09.03.99 |
Mileage: 16,650 I have spent the last two days installing
the Electronic Ignition Conversion System. This conversion
deserves its own section on this web site (which it will receive). I am now waiting for
photos to come back from processing. Please check back. One more thing: they were real,
and they were ...spectacular.
Changed shocks to Red Wing (all
chrome). Now this is exactly what was needed! The damping action has made the bike a lot
more stable and well behaved. In conversation with many folks, everyone seems to agree:
the CB/CL 72/77 factory shocks are too lacking, even when new. The Red Wings have a
thicker shaft and a larger oil reservoir. They do it better.
Also:
- Oiled the chain
- Disassembled and oiled the
throttle cable; end to end.
I don't know why I did not try
this before, but I moved the throttle cable to the left side of the frame (the section
with the one into two distribution junction). Things seem to align better this way and the
carb slides snap back.
Note: I tried a light coating of
fine lubricating oil on the carb slides and the results were bad. The oil actually
interfered with the slides' movement. Once the oil was removed, things went back to
normal.
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08.12.99 |
Mileage: 16,160 Getting the bike ready for another long
trip - a mystery rally, in fact. You get a route
sheet at the beginning with directions and landmarks, but no road numbers. All modern
bikes; I am the only one with a 35 year old bike and brass round objects a bit south of
the waist. When it was all over, I really could say that the bike ran fantastic, but I am
getting ahead of the story:
Short write up:
This was a perfect opportunity to
follow Ed Moore's tuning directions, which, in the end, really
did produce a very strong running bike.
Unabridged:
Let me get straight to the point
here. I have discovered a very stealthy, but subversive malfunction in the bike. This goes
back to and actually solves the lingering question of why the bike failed to run well,
earlier in the year (see the entry for 05.14.99) and made me
suspect the coil to be the culprit.
Instead, it turned out to be the
left side points. While doing a static timing test, with the test lamp attached (one side
to chassis the other to the points lead), I discovered that the test light simply does not
come on at the left points when the motor is cranked over by hand. Since the bike would
run if kicked over or started with the electric starter, it became apparent that the
points had a weak tension spring: too week to fully close the points unless aided by the
bounce induced by a nominally fast motor revolution.
So it all came together - the
bike running rather weak over the last several hundred miles, feeling soft and tired, and
also that incident back in May when it refused to run for a while, making the left coil a
suspect - all the evidence was finally accumulated into a preponderance. The fix was a
simple one - I removed the left points and gave the tension tab an extra bend in order to
increase the tension. As soon as this was done things came together. I was able to
complete the tune up and the bike began to run very strong.
Let me reiterate that this would
not have been discovered had I not been following Ed Moore's Power
Tune Up instructions; all the more reason to follow good advice. I can report to you
that when done, the bike has been running very strong. The 600 mile rally had me running in hot summer heat and
then through pouring rain; torrential downpour for about 30 minutes soaking me to the
bone, followed by several hours of just rain. Pavement, packed gravel/dirt and plain ol'
mud. The ride also took my '64 SuperHawk high into the mountains of Vermont, so high in
fact that I was riding through clouds. Clouds, not fog, literally. The high altitude
actually made the bike perform differently at the top than the bottom, but more on that
some other time.
This tune up consisted of:
Also:
- Oiled all linkages
- Oiled the chain
- Drained and refilled front shocks:
220ml ATF
Note to self:
- Rear shocks are gone. No damping
action, whatsoever.
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