Old Car and Bike rambling

Over the previous several weeks, I removed the old carb rack from my cb750 (not an easy task) and also removed the airbox which I discovered to be a fascinating piece of engineering. 2 crankcase breather hoses attach to the airbox and shoot any solid particles (water/oil) to the back of the airbox where any condensate drains down to the catch tank. Remaining oily air/fuel mixture is then sucked back into the engine for burning. (I wonder how this recycled mixture affects octane rating or if the claims that this mixtures adds to carbon build up in the intake tract has any merit). Picked up a heater hose from the local auto store and cut it into 2.5" straight sections to connect the new carbs to the engine (3" would be better to allow space for cuts). Since the carbs do not line up perfectly with the engine you must make some angled cuts on the connectors to get them to mate up with the carbs. My #2 connector was a little short and I will need to go back and make another o...

I came into some cash after selling some items I didn't want on ebay. I had enough money to order a few parts that were missing from the rack of carburetors that I bought on ebay. 4 jet needles, 1 diaphragm spring, 3 throttle springs, and 4 float gaskets cost me about $100 after shipping. Yikes! big bucks for a handful of junk. This would have hurt alot more if I actually had to pay for these things with my hard earned cash, but the ebay funds makes it a bit easier to swallow the cost for this carburetor upgrade. I also ordered some o-rings ( http://www.oringsusa.com/ ) and some stainless allen head screws ( http://myworld.ebay.com/ebaymotors/stainlesscycle ) for roughly $20 more. One of the caps had a broken vacuum port so rather than buy a new cap, I just bought a small aluminum spacer from the hardware section at Lowes home improvement. In re-assembling the carb pieces, I discovered the choke mechanism was not engaging the #4 enrichening circuit becuase t...

As an owner of an early 80s cb750, it quickly becomes obvious that the CV carburetors on these old motorcycles require the original airbox to run properly. It would seem like a minor price to pay for the reliability and dependability that we get with the design since no jetting changes are needed as we change altititude or swap exhausts. The constant vacuum (CV) design automatically compensates for the difference and keeps the bike running happily. Just don't change the airbox or use anything other than the original style airfilter. I got my bike running perfectly so I'm either a glutton for punishment or just a dumb geek who can't leave stuff alone. "If it aint broke, fix it until it is" might be my motto. People tell me I wouldn't be happy with a new bike because there would be nothing to fix. Maybe it's just a way for me to keep my mind busy so I don't have to think how much I hate my job. I started noticing some posts from people on cb1100f...

I'm sure this is not the perfect place to put this post but when I'm wrenching or riding or driving, my mind tends to contemplate other things that might have caught my fleeting attention at some point in the past. It's even more interesting when I'm able to connect 2 seemingly unrelated topics so here goes. Unsustainable growth If people never stopped growing physically, we would probably be 20ft tall by the time we die of all the consussions from hitting our heads on low hanging objects or from bending over just to fit into our homes. If the world population continued growing, the world would run out of space for everyone but not before our small blue planet ran out of food, clean water and natural resources. When corporations go public, they sell off part of the company in exchange for cash. When people buy stocks in the initial public offering, they are paying the company for a small piece of the pie. Stock holders demand continuous growth or the stock price is pumm...

I picked up a Cycle-X 4-2-1 exhaust system in the spring for a price I could not refuse. The previous owner wasn't happy with the visual styling or the sound output of the exhaust system on his cb750F. While he was happy with the performance and the ground clearance, he preferred the sound of his old kerker exhaust to the new Cycle-X exhaust which he found too buzzy. He listed the pipes for sale on the 1100f forum but there were no takers after his slightly negative review of the pipes. Then he listed them on ebay and I watched the auction close with no bidders. Still recovering from my family's financial mess from the winter of 2009, I was determined not to be drawn out from the shadows to buy the pipes until he lowered the price some more and relisted. After receiving only 1 bid for the whole week, I decided to put in a bid during the last hour and step away from the auction feeling confident that I would not win and feeling even better that I had atleast tried to buy them at...

Over the winter I changed the Master Cylinder, added dual piston calipers with EBC HH pads, cb900 cams and CBR Coils. I probably should have taken her out for a ride sooner or rode her around for atleast 2 seasons before making the upgrades because my memory is not so good and can't really provide a reliable seat-of-the-pants feel before and after. The bike revs effortlessly now and brake modulation feels very nice. The cb900 cams are in, but I can't remember how slow the bike was last year. She scares the heck out of me now in the 6-8k rpm range and I'm pretty sure I only hit that range once or twice in my local around town riding last year so not really much to compare and remember. It definitely feels different now though because it gets up to 5k rpm so much easier than last year. Unfortunately I'm noticing a new sound around 5.2k rpm, not sure if it's a baffle or something else is loose, but I can hear a rattle or vibration out of the exhaust when I rev it in th...

I hope if you are reading this, you understand the importance of wearing helmets. There are plenty of articles with statistics and studies that prove wearing a helmet is better than not wearing one, but if you are one of those people who don't think it looks cool or believe the misinformation perpetuated by well meaning buddies, please stop reading and find somewhere else to surf. There are alot of styles, colors and designs to choose from when shopping for a helmet but if you can't find a properly fitting helmet, your riding experience will be marred by terrible headaches and/or burning hotspots. If you can't wear your helmet longer than 30 minutes you'll likely choose not to wear the protection inorder to keep riding just to get home. I was cursed with an unusual shaped head all my life and so will my son. Looking at my grade school pictures (and my son's), I can easily make out the egg shape of my head. Wide at the top over my ears and tapering down below my ears...