Old Car and Bike rambling

I loved this bike so much that I thought I would keep it forever, but after I moved away from my riding buddies I lost interest in riding except for the occasional ride to work. I'm not sure what happened, but my right hand started going numb after 10 minutes of riding no matter what I tried with my grip (tighten/loosen/loosen even more) and the angle of my forearm, I realized it was time to sell when the thought of riding no longer called to me. I discovered there was zero interest in my area for this bike since I live in cruiser country. Maybe the waning interest overall for 2 wheeled transportation due to the dangers of sharing the road with inattentive drivers on their smart phones was the culprit, but I wanted to get out of this bike before my son got old enough to learn to ride and I wanted to use the cash to help me find an NC Miata . I should have sold the bike last year or the year before when the book value was higher but the timing did not work out for me. ...

During the coldest days of the winter I discovered that I was not getting any heat on the driver's side of my car. At first I thought it was because my commute to work was too short to properly heat up the car until the day I drove my other car to work and had a toasty interior before I was 4 blocks away from my house. Most of the people complaining about a similar issue had dual climate but my car does not have it.  I found a video of someone who replaced his heater valve and it looked straight forward and cheap enough for me to go ahead and order the $22 part just so I can have some heat in case another cold spell came through before the end of winter. Here's a picture of the new valve installed on my car. It's located under the hood on the passenger side mounted to the firewall.  Replacement was about 30 minutes. Here's a few of my tips for free diagnosis so you don't need to buy a cheap replacement part if you come across the same issue. this valve ha...

My wife stood over me with her arms crossed as I stooped over the front wheel laying on the ground on a cold winter morning. her: "Don't you want to take that to a shop to do?" me: "Why?" This is my 2nd time replacing the tires on my motorcycle.  They are supposed to be replaced every 5 to 6 years whether or not the tires are worn due to hardening of the rubber significantly reducing grip. Unfortunately the hardening of the rubber also makes the tires much more difficult to remove. The first set of tires were 30 years old so I figured these would be comparatively much easier. Unfortunately, that didn't make the experience any better. Here's a few tips that seemed to work for me and a few other ones that I should have followed: things you'll need/want: 6-8ft long 2X4 1ft or less 2X4 2ft 4x4 or a bucket or something to set the wheel on right angle tire stem warm sunny day soapy water solution air compressor at least 2 of the longe...

The Cycle X exhaust got rusty sitting for a few years so I decided to take them off and paint them with some high temperature exhaust paint.  While they were off, I decided to try the original 4 into 4 exhaust to remind myself what the performance was like with the original exhaust. After struggling for a while to get the exhaust on the left side of the bike, I realized that I needed to put the center stand back on in order to get the side stand out of the way to install the pipes. After finally getting everything connected I took her out for the first time to go to work the next morning. My first impression was I had much less power.  Snapping the throttle did nothing much until the RMPs got over 6k RPM and it feels like the idle speed is a little too low like the engine is struggling to stay running.  I don't like the performance loss but the 4 pipes out the rear kinda look really cool. I also noticed the rattling noise I used to have around 4-5k rpm was b...

Plug and play running light/turn signal installation Years ago, when I acquired this bike, I wanted to find a way to reduce the electrical load from the lighting since the alternator was only designed to run the original 40w headlight bulb with a little bit of a safety buffer.  I knew that when I upgraded to a 55w halogen bulb that I was pushing the limits of the charging system. I didn't run into trouble but I wanted to do something to get the safety buffer back. I wanted to convert the signal, brake and head lights to LEDs but 5 years ago, the technology was not quite ready for me to safely make the switch due to dim low output bulbs. Day maker style headlight assembly with halo ring I found this day maker style led headlight that has received poor reviews on youtube but it seemed to be fairly bright for me.  Unfortunately, I shorted out the halo when I was testing the connections due to the light not coming with any directions or wiring diagrams. When I got i...

Side covers back on after 5 years of being parked In Part 1 of Re-Awakening the CB750c, I ran into a few bumps in the road while I went through the bike after leaving it in my garage for about 5 years. Time sure flies when life gets busy. After getting the new Dyna coils installed and the new spark plug wires crimped I was excited to see my bike start with just the intention of my finger hovering over the start button.  Unfortunately, my hopes did not pan out as I imagined they would. No Start. I tried to pump the gas a few times without actually flooding my new D8EA spark plugs that I installed during troubleshooting the old ignition parts but managed only a few backfires.  I eventually figured out that I had the signal wires crossed for the ignition coils. (blue needs to go to left coil for cylinders 1 and 4, yellow needs to go to the right coil for cylinders 2 and 3). Once I had the wires installed properly, the bike stumbled to life with the first push of...

Getting ready for Dyna coils, procom igniters, relay and wire work It's been roughly 5 or 6 years since I took the suzuki carbs out of my CB750c. Ever since I put the OEM carbs back on, the bike has never run right. There was a high rpm stutter, then the accelerator pump was not squirting then the carbs got clogged from sitting for a few years while we settled into our new house and new life. Last year I cleaned out the carbs to prepare it for the road and when I filled it with gas, I discovered a leak that sidelined the bike for another season because I couldn't bring myself to take the carbs off after wrestling them on. This year I decided to give it another shot and removed the carbs to have a look.  Hoping I didn't have to completely tear down the carb bank to replace an O-Ring, I found a loose float bowl which was likely the cause of the leak last year and decided to give the carbs another quick cleaning just in case, even though I never got the bike starte...