New Season New Issues?

FINALLY the weather is Ok for riding!
It was a LONG Dreary winter and getting on the bike has been such a relief.

BUT... First I had two oil leaks.

One from the left side of the crankcase from the Starter Clutch Cover. Why? Who the fuck knows!
It started over the winter and wasn't too bad but any leak is a problem so I had to fix it. lucky for me i accidentally bought a starter clutch cover gasket when what I wanted was a Clutch cover gasket . i could have sent it back but at the time i figured hey why not? It was only a few dollars.

GOOD CALL  :) .

Number two leak was the drain Plug. I didn't document it but I had striped the oil pan threads last year during an oil change . I know, I know rookie move.  Being a little rushed (by me ,part of my personality issues?) I went with a self taping replacement drain plug. I would have prefered a helicoil but that wasn't possible at the time.It worked great but the provided washer was a soft washer and not so hot and it was leaking too. BTW this is after an oil change that i had to do to replace that starter Clutch cover gasket. Why didn't I change it during the oil change you say? I forgot to get a new gasket. And as I don't have my own place to work on it I was in a friend's driveway ,inconveniently distant from a place to get one.

I  decided to replace it with a copper  washer thinking that would be a much better solution.

NOPE

So after Draining the oil replacing the soft washer with copper and refilling the bike with the drained oil. It was if anything WORSE.  I revisited Canadian Tire got a fresh lot of Oil ,filter and a soft washer. Did yet ANOTHER oil change( using Castrol 4 stroke Motorcycle oil rather than my prefered Mobil1 Full Synthetic.  Due to cost mostly. 1/2 price and i wasn't sure it wasn't going to leak all over after all this)  .

Success ! No leaks for a almost a week and about 500 Km's.

All Good!

Or Not so much?

On Sunday I took San out for Brunch on the Bandit. We then did few errands ,on the way to our last stop suddenly the throttle got sloppy I was pretty sure that my Pull throttle cable had broken as it has been frayed since last year. I have a replacement but it's a bit of a job getting it on so I haven't tackled it yet. So after we got home I took  the bike over to a close by culdesac and pulled the tank to have a look. lucky me the pull cable had just come loose on the carb mount and is was just a few minutes to sort out. at least a couple of hours to change the cable ,I have to remove the carbs to do it.

After a little adjustment it was better than ever :)

But I noticed something interesting while I was doing this work. Could it be that my poor old Bandit had a Cold? Or was it spring allergies? Or...

Well not literally of course , if you think motorcycles have allergies or get colds maybe your grip on reality is a little loose?

It DID sneeze though!

For Reals!!

Only it's not allergies or a cold of course. The Bandit had what is known a a "Lean Sneeze" over a Maximum Suzuki . A well known condition bandits are prone to ,especially when stock and running very lean. What happens is that due to the lean condition a cylinder will fire prematurely while the intake valve is actually open  sending a little explosion back through the carb. This is NOT a good thing. Now I  am not stock ,I have a Holshot Stage 1 jet kit so I was not expecting to see the rubber intake pipe bulge while i was looking at the left side of the engine close up and listening. However it definitely "Lean Sneezed"

The good thing is as I said it's a known condition. The first thing to check is the idle mixture screww so i checked and it was pretty much the 3.5 turns out recommended by Dale Walker. I'm not 100% certain I've fixed it but I've sent the idle mixture screw on Cylinder #1  to 4 turns out instead of the 3.5 turns and preliminary results look good. The Bike actually felt a little stronger  on last nights ride and one of the most annoying noises it makes appears to be gone. I've been looking at the other 3 cylinders to see if it was happening on them too but so far so good:)

That's enough for now. More to follow

Chain Gang

Ok I don't know why I called it that.

I finally got a new chain on to the Bandit a couple of weeks ago.

Had a really hard time getting the new sprockets on but the end result is awesome. I love how smooth it is in comparison.

It felt like I needed a carb sync but really the sprockets were out of shape.

That makes cornering quite a bit more comfortable LOL

Pennsylvania

I managed a 4 day trip down to Pennsylvania In July (15-19th)

Had a blast for the most part, but I was going through what I am starting to call my down cycle. it's part of the depression and it comes and goes. When it comes I start getting anxious and that makes the ride a little less comfortable.

Mind you my chain was on it's last legs and that was making for some anxiety too .

I was joined by my good friend Adrian , Adrian has a triumph Sprint ST . I LOVE that bike.

If I could I'd pick one up today. Love the bandit but.... It is no doubt getting very long in the tooth and repairs , weird noses  and adjustments are beginning to burn me out especially as I don't  have anywhere to work on it at home.

I love riding with Adrian as well, he's very good and he's just fine with whatever is going on in the moment and he is quite social and can talk to anybody. That means I don't have to either talk at all or at least not have to try and connect when I'm not able to (95% of the time ;( )

I have been fantasizing about turning  the bandit  into a street fighter and that would be very cool but my fantasy includes an engine rebuild which, without my own space that I can control is just not possible.

Still it is what it is and I still get a lot of pleasure riding.

Saggy Rear End

The bandit needs a new rear shock . The rear end sags badly almost bottoming out two up . 

I picked up a Hayabusa shock off of eBay for $ 40 ,pre-load  rebound damping and compression damping . Only pre load on the OEM Shock . 

I'm hoping for a more stable ride . The rear end  may end up an inch higher or so . That may make the steering quicker . Not sure how that will be but I'm looking forward to finding out .