What did you do to your bike today?

[SkyFive]

Thanks guys! For the record, you cannot use the emulsion tubes or needles for scalloped bottom slides (86-87 FJ1200) on flat bottom slides (84-85 FJ1100). The emulsion tubes are longer and the needles are longer. I reinstalled my original needles and emulsion tubes and my carburetor problems are solved.

[Firehawk068]

Fixed my fuel gauge that came off(screws backed out and ended up inside cluster)
Then took her to get emission tested (she passed with ease)
Then went to the DMV and she's legal for another year

[andyb]

What did you do to your bike today?

Tore it apart, again... damnit!

If you assemble the crankcases and there is a tight spot when rotating the clutch shaft, but it's not at the same point in the rotation each time, it means that the stupid bearing on the other end was wrong... the locating pin was dug into the soft aluminum, but it was putting a load on the bearing's outer race and putting it out of round when the cases were tightened against it, so as the balls went by that spot it became tight.

The other lil tip I've got is that the standard replacement (77mm, not the overbore sizes) Wiseco pistons have a 30.5mm relief on the intake side, and a 26.42mm relief on the hot side, so they have to be modified to accept 30.5/26mm valves.  Calling wiseco to find this out took not less than 48 minutes worth of listening to advertisements while on hold, to boot.  Sigh!  So the pistons come out when I build up enough gumption, and are heading to FastByGast for wider pockets to get cut.  If it isn't something, then it's something else.

[1tinindian]

Polishing the SS headpipes!
Half way there, finished pictues to be posted in my thread.

[billwest]

Replaced the OEM rear shock with a Hagon shock.  The Hagon, in its basic setup, is about 1cm longer than the old thing that came out of it (at whatever preload settings).

I also raised the back a little more, adjusting Soupy's Links (replace the dogbones sometime ago).  When I have the center stand on, the rear wheel barely touches the ground.

Handles very nicely, thank you, especially in to corners.


Next job:  FJR1300 clutch and front brake master cylinders.


Bill.

[WestOzFJ]

If it isn't something, then it's something else.

Yess, but when all is finally right, victory is sooo sweeet.

[WestOzFJ]

Went for a 700km (438mls?) round trip ride down south to Dunsborough for the night and back....

Did spark plug reading before I left and when I returned, have been tuning/playing with ignition timing and carb needle positions/idle mixtures over the past 2000 kms (3 weeks), so been recording fuel consumption numbers and pulling plugs. Was quite satisfied with 20.5 kms/lt for the trip, (58.2 mls/impg - think that is 46.6 mls/usgl). Around town mileage has been good too, nice colour on the plugs, getting close now, maybe a fraction lean on the needle, may try 1/2 to 1 notch higher needle by the end of the week...then I promise I'll stop fiddling with it, promise. 

While not exactly working "on" the bike itself, been getting my head around crank trigger design theory and what design to use for some different ECU's on my short list. In regards to trigger design, they all need something just a little different - especially some like Haltech. Haven't quite made a final decision yet but Dyna dual channel trigger plate hooked up to the dual channel capable Microsquirt and making it batch fired is looking good for the fuel side and although I really wanted to do it with only one ECU, AND the MS could do the spark, I gotta say a Dyna 2000 for the ignition with the Microsquirt for fuel will still cost me less than most ECU's and really is probably the best option from a technical perspective too for many reasons that are just adding up and adding up pressing my "yes, go for that" button.

Part of the reason I say that because although the ECU manufacturers have fancy websites with nuclear powered shopping carts, they DO NOT have much technical information about matters such as the effect of; sensor winding polarities, trigger wheel and tooth design and all that important signal characteristic stuff is just one tiny aspect of what you need to learn yet the MS website is just a storehouse of knowledge and the idea of an open source project with many developers attracts me like Joomla does with website design architecture - unlimited pluginability.

Anyway, that's my last couple of days "on my bike"..... time to get back out into the garage - may do a spot of polishing tonight....

Victor.

[Arnie]

Went for a 700km (438mls?) round trip ride down south to Dunsborough for the night and back....

Did spark plug reading before I left and when I returned, have been tuning/playing with ignition timing and carb needle positions/idle mixtures over the past 2000 kms (3 weeks), so been recording fuel consumption numbers and pulling plugs. Was quite satisfied with 20.5 kms/lt for the trip, (58.2 mls/impg - think that is 46.6 mls/usgl). Around town mileage has been good too, nice colour on the plugs, getting close now, maybe a fraction lean on the needle, may try 1/2 to 1 notch higher needle by the end of the week...

That's some impressive fuel economy numbers.  Did you have a tail wind all the way?  How was the roll-on?  Oh, did you have a cop sitting just behind you all the way? :-)

Cheers,
Arnie

[Flynt]

DDM 55W 5000K Hi/Lo...  awesome!  Night and day difference   

Question on next thing:  I have old (F-2001,R-2003) Dunlop radials on the bike now.  They are in great shape, but hard as marbles and not fun to push.  They're probably even dangerous, but so is riding I guess.  Anyway, I want real tires and stock wheels although from what I've found that appears impossible.  I'd do a wheel swap if there is no other viable choice.  How are the Battlax 45s?

Flynt

[markmartin]

  Anyway, I want real tires and stock wheels although from what I've found that appears impossible.  

Flynt

Flynt, check these out.

Avon AV46 Azaro Sport Touring Rear Tire - 150/80ZR-16

Avon Storm AV55  Sport Touring Radial   - 120/70/17

These are radial tires and work well.

[WestOzFJ]

How are the Battlax 45s?

I run those Battlax's on both my FJ's....

They're dual compound - harder in the middle, softer from about half way out from the centre to the edge....

The rear is excellent - good grip and I get better than "softer sports tyre" mileage although I think the soft shoulders would tear up fairly quick when pushed. I like the effect of the combination of front/rear profile of the pair - The rear is a fairly flat and wide shape, which makes the bike want to stand back up straight relatively quickly when coming out of corners (relative to say a more rounded rear profile).

BUT, I'm not really liking the front (yet) - it wears faster than the rear and seems to wear rapidly where the soft meets the hard to form a noticeably uneven and choppy transition evident in the wear pattern however I WILL try another soon and bump the front tyre pressures to see if that makes a difference to longevity.... Having said that, I can't complain about the wet weather performance of the front (or rear) and I commute on mine at least 450 kays a week (just for work) in rain, hail or shine so it's fair to say good mileage and wet weather grip/feel are important to me - all in all I'm going to stick with them for a while....

Can't say I've tried any others on an FJ to compare to though....

[oldktmdude]

How are the Battlax 45s?

I agree with WestOzFJ about the Battlax 45's. I've had them on my '85 for about 4 months and done about 5,000 kms and the back tyre is wearing very well. Grip in dry and wet conditions seems good. Front tyre hangs on equally as well but is wearing unevenly. Heel and toeing, across the entire tread area.  Tried increasing tyre pressures but didn't seem to make any noticeable difference. I might try a different front next time, but our choice of 16" tyres is very limited over here.         Regards, Pete.

[WestOzFJ]

That's some impressive fuel economy numbers.  Did you have a tail wind all the way?  How was the roll-on?  Oh, did you have a cop sitting just behind you all the way? :-)

G'day Arnie,

I tried not to treat the trip just like a "fuel economy run" and just rode normally, which for me is to sit right on the very upper edge of the speed limit (when it's safe to of course) - this state has HEAPS of speed traps. Some years I drive well over 100,000 kilometres per year when I'm travelling to mine sites, so NOT speeding (by much) has had to become habit....

So yeah, you could say I had a cop up my @$&... he's always there... Don't have to be very far over the speed limit to get front row seat at vehicle crusher here...

Which is not to say I'm not naughty sometimes in some ways....

From my place, I could have just linked onto the northern end of the freeway and headed south for 250 kms at one speed but that's boring so instead I cut across the northern fringes of the city headed more or less south east and cruised down the inland road through a series of small farming towns so the speed was variable but not much actual stop/start and in the state limit zones sat on 120 kph indicated which I figure is about 110 (almost 69mph?).

I tried lots of roll on stuff - and in the previous week I'd tried one needle clip higher (needle lowered to second lowest): from a steady 50 mph if I partly closed the throttle momentarily and then rolled it open a little I could get it to hesitate slightly, so I figured at that point it was lean as I'd already tried center and 1 notch richer.

The trip was on the centre notch, I've not changed the setting, I want to see how it goes around town now I'm back to the daily grind.

I did have to pull the carbs down again since the initial build up a few weeks ago, finally got needle seat o rings that turned out to be leaking and after reassembly the bottom end fuelling cleaned up dramatically not to mention the carbs were a lot drier at the air inlets and around the slides in general. I'm at 1.25 turn out (with my number drilled fuel pilots) so will re-visit 1.5 turns.

The extra 5 degrees of advance makes a difference to part throttle fuel economy, no doubt about it -am looking forward to trying some of my own ignition curves with a programmable system.... stock XJR's have an interesting curve and the early ones (at least that I know of) run the same camshaft part number and a smaller diameter intake which makes for an interesting trial of what they do with ignition advance...

Some tuning handbooks I've read refer to being able to read if the motor has too much timing by the pattern of the three distinct colour bands that appear on the earth strap of the spark plug. The motor's in the target range for this indicator, plug colour and the exhaust colour is dark gray. So she's close although I did like how it went with the needle 1 notch richer than centre, will try that again now....

[Arnie]

Question on next thing:  I have old (F-2001,R-2003) Dunlop radials on the bike now.  They are in great shape, but hard as marbles and not fun to push.  They're probably even dangerous, but so is riding I guess.  Anyway, I want real tires and stock wheels although from what I've found that appears impossible.  I'd do a wheel swap if there is no other viable choice.  How are the Battlax 45s?

Flynt

I thought the BT45 was OK back when I last used one.  However, that was in 1999 and the state of the art has changed since then.

Arnie

[rktmanfj]

I used a couple of the BT45 rears a few years ago, and still think it was the biggest POS tire I have ever run on any bike.

It may be my particular FJ, but they cause handling problems I never could resolve.

Randy T
Indy