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I've got a couple of classmates who probably would strip down to naked and sit on it... just to "pee" me off.

No updates to post yet on the bike incident, other then one of the tour guides was apparently "ran into" Brad's office and closed the door right behind her. I'm going to send out another e-mail tomorrow after school asking what is going to be done about this. No one has attempted to contact me so far.

In other news the last time I took the bike out for a ride was before I replaced the sprockets and chain. I was experiencing some problems with the back end feeling like it was slipping around during initial cornering. It would slip a bit, then stiffen up and catch. Very disconcerting.

Since then, I have replaced the chain and sprockets as said above, and inflated my tires to recomended pressure. What a difference! The back is rock solid...


And my problems have migrated to the front. I'm experiencing headshake during.... spirited cornering. Actually, my left mirror managed to shake itself loose as I exited dunvegan valley. I'm hoping that it might just be the cold coupled with some hesitant (tight gripped) riding... anyways, I spun it back into position, but I'll need to tear apart the front end now. LoL. Fortunately the worksheets for the rest of the week are service head and swing arm bearings. Deliciously ironic.

No man should ever have to see his bike like this.


Front end totally ripped apart


Somehow a small bug managed to work it's way UNDER the steering head cap, a nut that is installed at factory, has never been removed, and is placed at 76lb/ft of torque


Goodbye forks, they weren't good for much anyways... sigh


Notice the brake calipers are suspended from wire instead of the brake lines. This is the correct way to do it.

Okay, so all of this because I've been feeling some headshake while cornering. I spent the whole morning pulling my bike apart, every time I thought I'd disconnected everything, there was one more thing to be undone ;(. I got my bearings out, but ran out of time in the shop today to inspect them. However at first glance they appear okay.

This means the headshake is coming from somewhere else.

I did notice something though, my handlebars (which have never been removed from PDI that I can tell) were set 1/4 inch to the right inside the mounts. YIKES, no wonder my left arm always seems to hurt, it pulls my left arm to far to the right. Little things, little things, watch the details!



In the first and fourth pic you can see my friend Josh's bike. He's building a stunt bike out of a ninja 600 with an R6 subframe/seat set mounted to the back. He's replacing his bearings right now.

In the background of the second picture there are two Honda CG125's. These bikes belong to the Alberta Safety Council. The Edmonton version of the MSF... what does that mean? NAIT does all the maintenance for the bikes that some of my friends use to teach people to ride... And they abuse the dodo out of those bikes!

Okay, here's my bike all slung up from behind. Everything is fully dissasembled, and greased up. Ready for reassembly.


You can see sitting next to it a Bandit 1200(2004), and an M109R(2006). Behind the bandit is a Busa 1300(2006). These are some of the bikes we get to work on. And any bike that we work on we get to ride on the dyno... except the M109R it's rear tire is to big.



I didn't have the time to take pics during reassembly as I've got to be ready to pull the swing arm apart tomorrow. It's kind of neat to know that I now know how to pull the whole front end apart. I should have replaced my fork oil while I had to forks out, but I just didn't have the will to do so. I'll be doing that over next summer.

Keep the shiny side up everyone.



I caught a little flak upon final reassembly because Dan (instructor) noticed that there was a wear mark on my handlebars that indicated where they had sat in the clamp before. As it says in the last post, when my bike was put together they were about 1/4 inch to the right in the clamps, so I had to correct it.

Fortunately he believed me. HAH!

You should've changed the fork oil.

KarateChick wrote:You should've changed the fork oil.

You change yours, and I'll change mine HAH!

KarateChick wrote:You should've changed the fork oil.

Pfft, he should have swapped in some CBR F2 forks.

Sev, lookin' good. How tough was it to pull the steering head assembly apart? I'm overdue for inspection and greasing on mine, but riding season is over in a couple weeks anyways.

Skier wrote:

KarateChick wrote:You should've changed the fork oil.

Pfft, he should have swapped in some CBR F2 forks.

Sev, lookin' good. How tough was it to pull the steering head assembly apart? I'm overdue for inspection and greasing on mine, but riding season is over in a couple weeks anyways.

It's fairly easy if you just follow the steps in your manual. Make sure to mark/label stuff as you go so you can put it back in the right place.

The manual tells you to completely dissasemble the handlebars and front wheel assembly. I just loosened the bars completely and lifted them off and hung them off my lift. Then I jacked the front end way up and pulled the whole fork assembly out as one. From there it was just a matter of undoing the right bolts and pulling everything apart. A breaker bar really helps.

Kerosine to clean all of your stuff with, cause you've got it apart you might as well clean it. If your bearings are anything like mine the top is a set of bearings in a nylon mesh, you can pop them out if you aren't careful, but they just slip right back in. And the bottem is a steel holder.

Make sure to put the dust seals back in *shifty eyes* or you'll be tearing it apart again. LoL. If you need any tips or advice, you know where to ask .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn6MvtomrsA

It's amazing when they can get up and walk away after crashing. Amazing riding skills.

blues2cruise wrote:It's amazing when they can get up and walk away after crashing. Amazing riding skills.

I think i'm more impressed they don't all have brown bottoms on their suits. yeeeeeeeeesh.

I do love seeing when they get a decent line of people going into a corner, and they all just fall over like a row of dominos. at that speed..i'd say they are some of the very few who are still able to ride, and not just aim their bikes like a 2 wheeled missile.