Fritzer

28 splines equals 13 degrees by 92mm throw is 22mm. I was a little long on the quote. I am surprised how much better my shifts are now for such a small change the hose made.

Picked up a piece of 3/4" radiator hose at the local auto parts store. It fits nicely over the lever without cutting it lengthwise. Put a zip on it to stop from sliding off.

The shifting lever on my machine is in a position that requires my foot to be raised higher than is normal for me to shift into a higher gear. Once in a while I don’t lift the lever up enough and the gear engagement cogs don’t get fully meshed. When that happens, it pops out of gear while under load. Very bad. So far no serious damage has happened (I think/hope). The most likely solution is to move the lever one notch down on the shaft splines, but the result is a 25mm drop in the lever. I tried that quite some time back but it caused too much toe contact with the lever. Never gave the issue much more serious thought until today while doing some cleaning. It came to me that if I could not lower the shift arm at the splines to the correct height, I could increase the diameter of the shift arm pedal rubber to effectively lower the contact point to my foot. Happened to have some ¾”ID clear tubing handy so I cut off 30mm length, slit it lengthwise, wrapped it around the shift arm pad then zip tied it on. This dropped the contact point about 4mm. I took her out for a spin and what a difference that made! Now when I go for a upshift, it solidly goes into a full engagement without having to make extra toe lift effort. Now that I know this setup works, I’m going to move the zip tie ratchets forward to eliminate contact with my shoe. If a person needed more drop of the lever arm, some thicker walled radiator type hose would probably work. I am sure that some others may have the same issue. Hope this helps.

The Cogs has been found and in good shape. I was worried that he got in a serious crash. He is just taking a break from the forum.

I am one of the few people on earth that is not on facebook. If you see him there sometime, find out what is going on with him.

Cogswell dropped off the radar a few months back. I miss his excellent advice and humor. Anybody know what happened to him?

My thoughts exactly

Did the same to my chain a week ago. It has 28,500 miles on it now and not making any noise yet. I could only get 20K mile on my old 84 FJ1100 with the more power and weight shortening its life. I looked back on my service logs and I remove, clean, oil and replace about every 1,000 mile with drops of motor oil at the rollers every 300 miles or so.

Another angle on it

I just got done doing a 62,000 mile rehab on my front wheel that included the following......... Removed and replaced the bearings and dust seals Installed new OEM rotors Installed new Metzler M7 tire Installed new EBC brake pads Painted wheel with 3:1 single stage urethane paint It now looks like a new wheel The bearings were still good with no hints of failure but I wanted to put new bearings in to make it into the 120K+ miles. New bearings and seals were only $50. To remove the bearings you need to use a long drift punch to knock them out. Once you do that, the bearings are not useable. So I go to put the new bearings in and remembered a veteran Honda mechanic once telling me that you can remove the seals on ball bearings to grease. Afterwards just pop the side seal back on. I had the old bearings right there so I thought I would give it a try. I took a micro screw driver and got under the seal on the outside edge and it popped right out. The seal pops right back on like it never left. I take the new bearings before installation and pop the side seal off. Honda doesn't overload the bearings with grease. I packed both of my new bearing with additional grease, reinstalled the side seals and put them in the wheel. To make a long story come to an end, the moral here is that yes, you can do front wheel bearing maintenance without taking the bearings out of the wheel. Use a wide screwdriver and pop out the dust seal for reuse later. Now you can see the bearing. Take a mini pick or micro screwdriver and pry the side seal off. Pack it with grease, reinstall side/dust seals and you are good to go. I plan on regreasing mine every 20K miles or so. If a person does that, they will probably last the 130K mile life of the bike if it garaged.

I have not needed to remove the filter yet, but I am pretty sure the silicone will stay in place when the filter is removed.

I purchased my 5th gen with a k/n filter installed. I decided to go back to stock filter but found that the gasket at the airbox was missing. Needing to remedy the issue right away I decided to partially fill the receiving channel with silicone rtv. Before installing, I misted my air filter edge with silicon. Worked out to be a perfect seal that let the air filterto be removable.

This technique might be helpful.

A free VFR engine is offered in the Portland Oregon area. https://portland.craigslist.org/clc/mpo/d/oregon-city-1986-vfr-750-engine/7454770016.html

This place could be Aberdeen in Washington State, It is right on the pacific coastline (salty) and the place I think Kurt Cobain grew up in.