Sunday, February 28, 2010
and another thing..
Need to look at adjusting the clutch next week-not sure the lever's engaging enough.
Slow day
Not a lot done yesterday-it was raining pretty good in San Diego.
Wiped down the bike more-it's getting pretty clean.
Took out the spark plugs and dropped a few drops of 10w-40 synthetic into each hole. As per someone on the TriumphRat forums, the Craftsman 18mm spark plug socket works just fine, although it was a little tight on plug three, which is luckily accessible with needlenose pliers. If it had been #2 under the frame, I would have been screwed royally. Let it sit a while whilst I put the new battery in. After about 15 minutes, I turned the engine over. Took a little doing, had to ground out the plugs to get it to work. Also, this worked some more oil into the system-I was confused before, because I had only put like 2 quarts into it, when it said it wanted 4 liters. Still, it's only up to like 2 3/4 of a quart.
My next trick was to try to get it to actually catch. I was able to drain the gas out of the carburetors on the left and right, but you really can't get to the middle one without removing the carburetors. After draining them, I rigged up a little funnel and tube into the carb, and tried to start her up. Fail. Let her sit with Sea Foam in there, tried again. Fail. Basically never got her to start. Debugging for next week, I'm going to rig up a better fuel delivery system than I had-one that only requires 1 person, and delivers a constant stream of gas. Also going to check compression and spark. If all of this is good, it seems that my next step is going to be rebuilding the carbs. Joy.
I'll probably be renting a motorcycle trailer from U-Haul to bring the bike up here. Along with all my work stuff today, I need to start in on cleaning out some work space in the garage.
On the shifter shaft side of the house. I've decided to first try fixing the existing shaft per cafetbird's post here. The only problem being, Lowe's does not sell a knurled thumb nut (got to love that name,) in 10/24. Nor does the Ace Hardware(Home Depot doesn't have them at all.) So that pissed me off, since I had already bought a Craftsman drill bit and tap in 10/24 (as a side note, the Craftsman tap t-wrench is kinda crappy.) So what I did was to buy new drill bits, taps, screws and nuts in 8/32 and 10/32 to see what fit. It looks like 8/32 fit perfectly. hmm..I'm wondering if he mis-remembered the size.
Wiped down the bike more-it's getting pretty clean.
Took out the spark plugs and dropped a few drops of 10w-40 synthetic into each hole. As per someone on the TriumphRat forums, the Craftsman 18mm spark plug socket works just fine, although it was a little tight on plug three, which is luckily accessible with needlenose pliers. If it had been #2 under the frame, I would have been screwed royally. Let it sit a while whilst I put the new battery in. After about 15 minutes, I turned the engine over. Took a little doing, had to ground out the plugs to get it to work. Also, this worked some more oil into the system-I was confused before, because I had only put like 2 quarts into it, when it said it wanted 4 liters. Still, it's only up to like 2 3/4 of a quart.
My next trick was to try to get it to actually catch. I was able to drain the gas out of the carburetors on the left and right, but you really can't get to the middle one without removing the carburetors. After draining them, I rigged up a little funnel and tube into the carb, and tried to start her up. Fail. Let her sit with Sea Foam in there, tried again. Fail. Basically never got her to start. Debugging for next week, I'm going to rig up a better fuel delivery system than I had-one that only requires 1 person, and delivers a constant stream of gas. Also going to check compression and spark. If all of this is good, it seems that my next step is going to be rebuilding the carbs. Joy.
I'll probably be renting a motorcycle trailer from U-Haul to bring the bike up here. Along with all my work stuff today, I need to start in on cleaning out some work space in the garage.
On the shifter shaft side of the house. I've decided to first try fixing the existing shaft per cafetbird's post here. The only problem being, Lowe's does not sell a knurled thumb nut (got to love that name,) in 10/24. Nor does the Ace Hardware(Home Depot doesn't have them at all.) So that pissed me off, since I had already bought a Craftsman drill bit and tap in 10/24 (as a side note, the Craftsman tap t-wrench is kinda crappy.) So what I did was to buy new drill bits, taps, screws and nuts in 8/32 and 10/32 to see what fit. It looks like 8/32 fit perfectly. hmm..I'm wondering if he mis-remembered the size.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Fresh!
Here's the Legend, straight from the garage, still resplendent with cobwebs:
Lookit those accessories! Marvel at the cleanliness (aside from the dirt)!
Lookit those accessories! Marvel at the cleanliness (aside from the dirt)!
And so it begins
Wheeled the bike out of Jerry's garage. Looks pretty good, except for the broken shifter and front left turn signal. It's pretty clean-one of my to-do items was to clean up the engine, looks like I'll get to do that mostly with compressed air and a duster, rather than with rags and engine cleaner.
Filled up the flat tires (or tyres, as all of the Brit manuals say,) to about 35 psi, even though they wanted more. Interesting that these are tubeless spoked tires, I'm wondering how well they keep their seals around the spokes.
Dumped the old oil and filter. Didn't realize at the time that the threaded stem part removes from the filter cover. The filter comes with two o-rings, a big one, and a small one. The small one goes between the stem and the cover. The big one goes on the cover. The big o-ring that came with the filter (a KN-192, I believe,) did not fit the cover. Luckily, the old one is in prime condition, I'm assuming the smaller is as well, but I'll have to check both in the future.
Removed the seat and gas tank. The seat is a bitch-and-a-half to remove, since the bolts are kinda underneath it, and between the seat and the tailight. There's a company that sells bolts that stick out past the back of the seat. I'm going to get some of these: http://www.newbonneville.com/html/tool_free_seat_bolts.html
Got a new battery, unfortunately not sealed, so I had to pour in the acid, and then charge the battery. Never got to installing it, as the charge time was past the time I wanted to leave.
Emptying the gas from the tanks was a huge PITA. Next time, I'll siphon all that I can out, and then tape something on the tank to keep gas from getting on it. I did wash the tank off afterword, hopefully this will prevent too much damage to the paint.
Noticed that the coolant was empty-need to flush and replace before cranking.
One of the bolts holding on the sissy bar is stripped. Takes some skill to stip an allen bolt.
Todo Next trip:
Identify front left turn signal bracket.
Flush/replace coolant.
Dispose this and last week's chemicals.
seafoam!
replace fuel hose
try to diagnose coil (Replace with nology PFC-06TS if bad http://www.nology.com/profire.php)
check plugs/oil inside engine
get engine number and vin
Todo:
Oil chain
lube frame
replace clutch fluid
replace brake fluid
replace suspension oil
fix shifter shaft
Filled up the flat tires (or tyres, as all of the Brit manuals say,) to about 35 psi, even though they wanted more. Interesting that these are tubeless spoked tires, I'm wondering how well they keep their seals around the spokes.
Dumped the old oil and filter. Didn't realize at the time that the threaded stem part removes from the filter cover. The filter comes with two o-rings, a big one, and a small one. The small one goes between the stem and the cover. The big one goes on the cover. The big o-ring that came with the filter (a KN-192, I believe,) did not fit the cover. Luckily, the old one is in prime condition, I'm assuming the smaller is as well, but I'll have to check both in the future.
Removed the seat and gas tank. The seat is a bitch-and-a-half to remove, since the bolts are kinda underneath it, and between the seat and the tailight. There's a company that sells bolts that stick out past the back of the seat. I'm going to get some of these: http://www.newbonneville.com/html/tool_free_seat_bolts.html
Got a new battery, unfortunately not sealed, so I had to pour in the acid, and then charge the battery. Never got to installing it, as the charge time was past the time I wanted to leave.
Emptying the gas from the tanks was a huge PITA. Next time, I'll siphon all that I can out, and then tape something on the tank to keep gas from getting on it. I did wash the tank off afterword, hopefully this will prevent too much damage to the paint.
Noticed that the coolant was empty-need to flush and replace before cranking.
One of the bolts holding on the sissy bar is stripped. Takes some skill to stip an allen bolt.
Todo Next trip:
Identify front left turn signal bracket.
Flush/replace coolant.
Dispose this and last week's chemicals.
seafoam!
replace fuel hose
try to diagnose coil (Replace with nology PFC-06TS if bad http://www.nology.com/profire.php)
check plugs/oil inside engine
get engine number and vin
Todo:
Oil chain
lube frame
replace clutch fluid
replace brake fluid
replace suspension oil
fix shifter shaft
First Post!
After many false starts (ha!), I've finally got a motorcycle. It's a 1999 Legend Triumph from my father-in-law. A quick history:
First owner was a Triumph dealership out east-in or around Manassas, VA. I list the dealiership as the owner because it was a floor bike, and probably got ridden around for demos. The bright side of this is that it's pretty tricked-out with accessories. It's got a triumph windscreen, triumph saddlebags, and the peashooter exhausts, I'm not sure if they are the "offroad exhausts," or just regular Thunderbird ones tacked on.
Second owner was my brother-in-law who lightly used it before selling it to my father-in-law, making me the 4th owner, but with a pretty reliable chain of custody.
I thought it would be fun and useful to record what I'm doing on the bike, because I have an awful memory, and need to practice writing outside of documentation.
First owner was a Triumph dealership out east-in or around Manassas, VA. I list the dealiership as the owner because it was a floor bike, and probably got ridden around for demos. The bright side of this is that it's pretty tricked-out with accessories. It's got a triumph windscreen, triumph saddlebags, and the peashooter exhausts, I'm not sure if they are the "offroad exhausts," or just regular Thunderbird ones tacked on.
Second owner was my brother-in-law who lightly used it before selling it to my father-in-law, making me the 4th owner, but with a pretty reliable chain of custody.
I thought it would be fun and useful to record what I'm doing on the bike, because I have an awful memory, and need to practice writing outside of documentation.
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