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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| Sitting in my garage at the present time under the spotlight there are 3 Kawasaki Bighorns and 1 Bison. The difference between the two models is that the Bison was 250 ccs and the Bighorn 350 ccs. Other wise they are pretty much identical. They are all in a pretty sad state and only 1 is close to having the engine started. Still they are complete bikes and three have good compression with one that won't turn over due to something being stuck inside. I have two friends who live close by. They could not be more different. They are both mechanically gifted, one being better educated and the other never graduated from High School. For my part I have a passion for motorcycles but not a great deal of aptitude. Like many challenges I have faced in life, this is one of those I really have to buckle down to master and even then "True Understanding" comes slowly. It does however, eventually trickle down. One of the techniques I use to foster understanding is to take the diagrams from shop manuals and enlarge them up to tenfold. One can do this by taking a diagram to Stapes and having the girl behind the desk do it for me. It costs about $15 a diagram but it sure makes it easier to understand for example a wiring diagram. At first glance they look daunting but blown up are much easier to read and understand. So that is what I did this morning, had three of them enlarged. Coming home I got some spark plugs and we picked up the Nissan for the trip we plan to take soon. Then I dropped off some tools I borrowed from Al and stopped by Dennis's place to chat. This evening I drove motorcycles around the block to give them some exercise. I have over twenty so that can be a lot of exercise. |
| This morning I heard my wife get up and I told her to hold off on letting the dogs out. It was still pitch dark and we need stool samples to send off to the vet in order to get them into the kennel. I took them out into the lighted back yard, but to no avail. There is an old saying that goes... "A watched dog never poops." This morning at 8 O'clock we need to drop the car off to get it serviced for the trip south. Then I need to get the right sized screws for the flywheel puller. Removing it will be a hurdle and might reveal some clues as to why the engine locked up. My friend, Dennis, thinks it might be a frozen bearing given all the corrosion shown on the flywheel. The piston seems to move slightly. He says he thinks a bearing can be replaced without splitting the case. I doubt that, but hope springs eternal. Finally got some stool specimens for the dogs. Took them to the vet for testing and the dogs have tapeworms. We bought the medication and informed the kennel where we will be boarding them. They told us they will not accept the dogs until they test negative. So after paying $90 we get to pay $90 more for a negative reading. This trip south to see our kids is getting more expensive by the day and we haven't even left yet. Al loaned me his flywheel puller, however I had to buy the three metric bolts to go with it. While in town I decided to buy my own puller and a set of metric taps and dies. When I got home and went to work one or the cheap Chinese bolts sheared off. The bolts from ACE Hardware on Al's puller worked fine and the badly corroded flywheel finally popped off. The coils looked good however there was some corrosion on the pick-ups. I'll need to test them tomorrow to see if they're still good. The early Model Bighorns had a long narrow needle that went down from the top and attached to the inside of the sliding throttle body. It was used to adjust the idle. Later models used a more traditional screw that lifted the slide barrel to achieve the same effect. You can tell the model by noting if one of the holes is sealed on the threaded cap screw. If there are two holes the idle adjustment in on the top, however, if one is plugged then the idle screw is on the side. I like the the product improved version. I wish the choke lever or plunger cap were located on the engine rather than on the handlebars. |
| Today I drilled out the broken off screws inside the case. Then I used an "Easy Out" into the hole and was able to walk out the broken screw. I now had the three contact points for securing the new stator plate, complete with coils on the engine. In addition the stator coils got tested and appear to be in good shape. Moving on to bike #3 I decided to take a look at the flywheel side of the case and see if the stator and coil on that bike had been plundered and sold on the internet. The case cover did not want to come off and was held in place by one stubborn screw. The impact driver ruined the head and I was on the verge of grinding it off. My friend, Al, suggested first sharpening a chisel and trying to pound it off. That effort failed and I decided to torque what remained of the head with a vice grip and try and twist it loose. After much angst and muttering it finally gave way and I was able to screw it out. With that I tapped the case cover with a rubber hammer, wondering what the flywheel was going to look like. My heart sank! It was coated in mud, rust and corrosion. This latest bike has been one disappointment piled on the next. First the carburetor, then the corroded broken off stator screws and now the rusty flywheel. Once we got the case off I chased the threads so I can put on the flywheel puller tomorrow and yank that off. The good news is that behind the rusty flywheel I can see the precious coils... I felt like I was gazing into Tut's tomb. |
| I know I should be concerned more about the seized piston in Kawasaki, bike 3. I am, but I'm even more concerned about about the stator coils in bike 2. I went up into Michigan to pick it up and discovered when I got there that the coils were missing. This was disconcerting because of all the parts it takes to get a Bighorn running, the stator coils are the hardest to find. I had about given up trying to find the part on Ebay when low and behold a stator plate with the the two coils popped up and I bought the part immediately. Today it arrived and I went at once to bike 2 to see if it was the correct one by fitting it on the primary shaft. It was the right part, that was the good news but the bad news was that the old owner of bike 2 had sheared off the screws in trying to get the plate off, many years ago. So in the engine case two of the three screws are broken off inside the attachment holes. This means that I will have to drill them out tomorrow, put an extractor in the hole and try and twist them out without destroying the threads in the process. I will also need to be careful that I don't drill too deep and go through the case. Some damage is certain to occur, so I'll need to take a tap and repair the consequences of the extraction process. Once I accomplish this there is no assurance that the coils I received off Ebay will still be operative, having been fabricated almost fifty years ago. If I find that to be the case the only option left is to convert to a modern electronics system and that is very expensive. Oh well, whatever it takes. Speaking of repairs, the jet on the float bowl of the carburetor sheared off and I will have to drill that out and try and extract the remains. So, I have the slide operating for the throttle cable. Since there are 4 variations on the carburetor I'm not sure about some of the details particularly how the choke will operate. In addition there are the jets that are hopelessly locked tight in their threads as a result of long term corrosion and rust. I ordered a book on parts numbers for a Bighorn. I hope it has an electrical wiring diagram. |
| Recently I went up to Fargo ND and picked up a 1972 Kawasaki Bighorn motorcycle. To provide some background I had one in 1970. I'd just returned form my first tour to Vietnam. Naturally I had to enter it in an Enduro and the experience left me in a complete state of exhaustion after one hundred miles. My hand locked up so I couldn't even pull in the clutch and had to break using my finger on the compression release. There was one great memory that came from the experience. I was told that John Penton would be somewhere out on the course watching the spectacle. Fat chance of ever seeing him. Anyway early in this enduro I came to a steep hill. It had just started to rain and there must have been one hundred bikes milling around the bottom and not having much luck getting to the top. Undeterred I picked a line off the trail, gunned the engine and popped the clutch. My motorcycle did an unexpected wheelie and and took off for the top. I held on for dear life and couldn't get my wrist over the throttle and barely kept from flipping as I zipped between trees in a miraculous display of sheer good fortune. My line took me straight to the top where the great John Penton was sitting on one of his bikes. He got off as I approached the top waving me on. "Great Ride!" he cried out. "Great Ride! The front end settled to the ground as I reached the top and he came over and slapped me on the back. I was still wide eyed with terror realizing I had only survived the attempt by a huge stroke of good fortune. He pointed to the path and the trail descending the hill. It was a descent that would have done a rollercoaster designer proud. Still I didn't care, after the trip up the ride down was a piece of cake. Not to mention I not only met the great man but he complimented my riding. I always loved that bike and lamented ever letting it get away from me. After I retired I tried to find one but the price was always too high. Then last month three came up for sale on Face Book, of all places. I normally search Craig's list and within the period of a week I bought three, one for $1400, another for $900 and the latest for $800. And there they sat, until yesterday when I finally decided it was time to see if I could get one to crank. Keep in mind all these bikes had been sitting neglected in a garage for the last half century and were parked because something was wrong with them. So I put the first one on my lift and cranked it up to working level. The engine was seized up and the seller could not shed light on why. Hopefully it got bound up as a result of sitting for a long time neglected. The first thing I did was remove the case beneath which the carburetor resided. My impact driver did not have the right tip but it worked anyway. As the case came off my heart sank. It had been parked in a filthy state of neglect. The carburetor for the rotary valve was inside a protected case however, it was so full of crud it looked like it had been submerged in water and mud and never cleaned up. My hopes that the engine seized form disuse changed to the likelihood the seizure was more mechanical in nature. Not only was the engine seized but so was the throttle body in the carburetor. It was stuck and gently prying after spraying with WD 40 and a host of carburetor cleaners did nothing. Removing the idle screw showed the tip to be pitted with corrosion. I was discourage but instead of going further and doing some permanent damage decided to go watch some U-Tube videos and check out some of the forums. I wasn't having much luck until somebody showed boiling a carburetor on the kitchen stove. Unfortunately my throttle cable was stuck inside and I didn't want to cut the cable to get the carburetor out of the engine. Then I had a flash... why not take a Coleman camp stove and boil the damn thing in a pot still hanging from the cables. On this particular bike there are three cables on the right hand side of the handlebar throttle. One of these cables goes to the the throttle body of the carburetor, another to the choke and the third to the oiler. Yes this is a two stroke engine. The choke and the throttle body were the problems as both were corroded into their orifices. My wife suggested Downy dishwasher soap and water and gave me an old kitchen pot that was no longer being used for cooking. I fired up the gas burner, filled the pot with soap and water and deposited the carburetor letting it boil for about six minutes. In the first session the float body came loose and slipped almost effortlessly from the cylinder. I then unloosened the choke cable and let it boil for another six minutes. This too came out but with a bit more effort. Now all the parts are dissembled and removed and are soaking in the sonic parts cleaner. The first hurdle had a positive outcome. I only hope the next is as successful.... no it isn't getting the piston unstuck but rather seeing if the stator is still serviceable after all these years behind the left hand side cover. |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
