FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Hey that sounds good! Can you send me that in a clickable link? Thats way better than buying a new can, and I'm great with a rivet gun!
Update On My Intermittent Problem
- Thread starter FZ1riderNY
- Start date
Hey that sounds good! Can you send me that in a clickable link? Thats way better than buying a new can, and I'm great with a rivet gun!
NJFZ1
Moderator
I found it in their catalog, which is in PDF format. Look on page 42 about 2/3s of the way down.
http://www.danddexhaust.com/catalog/complete_exhaust_catalog.pdf
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Thanks for the link Tony. I'll probably order it this week and make that my next project. I may even take about 4" off the length of the can while I'm at it if I see it's feasable.
FZ1inTX
Adminstrator
I really hope that ends the issues and the bike is back in top form. Keep us informed of how she is running. Kudos for tackling this on your own! :tup:
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Hey everyone, I just got back from a 17 mile sprint to City Island to meet CanonFuji and guess what????.......I actually made it back home with no problem. The bike is still running different but I can't put my finger on it. I let Ray ride my bike home while I took his. The D&D is definitely trashed. I'm sure that the day we broke down with Tony 2 weeks ago left the pipe soaked inside with raw fuel and carbon, and must have reaked havoc on the packing. The bike runs smooth at highway speeds but just sounds so different. Now that I know that the bike won't get stuck, I assume that there is some fine tuning in order. This Wednesday morning, I'm riding up to Ivan's first thing and just let him have the bike. I'm sure once he rides the bike, he'll know just whats going on.
Just on throttle in first gear there is like a shudder like the whole bike vibrates and it's like you have to ride the clutch a little to get going. Once under way, everything is smooth and normal except for the horrible raspy sound from the pipe. All the speeds correspond with the tach so there's no clutch slippage. I just remember the bike having a bit more power.
Anyway, I did the best I could and I'm done with what I'm qualified to do. Now it will be up to Ivan to fine tune the rest and get my baby back to normal.
Just on throttle in first gear there is like a shudder like the whole bike vibrates and it's like you have to ride the clutch a little to get going. Once under way, everything is smooth and normal except for the horrible raspy sound from the pipe. All the speeds correspond with the tach so there's no clutch slippage. I just remember the bike having a bit more power.
Anyway, I did the best I could and I'm done with what I'm qualified to do. Now it will be up to Ivan to fine tune the rest and get my baby back to normal.
NJFZ1
Moderator
I wonder if the EXUP valve is not opening all the way...I know you were going to service it a while back, but did you ever get to it? Just an idea...
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Wow Tony, another good one. With all thats been going on it has just totally slipped my mind. No, I never got to do it and last night after I synched the carbs, I even moved the tube of copper grease out of the way when cleaning up. Well, I'll have to do that Tuesday right after work. I'll still be going up to Ivan though so I can get my confidence back. Ray happened to already be out on the road this afternoon, so I rode to City Island by my lonesome, my heart beating double time all the way there. Definitely not how I want to be riding. Thanks again!
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Well I never got a chance to check the EXUP valve. Taking the train and bus home from work is a P.I.T.A.! By the time I got home it's close to 6:00pm. It doesn't matter at this point because tomorrow morning at 9:45am, I'll be sitting in front of Ivan's chatting with Gina. Even if it takes most of the day, I'll be sitting and hoping to go home with my baby back to normal again. I'll post up when I get home. If everything goes REALLY well, I may even be able to get up to the last "bike night" of the year up on Bear Mountain. Wish me luck!
NJFZ1
Moderator
Good luck tomorrow. I sure hope you get your bike fixed so we can ride again, although the weekend weather is not looking good. Oh and if you spend the day there at least Gina will be keeping you company
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Oh and if you spend the day there at least Gina will be keeping you company
Ya see, there's a good side to everything!!:tup:
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Consider Me................BACK BABY!!!!!
Only half of being a good mechanic is knowing how to fix or replace a part on your car or bike, either by normal replacement or by fabbing something up to make it work again. The other half of being a good mechanic is troubleshooting. Watching or listening to how a motor runs and ruling out potential problems until you find the root cause of whats wrong. I consider myself a decent streetcorner mechanic. I've been working on cars for probably two thirds of my life, and have been maintaining my bikes for about that long as well.
Well, I guess that I still have much to learn in the troubleshooting aspect when it comes to bikes. It's been almost three weeks since the bike went on the fritz. I pretty much tried to check everything the best I could to figure out what the problem was.
Ivan strapped the bike to the dyno at about 10:30am this morning, and had the problem diagnosed and fixed by 10:35am! It winds up that it was a combination of things stemming from the watered down gas. It all made sense as Ivan speculated what happened.
The plugs that where in the bike were brand new with less than 600 miles on them. It winds up that once the water worked it's way to the carbs,(The Sunday I broke down), the water injected onto the hot plug glazed over and cracked the porcelain on the #1 cylinder. I had checked for spark back two weeks ago finding that I had spark on all cylinders yet the spark on this particular plug was firing from the wall of the porcelain, back to the electrode, not the arm, therefore there was a spark but no arc was being produced. I was just looking for a spark which I saw, but once Ivan showed me the plug through the magnifying glass, you could plainly see it was bad. He changed out all the plugs for me once he found out the problem just to be safe that any other plugs might have gone bad as well. He started the bike and it immediately ran flawlessly, just like she used to. He ran it through the gears on the dyno for a few minutes to be sure and she ran beautifully, the pipe emitting that great tone again. It was music to my ears. He didn't have to pull the carbs since I had already done that and gave them a good cleaning and checked the float heights, plus I had already synched them myself as well.
As an added bonus, Ivan let me take his 159rwhp 01' FZ1 out for a spin. The stock bars were great and I think I may go to stock on my bike after tooling around on his. You immediately feel the reworked suspension as you take off. I can just touch my toes on the ground on his bike where I can almost rest my feet flat on mine. Power is a smooth and linear, and once you get past 5k on the tach, you can tell that the motor had some work done to it. I didn't really get on it too much. I leave that stuff for my own bike. I couldn't afford to lay down someone elses bike, especially this particular one.
I hung out with Ivan until CanonFuji rolled up to meet me and then we both headed up towards Bear Mountain to go the long way home. The bike ran perfectly again with all my power back to normal. It's so nice to know that I won't be taking the train and bus to work tomorrow, not to mention that I can get an extra half hour of sleep!
I always have a great time when I'm up at Ivan's place. He loves to talk shop as well as regular everyday stuff. I just want to thank him again for quick and courteous service, the way it should be! Also, a big thanks to Gina. She's always pleasant to chat with and always has a big smile even though I know she's not feeling well. I'm hoping she feels better tomorrow.
Only half of being a good mechanic is knowing how to fix or replace a part on your car or bike, either by normal replacement or by fabbing something up to make it work again. The other half of being a good mechanic is troubleshooting. Watching or listening to how a motor runs and ruling out potential problems until you find the root cause of whats wrong. I consider myself a decent streetcorner mechanic. I've been working on cars for probably two thirds of my life, and have been maintaining my bikes for about that long as well.
Well, I guess that I still have much to learn in the troubleshooting aspect when it comes to bikes. It's been almost three weeks since the bike went on the fritz. I pretty much tried to check everything the best I could to figure out what the problem was.
Ivan strapped the bike to the dyno at about 10:30am this morning, and had the problem diagnosed and fixed by 10:35am! It winds up that it was a combination of things stemming from the watered down gas. It all made sense as Ivan speculated what happened.
The plugs that where in the bike were brand new with less than 600 miles on them. It winds up that once the water worked it's way to the carbs,(The Sunday I broke down), the water injected onto the hot plug glazed over and cracked the porcelain on the #1 cylinder. I had checked for spark back two weeks ago finding that I had spark on all cylinders yet the spark on this particular plug was firing from the wall of the porcelain, back to the electrode, not the arm, therefore there was a spark but no arc was being produced. I was just looking for a spark which I saw, but once Ivan showed me the plug through the magnifying glass, you could plainly see it was bad. He changed out all the plugs for me once he found out the problem just to be safe that any other plugs might have gone bad as well. He started the bike and it immediately ran flawlessly, just like she used to. He ran it through the gears on the dyno for a few minutes to be sure and she ran beautifully, the pipe emitting that great tone again. It was music to my ears. He didn't have to pull the carbs since I had already done that and gave them a good cleaning and checked the float heights, plus I had already synched them myself as well.
As an added bonus, Ivan let me take his 159rwhp 01' FZ1 out for a spin. The stock bars were great and I think I may go to stock on my bike after tooling around on his. You immediately feel the reworked suspension as you take off. I can just touch my toes on the ground on his bike where I can almost rest my feet flat on mine. Power is a smooth and linear, and once you get past 5k on the tach, you can tell that the motor had some work done to it. I didn't really get on it too much. I leave that stuff for my own bike. I couldn't afford to lay down someone elses bike, especially this particular one.
I hung out with Ivan until CanonFuji rolled up to meet me and then we both headed up towards Bear Mountain to go the long way home. The bike ran perfectly again with all my power back to normal. It's so nice to know that I won't be taking the train and bus to work tomorrow, not to mention that I can get an extra half hour of sleep!
I always have a great time when I'm up at Ivan's place. He loves to talk shop as well as regular everyday stuff. I just want to thank him again for quick and courteous service, the way it should be! Also, a big thanks to Gina. She's always pleasant to chat with and always has a big smile even though I know she's not feeling well. I'm hoping she feels better tomorrow.
NJFZ1
Moderator
Well I am glad that is finally running like it should again. What an ordeal! On the bright side now you know there's nothing else wrong with the bike since you pretty much checked everything else out while you were troubleshooting.
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Yeah, It is so nice to have the bike running great again. Me and Ray rode 80 miles today with no problems other than it being friggin cold outside. I made the mistake of not dressing properly today. I had the liber in my coat but only had a tee shirt underneath thinking that it would warm up later on. Boy was I wrong! Thanks for all the help from you and everyone else. It was a troubling 3 weeks but as Ivan said, "at least it's not an internal motor issue". He's absolutely right. I'll take a bad spark plug any day.
So of course it's gonna rain the entire weekend! Wonderful.
FZ1inTX
Adminstrator
Nice! That is awesome news Billy. Glad to hear it was something minor and you're back on two! :tup:
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Thanks Eric, now I just gotta save up some dough and have the car's tranny fixed and everything will be back to normal. At least I'm back on two wheels for the moment.
FZ1inTX
Adminstrator
Jeez Billy! If it weren't for hard luck, you'd have no luck at all! I sure hope it all sorts out and you have more to smile about.
What's the car? We can knock a tranny out in a night. You supply the cinderblocks...
What's the car? We can knock a tranny out in a night.
You supply the cinderblocks...
NJFZ1
Moderator
J...We can knock a tranny out in a night.
That reminds me of the time the starter went on my first car. Me and my friend pushed it home (about 6 or 7 blocks). I then replaced the starter on the ground by getting one front wheel up on the sidewalk. This was in the middle of January. Definitely not something I would ever care to repeat, but when you're a teenager with no money...
FZ1riderNY
Moderator
Jeez Billy! If it weren't for hard luck, you'd have no luck at all! I sure hope it all sorts out and you have more to smile about.
What's the car? We can knock a tranny out in a night.
I know, tell me about it! The car actually started acting up the day after the bike broke down. It seems that I have lost reverse gear on the 86 Olds Cutlass. I have a place near me that will install a rebuilt 200 tranny for $850.00 with a six month warranty. They are all newly rebuilt with shift kits installed. After hearing prices from about 9 other places, this seems like the place where I'll wind up. Most of the other guys wanted just over $1100.00 dollars and the most expensive guy was $1389.00. Thats insane! I'm sure that if I lived down south, I'd have a tranny dropped in for half the price. It's not like its a turbo 350 or 400. It's a crappy 200 metric tranny. New York totally sucks!
Steve F
Well-Known Member
Glad to hear it Billy!! I can imagine how frustrated you must have been. But at least you have that great photograph of you in deep thought and contemplation while gazing upon the FZ. That was a beauty. I never would have thought the spark plugs would have been the main culprits either. I was thinking of you a few days ago. After one of my fill-ups my bike wasn't running as well as it should. Luckily I ran it through that tank-full of gas quickly.
On a side note, I did a trip to Vermont this past weekend. 763 miles round trip. We had great weather up until Sunday. Of the 335 miles to home at least 270 of them was in the rain. I'll start a thread on it as soon as I can and after I have time to get the pics organized. About 10 of us will be doing either a Pine Barrens or Catskills ride before the season is over. I'll be sure to let you and the FZ1 Forum crew know before it happens.
I have 3,966 miles on thre bike now. Time for the second servicing. Sorry for the thread hijacking.
Ride safe!
On a side note, I did a trip to Vermont this past weekend. 763 miles round trip. We had great weather up until Sunday. Of the 335 miles to home at least 270 of them was in the rain. I'll start a thread on it as soon as I can and after I have time to get the pics organized. About 10 of us will be doing either a Pine Barrens or Catskills ride before the season is over. I'll be sure to let you and the FZ1 Forum crew know before it happens.
I have 3,966 miles on thre bike now. Time for the second servicing. Sorry for the thread hijacking.
Ride safe!