Mohawk

Well after a second episode of disco dash which also lead to loss of tail & brake lights when indicating. The VFR was retired until today when I finally got time to dig deep into its wiring. Having stripped the front upper fairing off & checked all the connections & found nothing wrong, but having got random results the other evening, today was time to trace it all out. So removing various fuses, did nothing but prove it was isolated to lights & indicator circuit. Disconnecting various lights did not isolate it. Next up was a possible issue with the instrument cluster PCB, so I removed it & still had the weird lights, so not that. Whilst it was out I traced all tracks with an ohm meter & all were good 😀so that’s some good news. So more digging & I decided after following the wiring diagram to check the earth block in the loom near the reg/rec on the left side under the tail unit. I had this open a few years back when I had another issue & all was good. So untaped it & again it looked good, but for good measure I added a twist to the jump blocks & when reinserted & the issue was gone. So what to do, looks perfect but appears to be the route of the problem. So I decided to remove it & just solder the ends together. So after clipping the block apart to free the connectors for inspection, one of the contact blades fell out of one connector, so that was one fault identified. I then clipped off the crimped on connectors, I stripped the cables back ready to solder & found 2 more faults. Two of the 14 cables were corroded on the skin of their cable strands, one quite badly. So I spread the wires flat on those two & rubbed them with some emery paper to get them back to shine copper, rotated them a couple of times to get all the wires clean. I intertwined those two individually with another clean earth wire, then twisted all 14 together. One is thicker than the rest so I assume that is the primary return to earth wire. Then soldered them all together & heat shrink covered them & finally taped them back against the loom. I checked all earth cables end to end from the solder block, to every lights earth connector and all came out to the same value give or take a couple of ohm’s. I wiggled & moved all wires & the feed stayed good, no more weird behaviour.

If the axle is the right length & fits the fork bottoms, you can use different bearing to get the wheel to fit ! Just an option. Alternately, if the wheel & axle fit, but the fork bottom does not you can make up shim tube spacers to accept the axle in those forks ! That will give a wider choice of wheel/axle combos, just need the right disc diameter & offset.

New always the best & replace regularly with a quality filter ! YMMV depends on the viscosity of the oil amongst other environmental conditions 🙂

Well if you consider the load going through these components & the fact that ambient surface cooling is the only heat exchange pathway, plus no direct airflow, as it’s running in the hot air washed off the engine & rads, then it’s expected to get hot when ambient temps are hot. Heat exchange works best with the highest temperature differential, so hot part cold day = good cooling. Hot part hot day = poor cooling. sou DSTL like you want to rig up a transmission oil cooler ! But bear in mind, that your engine oil runs at 80c nominally & transmissions often run hotter, which is one of the reasons they run thick shear resistant hypoid oils. So you would not be able to hold your hand on your engine at working temperature, why would the rear drive be any different. Shaft drives are very inefficient & that inefficiency generates heat as waste energy. Have you noticed how quickly your engine gets up to working temp now the ambients are above 30C ? when on a normal UK summer mornings you are lucky to get 15C ! Sounds like normal to me. Ride, enjoy, don’t worry.

I had a rummage inside the fairing & at one point had a disco on the dash, even with all indicators disconnected 😞 So there is a short in there somewhere, I'll have a proper look at the weekend. Strangely its working normally now after puting everything back in.

Yeah yeah, so you have never worked on a 4x4 with taper wheel bearings ! Normal wheel bearing are Ball bearings they are ONLY suitable for light side loading as experienced in cars on roads. 4x4/6x6/8x8 military equipment used taper bearings that look just like tapered head race bearings for the same reason, designed to take side loading as experienced by off road vehicles hitting ruts & bumps & bikes absorbing bumps & hard braking ! YMMV 😉

So on the way to work today I noticed my dash indicator light flashing rapidly. Blown bulb thinks I. Then noticed that the opposite light on the dash was blinking very weakly. Checked bike when i got to work & this is what I have. Left indicate, Front left normal, other three bulbs blink very weakly. Right indicate, Front right normal, other 3 bulbs blink very weakly. Any ideas ? Thanks

When I used to set taper races in the Army, we used the following procedure. Note nut position on old setup, i.e. how much shaft or thread is exposed before you loosen anything. Remove old bearings & inner cups. Compare assembled old bearing thickness with the new set, should be similar, but may be thicker or thinner. Note any difference. Fit new bearing inner cups. Use a long bolt & suitable wedge to seat the inner bearing cups, torque down hard. Then you know they are all the way home ! Assemble axle & taper race/outer cup, the nut should show similar amount of exposed shaft/thread, when combined with original & any difference. If close all OK, if larger difference, then something is NOT right. Tighten nut until shaft binds on bearings, now loosen 1/16-1/8th turn & check free play/easy of turning, adjust as required. Head bearings do NOT generate heat so should be as tight as possible & still be free moving. Wheel bearings need a little slack. YMMV

Or could just be nice new clean slippery bearings between your hands !

I get 79-84C (174-184F) always regardless of external temps when running between 60-90mph. I don't normally ride this bike in winter, but when crossing the alps on a tour a couple of years ago with snow at the top & an external temperature at or below ZERO C the temp was showing 78C. On the hottest days of the last few years & or when running in south of France, it sometimes gets up to 86C, that is with ambient temperatures of 35C (95F) at speeds in the 60-80mph. I fitted a lower temp fan sensor switch that brings the fan on at 90C & off at 80C, I have another one to test that is supposed to come on at 95C & off at 85C, which would reduce fan cycling. Either way I think what you are seeing is perfect for this bike & the difference is due to positioning & water flow. The thermostat is in the HOT outflow from both heads. The rear head runs hotter, but the temp sensor is in the front head. If you put your thermocouple on the rear head hose fitting on the thermostat (yeah I know it would be a pain) I think you will find the temp there (i.e. water to the thermostat) would be a few degrees warmer than the dash sensor shows. You will also find it worth putting it on the hose connection to the front head, which should show the incoming water temp to be lower than the leaving temp & that cool water corrupts the dash sensor as its in the flow into the front head ! PS No two thermostats are the same & the tolerance is probably +/-2C so that would explain one bike to another in the same ambient temps. If its cold out & runs 10C lower than normal or takes a long time to heat up, then I'd worry. Move along, nothing to see here, ride it & fix something that might be broken 😉 YMMV

I had an issue with mine cooling a few year back it gradually got worse. Turned out after testing many things that a previous owner had used tap water with the antifreeze & the radiators had furred up inside. When I stripped the system to do other work, it became apparent. There is a process of using caustic soda in water to remove the furring, its weird watching cold water smoke with your cold radiator in it, but the amount of crap that came out of the rads was unbelievable. Been perfect ever since, so worth checking !

The top nut should NOT apply pressure to the stem nuts. The stem is stepped to avoid that, if the lower stem adjustment & lock nut do NOT expose some thread to make the step then the top triple-T will sit on them if they are correctly adjusted this should NOT happen. The top Triple-T should rest on the step in the stem at the start of the lower stem thread. Are you sure your inner bearing cups are fully seated ? Or are your taper bearings to deep ? You do have the fork clamps on the upper T loose right !?

I just changed the rear hub bearing in mine a couple of weeks back. It can be done with a drift quite easily. This is my process. 1. Remove hub. 2. Remove left side bearing spacer. 3. Remove outer dust seals from both sides. I just use a large flat blade screw driver to lever around the seal & lift it out, they are just soft pressed in place. 4. Remove the split rings locating each bearing in place. 5. Clean any grease away & add some thin oil or release agent to the outer groove between bearing & hub, allow to soak for a while, go get a coffee ! 6. Repeat 5 for the other side & let gravity do the rest. 7. Mount hub on/in a soft jawed vice left side down, do NOT clamp with the vice, there is a raised lip around the bearing holder, mount so that this is just clear of vice jaws. 8. Warm the hub with a hot air gun, while release agent soaks in, go get a beer 🙂 9. Use a drift (or your chosen tool) & drift out the left side double ball bearing. 10. Fully clean & inspect the needle bearing it may not need replacing, but its hard to tell ! 11. Turn hub over & repeat drift, the lip on the needle bearing is tiny, so you may do better to pry out the rollers & the cage & use the inner lip of the bearing shell to drift on. YMMV. I used the inner seal as a drift point until the outer had moved enough to get a good purchase. 12. Clean the bearing pockets thoroughly, get rid of any corrosion, or scrapes from the drifting process. 13. Remove inner seal from the needle roller shell & reduce the outer of the shell diameter by enough that it slips into the bearing pocket just past the spring clip groove. Note - Honda did NOT use a larger diameter dust seal, so if you use the old bearing to fully seat the new one it will be stuck in the hub too ! So it must lose a little diameter to do this. I just turned half the bearing outer down with my mini lathe by 0.5mm. 14. Grease the bearing pockets & the outer shells of the replacement bearings. You can put bearings in a freezer over night & heat the hub before installation. This does work to some degree, YMMV. 15. Tap in the new bearings using the turned down old bearing shell as the tapping point. I find gentle taps in a circular motion work for this with a 1lb lump hammer. You need the mass to stop it bouncing. If you have a very large vice or a bearing seater, these are even simpler to use. 16. Replace both spring clips in groove to stop bearings moving outwards. 17. Fully grease the needle roller bearing with appropriate grease, these are supplied dry ! Add extra grease to the shoulder of the inner & outer seals. You want to pack the needles & cage with grease, roll it round. You will never get it full, hence the extra grease in the shoulders, this will act as a reservoir & as the bearing cools after use it will be drawn into the rollers. 18. Clean/inspect &/or Replace, then reinsert the outer dust seals & the left side bearing spacer. Rebuild into swingarm. Hope this helps. Job jobbed. Have fun

If your bike has the center stand then there is no issue to do this. Place bike on stand, remove dust caps both sides, loosen the nut on right side. Now place a thin piece of wood under the rear tyre, so there is NO clearance, i.e. it just squeezes in. Use a long rod slightly smaller diameter than the swingarm bolt to push out the bolt & it will keep all parts in the correct place. The swingarm does NOT pivot on this bolt, the swingarm bearings locate on it. Turn the bolt around, put it in from the right side & push out your temporary rod, replace left peg hanger & add the nut. Make sure you locate the peg hanger locators on the stubs they use to stop them swiveling ! Job jobbed 🙂