Sitting at the hospital awaiting my first child.
Sitting at the hospital awaiting my first child.
Thanks guys! Ain't exactly a pup at 35, but as of 6:17pm I'm a proud poppa to a 8.8# baby girl
While crawling the interweb, looking at parts, I seen on the Interco blem list there's several sizes of their ATV/UTV wheels, $35 each. There's two backspacing options for 4x110. They're all 12" and larger though.
Got to their home page, scroll to the bottom, and click on 'The Blem List'.
The story of three wheels and a man...
I've been working on a dirt bike, at lot actually. The thing was a bit of a mess.
Here's a couple things I've done.
The carb is super easy to get to, but the idle fuel screw is hard to get to because the starter is right below it. I had already replaced the bad fuel petcock and had it laying on the bench when I noticed the brass tube was about the same size as the fuel screw head. I cut it off the petcock and sure enough, it was a slight press fit onto the screw.
Light bulb.
I pressed it onto the screw, dropped some flux and solder into it, then hit it with some fire.
I did make certain the screw didn't need the threads to pass all the way into the carb body to fully close, before I soldered the tube on. $0 extended fuel screw.
The gear selector shaft seal was leaking and that got replaced. I used a plastic pick to clean out the gunk from the old one so the aluminum wasn't scratched. I didn't have any sockets deep enough on their own but I had a bushing that was the right size and used a socket on top of that to drive in the new seal.
About par for the condition of everything on the bike...
It's a CRF150F, which doesn't come with lights but is electric start. I installed a headlight and taillight, which came out pretty well. A relay is used to provide power from the battery. The DRL function and taillight come on with the ignition switch and the low/high beam is wires into a new light switch that also incorporates the engine kill. A Polisport LED headlight and UFO LED taillight were used, both of which are pretty nice and probably as low draw as anything available. The system keeps up at idle with the DRL and taillight, but drops slowly with the low beam on and a bit faster with the high. Voltage comes back up with anything above idle. Unless it idles for five minutes or longer with all the lights on, it should be fine.
Last edited by ATC King; 11-30-2023 at 06:14 PM.
The story of three wheels and a man...
If you are bored and want a good laugh at my expense , check out this short video along with the comments.
I was at Elsinore Saturday and a local guy that calls himself Scrub Daddy was there with Don Maeda from Vital MX and he took this video without me knowing until he said something during the process, at which point I thought he was only taking a photo. It had 75,000 views with numerous comments after just 24 hours, and when I went to Elsinore on Sunday a few people told me they saw it, now there is no place I can hide, lol.
You need an Instagram account to view it.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/C0XziiWpj66/
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Yeah, I don't ride aggressively anymore like a lot of old geezers do, and I prefer to stay on top so I can ride another day.
There is now over 500,000 views on that video since Saturday night. I didn't know there were so many bored people in the World, lol.
Another funny thing is that there are several big companies that saw the video, and now they all want to give me a bunch of free stuff. Back when I was young and a Pro rider, nobody but NGK was offering me free stuff. I had to get 45 years older and 2 minutes a lap slower before they offered me anything. Hell, maybe Honda Racing will be calling me soon as a back up rider for Jett Lawrence!
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I say take the free stuff, if they don't want you to wreck yourself for it.
You ride better than you walk, coming from someone much younger that has almost face-planted the floor from pain just getting out of bed. I know how riding can surpass age and physical ailments. My issues are from stupid stuff I done when younger but didn't listen to the older folk.
Your age and riding abilities are an inspiration. Run with that.
The bike I've been working on is for a friend's daughter. She's an early teen, which is perfect to get into off-road riding. She has ridden horses on trail rides and her dad taught her to use a clutch on a quad, but her first quad was an auto-clutch.
When she first got on the bike, she took right off, ripping it up. I done a lot of work on it and added some custom visual touches, in pink. She absolutely loves the bike and took to it like a duck in water. She's already dropped it several times, including today on an off-camber situation...short legged it. Later, she grabbed too much front brake going from pavement to gravel and had a pretty good spill, but got right back on it.
Between the older and younger bike riders, you're all inspirational.
The story of three wheels and a man...
I'd like to post more about things I get around to working on, but time...
I got to ride a Buell Cyclone recently. It essentially has a Harley Davidson Sportster 1200 engine, but worked over. This one has a big bore kit too, but I don't know the cc. I did get to open it up, but the speedo doesn't work, so I just watched the tach until the 6,800rpm redline, which I'm pretty certain is higher than the HD 1200 Sportster had.
It's a real hoot around town and will still comfortably cruise faster than a 1200 Sportster.
We're working on the Firebolt. That's going to be a horse of a different color (a joke for those who don't know the Buell emblem).
A couple weeks ago, I was going to take the 200S out for a ride. It hasn't moved in months. I rolled it out to do a pre-check. Gas, oil, tire pressure, general condition, etc. The oil was dirty so I decided to change it. The drain plug took a pretty good amount of force to remove. Did I tighten it too much last time? I wouldn't think so as I've been doing this for decades. Anyway, it came loose and I began to clean parts up while the oil was draining.
While I was cleaning parts, I noticed the oil plug had a crack all the way through it. In the months it was setting, there wasn't a single drop of oil on the floor.
I'm glad I changed the oil. It may have been alright for the ride that day, but eventually it would have lead to a total engine failure once it leaked or broke.
A couple days ago I decided to tackle the 200ES. I thought it still had the high altitude main jet in the carb, and since I haven't been riding it past the house.
What started out to be a simple jet replace turned into something else.
Fuel in the float. That's uncommon, but as these get older, it's going to happen.
I ended up replacing the intake manifold, because I already had a new one and upon inspection of the old one, it had a crack leading into the center. It was only a matter of time for the old to one to start leaking.
Attachment 271017
The float I replaced with an aftermarket, adjustable one, which was actually laying on the bench before I started on the 200ES.
I've used these adjustable floats before and haven't had an issue with them. It's nice to be able to adjust the drop and close of the float on these older, worn carbs.
I replaced the carb vent, overflow, and fuel line while I was at it.
There's always something. No matter how well taken care of, all of these trike are getting near 40 years old, or older. The more of them a person has, the less they are rode. There's always going to be something not right or needing replaced.
Last edited by ATC King; 12-15-2023 at 02:10 AM.
The story of three wheels and a man...
Stock sporty redline is 5500....... in fact all pushrod HD twins are 5500 with the exception of the XR and some Buells which are 7000 rpm.
They just don't feel good above 6000 in my opinion. Had mine up to about 6200 or so but I backed off...it didn't feel right. I had plenty of throttle left but I always felt the XR1200 was a bike that wanted to be ridden fast but didn't quite have the motor to deliver. They are noticeably quicker than a stock sporty but even with all the trick factory upgrades.... high rpms on HD engines feels like something catastrophic is going to happen. I want the motor good for another day.
Took mine out for a solo overnighter over the weekend. It has become my favorite HD.
Thank you.
Since I do not use it for a "rip up & down the mountain" bike.... and use it more as a sport tourer the high rpm's at highway speeds is annoying. At 4000 rpm (which it feels at home at) the speed is about 71mph....which is slow lane speed on the highways.
I have most of the parts that will lower the rpm about 400+....which dosent sound like a lot but it is. The only 2 things I'm missing is the primary cover gasket and the desire/energy/time to get it done.