coreytrevor

Something like this is what is usually used. Universal-Fork-Spring-Compressor Or this, if you have extra hands or some tiedowns.

I just realized why I haven't been able to sleep lately. Is the poor sick bike still banished to the corner?

Do these bikes ever have a major failure of the oil line to the heads? I would hope the braided steel line would start to leak slowly rather than just let go. Then you could fix it at home rather than on the road.

#18 http://www.harpermoto

What I do is push 1 piston out at a time, just past where they normally extend. I use a small brass bristle brush to clean off the junk, and use a 90 degree snap ring plier inside the pistons to turn them so they can be cleaned all the way around. Be careful not to let the pistons come out too far.

If the piston is pushed in enough to cover the fluid return hole, it creates a sealed system from the master cylinder down to the calipers. As the fluid heats and expands, it has nowhere to go and starts applying the brake, which creates lots more heat. You know what happens next. The fluid needs to escape through the small return hole in the MC as it expands. Pulling on your brake lever, you were trying to compress a column of already high-pressure brake fluid. You really need a dial indicator to check the rotors, but if you ride the bike and don't feel any brake pulsing, you should be ok. I would also pull each caliper, one at a time and verify that you can push the pistons back, so you know the problem is fixed and won't repeat itself.

You should probably take his email address down, not good to have that out on the interweb, especially if he doesn't know.

...but easily transferable to your next. I'll suffer through having them on my bike if you need to rid yourself of them.

Probably the early 4.5" wheel, a good mod. I just did it, but I painted mine.

Could you use a spring with a side hook and hook it to the existing spool thingy on the arm? Or would it not clear the selector wheel?

Big difference. It would be nice to see the oil light if it happened to come on.

This one? http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19827

Don't forget to measure the depths of the pins before removing.

Pretty easy to pull the swingarm from where you are now if you can't get to the fitting.

I just used my small mig welder to add a blob of weld there. You probably don't need more than maybe 2-3 mm thickness. It needs to be hard material so the shifting doesn't pound a dent in it.

I wish I could just swing by your house and point at things, it would be so much easier. Not likely, though. You want to do the big eccentric before the small one. The problem with the big eccentric is that the "window" in the shift shaft is too wide and no matter where you set the eccentric, the travel is too much in one or both directions. If you do a shift and hold the shifter against the eccentric pin at full travel, and play with the selector wheel you can see that the shift arm is either rotating the wheel past the detent a bit or not quite all the way to the detent. You want the hook on the arm to rotate the wheel exactly to the detent position when the big eccentric pin stops the travel. You need to narrow the window in the shift shaft so you can get the travel perfect in both directions, hence the welding. Set it up perfect in one direction, then leave the eccentric alone, add weld to the other side of the window and file until perfect in the other direction. You can see that the small eccentric can be positioned 2 ways, kind of to the left or right as you are looking straight at it. I don't remember which is correct. The idea is that at full travel of the shift mechanism in either direction, the shift arm will just about or barely contact the pin. That causes the pin in the selector wheel, contacting the ramp on the shift arm, to be unable to push the arm up, so the selector wheel is locked in position at full shift travel, and unable to over-rotate into a false neutral. Let me know if that doesn't make sense, I don't know if I'm making it clear. If you try the small eccentric to the left and right it should be obvious which is correct, because the shift arm will be equally close the eccentric pin at both ends of travel. I think the .7mm is meant for the small eccentric, but I think the less clearance the better. Mine works great at 0, just make sure it doesn't stick/jam. This stuff is hard on the brain to describe!

On my 1150GS the heated grip wiring was inside the handlebar from the factory. There was a small hole in the center of the bar, between the clamps, for the wires. Then the wires just ran out to the bar ends. I think they were in a piece of plastic wire sleeve. When I changed to Protaper type bars I just duplicated what BMW had done. I ran a piece of safety wire through the bar to pull the wires through. Edit: if you are talking about clip-ons, never mind!

I agree, nice work and writeup.

I would definitely do this. You can't do it with the cover on the gearbox. I don't think you will ever get perfect shifting otherwise, like my bike has now. I think the two most important things to address are the overtravel of the shift mechanism and the adjustment of the small eccentric, which prevents over-rotation of the selector wheels. Phil welded both sides of the slot in the shifter arm but I found you can weld just one side, then set the eccentric to perfection on the non-welded side and don't touch it again. Then file the welded side a little at a time for perfect travel on that side. I adjusted the small eccentric so the shift claw just touches the pin at full travel. Don't get it too tight or the shift mechanism will stick, but you don't really want any clearance to speak of there. This keeps the inertia of the selector wheels from continuing to rotate the wheels past the detent, into a false neutral. I believe that's what causes the false neutrals. And if you smooth the ramps on the shift claw, don't take off much material, because those ramps are critical to stop the over-rotation. Just do it!

NM x .7375 = ft. lb.

If you rotate the selector wheels through all the detent positions, there will be seven detents. Neutral is a half step between first and second, so if you pay attention to how far the rotation is between detents, at one end of the rotation you will have first, then half step to neutral, then half step to second. Then the rest are full steps to 6th. Edit: I can't remember if neutral is where the dots line up. It's been too long and the manual is no help. Then you need to slide the 4 shift forks so their pins will drop into the slots on the wheels. Did that make much sense?

They must be a lot stronger than the stock cast ones too. I wonder what would break if the guards refused to fail on a big impact. 6mm bolts aren't very strong. I guess it might not matter at that point.

I don't replace them if they still have some tension on the fork tubes, and don't have any nicks in the seal lip. The used ones probably have less friction anyway.

Those are really nice, not too blingy. I wish I hadn't just bought a replacement OEM one.