Saturday, November 5, 2011

winter is approaching...

Life of a motorcycle roadracer in Canada.  Step one, make sure your tire supply for next year is secured in a nice warm environment.  Best to buy tires at the end of the season, as they are often cheaper.  Next you need to find a spot so they don't get subjected to the -40 degree (celcius) temps we can get over the winter here on the prairies.  Short of a heated garage, the downstairs exercize room will do nicely...
These include the 120/180 michelins that I am gonna try on the wider rear rim of the 650.
Next I took out the husky engine to give it a once over to eliminate any possibilities of the backfire at idle.  Timing was correct, valve gap was checked and put to spec.  With only .002" gap, I needed to buy a new feeler gauge.  Nothing seemed drastically out, but it was piece of mind to set it again.  Easy to do as well.  TDC was found by removing the clutch cover and using the punch marks to set TDC.  Gave me a chance to remove and clean the secondary metal screen filter buried into the case.  Nice to see how clean that was.  Will check valve gaps every time I clean that filter.  Makes sense to do them at the same time.
Less than a block from where I work is a Husky dealer -- no bikes, but mowers and chainsaws, I checked to see if they could order in gaskets and filters, and with some digging on their part, they indicated they could.  Cool, as I need a new water pump gasket after removing the head to check the timing mark on the camshaft sprocket.  Got a couple of spares as well.  Thus, everything now points to a larger pilot jet/richer idle circuit as the solution to the idle issues.  Unfortunately, will be a long wait until I can start the bike again.  Hopefully spring comes early!

On another note, the year-end awards were handed out a week or two ago.  Was presented with this.  A nice reward for the year.  Ended the Thunderbike class in 5th. 

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