We are leaving to the gulf coast again for a week through Memorial day. The plan is to go deep sea fishing and then meet up with some Texas online friends at another meet and greet at Koyote Ranch. Last year we got blown out by rough sees and had to go bay fishing instead to salvage the day.
For a while it has seemed like this trip might not happen. First the Yamaha was down with its charging woes and shorts in the rain, then the BMW with its excessively loud valve train noise that needs adjustment and mucked up tank that needs cleaning took that bike out of the equation also. Problems with gear that hasn’t been used in a year, parts needed that won’t get here in time, Cece having knee issues that needs an orthopedic surgeon, an excessive amount of things at work coming up all at once.. Or in other words, the usual.
I really do not like doing major bike work right before leaving on a long trip without having time to test it out but the V Star has had much of her wiring guts ripped out and replaced and a brand new stator put in and every wiring connection and ground that I could find cleaned and liberally waterproofed with dielectric grease. She is running good now and I’ve clocked 140 miles on it in the last few days since the open-heart surgery in my driveway and I’m feeling more confident that she’ll make it the 2000 or so miles next week without incident.
not a good way to start a bike trip
Now just have to find all our camping gear and touring equipment and hit the road! I’m really bad about posting updates from the road but will try putting a pic on Facebook every day or two. See ya soon!
You know how it is. The weather is starting to warm up and you are getting that itch to go riding after all that cabin fever, you go out to the garage and lo and behold your trusty steed refuses to fire up. What do you do?
Ok, not my V Star, but I get asked this enough this time of year that I’ve decided to do a quick diagnostic post that I can point to instead of writing all of this over and over.
1. PILOT JETS!! Did your bike work fine when you parked it for winter several months ago and now won’t start? Check that the pilot jets are not gummed up, this is a VERY common issue with the V Star 650′s. If the bike has been sitting long at all I would check and clean the pilots regardless. Also if the bike will start under full choke but will not run off choke, pilot jets! Check here for some videos documenting how to clean the carbs. If you have Ziv’s stainless carb screws installed, cleaning the pilots is a breeze and does not take more than 15 or 20 minutes. For cleaning out the pilot jets, the wire out of a bread tie is the perfect size.
2. Battery. Again, bike sat all winter and now it won’t crank. Not to worry, its most likely just your battery. If it drained enough over winter to not start again you can throw a trickle charger on there and maybe get going but typically a battery can not handle many deep cycle charges like this and you’ll want to start looking for a new battery when your finances allow.
2a. Battery terminals. If your battery tests good but you are still getting no crank or the relay is buzzing, clean off those terminals! One of my batteries was working fine till it decided to loose a connection and left me stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone reception. Took me a while to try cleaning the connections as one last ditch effort and what do you know the bike fired right up.
3. Air leaks. I hate air leaks they are always difficult to hunt down. Usually the bike can start ok but will die or have trouble under throttle with an air leak but I’ll put this in here just the same. Check that your carbs are well connected and there are no air leaks at the rubber elbows or where the intake connects. It is easy to over tighten those air box or GAK POD filter connections causing them to pop off, snug is good, too tight is not. If its none of the usual culprits check that the rubber boots that connect to the air ports under the carbs on the elbows have not dry rotted, or if you have AIS be sure none of those rubber air lines have cracked and started leaking. A good way to test for air leaks is once the bike is running again spray something near those connections and lines and listen for the RPMs to go up something like starting fluid or even WD40 will work.
4. Pickup coil. If the bike cranks well and the fuel system is working well but you are still getting no spark or weak spark, check the pickup coil. The 2 wire connection under the tank is the best place to measure the resistances like stated at the top of this document. If your pickup coil is indeed toast here is how to fix that, I’m sorry to tell you its a bit involved and somewhat of an expensive replacement.
5. Ignition coils. Does the bike have a hard time starting or only runs much of the time on one cylinder until it warms up? If you’ve already checked the fuel system, Check the coils under the tank. Coil problems often mimic carb problems or is it the other way around?
This is just a quick writeup I’m sure I’ll think of others in time and add them here. If you think of something to add let me know in the comments and I’ll put it in too.
6. Fuel. You did turn the fuel on didn’t you? I know its obvious but you put the bike a way months ago and forgot to turn the fuel back on. It’s embarrassing and happens to the best of us, I won’t tell if you won’t.
7. Safety Switches. Kill Switch, Nuetral Switch, Clutch Switch, Kickstand Switch. The bike will not run with the kill switch off or the clutch out and the kickstand down while in gear. We’ll forgive you if you forgot the startup sequence after the long winter. Also if your bike refuses to turn over and all the fuses are good and the battery is good, start checking all of those switches mentioned for failure. It is possible to disable them by shorting them or remove them completely but they are on there for a good reason.
Oh No! After the extreme cold weather my V Star 650 is pretending to be a Harley Davidson again! (Its just a joke people jeez, bikers are so sensitive. I know HD’s quality is not anywhere near as bad as the AMF days anymore)
Sooner or later if you have a xsv650 variant you will get this annoying leak by the kickstand. Not to fear this is a very easy fix that even the most non-mechanically inclined can fix. For me this problem seems to happen most often in the cold of winter, I think it is due to the plastic switch being set into the aluminum engine and the different materials expanding at different rates, or it could just be the cold O ring not sealing as good. Who knows, but eventually all bikes seem to get this leak.
Pull the fake Transmission cover off. There are only 4 bolts holding it on, they will be the ones with the washer and rubber behind it. The other bolts on the Classic cover are fake and for show only, they don’t go to anything. Your guess is as good as mine why they put fake screws on there, maybe its supposed to make the cover look cool and less like a fake tranny or as we would say “lipstick on a pig.”
Remove the crescent moon shaped cover, just 2 bolts here.
Check your stator wires grommet for leaks. Another leak can happen from here that is much more difficult to fix. These look good and seem to be holding since the Stator Replacement.
As you can see my leak this time is from the plastic neutral switch. 9 times out of 10 this will be the source of your oil leak from the kickstand area.
Its that time of year again, I let the bike sit too long over winter without first putting Seafoam in the gas and now the pilot jets in my carbs are clogged up and the bike won’t run off choke. I thought about doing a post on how to clean out the carbs but since someone already went through the trouble of doing some fairly nice videos of the process I’ll just use those instead. Parts of these videos are wrong here and there and while the guy looks like he knows what he’s doing its apparent he hasn’t done much with this particular carb or bike before, but overall they are ok. Enjoy.
Most of the time you would not need to fully disassemble the carbs to clean them, however if you do so be sure to use Ziv’s stainless replacement screws as it makes future maintenance a breeze. If the bike has only been sitting a short while and will not start or will not idle off of choke then 90% of the time the pilot jets are clogged and just need to be cleaned not the entire carb. If you happen to have Ziv’s screws already on your carbs you can very easily clean out the pilot jets (or swap main jets) in about 5 to 15 minutes without taking the tank off. Maybe I’ll do a future post on that process.
This one is a good example of the differences between a California model V Star (in the video) vs a 49 state model (mine). Most likely you would not have to deal with the extra gas tank vent lines.
I also wouldn’t even bother with the fuel catch jar. What are you saving? 5 drops? Just hold a rag under the petcock when you pull off the fuel line and call it good as the numerous pics of me on this blog doing the same have shown:
Getting this very stiff rubber piece on the piston is tough! I had to resort to using a small jewelers screwdriver for leverage to pry it on there and it still took about 15 or 20 minutes to get it on straight in the underlying groove. Just keep at it you’ll get it eventually.
Here is what that blasted needle bearing looks like and the reason for all of this mess. This is a bad design, BMW dropped the ball here. The outside edge of these rollers will always try to spin at a faster rate than the inside edge causing these things to partially slide and slip along and eventually wearing out and turning to dust as I found out.
Previous versions of this clutch actuator design instead used a roller bearing with round balls, much better way to go in my opinion. I have been thinking of a way to use the old bearing in my clutch, I think it can be done by just machining down the face of the piston and a bit of the end that contacts the adjustment screw to compensate for the thicker roller bearing. More info on the differences and changes of the design over the years on this excellent website here.
With all the new parts assembled in my hands I now understand how this mechanism works, from the drawings I couldn’t quite understand what kept the end of the rod from drilling through the pressure plate (like mine did) without needing to be lubricated. Now I see, when under pressure to open the clutch the whole rod spins freely (from the silvery bearing forward) and the piston remains stationary.
Like I mentioned before the washer on the end of the pushrod was fused to the shaft on one side and the other end mushroomed and flared out which made the removal of the old rod impossible from either direction. I had to cut it apart to get it out. Cue picture of sparks flying because it looks cool.
We went for a nice ride today to get a picture for a scavenger hunt from the CC&D forum which ended up taking us into new territory that I didn’t know existed. The fall colors of all the cotton woods and aspens were spectacular, quite a surprise. The colors visible from Santa Fe up on the ski hill had already faded, they usually peak the week of Columbus day and we’d had an early snow which knocked all the leaves off.
We went from Glorieta to Pecos along the old Route 66 winding through the amazing colors and from there we came to a crossroads where I had no idea where we were or where any of the roads went. We decided to head north and see where the road took us where we found a cool monastery and down a dirt road a lake surrounded by orange and yellow.
Just a quick follow up on putting the clutch back together after checking for damage and getting new parts in.
I am impressed that the OEM parts come in such heavy duty packaging. You don’t see that much anymore.
Siebenrock clutch disks come pre greased with something. I went ahead and added a touch of Honda Moly 60 paste on top of this just to be safe.
If you have gotten the clutch apart as mentioned earlier reinstalling the parts is pretty easy, just reverse the process. You will need this special clutch alignment tool, I got this one from Jeff Trapp at Northwoods Airheads. Use the shorter end for pre-1981 bikes and the other end for post ’81 bikes when they changed the clutch design.
Simply install the long screws you used in removal to hold the assembly together while using the alignment tool to make sure all of the pieces are lined up properly. If things are out of alignment you won’t be able to get the transmission on later.
This exploded parts diagram shows how the clutch actuation works. The lever #14 is attached to the clutch cable and handle bar lever which pushes on part #1 to release and engage the clutch. When I pulled mine apart to see just how bad the needle cage bearing #4 was on mine which I guessed had failed this is what I found below.
There was no bearing at all!! All I found was a silvery crumbly paste and the three small bits of roller bearings to the right. The bearing was completely ground down to dust! That might explain a few things!
The push rod (#1) goes through the center of the splined input shaft to the transmission. An unusual but compact design. The end of mine looked like this, very heavily worn and mushroomed out making it impossible to pull out through the back. Normally you do not need to pull the transmission out to inspect all these pieces and this regular maintenence of inspecting and lubricating the needle cage bearing can be done with everything still on the bike. (I wish I had known that ahead of time and perhaps my bike wouldnt have broken down in the first place) However, as this part on mine is completely mangled the whole transmission would have needed to come out anyway.
Why doesn’t he just pull it out through the front of the transmission you might ask? This is why. On the other end the shaft is fused to the washer and it’s impossible to remove! This is looking bad for what other damage I might find… Time to get out the hack saw or dremel cut off wheel.
I was not expecting these pieces to be so mangled, so I need to pull apart the clutch and check for additional damage and see what other parts I need to order.
First step in pulling apart the clutch is to remove every other bolt. These parts are under tremendous pressure and if the pressure is not released slowly and evenly you could loose an eye or more importantly damage the flywheel. The existing bolts are not long enough to fully release the spring and longer ones need to be put in.
For most of the last year my 1976 BMW R90/6 has been neglected. Sadly the R90 has sat inoperable before starting the teardown this weekend. A year ago the V Star’s pickup coil and clutch decided to go out and a week after that the BMW’s clutch cratered also. During a ride home the lever got very stiff and on the last hard pull it made a loud expensive sounding CLANK and the lever went slack, riding in rush hr traffic on a 34 year old bike with sucky antiquated brakes at best and no clutch is not a fun experience. I decided to fix the cheapest one with readily available parts first then its been one thing after another and before you know it wow has it been a year already?
I had been able to temporarily fix the clutch by readjusting the cables and the push rod bolts at the back of the transmission but that resulted in lots of squeaking and the clutch then being stuck open. I’ve guessed after reading numerious threads on ADVrider.com that the needle pushrod/throw out bearing is toast and mine sounded bad enough that I’d want to check the clutch too for damage and piece of mind.
Main thing preventing repair has been the center stand that was broken when I bought it. I didnt have the equipment to fix it and didn’t trust any of the dealers who couldnt even find the air cleaner in the computer to lay a hand on it. A few months ago a buddy and former BMW airhead mechanic opened a independent shop 2 miles from my house and to throw a little business his way I had him drill and retap the frame to finally repair the center stand. With that finally done teardown can begin!
First thing was getting rid of the battery box to see what I was working with to pull the transmission. What a royal pain in the ass that was! In hind sight its better to leave it there and first remove the air box to give a big hole to pull it out through the side of the frame instead of out the top. Also 4 of the 5 rubber mounts came apart and sadly I cant find any OEM replacements. I have a link for some rubber mount fasteners somewhere that I’ll put up on my Airhead resources page I’m also working on as I rebuild it.
Next, loosening the drive shaft bolts at the back of the transmission. The 10mm wrench in the tool kit is perfect for this, my own box end wrench was too thick to fit. Step down on the rear brake to prevent the shaft from turning and getting these out is a snap, Cece did all of them. You must use a 12 point box end though, these are not hex head bolts.
To remove the swingarm on an airhead you need to remove a thin recessed nut inside a tube. Its placed in such a way that a regular off the shelf socket will not fit. You’ll need something like this special machined down and faced socket available from Northwoods Airheads. These are very high quality and nicely made and also much cheaper than the BMW made tool for the same job that I happened to find in the stock tool kit after I started and didnt realize I had.
Went through Goliad on the way back again and now we’re back in San Antonio!
Time for some killer food and entertainment down at the River Walk!
Trip is almost over so we might as well splurge with the money we have left and go all out on some fancy dining overlooking the water to watch the boats and listen to the live bands playing on stage down below.
Yum! This chicken pasta was so filling I could hardly eat it all. Absolutely delicious and big portions to boot. It always annoyed me at other fine dining establishments that the more money you paid typically the less food you got and were still hungry afterwards, not so in Texas!
We noticed that there was a new Pirates of the Caribbean playing at the IMAX theatre in the Riverwalk Center. IMAXs rule! I’ve never actually seen a regular movie in one. There’s only one in New Mexico as part of a museum and they only play educational films on that and the next closest one is in Denver, not exactly optimal for a nice Sunday night dinner and movie. Watching a regular movie in one was a new experience, I’ve never been to a movie theatre with assigned seating before, nice not having to fight for a seat.
With an hour and half to kill till the next movie started we had some time to kill. Nothing like goofing off and making a fool of yourself to pass the time. I wish I’d had another camera to take a picture of Cece and 5 other girls who were laughing their heads off while I had my picture taken with Kim.
Hey! I should buy this hat and wear it into the movie theatre! What do you think?
Movie was good, we had another awesome night in San Antonio.
