The tale of a Bee..

A

A&P Mech

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I have an 03 Bee with 32k miles. I bought the bike with 500 miles on it from a local dealer. This bike was a Mechanic's Demo bike. My bee came with an ART slip-on pipe installed. When I purchased the bike I was told that the jetting on the bike was changed to work with the pipe. I have had this bike since 2003. I have never had even one issue with it. It has run perfect until I took it to a local dealership for a valve adjustment a month ago. Not the same dealership that I purchased the bike from. I had the shop check/adjust the valves, replace the chain and sprockets and flush and fill the coolant. It was still a bit cold here when I took the bike in and it still had stable in the tank from the winter storage. The bike ran awesome as always on the way to drop it off. A couple days later I received the call to come pick up my bike. It was a very cold ride home. The bike seem to run OK but a bit rougher then I remembered. The weather did not allow for any play time for about two weeks so the bike just sat in the garage. The first chance I got, I rode my bike into work. I noticed the bike started to run rougher and rougher on the way in. It felt like one of the cylinders was missing. When I got the bike home that night I started to take a look at things. I have never fouled a plug before but I thought maybe I had a bad plug. I deiced to replace the fuel filter and the plugs. I went to replace the plugs and noticed that the number 3 plug cap was never reinstalled after the valves were adjusted. It was just sitting on top of the plug. I thought well there is the problem. I replace the plugs and went to reinstall the plug cap and the number 3 cap would not snap on because the contact that grabs the plug had burned off because of the arcing. So after a long search of the local shops no one had a replacement in stock except the local motorcycle wrecking yard. I ended up picking up a used coil with two plug caps. Both caps appeared to be in good shape. I picked one and installed it in the number three position. I started the bike up and the idle had improved. I took the bike for a ride and as soon as I let out the clutch it feels like one of the cylinders is dropping out. When the RPM get to about 2K the cylinder feels like it picks back up and there is a sharp increase in power and smoothness. The missing is worse when the motor is cold. This bike has never done this before. I have always stored it with stable in the tank. I did some reading on the boards and deiced to try some sea-foam. I poured it in my tank and road the bike for a while. No change. I returned the bike to the shop and they were sure it was dirty carbs. They said they pulled all the float bowls and cleaned them. Another $200 bucks later I went to pick up the bike. The kid that pulled my bike around asked me” Is your bike cold blooded?” I said a little why? He said” It feels like it is missing” I told him that is the reason I brought it in. The service manger hears what is going on and comes out to talk to me. After a short conversation he decides to take the bike for a ride. He comes back and tells me that it runs fine once it warms up. I am a bit unhappy with that but he asks me to take it home and try it out. I ride the bike home and it runs OK.. It is still rough. I let the bike cool down for about five hours. When I start the bike up it is running rough. I take it for a test ride and the missing is worse then ever!!! I ride it back to the shop and talk to the service manager again. He agrees to look at it again. After 5 days of waiting I get the call to pick up my bike. When I get there I ask what did they find wrong with it? The service manager said he had three mechanics look at it. They adjusted the idle, adjusted the clutch and balanced the carbs. I asked how that fixed the missing problem and he told me it was never missing... WTF????? I took the bike for a test ride and it was much better. Still rougher then I remembered. Fast forward two days and about 100 miles. The bike is starting to feel like it is dropping a cylinder right off idle again. It feels like it picks back up around 2K again with a sharp increase in power and smoothness. I have no idea what is causing this and I have no faith that the dealership does either.. I want to take it back to the dealership but I feel like I would be :deadhorse: Anyone have any ideas what could be plaguing my Bee?
 
First off, did ya raise cane for the #3 cap not being installed and get some sort of offset?

Let the bike warm up and shoot some water on the pipes and see if any remains and then report back...
 
BroHay,

Thanks for the reply. I did let the dealership know about the plug cap. I brought it in when I took the bike back the first time to show them that it was cooked. I guess the they compensated me for the plug cap by only charging me half price on the carb service that didn't fix anything.:banghead:

I will give the water test a try tomorrow. It seems to idle fine.. It is just on the acceleration from a complete stop that the sensation of a cylinder dropping is felt.

I did drain and refill the fuel tank today. I am hoping that maybe it is a bad fuel issue? I know the carbs have a throttle position sensor. Could this be the cause the sensation?

Thanks for your help. Have a great holiday tomorrow.
 
Once you find out if the cylinder is dead or not start following the fuel and air path of that cylinder to see if anything looks out of place. Then I would do the same with the spark. If you can't see anything out of place and don't feel comfortable tearing it apart to find out whats wrong take it to a diffrent place. If you can feel the stumble they should be able to without a doubt.
 
Yeah, I will NOT be bringing my bike back to that dealership!

Hey BroHay...

I started the bike cold and used a spray bottle to wet the pipes.. All the cylinders got hot very quickly except the number one cylinder. It remained cool to the touch. Of course the bike was running rough. I let the bike run for about five mins and the number one started to get warm as the idle started to smooth out a bit. The number one cylinder never got as warm as the rest. I do believe that the number one cylinder was starting to fire intermittently. Ok so I guess I know what cylinder is the problem now. I am not sure if the spark plug wires will reach but I could switch the number 1 and 4 wire and see if the problem follows. If I understand the ignition system well enough the left coil fires cylinders 1 and 4 and they both fire at the same time, one cylinder will be on the power stroke and one on the exhaust stroke.??? It looks like the number one float bowl could be drained and dropped with out removing anything else. I could take a look at the jets. I am having a hard time convincing myself that it is a fuel issue. I just don't understand how fuel would be that intermittent. :ugh:

Any ideas?
 
Try and reseat the wires. Check at the plugs and then go back to the coils and check the wires connected to the coils. Ill have to do a bit of diggin but will give you the wire connection and their order with picture for the connections.

It is possible that something else became dislodge and is fouling up the carbs. But first, check the air filter for any obstructions. I had a similar problem and had a large chunk of a leaf in the airbox. Removed, and my problems,at the time, were solved.

Im in a remote location without access to normal info, so maybe one of the more seasoned mechanics will chime in.....

More to come....
 
Your not going to believe this!

I got my Bee running this weekend. I decided to pull the carbs off my bike this weekend and check to see if the problems that I was having was due to faulty inlet O-Rings. As I am taking the bike apart It is becoming more and more apparent that the carbs have never been removed. As I am loosing the band clamps on the intake stubbies I am using a mirror to watch the back of the clamp to make sure that I don't loosen the clamp to the point that it comes apart. I don’t want to loose the clamp spacer. At this point I am 100% sure that the dealership never removed the carbs to clean the fuel bowls because the screws have 8 years of accumulated dirt on the threads. This dirt is being stripped off as I loosen the clamps. I am getting more and more pissed as I get closer to pulling the carbs out of the frame. When the carbs are finally out they are filthy!!!! Never been touched. At this point I deiced to call the general manager at the shop and let him know that one of his mechanics is charging for work that he is not performing. After about five min's on the phone the I offer to bring the carbs down to his shop to let him see for himself. Once we were in his office he took a look at the carbs and I could tell he was in full agreement. Next thing I know another gentleman walks in to the office. It turns out to be the owner of the dealership. As a side note this is a very large dealership. We get to talking and he is visibly getting pissed.. Not at me but at what his shop didn't do. He gets a mechanic to come in the office with a screw driver. They try to open the float bowls and they are so tight that they couldn't bust them loose. They offer to clean the carbs for me.. I thought about it for a bit, I was not sure if I wanted them to touch the carbs at all.. The owner and the GM were treating very good at this point so I said sure... I figured at least I would have clean carbs to work with. I told them that I wanted to be in the shop when they opened the float bowls. We all went to the shop and the shop foreman opened the bowls with everyone there. The bowls were in pretty good shape but it was clear that they had not been cleaned. I left the carbs with them and came back later that day to pick them up. They looked great. The mechanic opened the idle mixture screws to clean the passages. He set the screws at I think he said 2 turns? He did tell me I needed to adjust them when I get them installed and running. He said to start the bike and turn them in one at a time until I see an RPM increase then turn them back out a full turn... Does that sound right? As I am walking out the GM grabs me and takes me to his office and the owner comes in and they both apologize for the situation. The owner hands me a check for all my money that I paid for the valve adjustment/check and the float bowl cleaning. I really appreciate the fact that they tried to make things right. I do believe that the mechanic that falsified the documents is going to be rolling his tools out of the shop when he returns to work. The owner was pissed... I get home and deiced to remove the AIS system from the bike before I install the carbs. Pats Motorcycle page is an awesome resource! If you have not been there, check it out. Once I get everything reinstalled, the bike starts right up and runs smooth.. The Lead mechanic said he was sure that the number one slide valve was sticking and most likely the cause of the poor performance. All I know is the bike is running 100% better. :tup:

Maybe :deadhorse: does pay off sometimes?:2cents:
 
Was it the same monkey who did the valves? Id like to be the one to tell him he's canned........only way to ensure the job is done right!

Now you have more money to accessorize the bee.
 
My advice after having 64 bikes is, when your bike goes in bring a good book a video cam a tripod set them up start filming and reading and it is amazing how few mistakes the mechanics make.

PS I always wear my uniform when doing this, I think the color blue makes them more careful with your darling. :)
 
I am sure that showing up in the color blue would be a great motivator.. LOL.. Well the evil has returned to the Bee... It started to miss again. :( When I started it up and it started to miss I started to poke around the motor and I noticed every time it missed I could hear the snap of a plug wire arching to ground. I was going through the maintenance manual and I ran across a spark plug cap Ohm check.. The manual states that once the spark plug cap is removed that it can be checked by the use of a multimeter. If the spark plug cap doesn't ohm out at 10K Ohms to replace it. So I grabbed my meter and started pulling spark pull caps. I have 2 at about 10.36K and two in the 8K range. That manual does not give a tolerance. It says 10K. I ordered four new caps.. Yamaha is very proud of them. They retail for $68 bucks a piece... I found them online for $45. I figured that they are 8 years old and it wouldn't hurt to replace them. When I get them I will Ohm them out and report back on how close to the 10K they are.
 
Update

Last week I received the new spark plug caps that I ordered. I promptly removed them from the box and checked the resistance of each cap with a multimeter. All the new spark plug cap measured between 9.9K to 10.3K. This was right in line with what I had read in the maintenance manual. I decided as I was installing them that I would cut about 1/8” off each of the spark plug wires to make sure that the new caps get a good bite in the wires. Once everything was installed I fired the bike up. The change was amazing!!!! The idle was smooth as glass! I thought OK... The bike ran good after the carb cleaning as well but soon was back to misfiring. So I took the bike out and put about 100 miles on it. It was like a completely different bike. All the vibration was gone. The bike was smooth though out the RPM range. The bike didnt miss a beat the entire ride. Without a doubt I am sure I had a bad spark plug cap. If you ever encounter a similar problem save yourself a lot of time and money any ohm out your spark plug caps before you spend a ton of money to have your carbs removed and cleaned. I was starting to have ideas of replacing the bike, but all of the those thoughts seem to disappear with a twist of the throttle. I am now thinking of installing Ivan’s Jet Kit to my bike. I have an ART slip-on can and I think a jet kit would be the perfect upgrade for my bike.
 
Congratulations mate, apart from using lots of uncommon, common sense, you know know more about your bike than most and as regarding to Pats! (don't tell him I said this) his site is a work of art and I have made sure that my mechanic has joined FZ10A so that he can access Pats when working on my bike.

Happy riding from one Bee owner to another.
 
BroHay said:
Electrical=my weakest trade

How does one ohm out a wire?
Click to expand...

It's just a measure of resistance. With the multimeter, just set it to read OHM's and then put one probe on the contact at one end of the wire and the other probe on the contact at the other end. BINGO! It will measure the resistance through the wire and give you a reading.
 
A&P Mech said:
Last week I received the new spark plug caps that I ordered. I promptly removed them from the box and checked the resistance of each cap with a multimeter. All the new spark plug cap measured between 9.9K to 10.3K. This was right in line with what I had read in the maintenance manual. I decided as I was installing them that I would cut about 1/8” off each of the spark plug wires to make sure that the new caps get a good bite in the wires. Once everything was installed I fired the bike up. The change was amazing!!!! The idle was smooth as glass! I thought OK... The bike ran good after the carb cleaning as well but soon was back to misfiring. So I took the bike out and put about 100 miles on it. It was like a completely different bike. All the vibration was gone. The bike was smooth though out the RPM range. The bike didnt miss a beat the entire ride. Without a doubt I am sure I had a bad spark plug cap. If you ever encounter a similar problem save yourself a lot of time and money any ohm out your spark plug caps before you spend a ton of money to have your carbs removed and cleaned. I was starting to have ideas of replacing the bike, but all of the those thoughts seem to disappear with a twist of the throttle. I am now thinking of installing Ivan’s Jet Kit to my bike. I have an ART slip-on can and I think a jet kit would be the perfect upgrade for my bike.
Click to expand...

I happy that your "Bee" is buzzing away again. I'm also glad that you didn't let that deadbeat mechanic at the dealership off the hook. For the money that they charge for service, he should be fired!
 
Thanks!

Thanks guys for all the help and kind words!

BroHay, Just like FZ1riderNY stated. Grab a multimeter and select the Ohm position and use one lead from the meter on the top of the cap and one on the spark plug side. It doesn’t matter what lead you use for either side when you are measuring resistance. The plug caps just unscrew from the spark plug wires. The manual also shows the proper way to ohm out the coil and the spark plug wires. You can also take the spark plug caps apart to clean them. If you remove the spark plug cap from the wire and look at the end that clips on to the plug, you will notice a slot machined into the brass. Just grab the proper fitting screw driver and unscrew the brass connector. When you remove the brass connector it will be followed by a resistor that looks like an older glass automotive fuse and a spring. I do think it would be very easy to clean any corrosion off these parts and restore them back to good working order.

Fz1riderNY, I am licensed aircraft mechanic and I have worked with a few mechs that have no business working on aircraft. I have no tolerance for mechanics that falsify documents. These kind of people put everyone involved at risk. With that being said, I have a basic understanding of piston engines but until I find a way to put a turbine in my Bee I am going to have to continue hanging out here. :) There is a wealth of knowable here.

cookie99, I do understand the workings of my bike better then ever. It has been an interesting journey. So I have a question off topic for you.... Since you are from down under... Is your bike yellow with black trim or black with yellow trim? :) I ask because I am not sure which I have... LOL I am going to be on your side of the world later this year. I am heading to New Zealand in November for work... Do you guys have the Lamb and Mint potato chips in Australia? A co-worker brought some back from New Zealand. They are sure different then what we have here in the states.

Thanks again guys!
 
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A&P My bike was injured in an accident in 2003 and I was told that all Bees are Black with yellow decals.

As far as food down under, we don't eat but get all our nutritional needs from copious quantities of cheap wine mixed with Metho. On the good side we have Socialized medical care so liver transplants are cheap. :)

Glad you are up and running mate have fun and stay safe.
 
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