Pressureangle

My Bitubo was mostly empty with weepy seals. As a matter of exploration, I disassembled and cleaned it, with attention to the seals. Refilled with fork oil and it's been perfect for a few years since.

You guys use spray deoxit? I have little tubes, setting a single drop directly on the contacts. I don't think I ever get enough on anything to get to the rubber- and just as a matter of habit (won by hard experience) I let everything dry for a couple minutes before I reassemble pretty much anything anywhere. Still, important information.

The studded side is the exhaust, the intake side the spigot. Edit; rhetorical questions before coffee. Not fair.

There are a thousand petcocks that screw onto the tank just fine, but none have the 12mm outlet for the large hose to the fuel pump, and very few have a certainty of delivering enough fuel. Not only must it feed the engine as with carbs, but it must keep the pump well fed including what bypasses the regulator back into the tank. Pingel is the only maker I'm familiar with to rest assured the flow is adequate.

The o-rings came today, so I reassembled. I used a little Ospho to get rid of the worst of the white deposits- they're pretty tough. The o-ring grooves in the pintle are 2mm x 11mm, and the opening in the body 14+mm. The o-rings are 2mm x 10mm ID. 11mm + 4mm = 15mm, so 1mm-ish of compression on the installed rings. The only o-rings I could source quickly are 90 durometer; I used a silicone grease to install them, which is fairly sticky. Assembly was straightforward between squeezing in the vise and rotating the pintle gently. Between the hard rings (70 durometer is catalogued but not available quickly) and the sticky grease, the pintle doesn't slide extremely easily; a drop of light oil in the top of the pintle did loosen it a little bit. It will probably loosen a little with fuel exposure, and seems like a tight but manageable turn by hand for someone with thumbs that work. To do over I'd probably use a silicone spray and the softer o-rings. I can say with certainty it's tight enough not to leak. Since I don't have the means here to manage the slot/screw internal stop, I simply used a small punch to ding the top of the thumbwheel a little, which gives a plenty firm stop when it gets to the first thread, as did the compressed stock ring. I'll update further when it's in the fuel.

I need some idea how many people would fit a Pingel (or alternative) petcock to their bike if an adapter was available. Just say yes below.

I contacted Pingel once about making something with a 16mm thread, but they weren't interested. On my list of things-that-could-happen is an adapter from 16mm to 22mm or 16mm to 3/8npt so a Pingel fuel valve could be fitted.

Lucky Phil was right, my solution was temporary. So we dive deep. The trick is getting the thumbwheel off, I used a jeweler's file to skim the crimped edge as I ran it up and down the threads (after taking the E-clip off so it moved easily) until it came off without damaging the threads. Then simply set aside your fear and whack the pintle out with a punch (carefully, I was too lazy to walk 20 steps for my brass drift) You can see it's a disaster inside. This one wasn't leaking, neither closed nor open but obviously the top o-ring exposed to the fuel is destroyed. There's some sort of grease between the two, and I'll do some homework (including re-reading Phil's thread) on what grease to use upon reassembly. Tomorrow come the 2x10x14 viton o-rings and the reassembly.

I was going to put this in the 'what did you do today' forum but it's better here I think. So I started the painful process of de-watering my fuel system. Again. My fuel cap has had a bad gasket for some time, and although I cleaned them I thought recently, my vent/drain are plugged. Again. I rolled the dice on ordering an Oberon fuel filler, Aprilia Fuel Cap FUE-7040 is a perfect fit. The first at-hand was to fix the vents, and since they're coiled up like snakes inside the tank there's no wire to run through them. I used a small syringe to get some Ospho into them for a couple minutes, then blew it through with air. Rinse and repeat 3 or 4 times. Same with under the fuel cap, which I'd tried to seal up with tank sealer; it didn't adhere well and peeled out easily. So to the steel wool. After the vents and fuel entry were clean and dry, I shot some Cosmoline into the vents and blew that through a few times as well, and spread it around the bare metal on the top. The Oberon cap was a simple 3 screw replacement save shaving a tiny bit off the vent protrusion with a jeweler's file. The Oberon cap fits close in the tank opening, with no space for the rubber gasket used by the stock setup- but the stock setup was crap so I don't think it will be a problem. Between this and the fuel valve both again, I'll make both the fuel filler/tank top and the fuel valve at least yearly maintenance items. I'll add a photo or two of the fuel valve to an existing thread.

My only concern is how hot and melty the material becomes after a long pavement slide, although trading serious burns for serious abrasions is a fair trade. Dyneema is so strong it's hard to fathom- a 1/8" Dyneema rope has the tensile strength of a 1/2" steel wire rope, if memory serves. The literature says 'UV resistant' but (20 years ago) UHMWP ropes needed UV protective sleeves to make them durable enough in the sun to be economical for ships. Perhaps they've sorted chemical UV blocking in the material. Keep posting, being in S. Florida I'm always interested in safe comfort in the heat.

No, this is actually an exhaust vent for air control systems- they call it a muffler, as it quiets the exhaust and prevents pests from going into the system.

Just saw this as a 'whatizzit' on FB groups. I directed him here, of course.

Here's the thread on what I had to do with the Sport to get it dry. I originally simply vented the cap to a hose, but it was so bad that it still pushed juice out a 1/8" hose over 3 feet long. The trick was shielding the base of the vent from thrown oil, which took a while to suss out. Since this mod, I've had zero trace of oil in the vent hose, I even ran it for a day without the hose and it stayed dead dry.

For what it's worth, when I have to glue something important that's rubber- particularly to metal- I use 3M weatherstrip & emblem adhesive. I can't say I've had failures with Shoe Goo or Gorilla Glue, but I feel better using a product with these specific materials in mind.

Yeah so left the bike out in the rain yesterday, and made it about 3 miles today before the sputs started. Order new cap, clean fuel system. "A bought lesson's better'n a giv'd one any day"- Uncle Ford

I stopped at a scenic overlook on the Cherohola Parkway (I think the 2019 spine raid?) and there was a guy with a Motus. I talked with him for a few minutes- he said basically the bike was everything you would expect and 99% of what you'd hope for. He disappeared pretty quickly too, I had no idea it wasn't a production bike at the time.

Awesome. Wish I'd been able to make it; Try again next year.

There was never a question about when, only about how many. It'll take a minute to run through the quoting process, as materials, supply chain, and labor rates have all increased substantially since the first batch. I'm already on it.

The closest DG ride to me is 3 hours. Pity.

My 'Sport driveshaft is different from the V11 shaft, and getting the old joint out was something I need Pete Roper's sailor's vocabulary to describe. I had to push the caps out of one yoke as far as possible, reach in with a brand-new diameter cutoff wheel, cut a leg off and then wedge the first cap out by prying in the cut. I won't do that again short of an imminent failure, and bought a good used shaft to put in place when that happens. Docc, how did your change go?

That was discussed- Pete said there were some cracking failures in early prototype plates; I don't recall the specifics about materials and thicknesses but these are made so there is no question about durability. I did install longer bolts with mine.

Well, I got nothin'. There's another joint very very close to these dimensions- maybe 2 millimeters bigger- that is possibly the most common joint on the planet for farm implements. Why Mother Goose chose to use something 2mm less than common beats me.

It never occurred to me before to ask, why do they stock these in Canada *at all*? I was not able to discover any other vehicle but some obscure Russian 4x4 ATV that uses this size. Curious.

More than one person told me I was insane to make 50 and that they'd never sell.

Are the flywheel bolts symmetrical on the crank? Many manufacturers offset one hole so you can't change the orientation even if you want to.