Plated and Riding!

On May 20th, I finally had a chance to get my plate sticker and was finally ready to ride.  However, I wasn't aware of all of the extra fees associated with a bike transfer (it's been ages since I've purchased a used vehicle).  There was the plate sticker (obviously), but then there was the used vehicle package I needed to buy, a plate renewal fee (whatever THAT is), the tax on the purchase price, a lucky to be alive tax, a "I hate my job" tax, and taxes on all of those. :P


Yes, I am being a bit facetious, but man, the Government really loves to stick it to you, don't they???


Anyhow, last Monday I finally had a chance to go out for a ride.  The skies were a bit grey at the time (which wasn't a big deal).  As I left my street, a couple of big raindrops hit my visor (again, not a big deal).  Well, by the time I was about 5k out of town, the Heavens opened up and IT POURED.  And of course the wind kicked in at the same time - at one point it was raining horizontally!  So it was a very soggy, wet ride back home.  After I pulled into the garage and stripped out of my gear, guess what??  It got sunny again! :P


This past weekend I really got to stretch out my FZ's legs - my friend with all the FZ parts had a shiny pair of engine covers for me (yay!).  So I got to really get 'er going.  Man, this bike is so much fun after 7,000 rpm!  It takes off like a bat out of Hell!


However, I had an issue on the way down - my speedo stopped working. Well, since I was already 3/4 of the way down there was no point in pulling over or going back.  I'm now a pretty good gauge of speed in top gear, so I didn't get any speeding tickets there or back.


Once I got to my buddy's place to pick up the parts, I did a few tests - I took the speedo cable off and twisted the core to make sure it wasn't binding.  I then reattached it to the hub and ran the bike up and down the street with the speedo end off.  It wasn't turning.  So my best guess is that the hub gear was worn and it wasn't turning the speedo.  But in retrospect I wasn't pushing down on the speedo cable core when I was driving, so I don't know if this was the case for sure.  However, my buddy said this is usually the part that wears out, so I'm hoping that is the case - replacing the speedo would suck for many reasons.  Fortunately my buddy had a gear so I picked that up.


I spent the rest of the weekend packing - we're moving at the end of this week, so I didn't have any time to replace the hub gear.  I plan to do that this afternoon.  So hopefully that will fix the problem.

Bike is now legal!

I finally got the bike safety certificate!  W00t!  Now I can actually go get my plate sticker tomorrow and get this thing on the road.


Oh and I had a look at the mirror on the left side.  I suspect that it too suffered some crash damage as it was not at the same plane as the mirror on the right.  So I guess before I remount the new cowling I picked up I better look into straightening out the bracket.


I stopped off at CTC and picked up some paint for the rear fairings.  I hope to get started on the repaint this week so I can get them on the bike.

In the beginning.....

Welcome to my first blog posting.  I have decided to start my commentary on my odyssey with bringing a tired and old 1988 Yamaha FZ 600 back from the brink.

So I picked up my bike this past Friday.  Of course the bike was still not in my name (due to a problem with the safety inspection - more on that later), but at least the bike was insured and still had a legal plate on it.

All day Friday the weather reports kept saying "it's gonna rain all day, it's gonna rain all day".  So guess what happened?  NOTHING - well, nothing until I went to pick up the bike around 5pm.  Man, listening to the meteorolgists is such a crap shoot - I don't think they ever get it right.  If they just said "partly sunny with a chance of precipitation" then they'd always be right!

But I digress.  Oh yes, with regards to the safety inspection.  I was originally supposed to pick up the bike on Tuesday.  On Monday I went up and saw the bike.  Considering the bike was 23 years old it still was in decent shape (in all of the critical areas anyhow).  So I paid for the bike, picked up the remaining bodywork (in rough shape) and the seller planned to take it in the next day for a safety.  So on Tuesday morning the bike went in.  My wife went up to pick up the papers and get my plates for it.  However, she waited and waited and waited some more (God bless her for it), but nothing.  No paperwork!  In talking to the seller later, he told me that there were a few issues:

1) The left mirror was missing a bolt (there are two)
2) The bolts on the left-hand side of the radiator were bent
3) There was no body panel for the left side (I had taken them home with me)
4) The left signal was loose

As you can probably guess, this bike must have rubbed out on the left side as most of the damage was in that area.  So, no safety inspection papers.  Damn.

Nonetheless, I drove it home - carefully!  It was spitting rain off and on during the ride home, and I haven't been on a bike since I sold my CBR600 F2 in 2007 (long story, ex-wife, grumble grumble).  I got it home without incident.

So on Saturday I got a really good look at the bike.  Man, it was hurting - many parts missing, many broken items, generally in rough shape.  Taking a closer look at the issues on the safety check and the bike I could see why there was problems - the front left turn signal was attached to the bike on the cowling frame with a HOSE CLAMP!  WTF!

One other thing I noticed was that the turn signals were flashing at a quicker rate that I expected.  You know how your signal lights flash quicker when there is a bulb out?  That's how they were flashing on my bike.  However, investigation revealed no burned out bulbs.  So what was it?  I'm still not entirely sure, but I think I do know the issue.  It seems as though the rear turn signals were replaced at some point with LED turn signals instead.  In reading on various sites, LED lights do not draw as much power as incandescent lights, so they never really cause that energy drop to make the signal "turn off".  A fix for this is to add a resistor inline to fool the electrical system into thinking they are still incandescent lights.  I checked on E-Bay, and there are kits that are about $8.00.  I thought about rolling my own solution, but for the time it will take to source the parts as well as constructing and implementing, I could simply order a solution and have it professionally done.  So I think I will be going that route.

Also, I didn't have any mounting hardware for any of the panels.  A quick run to my workshop fixed that problem.  So I remounted all of the body panels I had (which were the engine uppers and rear fairings). 

The turn singal was another story.  In looking at it, I noticed that the actual welded mount had snapped off.  Fortunately it was still connected to the turn signal, so a quick trip to Canadian Tire to purchase some JB Weld (I didn't have access to any welding equipment).

The JB Weld was added to the bracket on Sunday.  In the meantime, I was lucky enough to find a gentlemen who had tons of FZ parts for sale.  Let me step back a bit and give you a bit of history on the bike.  The previous owner didn't really like fairings, so he decided he was going to try to turn the bike into a "streetfighter".  As a result, he removed all of the body panels and cut down the cowling so that it only was around the headlights.

I on the other hand didn't like the "naked" look - I thought there was too many hoses and exposed wiring for my liking.  There is a difference between a "neat naked" where all hoses, cabling and wiring is discreetly and neatly tucked away versus "ugly naked" where the exposed cabling looks like a dog's breakfast.  Unfortunately, this bike was the latter.

So my trip to the seller was fruitful.  I was able to pick up a front cowling in good condition as well as rear side panels in reasonable condition.  Oh and of course the mounting brackets for the fairings - most of those were missing as well.  The gentlemen from whom I picked up the parts was very knowledgeable and had a lot of the parts. 

Intially I was going to try and restore the bike to it's original glory by repainting it to the original colour schemes.  However, all of the panels I picked up were different colours - I guess if I really wanted to do that I could, but I want something that reflects my personality.  So I think I'll be doing a custom look for the bike.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find any of the front upper and lower panels for sale.  Also, the stator cover was in a sorry state of affairs - it has a chunk taken out of the lower right corner of it.  Fortunately it's not damaged enough for it to leak oil, but it's something I am not happy about.  I was told that this was usually the first thing to get damaged if the bike goes down, and apparently this is indeed the case.  I'll have to check with the dealership on parts availability.  I am not holding my breath as this bike is 23 years old, so the likelihood that they still have this part in new condition will be very remote.

There's still a ton of things I want to do!  In no particular order, here's some of my plans:

1. Repaint the rear fairings to match the cowling (Temporary until I can get the remaining panels and repaint it to the final colour)
2. Clean the windscreen as it is foggy (due to it's age - I'm going to try using the same solution used to clean up foggy headlights)
3. Mount the front cowling and rear fairings
4. Replace the incandescent turn signals with LED flush-mounted signals on the front and install resistors
5. Replace the rear LED turn signals with something a little more robust (the ones installed are too tiny for my liking) and add resistors
6. Repaint the headers and add a new can (more on this below)
7. Replace the chain with an O-Ring style
8. Replace the headlight bulbs with a whiter colour (I'm not too fond of the yellow lighting)
9. Do an oil change
10. Get a tune up
11. Check the air filter and have it replaced (if necessary) - perhaps a K&N filter (again, more on this below)
12. Install braided steel brake lines
13. Purchase the damaged/missing upper and lower engine fairings.  So far I have been only have to find one supplier for these parts.  My next best bet is to try and get used ones that are undamaged and repaint them.
14. Come up with some cool paint scheme for my bike.  Right now the bike will be blue until I come up with something else.  My riding gear is black / red / white, so something with those colours will work.
15. Replace the petcock and dial for the gas tank.  I suspect this is an aftermarket part as my parts source had ones taken off the tanks and it is nothing like the one on my bike.
16. Redesign the tail section to accommodate a newer model year LED tail light (I really like the style of the newer FZ tail lights - the squrish one on my bike is ok, but I'd like something that tapers off instead).

So the can....in talking to my helpful resource who sold me the parts, he mentioned that you need a can that will produce enough back pressure - otherwise it will not run correctly.  The same can be said for the headers - he recommended that if they are not rusted through to just simply refinish and use them again.  They have been tuned specfically for the bike and if they are replaced then the bike will tend not to run as well as it did with OEM pipes on it.

And the air filter - I noticed there are many vendors that sell air filters that replace the box and add a single capped filter to each carb.  Again, my resource recommended NOT doing this as it negatively affects the performance because the carbs will not run properly.

One final thing he warned me about - if I planned on doing a tuneup myself to NEVER EVER remove the bar that links the carbs together.  Once that's done it, and it is reattached later, if affects the sync for all the carbs and will cause performance issues with the bike.  But I don't plan on trying to tune up the bike myself - I'll leave that for the professionals.  My best attempt at tuning the bike up myself is to run a can of sea foam through the bike and see if that helps improve the situation.

Today I need to check on my JB Weld results - hopefully after 24 hours it will have solidified so that at least I can get the signal light mounted and get it out for a safety inspection early this week!  The short drive back home did not satisfy my desire to ride again - it's time to get this show on the road!

*UPDATE* - It worked!  I was home at lunch to check out the "welded" bracket.  That JB Weld is good stuff!  I was a bit concerned that a liquid paste would not be able to fuse to metal, but it appears everything went well.  I tugged on the weld and everything is holding up just fine.  Now to do a bit of reassembly and get this sucker off to get safetied.  Yay!