Tag: Maintenance

C14, Maintenance

Change your socks!

| Cablebandit

Lately, I’ve been noticing an occasional dead spot when accelerating on the Concours. Normally, there’s a small lag around 3000 RPM, but the bike usually powers right through it and continues to pull hard. Recently, though, this issue has been getting worse. It feels almost like the bike is either cutting ignition completely or starving for fuel.

I checked for any stored error codes to see if there might be a bad stick coil, but no codes were present. So, the next logical step was to check the fuel filter sock, or strainer.

On most fuel-injected bikes, the fuel strainer is located at the bottom of the fuel pump, which itself sits at the base of the fuel tank. So, off came the tank! Removing it is straightforward—just four bolts and a few hoses. The tricky part is draining the excess fuel without ending up covered in it.

Once the tank is off and drained, you can remove the pump assembly by unscrewing a few bolts.

The pump assembly slides right out, and then you have to disassemble it to reach the strainer at the bottom.

Fuel Pump

As suspected, the strainer was pretty filthy.

Old Strainer

Reinstallation is just the reverse of everything. I’ll get it all buttoned back up, take it for a test ride, and see how it performs.

CRF300L, Maintenance

CRF300 Brake Line Relocation

| Cablebandit

The long winter appears to be mostly behind us and it’s time to start tackling those little things on the bike prior to spring.  One of the annoying things on this bike is the location of the brake line routing.  The way the loop comes across the instrument cluster, it blocks your view of what’s going on with the gauges.  Some people just zip-tie the lines back to the handlebars, but this is a bad idea since the lines need to more up and down unencumbered.

 

Before

 

Stock Mounting Location

The simple solution to this issue is to move that retaining ring forward a little.  The most straightforward way is to install a standoff that will push the ring forward.  So I purchased a M6 x20mm brass standoff spacer and installed that between the retaining rind and the triple clamp mounting point.

 

Brass Standoff

Below is what it should look like once you place the standoff in position.

Installed

RESULT!!!  You can now see the instrument cluster clearly.

An unobstructed view

This is a worthwhile modification that will only cost you a buck or two.

 

C14, Maintenance

New Battery!

| Cablebandit

I the interest of fixing all the little issues that pop up on a decade+ old bike we’ll move onto the battery. I got about 7-8 years out of the original battery on this bike, but since replacing the original, the replacements last about 12-18 months until they just won’t hold a charge for any length of time.  After a conversation with an engineer at Yuasa he said it all comes down to that initial charging operation and that there’s really no way to get the same longevity of a stock factory battery with an aftermarket replacement.  Even if the replacement is the identical model.  So after going through 2-3 lead acid AGM batteries I decided to try out a lithium model and see how that holds up.

Lets see what we’re starting with.

11.9 Volts!

Well that’s just about dead.  Not good considering it was on the charger until a day before stating this.  Let’s replace this with a new Noco Lithium model.

 

While the battery isn’t as easy to get to as most cars, it’s not too bad on the Concours.  Everything you need is behind this one body panel and frame plate.

Remove this 5mm and one push pin to pop off this panel

Then you’ll be greeted with 4 6mm bolts to remove the frame plate.

Behold! A dead battery from 5/21

At this point you just need to remove the positive wire leads and slide the battery tray out to remove the negative leads.  The battery is free at this point.

So looking at the batteries side by side you can see there is a big difference in physical size, even though the Noco has more than double the cold cranking amps of the lead acid battery.

Whatup Shorty?
Of course this could create an issue with the battery bouncing around in the frame.  Fortunately, Noco provides several different sized spacers and foam blocks to fill in any space in the battery compartment.  The Concours requires 2 25mm spacers to fill the void.
Now that’s more like it.

So other than the physical size difference there is also quite a weight savings.

A real lightweight
Over 8 pounds!  Including the spacers.  That might make a big difference if the rest of the bike weren’t over 650 pounds.
Installation is just the reverse of removal and we’re back in business.
That’s more like it.

I could have waited to install this battery, but I really wanted to see how it behaves in cold temperatures (which is the achilles heal of lithium batteries).  I took the bike out for about a 100 mile loop and everything was working as intended.  Once it cools down some more I’ll plug in all the electric gear and see how it does.

The Noco also comes with a 5 year warranty so if it last at least that long I can say I’ll never go back to a lead acid battery. Time will tell, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that this battery is going perform pretty good over time.

C14, Maintenance

Back in Business

| Cablebandit

So since I know all the parts in my clutch slave cylinder have been refreshed, That leaves only a couple other issues that could be causing my lack of clutch action.   A fluid leak was ruled out since it’s a very simple one line system and everything was dry.  The other two would be a bunch of air in the system, or a bad master cylinder.  The least expensive option was air in the system so lets try that first.  The system on the Concours is notoriously hard to bleed properly so I figured I would start at the bottom and work my way up.  There are two bleed nipples.  One on the top of the slave cylinder housing and one at the master cylinder.

In the pic below you see the slave cylinder bleeder.  Since I had used the traditional method of bleeding the cylinder before and still have issues I figured I would attach a line here and push fluid back up through the lines to the master.  Air naturally wants to rise so I’d be working with it instead of against it.

Slave Cylinder Bleeder

I was able to push quite a bit of air out of the master cylinder fluid reservoir and felt I had the system completely bled.  However, This did nothing to solve my issue.  So I ordered a replacement piston and the associated parts for the master cylinder.  After all, those seals have been subjected to the same fluid as the failed seal in the slave cylinder.  Now we wait for parts.

After a few weeks the replacement parts arrived and I could tackle the job.

Master Cylinder Piston Rebuild Kit

I was so excited that the parts had finally arrived that I forgot to grab any pics of the actual repair.  It was pretty straight forward though.  The only specialty tool you’ll need is a set of snap-ring pliers.

Step one: Remove any remaining fluid from the reservoir

A large syringe makes removal easy

After you remove the clutch lever by removing the nut on the bottom of the hinge you’ll be left looking at a small plunger.

All the magic is behind here

Step two: Simply pull out the plunger.  It’s a friction fit.  Behind the plunger there will be a snap-ring that will need to be removed.  Once removed, the piston as well as the return spring and rod, will slide right out.

Plunger, Snap-ring, Piston, Return Spring/Rod

Reassembly is just the reverse of the above.  All the parts in the picture above are included in the rebuild so you don’t have to worry about saving any of the old parts.

The seals on the part I removed were still in one piece with no visible tears, but they weren’t as pliable as the new one and there was also some crusty build up on the leading edge of them.

After reassembly, I bled the system again and voila!  A quick test ride and the clutch seems to be working as intended.

C14, Maintenance

A Clutch Situation

| Cablebandit

So, prior to a recent trip to Ohio, I hopped on the bike to fuel up the day before because there were no gas stations on my intended route for quite some distance. As I pulled in the clutch lever, there was no resistance at all, and the lever did not return to its normal resting position when let go. What the heck! So after a quick Google search, I decided to bleed my clutch slave cylinder in the hopes that this would solve my problems. Why I had no hydraulic pressure at all was another issue altogether, but not one to be addressed at this point. I removed the lower fairing partially for easy access to the bleeder screw and did, in fact, get some air out of the system. My clutch was now working, but clearly, something was afoot. Anyway, I threw caution to the wind and had a great weekend trip and thought little about the clutch until I got home a few days later.

I popped off the clutch slave cylinder and found some old, crusty, gunky brake fluid on the wrong side of the seal. So, I ordered a new cup seal and waited for it to arrive.

Dried Brake Fluid

 

The seal arrived a few days later and it was a quick fix clean the bore, pop in the new seal and reassemble everything.  However, now I have no clutch at all!?

 

To be continued……..