having a place like our shop to work is that a few hours here and there result in great progress.

Wednesday I wasn't planning to go to the shop at all, but I couldn't resist heading up and putting the wheel on my bike. The wheel went on in 5 minutes and my bike was ready to go.

For the rest of my evening I spent some quality time with the roommates at the Mets-Astros game.

Thursday, my new motorcycle stands arrived in the mail, so I brought them to the shop and jacked up the FZR.

There i found A.Y., J.B. and spent some time brainstorming on the what tools to buy for the shop next. After a while we went to the Bruckner Bar and grill for dinner. There were a lot of guys from the motorcycle shop nextdoor having dinner there as well, and a great live blues band was playing.

All in all not a bad way to spend an evening. After dinner we went back to the shop, and I buttoned up some final things on the Miata top install.

Today I decided I was gonna get the FZR running again. I cleaned all the fuel lines, flushed the tank and went to the motorcycle shop (again) and picked up a new fuel filter. I filled the tank with fresh gas, plumbed everything up and gave her a shot.

Once fuel reached the carbs it ran great! In fact, it's pretty mean. It has a bit of an exhaust leak at the header, so it doesn't sound that great at idle, but it revs up nicely now. I was running it without the intake manifold on, so it was running a bit rich. This is harmless, but has one very fun side-effect....flames. The bike spits great flames on deceleration. A great video of this below.

MEAN!

Lastly, this is how a man's hand should look.

-W.W. SBSS

4/20/11 Re-tired

My new tire finally arrived in the mail yesterday.

Naturally, I ran up to the shop googled the nearest motorcycle shop. (Unfortunately, most auto tire shops won't mount motorcycle tires.) Lo and behold, a shop pops up 10 blocks away from the SBSS! In fact, it is right around the corner from the awesome Bruckner Bar and Grill.

I loaded up the Miata with the wheel and new tire and head out into the rain with my newly installed top. I am welcomed to the shop by this sight.

Under the Bruckner Bridge they have a solid 50-60 motorcycles parked in various states of build. It's a pretty awesome collection with everything from Harley's to sportbikes to dirtbikes.

Inside the shop isn't much different.

I got my tire mounted while I chatted with the guy running the place and was shortly on my way. He seemed glad to have some more motorcycle guys in the area.

I also discovered that the bunch of hooligan kids on dirtbikes I've seen bombing around the Bronx and Harlem is based out of this shop. These kids ride non-street legal dirtbikes and quads on the street, wheeliing and doing burnouts in front of everyone. The cops ignore them, and they look like they're having a great time, I love it.

Also, 10c wings are awesome.

-W.W. SBSS

No Longer Topless:

Now that I have my tools in the shop, I had the correct rivets to continue working on the Miata top. I quickly riveted the two tension cables in the correct location and started reattaching the top to the frame. Once everything was attached and ready to go, I tried to close the top.

I say tried because the top appeared to be much, much to small and would not come close to closing. Frustrated, I started to undo what I had just done to give the canvas a bit more slack. With as much adjustment as I could give it, I buttoned everything up again and.... no dice. The top was nowhere near closing.

Now it was time to look up whether I was missing something. With a quick search on the internet, I discovered that new tops are often hard to close, particularly when they are cold, as mine was.

With this knowledge I loosened the latch bolts, put my gloves on and got ready to force it. After about a half an hour of wrestling with the top, I finally got it closed. The general rule is to let it sit for 3 days in the closed position and it will be ready. For now, I think it looks great.

After that I did some more welding on the boxes, finally figuring out the best settings for the welder and getting the desired "stack of dimes" look on my welds.

Finally I brought some dedicated shop coveralls to the shop so I can come straight from work without worrying about getting my clothes dirty.

It's all coming together.

-W.W. SBSS

4/17/11 Weekend Update

The sears tool section is a toy store for guys.

This was a pretty productive weekend. I made it to the shop in the afternoon on Saturday intending to fully disassemble the carbs on the FZR...again. The one sticky slide was really getting to me, and no matter how much I cleaned it or stretched the spring to give it more force it wouldn't operate smoothly. Luckily, two heads are better than one. Since the stiction seemed to be caused by a combination of a worn slide surface and a slightly creased diaphragm, Kevin suggested that I swap around parts to see if that might spread the issues around rather than having them all on the same carb. Sure enough, this worked well and the carbs all operate quite smoothly. We threw the carbs back on the bike, hooked up the throttle and choke and moved on the the next project, the big green Benz.

A.Y. and J.B. spent some time cleaning and organizing their tools and preparing the last slab for use. The shop is starting to look great. Tools hanging on walls, bins on shelves, marks on tools to show how they belong to, the whole lot.

Sunday I woke up early to take the train home so I could bring my tools to the shop. I loaded up the Focus, drove to the BX and dropped everything off. Afterwards K.Y. and I took a trip to the local Sears so I could get a new toolbox.

I love the Sears tool section. It's all black and red and smells of nickel plated steel. If I had unlimited funds I'd probably go there and get one of everything. Unfortunately, my funds are limited and I walked out with just the toolbox and foam drawer liners.

I organized my tools, took stock of everything I'm missing, and admired my pretty new toolbox.

Then I took the wheel off my bike so I could replace the flat tire when the new one arrives in the mail. It can't get here soon enough because the weather is beautiful.

-W.W. SBSS

4/14/11 - Bikes, Beers and Boxes

On my way to the shop today I decided to pick up a few beers. Most, if not all, physical labor is better when accompanied by beer.

I started my day in the shop by continuing to clean the carbs on the FZR. I didn't have carb cleaner or a stove (to put the carbs in a pot of boiling water), so I disassembled them, cleaned them with WD40, and reassembled them. It was all going well until just one carb slide wasn't closing as quickly as the rest. I rebuilt the carb 3 times to no avail. I will either have to get a chemical cleaner or go all out and boil the carbs to get them perfect. But that is for another day.

Right now both G.B. and I have flat rear tires on our bikes. We have ordered replacement tires, and I also ordered a set of stands so we can take our wheels off. It's funny how if you spend $40 at a bar on 5 beers it's a bit of a waste, but if its on a tool that you'll have forever it is a totally legitimate investment.

After hitting the wall with the FZR, I moved on to my SV. When I converted my bike to naked, I lost the rear view mirrors. I figured it was hight time to replace them. I ordered some 8 dollar bar end mirrors, modified them so that they were no longer at the end of my bars, then installed them on the bike. I think they look great.

The last thing I worked on yesterday is a bit of an art project. K.Y.'s father, one of the owners of the building, is working on a sculpture project, and he asked if we could weld up some rectangular boxes for him to work with. I figured this was as good a time as any to set up a welding table and get back into the swing of welding. I made a table out of a hollow metal door, grounded it to the welder and had a very nice surface to weld on. Here are some pics of the results.

This is the first of many boxes, and I'm sure by the time they're all done, everyone in the shop will be a very accomplished welder.

-W.W. SBSS

Project FZR pt. 2: Pulling the carbs

Yesterday, I intended to finish installing my new top onto the Miata, but found myself foiled by the tiniest of obstacles.

In this case, it was not having the correct size rivet to attach a small cable to the top frame. I had rivets of all shapes and sizes...except the shape and size necessary to attach something to this hole.

Frustrated, I moved on to the FZR. As I said before, the bike ran, but not well. I am pretty sure that the issue is with the carburetors, so I pulled them off the bike to start cleaning them. This was a little easier said than done because of all the cables and linkages attached to them, but cleaning them should be pretty simple now that they're off.

Luckily the diaphragms seemed healthy with no cracks or tears.

Pulling off the float bowl covers I found quite a bit of rusty gas...a pretty sure fire sign that I need to fully disassemble the carbs and boil the bodies, as well as flush out all the fuel lines. More on that tomorrow.

-W.W. SBSS

Project FZR pt.1: The $200 bike

The fifth member of our little group here, G.B., is a highschool friend of mine who has always been into cars. We have wrenched on my Datsuns, his 80’s Bimmers, his Ford Taurus SHO, and cute little early 80’s Celica of his. Since we graduated college, however, it has been hard for G.B. to have a project. As with me, living in a NYC had pushed working on cars down on the totem pole.

As soon as I told G.B. about this shop, his eyes lit up. He stopped by the next day and when he met the rest of the guys that weekend it was clear that he would be spending a lot of time with us in the shop.

G.B. has never been a motorcycle guy. I have always wanted one, but he usually said that they would be too dangerous for him etc… That lasted about 5 minutes once he saw J.B. and I on our bikes in the shop.

Literally, within one week I was with G.B. in a UHaul truck driving to queens to pick up a $200 1988 Yamaha FZR1000. Yes, $200 is very cheap, even for a non-rideable bike. It turns out that the previous owner parked it on the street only to have a car knock it over. This bent the right clip-on and locked the throttle. The battery was also nearly dead and it had a flat rear tire. We scavenged a plank of wood from a nearby restaurant and rolled the bike into the uhaul. We arrived at the shop to find A.Y. and J.B. working on the door. Here is G.B. on the bike as it stood that night.

The next week, I started trying to get the bike road worthy. First, I pulled the right clip on and removed the brake and throttle to find this.

After some massaging with the torch and some blunt force I got it to look like this.

I put it back on the bike and voila! The throttle worked!

Next I charged up the battery and cranked it fully expecting nothing to happen…but NO! It started fairly easily. I let it warm up a bit and took it for a slow spin around the garage. It definitely has some carburetion issues and doesn’t like to run with the choke off, but it does run.

Next task is to pull the carbs, clean them up and see if we can get this to run smoothly. Here she is as she sits now.

And this is a sight people will be seeing once I get my motorcycle gang together.

-W.W. SBSS

Project SV pt.1: Lets get NAKED!

There are two versions of the SV650. The SV650N, like J.B.’s light red bike in the pic below, has no fairing and high handlebars.

The SV650S has a half fairing and lower clip on bars as can be seen on my bike.

I bought an S model because I wanted the lower bars and that change is harder to make later, but I really loved the look of the naked bikes. To this end I started gathering the parts necessary to strip my bike.

The first thing I needed was headlights. I’m not sure how long I’m going to keep this bike, so I didn’t want to invest too much in the headlights, so I settled on the hella optilux 4” round driving lights. They are more than bright enough and look great in my opinion.

The next thing I needed to round up was a mount for the lights to attach to the front fork. I initially bought these…because they were cheap. Once I got them I realized that there was a reason they were cheap and quickly discarded them.

I then got these mounts which are much more substantial.

The last thing I had to sort out was my gauges. The stock gauges are mounted to the fairing, so I had to remove them to convert my bike. I decided that rather than remounting the stock ones, I would go with the Trailtech Vapor. It’s a cheap digital dashboard that gives me my idiot lights, a tach, speedo, and temp gauge. I mounted it to my lights, wired it up and it works great.

What took me the longest was tucking the unnecessarily long wiring harness from the SVS into the area under the tank. This harness usually hangs out behind the fairing, and takes up quite a bit of space in the bike, but I finally got it all hidden away.

While I was at it I installed some frame sliders to protect the bike from a drop or fall. Next on the list are bar end mirrors and making a mini fairing for the lights.

-W.W. SBSS