Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Mon, 29 Oct 2007
Picking up the new CL175 today was a highly scripted operation -- I used a Flexcar pickup truck, which is billed by the hour, so I wanted to make sure I had it planned out correctly. Turns out I left too much slop time in my planning, and I was done almost three hours ahead of schedule. Hopefully someone used the truck after me, so I don't have to pay for all that time I didn't use.
In any case, the pickup was easy. I grabbed Jesse, and we headed to the ferry, catching the 11:30 instead of the planned 12:05. Greg was ready for us, and it was a matter of minutes before we had the bike loaded in the back of the truck, and were headed out again. Jesse examined the front brake while Greg and I were completing our transaction, and declared that it felt awful because of the cable. That was encouraging. I'd had the thought, but didn't really know how well I was interpreting what I was feeling.
On the way back, we managed to roll into the Kingston ferry dock just as they started loading the 12:40 (or so) ferry, making us two ferries earlier than I'd planned on. I dropped off Jesse and went home to unload the bike. I was back at the Flexcar parking spot by 2:15, and feeling foolish for having so vastly overplanned the trip. Ah well, it was nice to be done early.
Once I got back to my garage, I started going over the bike, to see what I could do in the absence of parts. The first target was the battery. Somehow, in 71 miles and something like six months of ownership, Greg managed to go through two batteries. As soon as I put the battery on a charger, I guessed what the problem was: he was using a car charger on a motorcycle battery. Unfortunately, motorcycle batteries require a much smaller charging current than car chargers can do, and a car charger will quickly overheat the little motorcycle battery. The electrolyte was very low in all the cells, a likely sign of overheating. After I topped the battery up with water, it was reading just 10.1 volts, a good sign it'd never come back. Nonetheless, I hooked it up to the motorcycle charger, and set it going.
Unfortunately, I completely overfilled the battery, so it immediately started spluttering out dilute battery acid onto the bike. I pulled it out, and set it on the ground (and on a pile of baking soda, to counteract the spilled acid -- fun with hissing and bubbling!). It was producing a lot of hydrogen, so I'm guessing it's not going to come back. But there's no harm in trying -- the worst that'll happen is that the battery boils off its electrolyte again. I already assume I'll need a new battery, so if I can get by without needing one, I'll be up $50. (Greg, if you're reading this: for the next bike, get a Battery Tender. They're about $60, but they're excellent at charging and keeping up small batteries like this without damage.)
The next area that really needed attention was the front brake. When I tested it on Wednesday night, it was essentially useless. As hard as I could pull (and 8 years of motorcycling plus more of bicycling means I have a decent brake-pullin' hand), it barely affected the speed of the bike. I knew I wanted to replace all the cables, but I figured I could try lubing the brake cable, and see if that improved anything. Again, the worst that could happen was no improvement. Amazingly, the brake cable came to life (well, relatively) after a good dousing in TriFlow, and now I can actually get some stopping power out of the front brake. It's still not fabulous, but so much better than it was.
I decided to give the clutch cable the same treatment, and discovered that about half the strands in the cable are broken off right at the hand lever. I lubed it anyway, but that cable definitely needs to go. Jesse has a line on one of the vintage racers who has all the bits and pieces to make new cables, so I'm going to talk to him. Apparently the NOS (New Old Stock) cables you can get on Ebay aren't worth it, although they're certainly cheap.
At this point, I decided to head down to Seattle Cycle Center, which is so close to my house as to be "the local motorcycle shop." It's barely a 5 minute bike ride. I wasn't quite ready to replace the battery yet (that will be a day or two from now), but I wanted to order tires, and pick up a new chain. I had good success, ordering a set of BT45 tires, which are the same ones I run on my Ninja 250. They had a chain in stock, and I picked up a set of grips to replace the cracked, hard plastic things currently gracing the handlebars. Had I been thinking straight, I also would have ordered a new set of sprockets, but that didn't occur to me until I got the old chain off an hour later, and really looked at the state of the old sprockets. Ah well, that order can go in tomorrow.
I didn't do any more work than that, but I did check a few other things. The tires are excitingly cracked and ancient looking, although I don't know how old they actually are. I discovered that the rear wheel is actually missing a spoke, and neither wheel is particularly round. Looks like I'll be doing some wheel repairs before I take the bike at any speed. Fortunately, my bicycle wheel building experience puts me in a good position to deal with that. Even more fortunately, the bike came with an entire spare rear wheel, so I can just swap the new one on rather than repairing the current one. The spare looks to be in nice condition, so that's pretty handy.
Another thing I did was just get on the bike and make putt-putt noises while bouncing up and down like a kid. Gotta have some fun, right? I also discovered, while bouncing, that the rear shocks actually contain no oil any more. They're just springs. That'll make riding interesting, but also adds another item to my "must replace" list. It'll be a positive change in all ways, though, since I'll actually be able to get the correct strength springs on there for my gargantuan size. (If you've seen my centerstand video on YouTube, and thought I looked big next to the Ninja 250, the CL175 is smaller still. It's going to look like I'm riding a kid's bike.)
I took a closer look at the muffler as well, wondering what damage there was. I found not one or two, but three major holes in the muffler, accounting for the throaty roar put out by the little tiny engine. Fortunately, for racing duty, it's standard practica to just cut off the muffler and run straight pipes. Unfortunately, for street duty, I'll be pissing off neighbors and intriguing cops with my super-loud tiny bike.
Far from being daunted by all the problems I'm discovering, it's actually proving to be an interesting and engaging challenge. The bike is so simple that there's no anxiety about whether I can do a particular repair or not. The parts are all super cheap, since this was a ubiquitous bike in its day, and there are lots of parts left over. It's nothing like working on a BMW, where every trip to get parts results in a multi-hundred-dollar sting in the wallet region, even if you do thank your lucky stars that BMW still produces and stocks parts for a bike that's 40+ years old.
Anyway, a successful first day with the bike. The challenge now will be balancing the needs of unpacking boxes in the house with the desire to go tinker on the cool old bike.
Posted at 08:48 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater