Attention Deficit Project Disorder!

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Motopsycho

Well it was another rough week at that thankless job that I go to everyday of every week to keep the lights on around here until my web store catches fire & I can sell enough products to retire from everything but blogging. (go buy something, click on any ad here and help a brother break free!) My original plan for the evening was to go climb up in a tree & try to shoot Bambi’s father, but it was starting to rain kinda hard when I got home so instead I decided to grab a beer, & carry the forks that the mail carrier just dropped off from the house out to the shop and maybe work on fitting them to the CM400 bobber that I’ve been tinkering with for the last few months, but decided that the shop really needed cleaning up a little before proceeding so I pushed some of the junk bikes out into the rain for more room.

What’s under your desk?

Then I moved the two portable work benches back to the sides of the shop to clear up floor space. Then I decided to go ahead & start soaking my new to me,old pile of junk Suzuki with penetrating oil so that it would come apart easier when I go to replace the rear inner tube and the 40 or 50 other parts it probably needs to be trail worthy. Of course it’s a lot easier for an old fart to work on a motorcycle if he doesn’t have to bend over so I grab the old furniture truck ramp from the yard and dig through my lumber pile for a couple of timbers to set it up on since my motorcycle lift table is loaded down with my CB360T restoration project. For some reason as I was digging through my scrap lumber pile, a misshapen piece of wood that was left over from some long forgotten construction project jumped into my hand and said, “hey look at me, wouldn’t I make the perfect Plains Indian gunstock war club?” But by this time I had enough of a buzz going that there was no way you could ever get me near the bandsaw so I threw it back on the pile, got the timbers and headed back inside to prop up the dirtbike. Hopefully I can find it again when I am sober & have some time on my hands as it would go so well with my Hawken, powder horn etc. In fact it would look really sweet hanging up next to my black powder shotgun if I ever finish building it….

Can you see the pattern here? It’s a serious disease that afflicts middle age men. ADPD Attention Deficit Project Disorder It’s incredibly dangerous, because the problem just gets bigger & bigger. You become an addict scanning Ebay & Craigslist for just the right item at the right bargain basement price. The problem is that you don’t need it, there are a dozen projects, plus your honey-do list ahead of it, and just as sure as hell your boss will start demanding extra overtime on top of what you already work, so your discretionary income is temporarily enlarged while your time to enjoy it is diminished, this leads to more shopping & less doing until your place starts to look like a salvage yard, and your neighbors start calling you Fred G. Of course this is also the time when everything in your house will break down too, so you have to take care of those things first. Sure you could pay someone to fix the plumbing or the light fixture but for two things 1; the guy you call can’t do it any better than you can & maybe not even as good. 2; You just scored the deal of the century on another old piece of shit motorcycle, gun, car, jeep, boat, plane or what ever your addiction is & spent the money already.

At any rate I got the TS185 up on the ramp so I can work on it, but since the weather is supposed to be nearly perfect for riding tomorrow, it was time to give the old CB650 a good going over & adjust the chain so I stopped to do that instead. Hey you got to look after your main squeeze if you want her to look after you! Well it’s been fun blogging with a little buzz going on, but right now I need to find a carb kit & battery for the 1969 CJ5 under the carport & figure out when I’m going to get time to fix my tractor so I can keep the wood lot clean & get the garden ready for next year. Then maybe I can relax, watch a little television while checking out the crack-list on my tablet.

Peace Y’all
//

Ton Up NC Blog The July 2014 Website of the Month

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Motopsycho

I first heard of the Ton Up Club during a visit to the International Motorcycle Show in 2013, they had a cool display setup with a bunch of neat vintage motorcycles and flyers for their upcoming shows. Last September I visited the Bull City Rumble and saw just what a great show (and party) these fine people over in NC can throw & I’ve been keeping up with them ever since.

About a month ago they published a really cool post, “After the Flood, The BSA That Refused to Die.” After reading it I immediately hit them up for permission to link to it. No I’m not going to give you the details, click on the link and go read the post for yourself.

In the last few weeks that annoying as hell real life that pays the bills got in the way & I am just now getting around to sharing this post and decided just to make

Ton Up NC the website of the month, so go check them out and let them know that the old ‘Psyco sent you.

Of course if you are not in the great South-land but are really into vintage style Cafe Racer customs you might want to check out the site of Ton Up North America to see what is going on near you, the home page itself seems out of date but there are links to the local chapters, that can probably get you up to speed an what they are doing.

Peace Y’all

Kawasaki Brute Force 750 ATV Bus Connector Problems; A Random Tech Tip

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Motopsycho

This is a unique problem that affects 2005 & 2006 Kawasaki Brute Force ATVs, you would think that by now all of these would have been fixed already but every now and then one still shows up. Anytime you have any electrical problem with one of these four wheelers this is the first thing you should check. Battery not charging, 4wd switch not working, lights flashing, or any other electrical fault of any kind you should remove the rear fender unit and check the wiring harness for a rectangular bulge like this. There are two of them one at the rear over the gas tank & and one almost in the middle. Usually it is the one in the rear that causes the most problems. This is the front one in this picture. The next picture is of the rear connector, notice that it is packed with mud despite the fact that it was sealed up inside of a tightly wrapped electrical harness. This causes either broken connections or direct shorts depending on how your luck is at the time. A couple of the wires just fell out of this one. Although I have heard of these connectors failing on machines that were not abused, in all honesty if you just keep your late model atv & it’s computer controlled engine out of any water deeper than the top of the differentials you are unlikely to have any problems. I am not going to give you a step by step tutorial on this repair, but will give you links to a couple of excellent ones that already exist on the great tool know as the internet. The first one is at the Mud In My Blood forum and you can get to it by clicking here. One thing that is incorrect in this one is that the author thought that the factory had fixed it starting in ’06. I can assure you they did not as the pictures above came from an ’06 model that I fixed yesterday. Another great one is found at youtube if you would prefer to watch a video, just click on this link right here. What ever you do be sure that you seal your final connections up tightly before re-wrapping the wiring harness and taping it back up. Go play in the mud again just remember it costs cubic dollars in repairs to keep using your land vehicle as a boat or a submarine! Unless you get an Argo 😉

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1985 Kawasaki 454 LTD Another Junkyard Dog.

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Motopsycho

This one had been leaning up behind the fence in some guy’s back yard for a while…

the droopy turnsignals are kind of sad looking

Back in 1985 Cycle Guide raced on of these against a 454 Corvette and spanked it good. But time has not treated this little Kawasaki well.

Somebodies kids tried to fill the tank up with dirt.

Notice the relatively low miles on the odometer, like so many motorcycles this was ridden for a while until the owner got bored with it or scared of it and it was left to rot. It no doubt switched hands a few times and had the same sequence of events happen over and over until finally something broke or the carbs finally gummed up and no one cared to fix it.

This side view below shows that these bikes had a fairly good looking profile but even then the writing was on the wall for the fast, good handling, and comfortable 2 and 4 cylinder Japanese cruisers. Lighter & faster was no longer fashionable, so the big four answered the demands of their American customers, who really wanted a 1960s-70s Harley but with Japanese reliability & no oil leaks. It’s a pity because I think it would’ve been interesting to see where these designs went if they had continued to combine cruiser styling with super bike technology.

Here’s a little bonus picture, not really big enough be a dog, we’ll call this one a junkyard puppy. It got thrown in on the deal with the Kawasaki 454 LTD above. It’s a little Baja MB165 mini-bike. A friend of mine has one & I really enjoyed riding it, and wanted one of my own, but never could quite convince my self to buy one. This one was left to rot after mommy & daddy got tired of replacing clutches on it. Most people don’t realize when they buy these mini-bikes (or go-karts either) that the clutches are expensive consumables that have to be replaced on a regular basis. I going to put a torque converter on it, a bigger rear sprocket & some ATV luggage racks to make it into a modern version of the old Tote Gote.

It’s Going To Be A Great Day!

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Motopsycho

What in the world am I doing out of bed at 5:30 am on a Saturday morning? Hunting season is over and I don’t have anywhere to travel to, so why am I up, sitting at this computer, drinking coffee and writing to you? The reason that I am so excited is that today I get to go out to my shop and work on motorcycles! I have been incredibly busy doing such things as replacing the steering column in my old Chevy van, doing a bit of work at my place of worship, and setting up my web store that is attached to this blog. But today things are different and I plan to take full advantage of it.

There’s a new AGM battery hooked up the trickle charger in the shed, it and a couple of gallons of premium gas are going into a Kawasaki Brute Force 750 that I rebuilt the carbs on a few weeks ago. The new rear fender came in for Project wAMMO and I have the exhaust pipes welded up and ready for a trial fit. My main goal for today is to fit this rear fender and get it mounted into place. The owner didn’t really like the Fat Bob fender so I bought a new Electra Glide style front fender that will be turned around backwards and cut down to fit. I can already see it in my mind, and it looks good.

Somewhere along the way I picked up a seriously roached out 85 Kawasaki LTD454 that you’ll see in the Junkyard Dogs section of the blog soon. If I can talk my wife into it I’m going to teach her how to rebuild carburetors using it for a project. The guy I bought it from poured some gas into the carbs and it started up and sounded okay, but it really does look awful. If it runs really good, it might become a project, or even if it runs okay, it still might go to the VMA swap meet as a box of parts.

A while back Cycle World editor Kevin Cameron wrote a great piece titled “The Tyranny of Tools,” and he was so right sometimes having the knowledge and equipment can be a pain. You really wish you didn’t have the ability to do things, such as replacing the steering column in a van or repairing your homes heat pump, but even if your significant other can be convinced to let you sub a job out, the demons in your mind will insist that you do it yourself just to make sure it is done right. But on a day like today I am the tyrant and the tools become my army and we will conquer the tasks at hand. At the end of the day when the recalcitrant metal has been subdued and the projects are that much closer to completion, or in fact done, we will celebrate with a nice medium rare slice of dead cow served with a bottle of that Irish brewed nectar of the gods, Guinness Extra Stout.

Gee I hope I am still as happy at 6:00 pm as I am at 6:00 am….

Why We Ride Film Motopsyco’s October Website of the Month!

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Motopsycho

It’s worth going to the website just for the great pictures like this.

Whyweridefilm.com

Let me be up front with you, when International Motorcycle Shows first posted the trailer for this movie on Facebook I almost didn’t click on it. So often these “documentaries” about motorcycling are so one dimensional that they seem to be written for a narrow group of riders and/or racers. While I have yet to see the movie itself I have watched the trailer about 10 times already! There are interviews with kids, moms, street riders, Harley aficionados, crotch rocket jockeys, & racers from a variety of two wheeled motorsports all talking about how much they love to ride motorcycles & trying to explain the feeling to the rest of the world. Those of us who already ride understand the passion that just overflows out with the words they speak. Hopefully some of the normal people that get dragged to this film by friends and family will feel it too, and if they don’t at least want to try it will at least get an understanding of what draws us to these machines that so many people mistakenly see as deathtraps.

another fantastic pic from whyweridefilm.com

I ride a motorcycle & I love it. When I was a skinny little nerdy kid it was my favorite escape. No matter how bad my days at school were, when I slid that two stroke Kawasaki around a curve in the woods behind the cow pasture & then jumped one of the hills at the side of the canal ditch I was the ultimate 6th grade badass and all was right with the world! Today most of my riding is commuting back & forth to work on my ancient Honda, but it is still my escape and when everything is just right, I still roll on the throttle exiting that last turn before a long straight and pin it to the stop, while the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson whispers in my ear, “screw it on you big pussy” as the speedometer hurtles toward that magic number that all the Ton Up Boys lived & died for. It has been approximately 37 years since I got my first motorcycle and even though age and injuries have made me more cautious it still thrills me. Just like the first time! Every time. Even when just putting around at slow cruising speeds like the old fart that I am becoming. Bottom line is, I’ll quit riding when I die.

whyweridefilm.com

Even if you don’t visit the website at least click on this line and go watch the trailer! Then come back here & tell me & the rest of the world why YOU ride in the comments section. I am going to close this out by quoting from the synopsis on the movie website.

“Your senses will heighten as the world rushes in, your heart will beat to the pulse of the engine, your mind will race and set you free. Once you let a motorcycle into your life, it will change you forever.”

Sums it up for me,

Peace Y’all

The 2013 Bull City Rumble in Pictures

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Motopsycho

Who wants to ride this Night Train?

a look down the street

The first of a pair of great looking CB400F Hondas.

a better view of the red one

a spaced out Honda bobber

the super low riding alien Honda

kids love vintage scooters

Vintage Kawasaki Enduro

Who else remembers street legal mini-enduros like this 50cc Suzuki

Check out the radial cylinder head!

a very well done Yamaha XS650 street tracker

other side of xs650

organic transit pedal electric three wheeler

rare Bimota Kawasaki

a better view of this exotic motorcycle

Moto Guzzi 850T

1935 Royal Enfield original but not mint

35 Royal Enfield 500

1982 National Champion Honda Superbike

it aint bragging if you really did it

sweet looking CR750 Honda

Got velocity stacks?

not in the show but too kool to ignore

A row of British iron.

a tasty looking bathtub Triumph

serious looking Norton Comando Interstate

serious looking Norton Commando Interstate

Triumph bobber

GS Suzuki

Henderson Super X

super X engine

nice red BSA

Laverda Jota

a bevy of Italian beauties

drool….

What a good looking engine.

1983 Honda CB1100F

ratty old Triumph

neat old Chevy

my CB650C and a nice CB750 Super Sport

Use the Right Tool for the Job! A Tech Tip & Product Review Combined!

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Motopsycho

It is time for me to make a confession of my own ignorance. For over two decades I have not been using the correct screwdrivers to work on my beloved old rice grinders. Even during the time I worked as a dealership mechanic I destroyed countless fasteners by using the wrong screwdrivers. I did find by experience, that the really high quality & expensive Snap On brand could usually remove those annoying cheesy easy to strip cheap ass Japanese Phillips screws. But even then the heads still looked mangled for some reason. Day after day I cursed the engineers at Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha & Suzuki for sourcing such horrible fasteners to hold such fine machinery together.

Fast forward a couple of dozen years and one day while wandering through a motorcycle show, I stop at a VJMC display and pick up a copy of their magazine. When I finally slowed down enough to read through it a couple of weeks later I saw a really great article on the difference between Japanese Industrial Standard screws & Phillips screws as used here. It was a real eye opener, no wonder these screws were so difficult to remove. The angles of the sides and the shape of the center are just different enough to cause these two different styles not to be interchangeable.

I jumped onto the internet to research these JIS screwdrivers & found the two most commonly available brands to be Vessel & Hozan. I decided to order a 4 piece set of Hozan screwdrivers for about $25 USD.

Hozan JIS screwdrivers

These screwdrivers have hard plastic handles, this bugs some people but most of my screwdrivers have hard handles it is what I’m used to. Plus they are a lot easier to clean than cushion grips. The distinctive shape keeps me from confusing them with my regular Phillips head screwdrivers which is important. They will probably bugger up a Phillips screw the same way a Phillips screwdriver buggers a JIS screw.

Even though I’ve only used them a few times I am really impressed with how much better they fit & grip the screw heads on a few dirtbikes that I am working on. And the best part of all is that the screws still look good when I am done. This is very important if you are doing restorations or building show bikes.

Save yourself a lot of trouble, learn from my mistakes and get yourself a set JIS screwdrivers. You’ll be glad you did!

Why I love bicycles so much now!

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Motopsycho

Yes this is mainly but not exclusively a motorcycle related blog some of you may wonder why I seem so enamored with bicycles. The contents of this post were originally written as a reply to the thread “What triggered your bicycle revival” over at Rat Rod Bikes. After re-reading it I decided to share it with you.

I was a really small little geeky nerdy kid. As a child I learned to ride a bike and rode around a lot, didn’t think much of it. I had go-karts & mini-bikes to play on. The bicycle wound up just being around the neighborhood transport. I was too small, too slow, and perhaps too lazy to really care about even trying to race anybody or jump anything so even though I grew up through the infancy of BMX & mountain biking I honestly did not care. Being a twerpy deaf guy with thick glasses athletic endeavors were something I strenuously avoided. At the age of 12 I got my first motorcycle, and my last bicycle. Both were green, a Kawasaki KD100 and a 26″ Western Flyer cruiser. Once I mastered the operation of the motorcycle the bicycle never moved unless I was either out of gas, or prohibited from riding the Kawi for some reason. At 15 I got a license and a junkyard Mustang. The bicycle was never seen again, and was probably abandoned in the garage when we moved. Many years, cars, motorcycles, jobs, & a family later it finally happened, I had that gnarly bone grinding crash that every motorcyclist dreads. My left knee was repaired by a partial knee replacement and I spent some time in a wheelchair until the broken ribs I also incurred healed enough to walk on crutches. When the leg healed enough for me to begin walking on it again it was a flabby atrophied shadow of its former self. I had a really bad limp and would occasionally fall flat on my face just because it was not strong enough to hold me up. In order to build up strength in it I purchased and began using an exercise bike, but riding and not going anywhere got b-o-r-i-n-g. At the flea market I grabbed an old $20 mountain bike, and took up light trail riding.

But I really liked styling and profiling on a mean looking ride so when a friend of mine gave me this even though it actually rode great I instantly jumped on the internet looking for ideas to customize besides the “Lowrider” style and that is when I found this site and this community

The start of my custom bicycle fetish!

Today I have a great hobby, have met and befriended many interesting people, built an interesting collection of bicycles, and plan to continue indefinitely. Oh yeah as I nice bonus I no longer walk with a cane, rarely fall down any more. 😯 Plus my wife loves trail riding with me and doesn’t mind going to the bike show either. Wins all around as far as I am concerned.

Peace Y’all

Yes this is my home office/studio.

One of my favorite customs that I have done.

My show winning 20″ Ross custom.

Strip the Bodywork from a Ninja (93 EX250)

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Motopsycho

Here I’m just going to let you follow along as I remove the fairings, fuel tank, and exhaust system from my 93 Kawasaki 250 Ninja. Although the title of this blog is Life on Two Wheels, the truth of the matter is that for last year & over half of this year a true story of my life would have been called life in hotel rooms and rental cars. While I was away I still managed to squeeze in some bicycling time, and I did try on the occasional weekend to take my motorcycle out for a spin but unfortunately never far or often enough, and it has developed some problems related to long term storage anyway. A couple of months ago I started a new job, moved back home and now am ready to get back down to the business of serious recreational motorcycling again.

’93 Ninja 250 Fresh out of the shop after restoration 4 years ago!

This bike still starts right up and once warmed up will zip from idle to redline with just a flick of the wrist, riding it at low speed or for a short distance no symptoms are discernible. If driven at highway speed for more than 3 or 4 miles it begins to spit and sputter and stops like it has run out of gas. So far I have done all of the easy and obvious things such as verify the gas cap & other fuel tank vents, made sure the fuel petcock was working, and that both the in tank and external fuel filters were clean. So now its time to pull the carbs back off and check everything out. Since I am tired of having to pull the exhaust system off every time I want to change the oil filter (and it got some holes in it now also), I am going to pull the Yoshimura 2 into 1 header and replace it with a pair of Emgo Dunstall replicas using some custom fabricated adapters welded to the end of some factory head pipes.

As you are following along please be aware that my cycle is not stock. It has a few aftermarket, modified or bespoke parts on it so even if you have the same make and model of motorcycle you may notice many substantial differences between mine and yours. Just remember modifications to your motorcycle are made at your own risk, some may be dangerous or illegal in some places, I am not a motorcycle engineer, nor do I play one on t.v. Use your best judgement,consult your doctor, shrink, & attorney, then get a permission slip from your mom before imitating any mods you see on this site, because I am only responsible for my own stupidity, not yours. Now that the disclaimers are out of the way , let’s get to work!

First pull the mirrors.

Ninja 250 mirror removal

Unbolt the lower fairing I like to start with the front center bolt first.

Ninja 250 lower fairing remove bolt

Additional screws indicated by arrows.

Time to get the upper fairing loose You will notice some very blotchy spots in the next photo. It is not paint damage. I discovered the hard way that if you are shall we say a larger boy, you should not take pictures of shiny very reflective surfaces while wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. The resulting images were distorted,and bizarrely pornographic looking, so I blotched them out.

There is an arrow pointing to some damage to the tank that is a direct result of the hygroscopic nature of this damn corn syrup that the government is forcing into our gasoline. I’ll fix it, line the tank and paint it again.

Ninja 250 upper fairing screws

Then unplug the turn signals.

Ninja250 turn signal wires

You could have taken the seat off as the first step but I’m doing it now, just turn the key and pop it loose.

Ninja 250 seat lock

The side covers have one screw each at the bottom as shown here.

After removing this the side cover should snap off, pull it loose from the front first.

Here it is with the side covers off

Ninja 250 coolant overflow & electronics

Ready to remove the tank now!

Remove the bolts

Ninja EX250 fuel tank bolts

and then disconnect the fuel & vacuum lines from the petcock

Ninja EX250 fuel petcock

Hey look! it is a naked Ninja, enjoy the view.

Now you know what a sportbike looks like with no clothes

I still have to loosen the radiator to remove the head pipes. The hoses can stay attached but all of the bolts indicated by the arrows have to be removed from both sides.

NInja 250 radiator & fairing brace

This will allow me to pull it forward to remove the exhaust system. It’s hard to see in this picture but after unbolting the flanges from the head remove the bolts attaching the pipes to the frame. This particular system is suspended from the drivers foot peg.

My soon to be former exhaust.

It is crazy but all of the preceding steps were necessary every time I wanted to change the oil filter, I loved the sound and performance of this system but due to the extra maintenance work and the damage it has suffered over the years (it was on the bike when my wife bought it for me) I decided to replace it.

Rusty pipe

Until next time,

Peace Y’all

Welcome to the Asylum

Crazy About Motorcycles!

Tag Archives: kawasaki

Attention Deficit Project Disorder!

Ton Up NC Blog The July 2014 Website of the Month

Kawasaki Brute Force 750 ATV Bus Connector Problems; A Random Tech Tip

1985 Kawasaki 454 LTD Another Junkyard Dog.

It’s Going To Be A Great Day!

Why We Ride Film Motopsyco’s October Website of the Month!

The 2013 Bull City Rumble in Pictures

Use the Right Tool for the Job! A Tech Tip & Product Review Combined!

Why I love bicycles so much now!

Strip the Bodywork from a Ninja (93 EX250)

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