fix my motorcycle

Sweetness. new seat, charged up the battery. now to get the damn license, on May 12th is the day

Now it’s off to a motorcycle mechanic who works out of his garage in south Seattle. He’s going to pull all of the guts out of the engine and transplant them into the new crankcase. I’m hoping this costs less than $400 for labor.

GS 550

I went riding with Ivan, Dan & Joe 2 weekends ago and managed to take a small spill. I was fully padded, booted and helmeted up – we were riding off road on a logging trail. It was such a small spill that I figured nothing was wrong, but Dan immediately noticed my engine spurting oil. Well, it turns out that a rock likley got tossed up on the crankcase (probably with the force of the chain) and nicked the crankcase where the drive shaft seal sits. So, there’s no way to weld and repair it – or so everyone who has seen it tells me.

This means I have to buy a new crankcase from Suzuki (about $500) and either install it with Ivan (potentially a multi-week effort) or pay a professional for 12 to 16 hours of labor to transplant the guts from my existing crankcase to the new one. That will be expensive! At this point I have to decide if Ivan and I can pull this off together. Now that I’m over the initial shock of such a small event resulting in such a costly repair I’m thinking that taking time to pull it apart ourselves and replace the crankcase could be a good learning experience and a way to remove $600-$1,000 in labor costs. Ivan has done this a few times back in Slovakia and I feel like I could benefit from a deeper understanding of how the guts of the engine works.

For reference: 2002 Suzuki DRZ400E.

I had a lot of motorcycles. I sold two of them, stuck two more in the garage of a tolerant friend, and rode one to Maryland.

Not too long ago, I sold one of the ones I left in California. The remaining California bike is a 1960 BMW R50 that I like better than all other bikes I’ve ever had (even though many of them have been better bikes, at least objectively). I ride the R50 when I am in the bay area, which is generally only a week or so each year.

The bike always starts right up and has never stranded me. But it also needs a little fixing. It needs a working horn, and I really ought to replace the ancient Avon tire on the rear wheel. The other day it leaked a little gas – I think the tickler is sticking. And maybe if I put a battery in it, the headlight would work at low RPMs. Right now, I’ve only got lights if I’m moving at a decent speed, but even then the lights aren’t very good. But I probably won’t buy a battery for it – I’ll just leave the lights off and make sure I don’t get caught out after dark.

The BMW is back on the road again. I knew the problem was something electrical, but I just didn’t have time to deal with it during school… or so I thought. It turned out to be easy to fix – the coil was cracked. It only took about 15 minutes to put a new coil on, including getting out the tools and putting them away again. I rode the bike about 60 miles yesterday, and it’s not perfect, but it sure runs a lot better with the new coil on it.

The Vespa will not be fixed by me. I borrowed a friend’s truck and delivered it to a guy who can make it run again – but I won’t have it back until the fall. He’s busy, and I’m leaving town next week and will be gone for about three months.

But once again, I am marking this goal DONE.

I forget that I’ve had this listed, I’ve actually had to fix the bike about 3 times over for various problems, but its done, just finished replace my regulator! yay!

running poorly and losing power on the way home from school today. At least it didn’t strand me. But now I need to fix it again before I can ride it anywhere. It’s dangerous not to have power.

grrrrr

The bike still needs a lot of little things done to it, but it’s running. Today I took it out on a little ride that included a little bit of freeway (why do people around here snicker when I say “freeway”?), and it ran great.

So I proclaim the bike is fixed. Goal acheived.

I’ll make a new goal to address the other things. I’m tired of looking at this goal.

I got the bike out of the basement (which involved taking off the basement door), put some gas in, and it started. Idled nicely and everything. So I’ve been cautiously riding it around the neighborhood. Seems ok.

There are many little things that need to be fixed, but I am back on the road.