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December 27, 2008
Introductions
So I took the Beast in to PJ's today. It was rather cold out, and I didn't have the ganas to set the idle and balance the carbs before I left. Mostly because that would mean that I would have to get the bike up to operating temperature before getting my hands dirty.
It was fairly cold when I rode over, below freezing in any case. And the bike was fine on the freeway, and the only time I was the least bit concerned was pulling in to PJ's driveway over the ice in the gutter. And it was slick as snot back behind the service bay.
Eventually, Roomie pulled up and I retrieved the pit stand (now adjusted to fit the bike more properly). Looking at the bike, Mike and I agreed that it deserves a frame up restoration, paint, rewire, and the whole bit. Guess I'll be saving my pennies for a little while.
I tasked Jeff with three repairs
- craft a side stand to mount to the RH engine lugs
- fabricate the top half to the fairing brace clamp
- weld on tabs to receive body work screws on the lower part of the tail piece section.
Whenever I get the word that those three things are done, I'll swap out the F1 for the 851 and leave it there for its biannual oil and belt change. I love that thing too much to let the maintenance ever fall too far behind. Belts and oil are tasks that I really ought to be performing myself, and I mean to get up the ganas to do them in the garage in the next year or so. Adjusting the valves is yet another matter.
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December 26, 2008
The Beast
My Christmas present to myself was taking the F1 for a spin around the block. That thing is a beast. I love the exhaust note, which is lower and less "tinny" than that of the 851's reverse-cone Conti's. The pegs are quite high, which makes for a rather "sporting" riding position. The power delivery is surprisingly smooth.
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December 20, 2008
eBay Cautions
Generally, I have very good luck purchasing stuff from eBay. However, I was extremely disappointed to find that the used tail light lens I purchased had been repaired once before already. I have ordered a new one from PJ's.
Also, the tail light, brake light, and new fuse holder are all hooked up. Not the tidiest installation, but I can tweak that tomorrow in between chainsawing. All I need is a cross brace upon which to mount the new fuse holder, and I can take the bike in to get a side stand fabricated for it.
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December 19, 2008
Progress
Winter. A perfect time to be out in the garage, getting a Ducati 750 F1 back on the road. What would make my joy more complete would be a wood-burning stove to keep me warm while wrenching. In any case, the radio, the space-heater and my own exertions kept me warm enough today.
It turned out to be a red-letter day of sorts. I ran over to Cycle Gear and picked up some fuel line, a couple of fuel filters, and some 90° spark plug caps. The old fuel line was routed incorrectly, and had hardened. Likewise, the throttle cables were mis-routed. I took care of both and installed the filters as a precaution since the old fuel line had visible hunks of crud in it.
Once all had been reassembled (the front 41½ mm Malossi is a tight squeeze between the frame and the cylinder!), I tickled the carbs and hit the starter button. Life! She sounds great, but appears to be blowing a little smoke past the rings which could be due to lack of use or merely being cold.
I then turned my attention to the wiring. I need at a minimum a headlight, brake light, and tail light. I found two multi-wire connectors up by the headlight that appeared to match and snapped them together. Headlight! Now all I need to do is wire up a tail light, brake light, and ground to the tail piece, and I will be good to go. I found that there are even two threaded tabs under the sear to which I can attach a junction box. A quick poke through the welding shop next door's scrap pile should yield a suitable piece of scrap.
A final challenge will be mounting a license plate. The stock arrangement was a black piece of plastic attached to the fiberglass tailpiece that hung down. It is unlikely that I will find one of these. In any case, before I take the bike to the local MVD, I will need to have the side stand fabricated.
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December 17, 2008
Observations on the New F1
Now that the bike is finally in-hand, I have begun the process of sorting out and repairing what has been done to the F1 previously. I discover that the battery has the pigtail for a Battery Tender installed. Excellent! Unfortunately, I find that the previous owner had for some unknown reason cut the ring connectors off the pigtail and installed the bare wire under the battery terminal screws. Backwards. Now that the Tender is on the battery with the clamps, the battery has taken a charge nicely. Regardless, a new AGM battery is on its way.
The episode of the Tender Pigtails makes me very concerned for the overall health of the F1's critical systems.
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December 15, 2008
Arrival!
Last night, I received a call from Mike, the driver from DailyDirect / HaulBikes.com. He sounded pretty exhausted and asked if he could drop the bike off first thing in the morning. That was fine, I told him, since I had been waiting this long another night without the bike was not going to kill me.
This morning, I was out at Troy's at 7:00am. No truck. I wandered back to the house, dropped off my coffee cup, and returned. I was going to call at 7:15 and tell Mike that if he wasn't there by 7:30 that someone else would have to take delivery. No big deal, really, since I had already made arrangements with Troy's to do just that.
Mike was great: First off he apologized for the delay, though it was within reason; next, he knew right off the bat that the stand was with the bike and let me walk it over while he jockeyed the bike out of the trailer; finally, he went over the bike with me scratch by scratch until I was ready to walk it home. I made it back into the garage with about 10 minutes to go until I had to run downtown for an appointment. Parting is such sweet sorrow!
At first glance, the bike will need a couple of things. I think I have solved the fuel line dilemma by reversing the fuel lines: The RH fuel tap will serve the rear carb and the LH the front. Carbs don't care which side they get their fuel from! The wiring needs to be redone in the most major way. I may break down and simply purchase a new wiring harness from bevelheaven before this thing is street legal. The race stand is a POS, with the ears completely bent pigeon toed. I hope my Pit Bull will fit; I will feel more secure about relying on the stand if it can be used instead. Pit Bull is a huge improvement over the pit stand that came with the bike. The battery appears to be shot: It has been on the Battery Tender all day and it is still blinking yellow as if there were no battery there at all. Perhaps the PO has disconnected the battery. And there are the "known unknowns": a custom side stand will have to be fabricated or the Alazzurra one the PO gave me will have to be adapted.
The tires and the carbs are huge! Both were much larger than I was expecting. And they are not Malossi's but rather genuine Dell'Ortos. It says so right on the casting! And it is true: you could fit a toddler's fist in the exhaust. The overall feeling of this bike is quite small. Riding this thing is going to be a blast, and I want to do it justice.
Posted by Underblog at 7:03 PM | TrackBack
December 12, 2008
Auction Curiosities
A friend of mine recently put up a dearly beloved machine on eBay, and the auction bids did not meet the reserve price. However, after the auction ended, several of the parties and people watching the auction became very interested in what he had to sell. It turns out that he ended up selling the bike outside of eBay for more than he would have settled for during the auction.
This week I had a similar experience. For the past three weeks, I have been trying to sell a license plate tag (Minnesota, 1957) on eBay. The first two times I listed it, a few watchers tracked the auction but never bid. I lowered the price and the shipping amount, and now the sale price (with 12 hours to go) is double what somewhat could have had it for the past two weeks.
Posted by Underblog at 7:36 PM | TrackBack
December 8, 2008
Crossing Paths
When first I obtained the 851 and got it serviced, a colleague of mine and I took it out to celebrate. Rather, I rode the 851 and he drove his Porsche Spyder replica. Gear-headed geekdom is small enough here that I recently met a fellow who knows my colleague through the Roadrunner Chapter of the PCA.
It also turns out that this fellow has a Ducati ST4s that he is interested in selling. I am interested in buying it, since as a two-up tourer the F650 is somewhat underpowered. When I ran into him a second time at Coffee at Dawn on Sunday, he said "Let me know when you are ready to pull the trigger on the ST4." He seemed to understand that I was still in hock for the F1. On the other hand, the net cost after selling the F650 would only be several thousand dollars. But still. Maybe I have to check my calendar to find a month with three paychecks in it. And eat nothing but beans and rice for a long, long while.
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December 6, 2008
Routine Maintenance
I have a bad habit of procrastinating. In all likelihood, it is this that doomed my academic career. Nesting for the F1 has impelled me to accomplish some long deferred tasks such as clearing off the work bench, described below. Yesterday, I finally got around to calling up the BMW shop to ask whether they ever received the brake pads the ordered (and charged me) for me two months ago. Indeed, they had and the pads were there ready for pick up. Pads in hand, I pulled out the trusty Clymer manual and set about my task.
The new pads, lacking the quality of being soaked in fork oil for many months, stop only marginally better than the old ones. I'll keep the old as spares for the time being.
That small bit of wrenching accomplished, I thought I would start up the Trail 90 to see if the Battery Tender is doing an adequate job of keeping the battery up to snuff. Sure enough, the ever-reliable little single fired right up. After months of using the F650 for the same tasks for which the 90 has been used (viz. commuting, running errands, etc). When I shut down the bike, I noticed a significant fuel leak. Crap. I rolled the bike on to the lift and removed the carburettor. I pulled off the float bowl and checked to see that the float needle was not stuck. Turned on the gas to observe more leakage. I removed the carb again (as everything, the time spent is diminished with the frequency of the operation performed) and this time tightened down the fuel filter screen. The leak decreased but was still there.
There were two possible sources for the leak: the o-ring that sits between the screen cover and the carb body, and the fiber washer that sits under the screen cover retaining screw. As it happened, what was once an o-ring had become a squared off seal. So much like a seal did the rubber thing appear I was not sure an o-ring would fix it. But it did, and I am happily no longer in possession of a leaky carburettor.
The lessons I take away from this mundane episode are:
- A lift in the garage makes working on motorcycles much more comfortable;
- Room enough in the garage that one of the bikes does not have to be moved off the lift in order to work on another speeds up maintenance considerably;
- Those
boxes of assorted nitrile o-rings which Harbor Freight carriesbags of spare o-rings are nice to have around; - Years of experience with sundry motorcycles over many years has allowed me to save heaps of anxiety (and money);
- Work benches are extremely difficult to keep free of clutter.
In other news, I took apart a little fuse-holder I just happened to have had rolling around the bottom of my old toolbox to understand how I might be able to use it in the F1 (for which I thankfully have a delivery date). I felt pretty stupid when I realized that taking it apart was completely unnecessary.
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December 3, 2008
Near Miss
I was walking outside of my office building downtown when I noticed the following.
A bus was pulled over dropping off passengers. A large motorcycle—Gold Wing most likely—carrying a large person unhelmeted in shirt sleeves passes the bus in what remains of the lane. The bus driver, not seeing the motorcyclist passing starts to move off from the sidewalk. The motorcyclist honks his horn, swerves into the oncoming lane of traffic to avoid the bus, and then shouts "Mother----!" He continues along Copper Av, having just barely avoided an accident that easily could have been avoided altogether.