Putting the Geek back in GreaseMonkeyGeek!

   I realize that I haven't posted a lot of GEEK stuff here... technically I haven't posted any at all. So I will now regale you with the process of my first effort into painting Dwarven Forge Dungeon Tiles from their recent KickStarter. I opted for the unpainted ones (2 sets plus some add-ons) and am happy I did so.

   This first picture is the original color that they come in straight from the molds. It is sort of a chocolate brown and has a slick sheen to it. You could in theory leave the tiles as is with just this coloring, but they are pretty plain and lack pop.

   Using the tutorial provided by the DF guys on their website, I attempted to paint up my first handful of tiles using the main L-shape floor/wall sections and a couple of corner sections. The basic process is as follows. First you take the gray base and do a mostly dry brush light coat. The idea is to cover most of the tile but not to fill in all the little details. I found that as I went along, I would actually fill in more in some areas on one then less in that same area on the next one. This gave each piece a little more uniqueness as I went on to later steps. Initially, this was just me using too much paint at first and then less as the brush dried some, but I liked how it came out and kept doing it.

    The next step is to do the detailing on a small number of stones to add a little more color and variety to the tiles. This is done with an earth tone lighter brown that you can see in the pictures. You only need to do a couple of these per wall section and on some I did only two or three total. This was also an area that you can create variety by how many and where you place these highlight stones.

   The third step is to dry brush on a olive sand color. This is done with a very dry brush and several times I had to rub down the tiles using a paper towel because I had used too much even after I was sure I wiped enough off. When in doubt, wipe more off. In the end though, it was pretty easy to get the hang of and again I added more to some places and less to others for subtle highlights. But BE CAREFUL!!! It is easy to over apply.

   The final step is to dry brush on the light color final highlight coat. The color they sell is Stone Edge and is almost white with a hint of sand/eggshell. It gives the tile the stone look you want at the very end and that you can see in the pictures. This is a SUPER dry brush technique. As in even more so than the olive sand. I'm talking you are taking almost every last bit of color off the brush before you lightly dust the tile. You will see it as you start, so I suggest starting on the sides since those get placed next to each other and the brighter layer wont show as much. You can also simply repaint it. But it's always better to try to fix it when possible. So yeah... SUPER DRY brush, VERY LIGHT dusting and you will bring out a lot of details.

   Once you get the hang of it on a couple of tiles, you can move on to what I did... assembly line!!! The first picture, you can see I have done the basic gray coat (left most tiles) and started adding in the highlight brown stones(right most of the tile rows). You can also see the contrast of a finished tile on the far right (L-shape) and the one just above it (corner tile) where there is the first three steps, but the final dry brush has not been applied. 

   Here you can see the assembly line waiting for the tiles to dry so I can move on to the next batch.

   I wanted to add in some very different tiles for times when I wanted either a smaller room totally different, or to add a slight change to an existing gray base room. Instead of starting with the gray stone base, I used the Earth stone color as the base. Then I used the base gray to highlight stones and then did step 3 and 4 as normal. This created a desert-esque color that I really liked. If I were to buy another set of these, I would probably go ahead and do at least half of them up in this other color option. I think it really adds to the possible options.

   I have several free standing wall sections to do along with some special features like trap doors and gates. As well as dungeon dress-up stuff like barrels and beds and treasure chests. Since I have not picked up any other paints besides the four I got with the KickStarter, I am pretty limited with my color options. Between this and the Reaper KickStarter, I have a lot of fun stuff to look forward to painting and hopefully using soon in some games. I will post those reports up as I get them done as well as an update to this one when I get around to painting up the rest of the DF Dungeon tiles and accessories.

   So there you go... a little more Geek to compensate for all the GreaseMonkey.

Project BAMSFH™ - Part 7

Project BAMSFH™ The light at the end of the tunnel... a.k.a The Home Stretch... a.k.a. Dear gods I hope that isn't a train.

I was able to get some stuff done on the Project BAMSFH this weekend making this the final week of major things, as long as everything goes well. But of course it can never be that easy and I'm still smacking myself... and of course reminding myself that this was my first motorcycle carb rebuild as well as my first 4-carb rebuild. 

Now on to the story...

This weekend I was able to get a lot of the crud out of the radiator, but not all of it. I tried vinegar soaking and even CLR/Lime-a-way and while helping, it did not get most of the visible buildup. There is solid flow through the radiator from inlet to outlet, so it seems like it is mostly external scaling. I decided it was good enough for now and flushed it several more times to make sure I wouldn't missing some big chunks that could later on find their way into the engine. I plan to run some Prestone Radiator Flush once it is running in hopes of getting the rest out .

I was also able to get the hoses replaced on the petcock -> filter -> pump setup and using my battery I manually ran it initially with water, to make sure it even worked and then again with SeaFoam infused gas. The idea there being to not only remove any gas varnish in the system, but also flush out any chunks. The pump ran well and seemed to have good pressure, so that is a huge plus.

Having finished the last of the big tasks, I was ready to start putting things back together. This includes finally reconnecting all the water, air, and fuel lines (I ended up leaving the fuel line disconnected for now so I can test the flow from the pump through the whole system) and started to put the air box back on. It came out with a little finagling, but for the life of me I could not get it to go back in. After about 10 minutes of pushing and shoving and angling and swearing, I noticed that the two bolts that hold the air cleaner to the carb plenum didn't look like they would line up even after I got the air box on.

"Huh..." Says I as I start to turn and spin things and finally go to grab the iPad with the copy of the service manual on it. I noticed at once what my problem was. If you guessed that I put the carb plenum on backwards... you win a prize!!

Having no intention of removing the entire carb assembly, I decided to try to remove just the plenum. It came off easy and at first went on easy once I nudged the carbs into slightly different angles. I went slowly and finally got it lined up right and tightened down. Then I realized I pushed one of the air tubes going into the plenum wrong and it pulled the o-ring/gasket in with it. Off goes the plenum again, I fix tube and gasket, and back on again... wiggle wiggle line up the carbs. YAY! Back on and tightened.

I get about halfway through tightening down the airbox when I look over and see the little brass cover that goes over the air tubes inside the plenum. Expletives deleted for the sake of the children. Back off goes all the panels and bits that I need to remove to get the airbox back out. Finally, after several hours longer than it should have taken, I have everything back on the bike except for the main tank.

This week I should get the last of the parts I need and if all goes well, I will be firing up the beast this weekend. I still need to do one more flush of the main tank and reattach it, drill out the sheared off caliper bolt and put in the new one, run some lube into the cables, and check the chain tension. I'm sure I have a few more little things to do, but I'm getting close.

Fingers crossed this thing will be alive by next week!

Project BAMSFH™ - Part 6

Project BAMSFH™ sage continues...

My updates here have been very sporadic, mostly because I have been insanely busy, but at least the end is here. I have stepped down from the co-head position with the local chapter of a world wide non-profit organization (read: Prince of the Mists, West Kingdom, SCA), and hope to have more free time over the foreseeable future of weekends.

Almost a month has passed since my last blog, mostly due to preparing to step down from above said position. In those long weeks and days, I have found some time to work on a couple of things here and there. Notably, I received the carb boots in the mail along with a replacement bolt for the front caliper. I decided that while I have it all apart anyways, I might as well pop the valve covers and make sure things are good inside there. A lot of my reading since starting this project has pointed out that when rebuilding the carbs, it doesn't do a lot of good to not check you valve clearances.

So one bright morning, I got to work on the valve covers. The front cover came off pretty easy, but the rear cover was a royal bitch. I had to slowly and carefully wiggle and turn and angle it to finally get it out. Both covers were a mess which doesn't bode well for the gaskets but they looked fine other than being a bit dry and not so squishy. I cleaned them both off and set them aside after applying some oil based gasket restorer.

Breaking out with my trusty wrenches and feeler gauges, I processed to try to find top dead center. Then I ran into my first speed bump. On the right side is a screwed on plug that covers the place where you can see if you are TDC or not. It of course was locked up tight. I sprayed some WD-40 in there and attempted to knock something loose. No go. More WD-40 and tapping. No go. More WD-40 and some hammer taps and screwdriver force. No go. Realizing I am close to stripping out the screw slot, I raise the white flag and move onto plan B. Pulling the plug from Cyl-1 I slowly turn the engine with my finger down inside the spark plug hole. I can feel the pressure rising and hear the escaping air, here comes TDC for that cylinder. Watching carefully up in the valve/rocker area I watch to see when TDC is achieved. Finally finding it, I loosen the lock nut and start adjusting the gap. It is super tight on Cyl-1 intake, but on the looser end of the scale on exhaust. After some fiddling, rotating the engine two full turns, more adjustment and fiddling, more tunring of the engine... (you get the point) I finally get it where I am happy with it being snug but on the looser end which I read is better than too tight. One more half turn to get the rocker under force for the lock nuts and I torqued them down. Same pattern for each of the remaining cylinders working my way around 2 then 3 then 4. I don't see anything that alarms me inside the valve area and everything seems tight and solid, so that is a good thing, I think.

The rear valve cover was just as much of a pain in the ass to put back on as it was to take off, but I finally got it on.... BACKWARDS!!!! ARRRGG!!! OK... deep breaths. wiggled it out, turned it around, wiggled it back in. Now I have the valve covers back on and tightened up. I will keep an eye on the gaskets to see if I have leaks once I start her up and let her run for a bit.

Installing the carbs with new boots... SO MUCH EASIER! with a little bit of grease and angling them slightly upwards, all it took was some wiggling and downward pressure as I straddled the bike. I felt them pop into place and visually inspected things to make sure they in fact seated properly. Once I tightened down the hose clamps I realized that I had forgotten to install the new water tube o-rings. Which of course can only be accessed with the carbs off the bike. Sigh... called it a night.

Last Thursday night, I finally had time to pull the carbs again and replace the water tube o-rings, but discovered that the o-ring/gaskets in there were bigger than the ones sent in the Basic Carb Rebuild kit. At first I thought it was just them being smooshed flat, but even smooshed they were still ~33% thicker than the new ones provided. The problem is that once you attach the water tubes screw down mount, it pulls the tubes back a bit and the smaller o-rings unseat. Thankfully, the originals were still in good shape and I ended up reusing them. I'll let you know how they hold up once I get to the point. I sent off an email to V4 Market about this, and they said they would look into it. I'm fine with the ones I have in there if they don't leak, but wanted them to know so that they can fix the sizing so that the next guy doesn't end up in trouble with bad o-rings and replacements that won't fit.

With the carbs off again, I was able to get the throttle and choke cables attached. I checked and double checked many times to make sure I was attaching the cables in the correct direction. Then reinstalled the carbs and tightened everything down. Then I reached to test the throttle snap... huh, I don't think it is supposed to twist forwards. Yup, Installed the cables backwards. Sigh... no time to fix it now.

Skip to last night, and me having time to fiddle with the beast. I got the carbs off again pretty easy (new carb boots and experience starting to pay off) and spent several minutes fighting with the cables, carbs, and adjusters (what I would have given to have 4 arms right then and there) and finally was able to get it all connect up in the proper direction. Then with my new found carb installation experience, I angled the boots and easily seated the carbs back on and got them tightened up.

Tested choke, works fine and no binding. Tested throttle, rolls on the correct direction and snaps closed with no hesitation. WOOT! Swung handlebars left and right, no catch and no visible pull on the cables.

Next up, radiator flush while it is off the bike. Then on to the fuel pump! Fingers crossed I might actually be ready to fire up Project BAMSFH™ before the end of the year!!!!

Big Bloo... when it rains it pours.

First off, Big Bloo is pushing 220,000 miles for a 2001 Jeep GC. I expect problems to continue to pop up until the times comes when it just is costing too much and I finally retire her. In the mean time, I gotta have something to drive until I get the BAMSFH running. This post deals with the latest quick fix that turned into a nightmare... the front brakes.

Coming back from an event Saturday night, the front right brake started making the metal to metal grindy sound during stops. So of course, Sunday I set aside a couple of hours to check and replace the pads. I do not recall when exactly I had checked the brakes last, but my brain was/is telling me that it was 6 months to a year ago and they were >60% on the pads then. I happen to have the pads from back then when I planned to replaces them and it turned out I just needed to clean and adjust them. Skip now to Sunday when I take the left front apart. It is pretty grungy, but comes apart pretty easy. The slider pins stick a little so I make sure I clean the pins and put fresh grease in them before putting it all back together.

The fun parts comes when I start on the right side. These are cleaner, due to not being close to a known small oil leak on the left side, and I'm hoping for a quick replacement. Problems start almost right away when I notice I cannot adjust the slider pins at all. Crappity crap crap. I put the calipers back on the front end and then loosen the caliper mount pins before pulling the calipers back off. The inner brake pad is gone... as in shiny metal along the top and bottom with a millimeter of pad material before hitting the backer plate. The top slider pin is frozen solid but the bottom one is in better shape than the left side. I tie off the caliper and pull the mount completely free and over to the work bench. Using clamps and wrenches I try to break it free. Nada. Squirt in some WD-40, tap it a bit, try again. Nothing. Let it sit for a while as I go inside to check on ways to remove the pin easier. Come back out 10-15 mins later and soak the pin in WD-40 again, tap it, then try twisting the pin with a wrench. Nothing. Hammer taps. Nothing. Hammer hits harder. Nothing.

Time for the big guns...

I place the mount in a bench vice and clamp down onto the pins top part. Using a 1 1/2" wrench as my fulcrum I try to crank the pin free. Nothing, except for the bench trying to move and the vice loosing grip. Finally I put the pin into the vice itself and try to compress it down into the mount in hopes that that force might break it free. Nothing.

OK, I have now wasted close to 2 1/2 hours on this crap. I clean up and take the mount with me to my friendly neighborhood O'Reillys to see if they have one in stock since online store searches are being dumb. The store close to me doesn't have it. They have the pins, which apparently are a separate thing you have to buy, but they don't have the mount and it would take til Wednesday to get in. Well fuck! I tell the clerk thanks and head to PepBoys, the next shop down the road. The guy there says they don't have it either, but their store in Union City has it... 20 minutes away. Fine... I ask him to call them to hold it for me just in case there is a run on 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee front caliper mounts. They also have the pins in stock so I ask to have those held as well.

Que montage travelling music...

Upon arrival, I ask at the front counter about parts being held for me. They look at me with a blank look on their faces. Fucking asshat at the previous store didn't call them. Sigh... OK 10 minutes of explaining and searching and the guy (who is obviously new to parts look ups) finally goes to get it. I tell him I need the pins as well. He comes back with the mount and then goes and gets the pins. As I open the mount box I find no rubber boots nor are they in with the pins that they go on. Now, normally one would reuse the rubber boots for a job like this. I however cannot reuse the boots since one of them is stuck on with the stupid seized pin. He looks at me with another blank look on his face as I say I need the boots too. Que another 10-15 minutes of searching the parts computer. I had to point out the section he needed to look in to find the boots. They do NOT have them in stock... of course they don't. Does the other PepBoys have them? Don't know... the computer isn't showing stock numbers at all for some reason. Sigh...

Que angry montage travelling music....

Back to the first PepBoys only to arrive just as they are locking up the doors for closing at 6. FUCKITY FUCK FUCK. OK... breathe... Off to the O'Reilly as I know they are still open til 8. They more than helpful guy tells me that he does NOT have the boots in stock but they are in stock at the store in San Jose... 20 minutes away. I ask him to call them to have them hold them for me, I wait while he does, then out the door I go.

Que "done with this stupid day" montage travelling music....

Upon arrival at the SJ O'Reillys, they have the part waiting, I pay for it and leave. No fuss. Finally, something went right.

Que relived to finally be going home to finish this project montage travelling music....

It's dark now, by the time I get home. Place snazzy headlamp on forehead, being assembly and greasing of the new mount and pins. Then putting the new mount onto the calipers and finally putting the new pads into place. It all goes back together fairly easily and quickly, thankfully. All buttoned back up, I fire up the Jeep and pump the brakes for a while to get them back into position and seated. I think there was/is some air in the lines as it took a lot longer than normal to stiffen up. Finally stiffened up to much better than before, I take a spin around the complex followed by a spin around the neighborhood stopping every so often from ~30mph to seat the pads and get everything settled. Satisfied that my brakes won't end up killing me, I clean up and head inside to relax.

Thus ends the saga of the seized caliper mount adjuster pin.

Big Bloo and the starting problem

I was finally able to get someone out to the house to take a look at Big Bloo. It was a mobile/travelling mechanic that I got in touch with on the V4Musclebike forums. Charlene came out Sunday afternoon and after some get to you know chatter, we started in on the troubleshooting. Pretty quickly she determined that the starter was in fact the problem. I was doubtful at first since the symptoms were VERY atypical of a failed starter. I got none of the clicking, none of the usual sounds of a failed or failing starter prior to it failing. It just stopped working. And a couple of times with it not working, it would suddenly work once shifted to neutral. So to say I was not convinced would be an understatement.

However, the true professional that Charlene was, she tried the usual tricks like shorting between the solenoid posts to force the starter to fire if the solenoid is bad. This did nothing proving that even though power was getting to the solenoid, and it was passing that power on to the starter, the starter was still refusing to work. It took a bit to get the starter off, but once off we did the tried and true connect that bitch straight to the battery... nothing. Not even a spark. Somehow the starter had broken in an open connection state such that it wasn't even making noises.

After a quick trip to the parts store... where they tried to give us the wrong starter... Charlene started putting the new starter back in. She also discovered that a cross bar/linkage/strut connecting the engine to the transmission was missing a bolt. Since it was a critical support brace, I wasn't too worried, but after tightening it up so that the disconnected end didn't move on it's own, the rattling noise I have had since the transmission was rebuilt seems to have gone away or at least lessened a bit. I have started looking into replacing that bolt.

But enough of the side track.. back to the story.

Once everything was reattached, Bloo fired right up. No hesitation or bad noises. We went over the connection once more to make sure everything was fine and smiled at a job well done. Charlene earned every penny and then some. Once the work was done, she showed me how to test compression on the bike as well, and showed me that it looked like I had good compression at least on most cylinders. This was a good feeling, since that was one of the things I had yet to get to. She left and I started on the carb rebuild process... see Project BAMSFH™ - Part 5 for details there.

So far so good, Bloo is running good and actually I think that the started was causing drag on the engine as I noticed a slight drop in gas mileage prior to the starter failing and already I am seeing better mileage.

Project BAMSFH™ - Part 5

Much progress on Project BAMSFH™ has been made and of course I keep forgetting to post about it here....

When we last left our intrepid hero, he was struggling with his massive giant-like strength and how to stop breaking off important bolts. With the luck of the gods he was able to acquire replacement bolts and using his impressive collection of tools and mental prowess, he was able to remove the sheared off bolt from the caliper. Flush with victory, our gallant hero referred to the service manual to ensure that future attempts would not cause metal failure. Locating the important data.... or so our hero thought... he proceeded to install the NEW caliper mounting bolt. But once again, the Fates were against him, for he had misread the the torque specs and his own massive godlike strength ripped the bolt in twain once again. A loud cry was heard for miles around. Small children cried and wet themselves. Animals refused to leave their borrows and barns for fear of the fierce scream. Women wailed and gnashed their teeth as the men cowered over them attempting to alleviate their fears but the men themselves being overwhelmed with fear.

Finally peace descended once again onto our hero as he regained control of his epic anger and attempted to collect himself. Setting aside the tools of this task, he instead focused on things he had control over. He knew that he must check the internals of the carburetor before the beast could be awoken. Upon inspection of the secret openings into the heart of the beast, our hero discovered thick muck and crystallized fuel. Knowing that he could not even attempt to bring the beast to life with it's very heart full of ichor, our hero set about the desperate operation required to clean out the heart of the dragon.

Ok... now that I got that off my chest.

So yeah, while attempting to install an ebay/used caliper bolt, I managed to shear that one too. I looked up the torque specs for that size bolts and it said 36ft/lbs. Well, once I sheared off bolt #2, I dug further and discovered that their is a special bolt torque listed for the caliper bolts... 27ft/lbs!?!?! Sigh... So instead of giving up, I decided to see what else I could try to get cleaned and fixed while deciding if I was going to buy new bolts or try ebay again. I opened the float bowl drain and nothing came out, which was expected. What I saw inside was trouble. On the end of the plug/bolt there was a thick glob of crystallized gas. Inside, I could see the munge going up into the carb float bowl. I buttoned up everything and put away my tools and headed inside to see what my options were. I decided to order the basic carb rebuild kit from V4Marketplace along with a stainless steel screw kit and some other odds and ends. Then I went and tried a couple of more things on the Jeep, which I will detail in a separate and shorter post.

Skip to a week or so later, give or take a couple of days. The parts had arrived within a few days and I waited until I had a free day to work on it. In the interim, I had collected all the posts, documents, and photos that I might need to do the carb rebuild. Heeding the wise advice of several posters over at the V4musclebike.com forums, I took lots of pictures as I disassembled everything. Getting the carbs out of the frame was a bit easier than everyone said, but then most of them were working on the bigger bikes of the family line. Once out, I collected the tools I would need to do the rebuild and went inside with my treasures.

Following the steps in the tear down process, I broke the 4 carbs apart, again taking pictures each step of the way. I did manage to get ahead of myself a couple of times and would later pay for that indiscretion with wasted minutes puzzling over the parts. I did follow the advice of keeping all the parts in separate buckets marked for each carb, however at some point my labeling of which was #1 and which was #3 and so forth ran afoul of the proper process. I did not discover this until reassembly day. For the sake of what I was doing, it did not matter initially. Each carb was then fully disassembled and the bigger metal parts were dunked for a few hours in carb cleaner while I worked on the smaller bits and the parts that were not safe to soak in carb cleaner, like plastics and rubber bits. #1 and #3 (rear) carbs seemed to be a bit dirtier than #2 and #4 (front) carbs. I chock this up to fuel going into #1 and from there into #3 and on to #2/#4. Regardless, none of them were as nasty as I had thought from the sight of the float bowl screw. Though they were plenty nasty. don't get me wrong. Cleaning went pretty smoothly with all my internal parts looking pretty good for the most part. None of the diaphragms were torn, the floats were solid and really only the float bowl valves themselves being stuck on three of the four carbs. I was able to get the three valves working smoothly in no time and the fourth flushed just to be sure. Reassembly went smoothly for the most part other than me forgetting to check the float bowl height on the #1 carb until I realized it while reassembling the float bowl on #2. The new stainless steel allen head screws came in handy with me having to reopen things as I went and remembered bits I had missed each pass. I also had to finagle the float bowl cover gaskets into place since there were brand new and not pre-formed. Using small clamps, I was able to get them into shape and they stayed that way long enough to get them bolted to the carbs.

Reassembly of the carb rack is where I ended up spending the most of the time on this project, to be sure. It was during this step that I realized that I had somehow jumbled up which carb was #1, which was #3 and so on. Thankfully I was working on each carb as it's own entity and put things like the valves and jets and pilot screw back into the correct one each time. But once I started to try to connect all the linkages, that's when I realized the flaw. I was able to refer back to photos and diagrams and found that the service manual I was going off of decided to change what they called carb #3/4 halfway through the process. This was the cause of the mis-ordered carbs and caused me at least an hour of wasted time going over schematics and photos to figure out which was which. Thankfully each one had a little something that made it unique to the others. Eventually I had them all in the proper placement and started hooking up linkages. It was at this time that I also found homes for the various springs and bits that had dropped out of place prior to me even starting photos of the disassemble process. Thankfully, diagrams and photos helped and I got it all reconnected correctly.

Following the instructions for a bench-sync of the carbs, I got them all basically back into sync and connected back to the plenum plate ready for reinstall onto the motor. Then the second part of the fun began...

The trick, or so says lots of posters on the forums, to getting the carbs back on is either using brand new carb boots or to soak the old ones in hot water and let them get soft that way. Use some grease/oil/lube and you can wiggle them onto the block. However, 30+ years of exposure and heat/cool cycles hardened those bastards into hollow hockey pucks. I tried a couple of different things, but to no avail.  Finally I gave up and took everything back inside and packed up the tools for the day. I decided that the $40 for all new boots was worth avoiding the pain and time needed to make it work otherwise. On a plus side, the place selling the OEM boots also sells the replacement caliper bolt I needed making the $4 purchase not so bad with shipping covering the boots too. ;)

The goal this week/weekend is to work on flushing and replacing fuel lines and do a final flush on the tank. Flush/test the fuel pump to ensure it is working and start reassembling the components needed to power and start the bike. There is a guy on the V4musclebike forums that is making a new replacement spark module/controller and he needs my model of bike for testing. I will be sending him my spark modules to his tests and he will give me a big discount on replacing them... which will wait until I get everything else running. But at least I will know mine work and that I have options to replace them with technically better (not just newer) models. That all should take a week or so which gives me plenty of time to complete the laundry list of stuff I still need to do.

Project BAMSFH™ - Part 4

Latest update on the Project BadAssMotorScooterFromHELL!!!!™ bike...

I got a few much needed parts last night for the clutch and brake master cylinders and last night I had some time to try to get a couple of things done on the bike. I attempted to do the reverse bleeding and it just wasn't working on the brake side. I discovered that the pressure relief hole seems to be completely blocked even after trying to open it with a pin. I will try again later, but for the time being I used another trick I saw where you pump the brake handle, then open the top banjo nut to let out trapped air. Between a fluid filled tube attached to the bleeder nut and the opening and closing of the banjo nut, I was able to get solid pressure on the brake lines for the first time. I decided that I could then proceed to replace the badly worn front disk brakes. 

The calipers came off easy as I had not torqued things down from the tear down and cleaning. I pulled off the calipers and tried to compress the pistons, which of course weren't budging because of the blocked relief hole in the master. I wrapped the top banjo nut in towels and loosened enough to allow pressure to flow and compress the pistons in far enough to get the new pads in and then back onto the rotor. As I do, I hand tightening all the bolts first, then grabbed the socket wrench first to get things snug before the torque wrench. As I started to snug the lowest caliper bolt up, it sheared off right at the base of the mount plate. 


FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK 

Pissed at myself and who ever must have over torqued the bolts originally, I buttoned up the things I could and hung the caliper on a bungee for now until I can extract the sheared off bolt from the mount plate. I also just checked online and could not find any at the usual sources and will most likely have to buy the bolts from the dealer, but we shall see. 

Taking the knowledge from the brakes and the top banjo nut to bleed things, I started working on the clutch side of things. I was able to bleed it enough to get pressure to the slave cylinder and slowly worked it out enough to pull free. It was pretty nasty inside and I cleaned it out pretty good. I need to replace the slave cylinder gasket and go in there and clean and inspect the clutch push rod, but otherwise the seals on the slave cylinder looked good. Once cleaned out, I worked the air out once more and got pressure on the clutch for the first time. I ran it through the gears up and down and it seemed to be OK. I won't know until I can fire it up to fully check clutch pressure. 

Some of the parts I got from V4 Marketplace (www.v4market.com) were a new sight glass replacement kit whic included new master cover screws, new handlebar mount bolts as well as new level pivot bolts and nuts, as well as the sight glass itself. I need to pick up some black RTV to install the new glass, and if i'm careful I can do this without needing to bleed the clutch and brakes again. My boss used to work on old Magnas and Sabers and gave me a tip on cleaning out the pressure relief hole. Unfortunately it means pulling off the hole assembly one more time. Thankfully, I am a master at it at this point. 

I also got in the front fork stabilizer plate which I will throw on here soon with some lock-tite on the threads. I need to pickup RTV and lithium grease to hit some of the rub spots on the various levers and push rods that I have been cleaning and such, but otherwise things are looking OK.With my other hobby having a LOT of stuff going on over the next few weeks, I'm not sure how much I will get done for the rest of the month... which sucks because we can coming up on rainy season here which complicates rides.

On a non-Project BadAssMotorScooterFromHELL!!!!(TM) bike front... I got some good ideas for the Jeep to try out but am just trying pennies before towing it to a shop for a diagnostic. Fingers crossed I can find the problem before that or that they don't charge me a ton to find it.

Project BAMSFH™ - Part 3

I keep forgetting to update this thing... and get pictures. 

There has been some good forward progress on the Project BadAssMotorScooterFromHELL!!!!™ bike. Most of the fuel system is still apart waiting in some last minute stuff to ship in to me. Today I will be picking up the replacement main fuel hose between the main tank and the secondary tank. They call it the reserve tank, but since all fuel has to flow down from the main tank to the reserve tank, it's really more of a secondary part of the whole system. Anywho... I got parts coming in for that. The weekends have been full with my other hobby taking up most of my time and a special project in that one taking up my nights and weekends. That project is 99.9% done at least so I will have more "free time" to work on this project. 

Let's see... where was I? Oh yeah, I picked up the rebuild kits for the Brake and Clutch Master cylinders and started tearing those apart one by one. I started with the clutch as it was not as bad off as the brake and I figured it would take less time to get it done and out of the way. Turns out it was cleaner than the brake master, but not by much. I got everything apart and cleaned and back together after a little bit of fiddling with the snap rings. My snap ring pliers (adjustable ones) kept getting in the way while trying to reach down into the master cylinder. Eventually I found the angle that worked best and got the old snap rings out. I highly recommend getting a pair of long nose snap ring pliers over the adjustable ones. Up till now it was a non-issue, but it could have sent me off to the store to buy tools had I not found a working angle. The masters themselves were relatively good shape once I got the old brake fluid and crystals off. My sight glasses on both are dark, but still visible and there is a kit I can pick up online to replace them if I need to.

Now for the things that sucked...

I picked up a pair of valved bleeder screws that supposedly make bleeding brakes/clutch easier as you don't have to try to juggling the timing of opening and closing the screw and pumping the handles. As I started to try to bleed the clutch system, I quickly realized that the bleeder screws were doing nothing. Or at least they didn't seem to be doing anything. After a few online searches, I discovered that they are NOT designed for a system full of air. They are designed for a mostly fluid full system with a little bit of air. Sigh... OK so I can use them, just not for this part of the job. I found a couple of links on a Reverse Bleeding process that I will be trying this weekend that will use those bleeder screws but pushes fluid up from the banjo through the lines and into the master reservoir. I'm hoping that this will do two things, first it will push out any remaining crystals in the line as well as bad fluid. Second, it will get the air out and allow me to actually use the valved bleeder screws. I did do a once over on the Clutch Slave cylinder and it looked dirty but OK. Once I get some pressure back into the lines I will take it off again and try to push the piton there out. It looked dirty, but a rebuild might not be needed if all the seals look OK. I didn't want to force it out just yet and possibly damage it. 

I also started to bleed the brake line side and was not making any progress at all. Frustrated, I decided to pull the calipers as I needed to do a once over on those as well. The calipers were pretty nasty as well, with the pistons not coming out at all until I tried to (as delicately as I could) yank them out by hand. I need to do a light polishing of them prior to reassembly to make sure I didn't leave any scuff marks on them. But, the seals and gaskets and bushings all looked good. So no need to replace them at this time. I also have new brake pads coming soon as the ones on it now are done... literally almost even with the backing plate metal. I'm worried that the rotor itself will need to be replaced and that's $150 I don't want to throw at it. I need to research to see if motorcycle rotors can be turned...

I have the front fork brace coming in the mail soon, fingers crossed. That plus the other parts coming gets me that much close to getting this beast on the road. I still need to fully drain the oil and replace the filter, find a way to do a bypass test on the fuel pump to see if it is varnished or OK and pumping, and get that all back together. Once I have all the fuel lines replaced and the tank ready to go back on, I will feel a little better there. I was debating putting a cheap paper filter on the line between the pump and the carbs to catch any last little bits before they got into the carbs, but that could cause a pressure issue as the system isn't expecting a filter there. At a minimum I will pump as much gas as I can thru it to flush it prior to actually connecting the line back up to the carb filler line.

My end goal here is to get everything major checked, replaced or cleaned and reinstalled prior to spending much more cash. My concern is that once I get it to the point I am confident it won't tear itself apart starting, and I try to start it, that it will be seized inside or some other really expensive and crappy situation. Once I get the clutch bled and pushing the slave piston, I can verify if it shifts gears OK or if there might be something stuck inside. I can also do a push test to see if it is at least turning the motor while in gear or if it refused to budge. Once all these little tests are done, I will plug the battery back in and start checking electrical and then give it a start test. 

Project BAMSFH™ - Part 2

Where am I now? Oh yeah... Lots of small things have been done on the Project BadAssMotorScooterFromHELL!!!!™ bike.

The main tank has been cleaned out with EvapoRust but still needs a water flush and another soak of the EvapoRust to get it where I want it. I ended up using a cut up latex glove to plug the various exit ports, there being three on the bottom of the tank as well as the main fill port on top. I rigged up a plastic bottle and latex glove plug for the filler port, but it wasn't the tightest seal so I was unable to let the tank sit upside down. I did slosh it as much of an angle to all sides as I could to try to get the EvapoRust all around. Before I do the final rinse and such on the main tank, I will have to solve this problem. I'm sure I'll find something on the interwebs showing a good way to do it.

I pulled the coolant overflow and was able to get down into the petcock and filter. The petcock has a nice sticky residue from old fuel, but surprisingly the reserve tank seems to be mostly clean. I was unable to fully remove it (everything I read online tells me I have to pull the rear fender which is a pain in the ass.) so I'm hoping a flush with seafoam and EvapoRust will do the trick. There was also almost a full tank of gas sitting in it, which initially had me worried. However, after siphoning off most of it into a container, it looked fairly clean and not sludgy. I then added a full can of seafoam to the remaining ~20oz of gas in the tank and sloshed it around a bit and then went inside to let it soak. After about an hour I came out and connected a fuel line to the petcock output and let that go into another container. Opening the petcock at first had me worried as nothing came out. I sloshed the reserve tank and opened and closed the petcock multiple times and the flow started coming out. I drained it all, then took that contained and dumped it back into the tank making sure to not let sludge on the bottom go back in. I did this a couple of times, then let it soak again for a few hours and repeated the cycle. At this point it is looking pretty good and flowing nicely. I left the seafoam in the tank overnight to finish ungunking things and I will drain it tonight and plug the holes as best I can to prevent rusting. 

I need to replace the fuel filter, which actually looks in pretty good shape, as in no sticky gunk and only a little bit of solid particles in the input side. The filter membrane looks clean as well. I cannot get to the fuel pump just yet, but have a couple of ways of testing it and even flushing it out. I am hoping to get to that tonight as well. 

Spark plugs have been purchased and I will be putting in the rear two first. To get the front two in, I need to remove or at least disconnect a bunch of stuff from the radiator to lift it out of the way. Pain in the ass, but hopefully I can do this without having to drain the radiator which, as I said last time, still looks good. 

I am going to have to replace more of the fuel line as it warped and hardened and even torn in a few places while I was trying to get stuff off. This is fine as it gives me a chance to add an inch or three to the lines to/from the filter and pump to give me more room to work in the future. Most of the fuel line is standard black 1/4 ID line, but I will have to buy at least the main line from Tank to reserve as it is a tight curve and molded, it seems. The part is easy to buy and not too pricey, so that's a plus. 

I also took some time to check out the front fork brace. This is a lightweight aluminum plate that ties the left and right front forks together to help with control. Apparently, because they underestimated the stress on this part, it tends to crack on people. Thankfully, I can pickup a reinforcing brace for $20 from the same place that sells other things I need. This will save on the shipping. 

Things to do still besides whats listed above? 

Drain/Flush the Clutch system fluids and refill/bleed the system.

Drain/Flush the Front Brake system, rebuild the Brake Master cylinder and refill/bleed the system

Plug the battery in and begin testing the electronics - This will wait until the gas tank stuff is complete. I really don't want a spark blowing me or the bike apart. 

That's all for now, I will add photos later once I take some. 

Project BAMSFH™ - Part 1

Greetings fellow geeks and greasemonkeys!

I have begun project BadAssMotorScooterFromHELL™ otherwise known as the restoration of a 1984 Honda Magna V30. I traded the bike for a higher end weight bench to a buddy of mine who was just sitting on the Magna. He picked it up cheap as well, but also got his hands on a Harley 1200 Sportster and decided that it needed his attentions more.

I got the bike home and started reading up on the task ahead of me. Lots of good info out there on the V30s and i'm already signed up on a forum specifically for these types of bikes. Of course this lead to lots of information and horror stories of the possible bad things I have to look forward to. Lots of good info and support as well, so I'm not terribly concerned about finding an answer. Mostly I'm just worried about the cost outlay to get it running again. From the initial story, this bike sat for at least 3 years in my buddies garage with nothing done to it at all. He says that he knew the tank was rusty and that it had been sitting even longer somewhere else. For a basically free bike (I got the weight bench from another friend for free), I am still sure I can get it running for well under the $1000 it would cost to get something similar/comparable already running.

Now... onto the show!

I started with a quick once over of the externals. Chrome is pitted with rust in a couple of places, but nothing I can't buff and shine out. Front brakes were weak pulling it down off the truck, but they mostly held. I'm sure a big part of that is the brake fluid being old from sitting, plus any rust in the brake pads. Throttle rolls on and snaps off pretty cleanly and clutch lever seems to operate smoothly although I can't tell if it is disengaging the clutch just yet. I need to do some roll tests here soon on that as well as to make sure the engine hasn't seized up. It rolls in neutral pretty smooth, but the wheel bearings will get replaced soon and for sure before I ride it regularly.

Next step was to pull the gas tank and reserve and start checking internal fluids. The main tank came off easy except for the gas lines themselves. They are in good shape, but I might replace them just to cover that base. As expected, the main tank does have rust in it, but what I can see isn't all that bad. I have a gallon of Evapo-Rust at the ready to take care of what I can't see. The reserve tank will be a pain in the ass to get out, but I'm hoping to have that done tonight or this weekend. I opened the radiator (yes it is a water cooled engine) and the coolant looked nice and bright green. I may not have to flush that system as expected. This is a good thing. I also checked the oil through the dipstick and it looked nice and amber fresh like the oil got changed before it was stored. Again, a good thing as that much less I may have to clean up. Air filter is pretty clean and is a K&N style, so that is a plus. I also pulled the rear two spark plugs which, while obviously used, did not look dirty or show any oil or discoloration. The front two plugs are a pain in the ass to get to, but i'm hoping they are in the same shape.

At this point I am looking at cleaning and relining the gas tanks, replace all four spark plugs on principle, clean and reoil the chain, replace the front fork dust covers and possibly replace the fork oil, repack and possibly replace the front and rear wheel bearings also on principle. Then flush out the brake and clutch lines to get fresh fluid in there.

Overall a lot less than I had originally been worried about. I still have the full electrical system to run through once I pick up a bettery, but the mechanical stuff so far is looking promising.

Pictures below