Gas Gas Everywhere

Yesterday was quite the day! After reading Jon's response to my last post (thank you so much) I decided to drain what gas we had put in and flush out whatever I could from the lines and the tank. This was so much easier in my head!

In order to get the gas out I took off the three way valve under the tank and opened the gas cap to breathe the tank. Then held the dang thing over my little lawn mower gas can with a coffee filter setup in a funnel. I wanted to see if the liner that the last owner had put in the tank was dropping little presents in my gas. Thankfully the only thing to come out was bad gas and a little debris. The mess I made however was quite the other story. Lets suffice it to say that my aim was less than desirable and I was on the vigilant watch for ignition sources so as not to alert Clackamas fire! hahaha in other words the gas spilled all over my driveway and I didn't want my house to burn up. I was at least smart enough to do it outside in the fresh air.

Once the tank was off I used the opportunity to check the air filter, the breather box and the air intakes to make sure they checked out, and they passed! I cleaned up the dirt under the tank and reassembled with only one minor glitch. Apparently gaskets only work if they are laid flat and not rolled up in the three way valve spilling gas all over (quickly realized and remedied). You may then question why is gas leaking out of the tank I just drained, well I didn't get every drop out and some was leaking under the rolled up gasket.

I read in the manual about the filter screen in the three way valve and went ahead and disassembled, cleaned and checked it all out to make sure no debris was holding up the show inside the housing where there is a filter screen. Then I used the compressor and blew out what fuel lines I could get to.

After reassembling the whole contraption I'm not sure I have gained much ground in the fuel system, but it is ready for fresh gas and a new filter. Unfortunately the money fairy (wifey) has put the kibosh on further work until payday (Thursday).

Since it was such a nice day yesterday I did pull apart most of the cowlings and clean and polish with some plastic cleaner. The very bottom of the lower front cowl was pretty grimy and beat up. Since it is not visible to the eye I put a coat of protector paint on it. Can't tell its there unless the bike ends up upside down and that would be a TERRIBLE day for me. Suffice it to say, its not noticeable and probably just me futzing all day in the sunny weather.

Working today and tomorrow which means I won't do much cosmetic work this weekend and since we have a moratorium on funds I will be taking next week off too. I did already buy a new oil filter at the honda shop, so I will probably do an oil change on monday just because I can and I don't know the last time it was changed.

Big post today, leave ya all in suspense until later. Hopefully the next post will be my complete elation as the bike fires to life!

Next steps: Price out seat re-cover, New Fuel Filter, Oil Change, Fresh Gas, Carb cleaner gas treatment, charge battery (too many attempts to start it up...Im really antsy!)

Motorcycle 1 - Rob 0

Okay so there really isn't a score in this adventure, but what blog doesn't have a stupid title like that.

So today is Tuesday March 2, 2010 and I had a breakthrough on the bike. Lets review where I have been since the last post (which ironically just went up but was written a while ago).

We got the bike home, truck returned and bought a charger all on Sunday. Got her a good home in the garage and went right to work trying to troubleshoot the bike without a manual and with quite the eclectic mix of tools. My deal is that I will try to get things done with the tools I have or can borrow and then buy only if I can use the tool a lot or really need it.

I got the battery all charged up and ready to roll. Tried to start it again out of excitement and got strong sounding turn over. The good news is, good battery and starter motor is working good. Decided to pull the plugs and see if I had spark, and this is where speed bump number 1 showed up, NO PLUG Wrench that fits! After some googling and scrounging I ended up finding an 18 mm wrench at autozone and lo and behold it BARELY fits the spark plug hole. In my spark plug quest I found the Honda shop in North Portland and made friends with the parts guys there. It is a little nagging to me thinking about parts. Since it's such an older bike I'm not sure I will find the parts I need and hopefully I can scrounge.

Alright back to the work at hand. I bought four plugs and ordered a new oil filter from the guys at the shop. Once I pulled the plugs from the bike I found them well used, so I changed them and put in the new ones (wayyyy easier said then done). Important lesson today was that motorcycles are smaller than cars, and it sucks sometimes with small clearances.

After the bike wouldn't start with the new plugs, I checked both plugs on the crankcase to see if they had good spark. Easy enough, the bad ones sucked, the good ones had great spark; I'm really glad I changed them all out.

So new plugs are in and she still won't start up. However the turn over produces better sounds now (small victories? Hahaha). Next thought on the tree is fuel. Time to get smelly with gas.

Found the fuel filter and checked flow on both sides of the filter. Crazy enough, the filter stops the flow of fuel. So now the new plan is to focus on a new fuel filter and tomorrow I will call Honda to see what they have in store.

Plan from here: order new fuel filter and pick up when I get up there for the oil filter. Considering draining the tank and running some sort of cleaner through the tank. The issue is, the previous owner sealed the tank walls because of a leak he had found. May look to the forums on that one. Once parts are in, change the oil and the fuel filter, the listen to her purr (optimistically).

Costs:

Previous Post: $404.00
New costs:
Manual $14.98
Tools: $55
Parts: $37.30
Plastic Cleaner: $5.00

Total Spent: $501.30

Week 1 (whew)

Okay so where to get started...?

Well to start off I bought my first motorcycle. After a childhood of picturing myself out on the open road and constant thoughts of how to purchase my first bike, one just happened upon me. A week ago my dad called out of the blue, it was mid afternoon and he is usually working hard so it was an odd call. I enthusiastically took the call and found out one of his co-workers had an older motorcycle he was trying to get rid of. As it turned out his friend had a 1984 Honda VF-500F Interceptor for sale for the bargain price of $200.00! Now the rub lies in the details. Apparently the bike ran well before he parked it in the garage for 2 years. He was kind enough to drain the tank and take care of storing it properly. Dad attested to this guy's mechanical aptitude and the deal was struck.

Last Saturday my wife and I borrowed her step-dad's pickup and we headed from our home in Oregon City down to Philomath. It was there that I met my first bike. After buying the bike from dad (due to Oregon law we had two transactions), I took ownership.

So here is the first impression of the bike:
Cosmetics - Torn seat covered with masking tape. Broke plastic in a couple of places, namely the left side cowling was broken and will need to be fixed in some manner. Several miscellaneous screws are missing, but the bike is in one piece. It looks like the bike was dropped on the left side at some point in it's life. That is where the majority of the broken plastic lives and the tank has a ding on the left side. The paint on the tank is pretty worn down as is the windscreen. Having said all this, I'm stoked and nothing cosmetic is a deal breaker.

Mechanical - Here we get into the nitty gritty. Prior to storing the bike, the previous owners friend cleaned the carbs, however it sounds like the four carbs weren't properly aligned as he complained about rough idling. My biggest issue with mechanical right now is the fact that she won't start. We put fresh gas in it down in philomath and tried to crank it over. The bike turns over well, the battery needs a good charge, but I believe there is hope in the mechanics.

Game plan from here - first and foremost, gotta get it running. Gonna check the spark plugs, find a Honda shop in town (make friends lol), and begin the process of cleaning her up!

An added bonus, I got two helmets for my birthday from dad. They are hand me downs, but they will work until I can afford nice ones.

So far moni is on board, and money wise we are still okay. The bottom of each post I will try to put in the amount of money I am into the bike thus far and that way I can keep track of how much my $200.00 bike really costs hahaha!

Previous post amount: $0.00
Current Purchase:
Bike $200.00
Gas transport $25.00
Team Oregon Motorcycle Rider Class $179.00
Total $404.00