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Gebruiker

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About Gebruiker

  • Rank
    Factory Team Rider

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  • Location
    Connecticut, USA and the Netherlands
  • In My Garage:
    1992 VFR
    1993 CBR1000

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  1. Gebruiker
    Do you own a pair of scissors? Then you can cut decals too. Any size or shape. Try to get them right way round if cutting back to front. 🤔
  2. Gebruiker
    I'm going with the blown 30amp fuse. It sounds like you're not getting anything at all from the battery circuit. Not just the starter. There's something dodgy in the main circuit. Maybe a short to ground? The solution could be simple. Here's where to look for the fuse... It's going to be hot by the side of the road. I hope you manage to get the bike to a safe location before you begin searching for the answer.
  3. Gebruiker
    Maybe we should explain that GAMMA is a Benelux DIY store...like Lowe's in the USA. And 'Radiatorfolie' translates to english as um, radiator foil. But you had already figured that one out, yes? See everybody? You can all read dutch and didn't even know it. Put that on your next resume! 🙂
  4. Gebruiker
    How Hot is Hot? I wanted another power port near the display cluster. Until now, I’ve been using one of those flat trailer plugs, wired and fused directly off the battery. This thing: It’s a convenience and it works fine to run my voltmeter, or my gps, or my car-seat-warmer designer heated vest. But as you can see, the cord is short, ending just next to the gas tank. Good for the vest. Less good for everything else. Plus there’s only one of it. There are several options available to me. You know what they are. While I was muddling them over, a friend dropped this thing in my lap. He had it laying around and wasn’t planning to use it for himself. I'm not sure of the quality, but it does have a long enough cord. Let’s see how it works. Pic. ...I was only looking for the additional power point but this came with a double usb port and its own voltmeter. Groovy... So I wasn’t sure how to run the line past the engine bay. It’s only about the gauge of home speaker wire and the insulation looks to be about the same. There are wires all over the bike of course. And around the frame past the engine. This is the same engine that regularly tries to burn my leg. The oem harnesses down there are double wrapped with what, insulation and electrical tape? They don’t melt. My concern is how much heat can this new wire insulation tolerate before melting? I’m only guessing the insulation is pvc. According to these guys, who seem to know what they’re talking about, standard pvc insulation is good only for +/-220F (105C). Jeez, that's like the melting point of a Mars bar... https://www.awcwire.com/insulation-materials And I already know that the frame itself will get up to 165F (see entry, page 3 this thread) But is this insulation even pvc? I dunno. I’m not going to try to melt it no matter how much the scientist inside me wants to run that experiment. But it’s definitely gonna get warm. It’s pretty much got to go right past one of the rear heads. After poking around some, I decided it wouldn’t matter if I ran wires to the left or right of the engine. But the right side cooks my leg more than the left, so I went left. And as a precaution I decided to wrap the wires with household radiator shielding. This stuff: Pic I just loosely stapled a blanket on, to position next to the hottest parts of the route. Foil side out. I didn’t want to tape it around since electrical tape is just more stuff to melt and melting stuff is exactly what I’m trying to avoid. Staples probably melt too, but if it gets hot enough down there for a staple to melt then I’ve got bigger problems than a dodgy auxiliary power circuit. The back of the foil (inside against the wiring) is some kind of spongy foam rubber. Will that melt? Dunno. I guided the whole thing loosely with an occasional zip tie. I’ll check it for chafing and heat damage after a ride or two. If it lasts that long. Meanwhile, I will be powering up my voltmeter or gps or phone more easily than before.
  5. Gebruiker
    Dark smoke replacement blinkers are available for a price, and look terrific. Your solution looks just as good to me. If you're concerned about not having enough light, I'd think brighter LED bulbs might be available.
  6. Gebruiker
    The helmet is the right image but it's a nice face. And all those teeth. Are you sure about that choice?
  7. Gebruiker
    So, the bike is back on the road with a secured rear wheel that won’t be bouncing past me on some random corner. UPS finally brought the 46mm socket. You know you can track online purchases these days. That way you can follow along when your stuff gets shipped and where it is at any time between the shipping office and your front door. My socket decided to sit in Secaucus for five whole days while I waited. Whatthehell. It was just sitting there. I’m not so sure package tracking is always a good thing. I didn’t know if I was getting a six point or twelve point socket. The advertised picture showed 12 points, chromed. Pretty. But the description said six points. As mentioned by Grum and JZH, six points would be better for strength. Which means of course the thing came with 12 points. Also it was one of those funny designs that isn’t pointed but rounded to meet the face of the nut. Anyway, it worked fine. All 141 foot pounds. Big sucker. Lots of force. Then I staked it! Done. Now I'll have to repaint down there. Will I ever need this socket again? I don’t think it’ll fit under the seat… The two homemade decals are working too. Official size, again thanks to JZH, if not exactly the proper ones for generation3 bikes. If I get tired of these or ridiculed, I can swap them out. I already have extras. The extras look like this: Wait, sorry, I mean like this… Wait. Um...wait. That’s, that’s not right. Damn. I won’t tell you the name of the peabrain in the house who cut these out. Fine. It was me. Another person here, not me, thought they’d be just about perfect for any VFR I owned. Uh huh. I was tempted to use them just because of that… 😁
  8. Gebruiker
    ...don't forget to make sure the rear wheel nut is properly staked. Front too! 😉
  9. Gebruiker
    It's always somethin. 🙂 As you know, I usually don't go looking for trouble. And I never signed up to do a thorough rebuild. But always good to know any source of future problems. Thanks!
  10. Gebruiker
    Road grit? After only 30 years? How much could there be? I'm not even gonna check. I'm sure bearings are fine too. So is the brake rotor. But yes, I do see why it could possibly be necessary to remove the axle nut... The best extension lever I ever had was a fork tube from a crashed bike. It was strong, the right size, free...and a constant reminder of a crashed bike. Unlike MaxSwell's, it would not fit under any seats. Maybe the seat of a Buick. It walked off one day and I've been looking for a replacement ever since, preferably not from one of my bikes.
  11. Gebruiker
    Maybe we need a separate VFRd thread for this. The day I cheated death. I'm not sure I have any qualifying stories, but I have the feeling a lot of riders might... 😬
  12. Gebruiker
    I think it's going to be 12 point. It'll have to do.
  13. Gebruiker
    Have you actually ever had to take the assembly apart? I'm still not seeing any obvious reason to ever fuss with it. I borrowed an 18" torque wrench. It only goes to 150 foot pounds anyway, so a breaker bar might be just about as good. Still waiting on the socket. Thanks for the heads up on stabilizing the bike while wrenching. Good tip. I might run a safety strap up around a ceiling beam if it all looks wobbly. I wonder if am now the only person alive who has ridden a VFR with the back wheel hanging off... 😬
  14. Gebruiker
    Thanks again MaxSwell. I checked at your suggestion. Grainger could’ve gotten me the socket overnight but I’d already ordered one at Amazon. Mechanical friend suggested to me I could try a strap wrench(?!) if I needed the bike before the socket came in. Probable not able to crank to 141 ft-lbs, but well, according to him I’d already apparently been riding with the nut just barely hanging on and without noticing any great problem. I'm not sure he's got my best interests at heart... 🙂 I’m also not entirely sure I can summon up the muscle to tighten it all to 141 ft-lbs anyway. I'm dredging up my high school physics here. If the torque wrench is 18 inches long, and I need 141 pounds of force at one foot. Times 1.5, divided by the square root of log pi...or something... I'll need about 100 pounds of force at the end of the wrench. Maybe I’ll get an extension bar. Stay tuned on that.
  15. Gebruiker
    Boy I’m really not getting this, am I. Whew. Absolutely, 141 foot pounds. Thank you Av8r! 141 foot pounds. My torque wrench doesn’t even go that high. So far as I can see, it’s by far the highest torqued bit on the whole bike. Happily, I haven’t yet gone riding again while the nut sits at a torqued value of zero foot pounds. It's taking me a few days to scrounge up the 46mm socket. All the local DIY stores only stock up to 35mm. And try as I might, an old pipe wrench is just not the tool for this job. So I’m having to wait for a special order. I’m never so sure how important exact torque settings need be on something like this. 141 foot pounds. Would 140 be okay? How about 100? Does anybody ever bother torquing an oil drain bolt when changing the oil? There is a torque setting for it. 27 ft-lb. How about the oil filter itself? 7 ft-lb. A mechanical friend uses his muscle memory for three basic torque settings: light, medium and cranked. Presumably the axle nut is in the cranked category. He’s not here, so I’ll be borrowing a bigger torque wrench when the socket arrives. Meanwhile, I keep fretting how the thing got loose in the first place. It looks like a properly staked nut should have a pretty big dent in it. Mine shows not much sign of one. Maybe a little dent. The rear axle and bearing are not the kinds of parts that would require regular work. Nothing in the service manual specifically states anything about inspecting or repacking bearings. It seems more likely to me most rear axle nuts get torqued once on the assembly line in Hamamatsu, staked there, and stay in place for the life of the machine. So how is it mine is falling off? Of course, now that I think of it, my life insurance is fully paid up. Housemates have been getting a little twitchy with the whole corona virus thing. Maybe it’s time to get the dog to start taste testing my dinner… 😉
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