Recent content by SenseAmidMadness

Wacky, what causes the overflow tubes to crack? I've been fortunate enough to never see that in my carb work so far, but now I know to keep an eye out and keep my soldering iron handy...

Because motorcycles in the US are treated as toys, not practical transportation. There's a ton of profit margin baked into almost everything related to motorcycles in the US. You can see it clearly when you look at the price difference between snowmobile gear and motorcycle gear, where for the...

Yep, there's a big ol' 30 amp fuse on your starter relay under the side cover, and another smaller one on that relay too. That's most likely the one you popped. The relay controls power distribution off the battery positive terminal.

Loose Chain is right. Buy a more expensive kit like the one from Randakk's, or K&L. Something made in Japan. I have never had any carb issues with proper Japanese-made kits but I have had *many* issues with cheap Amazon/Ebay kits, and even some issues with All Balls and Tusk kits that were...

Your life, if you poke a hole in a brake line between the inner and outer rubber layers and don't notice it. The line could swell suddenly on the test ride and then your brake doesn't work. Don't screw around with brakes. If an ancient rubber brake line is clogged full of filth, just replace it...

Don't do it. I know it's tempting, but those jets are brass, and guitar strings are harder than brass (typically nickel or steel). The passages are very precisely drilled and you can very easily make the hole bigger without realizing it. Nylon or brass bristles pulled off a brush if you insist...

This is why I buy Rotella.

That's the plan. Going to remove the tire and tube, loosen all the nipples completely, and start over, as annoying as it is.

Several folks in my reading said the same thing. I just want to have a bit more of an objective reference for tightness of the spokes, if that makes sense. I had no trouble building the wheel up and getting it nice and true until I introduced the torque wrench, so...maybe you're right. What...

I did quite a bit more digging and browsing forums and found a few encouraging things. Guys who had lots of experience building wheels, back in the day, never used torque wrenches. They'd do the "ping" by ear test. The impression I got from my reading says that the spokes being tight enough to...

Couple of fun new twists. New spokes on the rear wheel: 4mm shoulder near the hub, 3.5mm the rest of the length. So about a half-mil smaller than those Z1 spokes in both dimensions. I did the "ping" test on my now-torqued rear wheel, and on the original 17 inch rear wheel that's still on the...

No. The whole point of me doing this and asking questions is so I can learn how to properly build up wheels. Taking it to someone else would defeat the purpose. I also know that even torque doesn't automatically make a wheel true. Torque wrench gets applied to spokes *after* truing according to...

If you could get the diameter of one of those spokes I'd definitely appreciate it. Yeah, I just double-checked my genuine Honda service manual and it says nothing about spoke torque. Doesn't have procedures for spoke replacement or adjustment either, just a "measure wheel for runout" procedure...

Thanks so much for your reply! I appreciate your input. The FSM has no torque spec listed for the wheel spokes, which is why I emailed Buchanan's. My guess is that back in the late 70's, all motorcycle techs were so familiar with doing wheels up by feel that Honda didn't think it necessary to...

Still have not fixed it. I'll get a Round Tuit eventually; there's been a lot of Moving Stuff since then and I don't currently have a garage to work on anything substantial like that.