Topic: What did you do to your bike today ?

[evanphi]

Read more about the adventures of stripped brake caliper holes in my build thread!

Front end mostly back together...

[rocket johnny]

i rode my 76 cb750k long enough to warm it up and changed the oil . still a bit cool here in western colo for a long ride ,,  come on spring !!!!

[evanphi]

Put everything back on my new Renthal Street Low bar.

FYI: If your grips are not sticking to your bar, you probably have some of this around the house...



I don't know why, but these grips held fine on my previous chromed bars. They wouldn't stick on the powdercoated Renthal, though, even with the knurled grip area.

[Kenzo]

Put everything back on my new Renthal Street Low bar.

FYI: If your grips are not sticking to your bar, you probably have some of this around the house...



I don't know why, but these grips held fine on my previous chromed bars. They wouldn't stick on the powdercoated Renthal, though, even with the knurled grip area.

Renthal's are very high quality bars, if they aren't of a slightly smaller diameter the texture and the finish is almost like a "non-stick" pot or pan.

I have a set of Renthal Fat Bars on my dirt bike, grip glue and safety wiring is always required.

Bought the reproduction CB400 drilled low bars(yet to be installed) and I'm disappointed in the strength and quality.

Please post some pics when you get everything installed.

Cheers,
Kenzo

[joeyvans]

I have a tube of that Renthal grip glue laying around and his worked well for me in the past.

[evanphi]

Yeah their PC is really slick stuff. That ShoeGoo worked great though! No movement at all!



I'm looking forward to putting it on tonight!

[socal1200r]

I've always had good results using aerosol hair spray.  Goes on wet so one can position the grips accordingly, then dries very sticky to keep them in place.

[Terry in Australia]

I've always had good results using aerosol hair spray.  Goes on wet so one can position the grips accordingly, then dries very sticky to keep them in place.

+1 mate, when my oldest son was into the 90's "big hair" look I stole a can of his hair spray and I still use it now. Sadly I won't be able to steal another can from him though, that can of hair spray lasted longer than his hair, ha ha! (mother's side of the family's genes) The good thing with hair spray is that you can get the grips off again if you change bars, without destroying your grips.

[Terry in Australia]

I drove the 300-odd miles down to Bairnsdale from Canberra yesterday to visit my mum, then another 200 miles from Bairnsdale to Melbourne today, and as I have to drive the 400 back to Canberra tomorrow morning, as soon as I arrived here I started work on my magnificent Sporty, swapping out the OEM 16 inch rear wheel with the fat 130/90-16 rear tyre for a slightly wider 18 inch  Paughco rear wheel with a top Pirelli Sport Demon 140/70-18 tyre.   

Actually everything went really well, Harley's are easy to work on once you get 'em up in the air, (no centre stands) but even so, it was fcuking time consuming, and even though it wasn't hot, I was sweating like a rapist before long. Luckily enough I've still got a ton of Icy cold Peroni's in my little bar fridge (all the cider is gone, surprisingly........) so I had a few while I was working on the bike, just to keep me hydrated, don't cha know?

Now I thought someone might ask me if there's any difference in height, and from a previous thread, the most exact way to measure the difference is with a tape measure around the circumference of each tyre, so the measurements are as follows: OEM wheel and tyre - 78.5 inches, 18 inch wheel and tyre - 82 inches exactly. For the mathematics experts, considering the above, if my bike does 60 MPH @ 3000 RPM in 5th gear with that wheel/tyre combo, how many RPM's will it be doing now with the slightly taller wheel/tyre combo? Cheers, Terry.

[calj737]

You can't get there without the gear ratios, Terry. But, if you can do the following:

3,000 (RPMs) x 13.53 (your tire's true radius for measurements) = 40,590
n (your bike's final drive) x 168 (this is a constant used in the formula) = x
40,590/x = Speed

This will tell you how fast @ 3k RPMs your bike will be traveling.

[scottly]

Now I thought someone might ask me if there's any difference in height, and from a previous thread, the most exact way to measure the difference is with a tape measure around the circumference of each tyre, so the measurements are as follows: OEM wheel and tyre - 78.5 inches, 18 inch wheel and tyre - 82 inches exactly. For the mathematics experts, considering the above, if my bike does 60 MPH @ 3000 RPM in 5th gear with that wheel/tyre combo, how many RPM's will it be doing now with the slightly taller wheel/tyre combo? Cheers, Terry.

78.5/82 x 3000= 2871.951 RPM@60 MPH. Conversely, 82/78.5 x 60= 62.675 MPH@3000 RPM.

[Terry in Australia]

You can't get there without the gear ratios, Terry. But, if you can do the following:

3,000 (RPMs) x 13.53 (your tire's true radius for measurements) = 40,590
n (your bike's final drive) x 168 (this is a constant used in the formula) = x
40,590/x = Speed

This will tell you how fast @ 3k RPMs your bike will be traveling.

78.5/82 x 3000= 2871.951 RPM@60 MPH. Conversely, 82/78.5 x 60= 62.675 MPH@3000 RPM.

Thanks Guys, I'd "guess-timated" that it'd drop my RPM's by as much as a couple of hundred Scott, so good to see that I was in the ball park. Interestingly, when I was searching google for final drive ratio's to use Cal's method, (29/61 tooth pulleys on the 1200 Sportster) I read that my engine should be turning over at only around 2800 RPM with the standard rear wheel and gearing, so I better take it for a ride and see what the real figure is, sadly my last decent ride was down to Phillip Island for the Classic on the "Australia Day" long weekend and I haven't ridden it since, and my memory isn't as good as it once was.

My Mikuni HSR42 carb kit arrived last week, so I'll install that next weekend when I'm back in Melbourne, and then I'll take it to a dyno shop to get it "Dyno-tuned" as the final step of the conversion process. As the bike's only done 4000 miles in it's 22 years I'm not going to open up the engine yet, but a nice set of street cams will be next on the agenda, then some head work. Cheers, Terry.

[Mantree]

finally got my hybrid,ko,k8 900 henry abe engine together,now come on warm weather!

Very low profile points, almost like there not there at all lol i kid I kid

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[scottly]

You can't get there without the gear ratios, Terry. But, if you can do the following:

3,000 (RPMs) x 13.53 (your tire's true radius for measurements) = 40,590
n (your bike's final drive) x 168 (this is a constant used in the formula) = x
40,590/x = Speed

This will tell you how fast @ 3k RPMs your bike will be traveling.

78.5/82 x 3000= 2871.951 RPM@60 MPH. Conversely, 82/78.5 x 60= 62.675 MPH@3000 RPM.

Thanks Guys, I'd "guess-timated" that it'd drop my RPM's by as much as a couple of hundred Scott, so good to see that I was in the ball park. Interestingly, when I was searching google for final drive ratio's to use Cal's method, (29/61 tooth pulleys on the 1200 Sportster) I read that my engine should be turning over at only around 2800 RPM with the standard rear wheel and gearing, so I better take it for a ride and see what the real figure is, sadly my last decent ride was down to Phillip Island for the Classic on the "Australia Day" long weekend and I haven't ridden it since, and my memory isn't as good as it once was.

My Mikuni HSR42 carb kit arrived last week, so I'll install that next weekend when I'm back in Melbourne, and then I'll take it to a dyno shop to get it "Dyno-tuned" as the final step of the conversion process. As the bike's only done 4000 miles in it's 22 years I'm not going to open up the engine yet, but a nice set of street cams will be next on the agenda, then some head work. Cheers, Terry.

Geeze Terry, Cal has you all mucked up about gear ratios, when you've only changed to a slightly taller tire?? Look at it this way: your 78.5" circumference tire is turning 807 RPM @60 MPH, regardless of the engine RPM or gear ratio, while your new 82" tire is turning 772 RPM. If the engine RPM @ 60 MPH was 2800 with the smaller tire, it will be 2680 with the larger one. BTW, with an engine RPM of 2800, and a speed of 60 MPH with a 78.5" tire, we can calculate that your over-all gear ratio (primary ratio x 5th gear ratio x final drive ratio) is 3.496:1

[Mantree]

Put everything back on my new Renthal Street Low bar.

FYI: If your grips are not sticking to your bar, you probably have some of this around the house...



I don't know why, but these grips held fine on my previous chromed bars. They wouldn't stick on the powdercoated Renthal, though, even with the knurled grip area.

It also works for tire patches and is fantastic for sticking boots back together it is always in my tool kit on long rides

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[calj737]

Geeze Terry, Cal has you all mucked up about gear ratios, when you've only changed to a slightly taller tire??

It's true, I misread the original question he asked, and provided an answer to solve his traveling speed based upon a known RPM and tire radius. The formula Scottly provides does solve the RPMs at the given speed, but unless you're using an electronic gauge with adjustable speedo, I presumed you were more interested in knowing how fast you would be going with different sized wheels so you could re-calibrate your mechanical speedo. My mistake-

[scottly]

Cal, most bike speedos get their input from the front wheel, not the counter-shaft sprocket as you have done, so a change in rear tire size would have no effect on the speedo calibration.

[spotty]

wandered out to the garage with the intention of starting to mock up the brackets to fit the 4 pot calipers to my shiny new twin disc/wire wheel/CB900 forked front end.
imagine my surprise when i test fit the first caliper to the disc and it fouls on the spokes of the wire wheel.....(cue loud fluent swearing in several languages), i was sure that last time i tried this (before fitting both discs and new axle spacers) that the caliper had space between the disc and spokes...bollocks

two options -
1) make up spacers to fit between the discs and hub to bring the discs further out from the spokes and closer to the fork leg - this will enable the caliper to fit between the disc and caliper but will take the caliper way out of line with the caliper mounts on the fork leg - complicated and probably expensive

2) get the CB1100F calipers back that i sold last week as they are only twin piston (both on the outside face of the disc, not opposed) which will fit between the disc and spokes - however the easiest way of getting these calipers to fit (other than making some very awkwardly shaped brackets) is to cut the CB750K6 discs down to the size of CB900 ones, everything will then line up and bolt straight onto the forks - not as expensive as spacing the discs out but i end up with smaller discs and only twin piston calipers
i can get the calipers back off my friend i sold them too but i might have to sell him the 4 pot ones a lot cheaper than i'd like to in order to persuade him to do the deal.....

now i'm confused - time for some beer flavoured restoratives methinks

[maduncle]

I was reminded of how old I am by a kid in the auto parts store.

I am in the middle of painting an engine (non SOHC4 so we won't go into details - okay it is a GPZ550 engine) and I wanted to use my favourite all time "hide the scuffs and scratches" Wrinkle Black finish.

So I walk in to the shop and the helpful child working there says "can I help you" and I say "yes please, I need some wrinkle black".

Wish I had a photo to share of the look on his face. He had no idea what I was talking about. I took him over to the paint aisle and what do you know - two cans of wrinkle black on the shelf. I patiently educated him on the use of said wrinkle black and how other old men who were spray painting their car rocker covers waaaaaaay back in the 80's may come in asking for it.

They also had wrinkle red - what's all that about?

Anyway - the non SOHC4 engine now looks a million bucks in wrinkle black and will look even better once I have stripped, sanded and polished the stator cover and points cover.

And, I finally got hold of an old engine stand and with a couple of angle brackets from the hardware store I can mount a big heavy in line four motorcycle engine and spin it to clean and wrinkle black it.

Wish I had done this years ago.

[Trevor from Warragul]

I was reminded of how old I am by a kid in the auto parts store.

I went into Supercheap Auto.  The kid said "What are you riding?", I said "1972 Honda 350 Four", he said "Cool, old school!"...

[Terry in Australia]

wandered out to the garage with the intention of starting to mock up the brackets to fit the 4 pot calipers to my shiny new twin disc/wire wheel/CB900 forked front end.
imagine my surprise when i test fit the first caliper to the disc and it fouls on the spokes of the wire wheel.....(cue loud fluent swearing in several languages), i was sure that last time i tried this (before fitting both discs and new axle spacers) that the caliper had space between the disc and spokes...bollocks

two options -
1) make up spacers to fit between the discs and hub to bring the discs further out from the spokes and closer to the fork leg - this will enable the caliper to fit between the disc and caliper but will take the caliper way out of line with the caliper mounts on the fork leg - complicated and probably expensive

2) get the CB1100F calipers back that i sold last week as they are only twin piston (both on the outside face of the disc, not opposed) which will fit between the disc and spokes - however the easiest way of getting these calipers to fit (other than making some very awkwardly shaped brackets) is to cut the CB750K6 discs down to the size of CB900 ones, everything will then line up and bolt straight onto the forks - not as expensive as spacing the discs out but i end up with smaller discs and only twin piston calipers
i can get the calipers back off my friend i sold them too but i might have to sell him the 4 pot ones a lot cheaper than i'd like to in order to persuade him to do the deal.....

now i'm confused - time for some beer flavoured restoratives methinks

If you've got a lathe Spotty, take an inch or so out of the centre of the hub, weld it back together, then make up two disc spacers, (best to weld them to the hub, rather than using extra long mounting bolts, plus this way you can find some really nice new discs and drill and tap the spacers to suit) then respoke it, and everyone here will think you're the smartest bloke in this forum!

[Terry in Australia]

Geeze Terry, Cal has you all mucked up about gear ratios, when you've only changed to a slightly taller tire?? Look at it this way: your 78.5" circumference tire is turning 807 RPM @60 MPH, regardless of the engine RPM or gear ratio, while your new 82" tire is turning 772 RPM. If the engine RPM @ 60 MPH was 2800 with the smaller tire, it will be 2680 with the larger one. BTW, with an engine RPM of 2800, and a speed of 60 MPH with a 78.5" tire, we can calculate that your over-all gear ratio (primary ratio x 5th gear ratio x final drive ratio) is 3.496:1

Thanks Scott, but I'd turned my computer off by the time Cal replied, so I didn't have an opportunity to confuse myself before I saw your reply this morning which perfectly answered my question, ha ha!

[calj737]

Cal, most bike speedos get their input from the front wheel, not the counter-shaft sprocket as you have done, so a change in rear tire size would have no effect on the speedo calibration.

I am aware of that. Except, that particular formula comes from Baker, the guys who make Harley transmissions. And not knowing Terry's particular bike, perhaps it does indeed have an electronic speedo whose sensor is based upon sprockets, like a modern bike.

Regardless, at least he (Terry) now has the solution to his query.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Cal, but nope, my speedo is still connected to my front wheel, just like on our SOHC4s.

[spotty]

thanks for the above advice terry but thats way beyond my meagre capabilities, we'll see what happens

after contemplating the vinside of a few beer cans i ended up putting a pair of MX bars on so i could at least push it round the garage when i take it off the bike lift this week (Vmax is duefor a new rear tyre and thats deffo best tackled up on the lift), and when i had a look at the bars after i'd fitted them, they look bent.....have to take them off and check

not a real productive day all in all (except for the beer that is)