Moto Tux

Exhausting work

2011-07-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I put on a new Savvy aluminum gas tank skid plate. A week ago I took it out on the trail to test it. The skid plate works great -- it tucks the gas tank 1 1/2" higher than the OEM skid, and combined with the longer/stiffer rear springs means that I no longer bang my gas tank skid on every friggin' rock I drop off of. Unfortunately it also means that my exhaust pipe and my tow hooks were what now dragged.

You can see where the tow hook was mounted, I've already removed it in this picture, but it mounted through those two bolt holes to that tab welded to the bumper bracket. I don't need it anymore because I've added a receiver hitch D-ring. You can also see that the exhaust pipe extends well beyond the gas tank skid, and that it's somewhat beat up. In fact, it even got knocked upwards when coming down onto a rock to where it got a dent in it from that tab. But never fear, I have a solution to this issue:

Yes, Mr. Sawzall, complete with welding gloves and goggles to protect me hands and eyeballs. You can also see how far that exhaust pipe sticks back beyond that gas tank skid. If I ever backed up over a rock, I'd destroy my entire exhaust system. So I'm going to cut it flush with the gas tank skid with said Sawzall, and...

And voila. Cut off flush with the gas tank. Actually, slightly angled, so that the part near the gas tank is flush with the gas tank, while the part near the outside of the Jeep is a little forward of the gas tank. This should keep the exhaust pipe somewhat safer than when it was out there dangling in thin air. If you clicky on the picture to embiggen it and look at the piece on the ground, you can see that the tip of the exhaust pipe had been beat up so often over the years that it wasn't even round anymore!

And that's the end of this exhausting (heh) episode of Mod My Jeep...

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Springity sproing

2011-06-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I finished the next step in project Put Bigger Tars On Teh Tuxjeep: I changed out the *rear* springs and put on a trackbar relocation bracket.

Note that I'd already changed out the front springs, so I had a spring mismatch between front and back. The Jeep was level when I was unloaded, but load it up and the back end was dragging like a cat in heat. It wasn't a spring height issue, but, rather, a spring rate issue -- the rear springs were the original factory springs with spacers on top of them to make them taller, and simply weren't up to the same standard as the front springs, they compressed under load more than the front springs. The front springs are some Old Man Emu 933 springs that I scored off a club member, so I decided to put the matching Old Man Emu 949 onto the back. At the same time I was also going to install an Old Man Emu trackbar relocation bracket, which accomplishes two things: 1) the original bracket has a "roof" on it and will get bent up if your suspension sags too much and the trackbar "tops out" in the bracket (as will happen if you lift the Jeep and put longer springs and shocks on it) and 2) helps relocate the axle back to under the center of the Jeep, which in turn helps the Jeep track better (duh!).

So, anyhow, here's how I dunnit:

Approximately 2 hours before starting any of this, blast the bolts you're going to unbolt with PB Blaster, Liquid Wrench, or other penetrating oil of choice. (For list of bolts, see the things we're going to unbolt below)
Put the Jeep into 1st gear (or Park if automatic), 4-Lo, and put on the emergency brake
Chock the front wheels front and back. (Yes, making *sure* the Jeep doesn't roll while I'm under there!)
Remove spare tire from back of Jeep (so there's room to use the Hi-Lift there)
Get axle jack from beneath passenger seat of Jeep, and its assorted rods and such
Get Hi-Lift jack out of Jeep
Line up your new parts behind the Jeep -- the springs, the bump stop extensions (if you don't have bump stop extensions already on there, necessary to keep the springs from overcompressing), a short piece of fuel line and two couplers (to extend the breather hose for the axle, which otherwise tends to top out against the trackbar at full droop) and the trackbar relocation bracket. (Sorry, I don't have specs on the fuel line and couplers, they were already in my junk box).
Line up tools behind Jeep, including: Tall jack stand (do *nothing* under a Jeep supported by a Hi-Lift jack, they are inherently unstable, which is good if you're on the trail trying to move your Jeep around off a rock it's grounded out on, bad if you expect your Jeep to *stay* on the Hi-Lift), lug wrench, and hand tools.
Disconnect rear sway bar at both ends
Disconnect rear track bar at both ends (because we're going to need it out of the way to install the bracket, and it's easier this way)
Disconnect both shocks at the bottom.
Jack up the DRIVER's side with the Hi-Lift from the bumper until the spring starts to get loose in its seat, then put the jack stand under the frame just in front of the rear control arm mount and lower the Jeep onto it. Move Hi-Lift out of the way.
Place the axle jack under the spring mount, jack up the axle until the tire is off the ground, and remove the tire.
Lower the axle with the axle jack until the spring is loose in its seat. The spring should then be easily removed by lifting it and removing it to the rear.
Remove the rubber bump stop at the top by simply grabbing it and wiggling and yanking downwards until it pops out of its seat.
Remove the bump stop seat via unbolting the bolt in its middle. If you previously had a spacer lift, this will allow you to remove the spacer. But note that even without a previous spacer lift this makes installing the new spring *much* easier since you won't have to work it around the bump stop, and the bump stop will go through the coils of the spring. You'll also be installing bump stop extensions at the same time if you didn't already have them on there.
You'll notice that the breather hose for your axle is basically taut with your axle at full droop. Extend the breather hose by cutting it above the fuel tank (easier if you have a body lift on your Jeep) and patching in a few inches of fuel line so that you'll have some slack at full droop.
You already removed the trackbar above. Install the trackbar relocation bracket using the directions in the OME packet, including all the drilling and stuff (the real reason why we bothered lifting the Jeep so high in the air in the first place was to give clearance to the drill under the floorpan of the Jeep). Don't bother trying to put the trackbar into it right now, it won't go because the bracket is twisted by the axle droop, we'll put it back on after the Jeep is back on the ground.
Install the *SHORTER* Old Man Emu 949 spring here, on the driver's side. It should just pop right in. Jeeps tend to sag at their passenger rear due to the weight of the spare tire carrier and the torque of their engine, so the taller spring goes on the passenger side.
Work the bump stop extension, bump stop seat, and bump stop bolt through the coils of the new spring, and bolt them into place. You can't get a torque wrench up here so it's probably a good idea to use blue (medium strength) threadlocker on the bolt too, to keep it from going anywhere.
Work the rubber bump stop through the coils of the new spring, and push it into place. A prybar prying against a coil of the springs can help get that last little bit of oomph to get it seated.
Jack up the axle enough to match the bottom of the shock with its crossbolt, and install the rear shock again. This is easier than compressing the shock by hand to install it after the tire is back on.
This also jacked up the axle enough to put your tire back on. Do so. Torque your lug nuts in criss-cross pattern to 100 ft/lbs of torque. (This is *IMPORTANT* -- use an actual lug wrench here, if you overtorque your lug nuts, you *will* stretch your axle studs and cause them to fail on the trail, and of course undertorquing them is equally a bad idea since wheels that come off while you're driving down the road are unwanted).
Lower your axle jack and remove it. Note that this will be using your shock as a limiting strap holding the tire off the ground (usually it's the trackbar that limits downtravel here), but this won't hurt it here.
Jack up the Jeep from the rear bumper with the Hi-Lift enough to drop the axle stand and pull it out of the way, then lower the driver's side to the ground.
Repeat the process to remove/install the spring on the passenger side (remember, the TALLER spring goes on the passenger side), with the exception that on the passenger side you don't have to install a track bar bracket (doh!).
Now, with the Jeep back on the ground on its own four wheels with the new springs and no jacks or jack stands under it, reinstall the track bar. It *should* match up hole-wise on both ends, because the geometry of the control arms naturally wants to center the axle (though not strongly enough to do without the track bar) and the new location of the axle end of the trackbar is in the proper place where, with these springs, the trackbar should match up. If not, you may need to get a piece of 2x4 and pry between the tire and frame until the axle is centered and you can bolt the trackbar into place.
Reconnect the rear sway bar.
Put the spare tire back on the Jeep (duh!) and replace all the jacks and the lug wrench into their proper nooks and cranny in case you have a flat.

And done! Note that when you reinstall bolts, you should torque them to factory spec if at all possible. If you can't get a torque wrench on them, at least use blue threadlocker on them to keep them from coming loose and sending you into a ditch (your suspension falling apart on the highway is *not* recommended as a recipe for health and happiness!).

In my case, the process was made more difficult by the fact that my original trackbar bracket was bent up from the trackbar topping out against it due to the extra sag allowed by disconnecting my sway bars up front, the longer Old Man Emu shocks, and the spacer lift. The lesson there is that if you install *any* lift, even a 2" spacer lift, you need to relocate the trackbar bracket at that time rather than at some later time because the trackbar bracket becomes the limit on downtravel at that point. So I had to sort of hammer and bend and press things into shape again. But it's all together now.

So how does it work? Well, the rear end of the Jeep is now about 1 1/4" higher off the ground than the front end of the Jeep. On the passenger side, from rocker to ground is 22" immediately behind the front wheel, and 23 1/4" immediately in front of the rear wheel. So when I put a full trail load into the Jeep (tools and water are *heavy*), the rear should sag to the point of basically being level.

But does it make it too harsh on the pavement? Well, remember, I'm using the Old Man Emu shocks that are basically matched to these springs. I decided to put things to the test and, uhm, I can't notice any difference from previous. The ride is firm, but not jittery or harsh. It helps the handling a bit, it seems, but not by much. Probably just psychological on my part.

So anyhow, I'm done with getting clearance. I may add some bump stop extensions up front to put 33" tires under here, but it appears that I only need 1/2" of additional bump stop up there to clear 33" tires under my fenders. While bouncing me Jeep up and down to test for things that go "clunk" when they shouldn't, I also noticed that one of my front sway bar links has gone bust and has movement in it that it shouldn't have, I'm sure that replacing that will help the handling a bit, luckily I have a spare in my junk box. So anyhow, that's that... the next step is going to be the expensive one, re-gearing to 4.56 front and rear, installing lockers, and actually purchasing 33" offroad tires to put on the thing. The re-gearing and lockers will be over $2,000 (eep!), the tires and wheels (to replace the bent-up ones) will be over $1,000 (gulp!). Oh well, it's still cheaper than buying a new Jeep!

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Diesels in American vehicles

2011-05-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

If you go to Europe, you see diesel-powered vehicles everywhere. Diesel engines typically get roughly 40% better fuel economy than gasoline engines -- for example, the VW Golf gets 23/33 city/highway in gas trim, 30/42 in diesel trim.

So why aren't diesels so popular here in America? Well, let me count the ways...

No market for fuel economy. Fuel is $10/gallon in Europe right now. It's "only" $4/gallon here in the USA. So people don't care about fuel economy, they get the engine that's cheapest, and a gasoline engine is generally cheaper than a diesel because it doesn't have to be built as sturdy (due to lower compression and less torque).
Poor diesel fuel. Even current "low sulphur" diesel fuel here in the U.S. would be illegal to sell in Europe, because it still has enough sulphur in it to cause soot (the black smoke you used to see coming out of the back of diesel-powered vehicles). This in turn means it's extremely expensive to certify diesel vehicles here in America, because you must add filters and traps and possibly urea injection in order to deal with the poor fuel. Not to mention the number that the crappy diesel fuel sold here in America does to injectors and fuel pumps... you go by the VW TDI forums, you'll find that VW has been replacing thousands of fuel pumps because gas stations mixed gasoline in their diesel tanks and wrecked the lubricousity of the fuel, thereby depriving the pump of lubrication and causing it to self-destruct.
No volume. It costs roughly $100M to certify a new engine/transmission combination if you have to do major work to it in order to . If you sell 10,000 vehicles per year over the next 5 years with a given engine/transmission combination, that means you need to charge roughly $2,000 extra apiece to pay off the EPA certification costs. And see #1.

This situation especially pisses me off because I want to see a diesel engine in the Jeep Wrangler because the extra fuel economy would make longer expeditions more feasible. Fiat has a good 2.7L dual-turbo TDI engine that would work in the Wrangler. But they only sell 90,000 Wranglers per year so, assuming that they'd sell 10,000 diesel Wranglers per year (about what they sold the last time they put a diesel into the Grand Cherokee), it just doesn't make financial sense for them to do so. It just takes too much money, time, and effort to certify an engine/transmission combo to make it worthwhile to make a Euro-diesel engine work in a U.S. vehicle.

So next thing I'm waiting for is the 3.6L Pentastar engine to make it into the Wrangler. The Pentastar makes almost 300 horsepower. It was supposed to make it into the 2011 Wrangler but didn't, probably because it turns out that it makes too much horsepower for the old transmission and they had to use a new transmission but the new transmission is three inches longer, meaning they had to relocate the engine slightly forward to make room for the new transmission, meaning they had to put slightly longer sheetmetal on the front of the Jeep to make room for the engine being further forward, meaning it required more work than just swapping a new engine into the Wrangler. But with the 3.6L Pentastar and new sheetmetal, the Wrangler ought to get better mpg than it currently does. Not that this would be difficult... my Wrangler is averaging 12mpg in the city. Something to do with the aerodynamics of a barn door and big sticky tires...

-- Badtux the Auto Geek Penguin

Removing "wheel locks"

2011-04-11T23:00:00.001-07:00

Do you have some of those "wheel locks" on your wheels that have a serrated set of teeth on the outside that a "key" fits over to allow you to remove the wheel? Guess what: Those things are nothing but a waste of time. They certainly won't stop anybody from removing the wheel if they have access to tools. I know, because I just did it.

So I go to rotate my tires, head into the console to get the wheel key, and... err... no key. And no idea where it went. I cleaned the car out so I know it's nowhere on the floor of the car, but it's not in the glove compartment, console, nor in the coin cup, the map pocket, or the door pockets.

What next? Well... I tried getting a pipe wrench over one of the "locks". Nope, my offset's wrong for that. So next I tried hammering a 16mm socket onto the head of one of these things. It went on okay, but didn't bite deep enough and stripped out. So next thing I did was hammer a 5/8" socket onto the head of one of these things and... success. Removed it like it was intended to come off that way. Getting the 5/8" socket off the "wheel lock" took a large bench vise and two large prybars, but if I were intent on stealing the wheels I would have just brought a handful of 5/8" sockets with me... not that anybody is going to steal rusty steel wheels in a size that fits almost no vehicles anyhow, sheesh!

So anyhow, now I've replaced these so-called "wheel locks" with lug nuts from my stash of random junk (what, you don't have a stock of random stuff like lug nuts, tie rod ends, and so forth? Sheesh, next thing you tell me is that you don't even have a torque wrench!). So I'm good to go tomorrow on rotating my tires. But sheesh, what a PITA.

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

50,000 miles and five years

2011-04-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

The TuxJeep now has 50,000 miles on it and is five years old. It seems like yesterday that the silver demon forced me to bring it home, but no, it's been five years. So I'm starting to change out all the fluids, just on general principle. First up was engine oil, which had about 6,000 miles on it (max 7500 mile change interval on this engine). This weekend I swapped out two gallons of coolant for two gallons of 50/50 Zerex G-05 HOAT and distilled water, just to start the process of refreshing its anti-corrosion properties.

Now, a note about anti-freeze. There's basically three kinds of antifreeze out there. The first kind is the old-fashioned green shit that has to be changed every year and which causes deposits in your radiator if you mix it with anything other than distilled water. This is what's available at your local Wal-mart. The second kind is the GM OAT (Organic Acid Technology) coolant, which is dyed orange, which has a bad tendency to eat pot metal parts of your engine such as the thermostat housing. This is *also* available at your local Wal-mart. The third type is a hybrid, HOAT, which has silicates to protect pot metal but also has the long-lasting organic acids to combat corrosion of the other metals in your engine. Ford and Chrysler have settled on this one for their new cars, both use Zerex G-05 HOAT coolant, dyed yellow for Ford (and for the aftermarket), pink for Chrysler. (Yes, *PINK* -- there are sources on the web that say that Chrysler's HOAT is dyed orange like GM's OAT, but the factory fill in my Jeep was quite blaringly PINK). Unfortunately only professional auto parts places like NAPA and Carquest, or dealerships, carry the HOAT coolant -- unlike the OAT or the green shit, you can't get it at Wally World or Auto Drone. And it's *expensive*, $15/gallon at NAPA...

So why is this important? Well, first of all, don't put the orange shit into your car unless that's what your car came with. OAT works by allowing the metals to corrode, then bonding with the corrosion to form a film. Thing is, some metals don't corrode with the correct chemistry for OAT to bond with to create the anti-corrosion film, and you end up with Bad Things Happening. So only cars designed for OAT (i.e. with the correct metal alloys exposed to its cooling system) should get OAT. But if your car came with OAT, you should stick with OAT for one good reason: all other chemistries will, over the long term, clog up your radiator and cooling system with silicate deposits. Only OAT is guaranteed to never do that, for the simple reason that it has no silicates.

Secondly: For everything else, HOAT is the correct thing to use. I've talked to people who restore old cars. To a man they recommend HOAT for *everything*, because it stops corrosion without unduly clogging up your cooling system and is safe for *all* metals, not just the ones that OAT chemistry was designed to bond with. Which is why any shop worth its salt should have only two coolant types in its quiver: the GM Dex-Cool OAT (orange), and the Zerex G-05 HOAT (yellow). The green shit should be consigned to history along with leaded gas and carburetors, it just doesn't work as well as the new stuff. Yet the green stuff is still the most common coolant even shops put into cars... despite the fact that it's crap. But it's cheap. Which is all that counts when someone cares more about profit than about their car's lifespan.

So anyhow I scored some Zerex G-05 (yellow) for about $5 a gallon less than the pink-dyed MOPAR HOAT at the Chrysler dealership (pink), so now have kind of pinkish-yellow coolant in my Jeep (since the cooling system holds a total of about 2.65 gallons and I put a little less than 2 gallons of coolant into it, the rest was in the heater core and other places in the cooling system). Note that the G-05 *IS* the MOPAR coolant, Zerex simply dyes it pink rather than yellow. It seems that pink is a stronger color than yellow, so 3/4th gallon of pink makes 2 gallons of yellow pinker than you'd think. Curious, eh? So anyhow, mixing G-05 with G-05 should be fine, I just refreshed the anticorrosion package with my infusion. Since I only changed out around 2/3rds of the coolant with the radiator and reservoir change, I'll go ahead and do it again in around three years, since I put around three years worth of anticorrosion additives in there with the new coolant.

Next thing I did was change the front differential fluid. I had two quarts of Royal Purple 75W140 left over from my last differential fluid change, and used that. What I discovered inside the differential was that the old Royal Purple fill had sludged up a little since my last change of the front differential fluid, at 20,000 miles. So this is the last time I'm filling with the Royal Purple, the next fill is going to be the Mobile 1 75W140 synthetic. I've already purchased the Mobile 1 plus the limited slip additive for the rear differential and will be changing that out shortly.

Some other fluids that can be changed:

Brake fluid -- probably the most important one to change. Chrysler uses low-spec DOT 3 brake fluid. Going to DOT 3/4 should get me better specs as well as get rid of any moisture that's accumulated in the system over the past five years. I have a Mitey-vac vacuum pump somewhere, I need to find it (haven't used it since I moved to the "new" place eight months ago)...
Transmission fluid -- this uses Synchromesh fluid. Chrysler doesn't even have a fill spec on this, it's supposedly a "lifetime" fluid. Probably going to leave this alone for now, and change it at 90,000 miles just on general principles.
Transfer case fluid -- this uses ATF+4 automatic transmission fluid, which is good stuff (much better than the old GM Dexron III from days of yore). It's spec'ed to be changed at 80,000 miles. Won't hurt to change it anytime between now and then.
Power steering fluid -- this, alas, got changed last year when the moron ran the red light and broke my steering box with the side of his car. So I'm fine there.

So anyhow, that's pretty much all she wrote for now. I'll change out the rear diff fluid sometime in the next few weeks, find my pump and turkey baster and suck the old fluid out of the reservoir, replace it with fresh, and then bleed the brakes to suck the old DOT3 out and put the better DOT3/4 fluid in, and then I'm pretty much done maintenance-wise for the moment.

Oh, while I was at it I put some new light bulbs into my lights. But I'm not telling you what they are, because they're a bit, err, not DOT-certified. But at least I'll be able to see at night!

-- Badtux the Blindingly Bright Penguin

Motor mount woes

2010-12-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

First, let's review what a motor mount does in a Jeep. The job of the motor mount is to a) isolate the engine from the frame so you don't get your teeth vibrated out, and b) hold the engine on top of the frame. There are two motor mounts, one on each side of the engine about 2/3rds of the way towards the front, then the back of the engine is held up by the transmission. The transmission then has a rubber mount at the back of it that holds it to the cross member / belly skid plate that runs across the belly of the Jeep. So there's three pieces of rubber holding the whole engine / transmission / transfer case assembly off the ground, and three points determine a plane so these three pieces of rubber determine the location of the whole assembly.

Here is what the motor mount looks like on my Jeep:

There is a bracket welded to the frame that this mounts to. The part of the bracket closest to the outside of the Jeep has a nut welded into it and you go down from the top through that small hole in the motor mount. On the part of the bracket closest to the Jeep, there's just a hole. A stud comes down from the motor mount that must be pushed through that hole, and then you put a nut on the stud from the bottom. You can't come in from the top because the stud is below that big rubber bushing you see. Then the engine has a forked bracket that comes on either side of that big rubber bushing, and a crossbolt goes through the forked backet and through the big bushing in the middle of the big rubber bushing, and that's what holds the engine up off the frame, nicely isolated by a big rubber donut all around. Here is what it looks like installed in the Jeep (sorry I didn't get a better picture): So anyhow, it's been raining here in the Silly Cone Valley for 40 days and 40 nights, well, feels like it. I decided to take a trip in my Jeep for Christmas. Before taking any trip, I inspect my Jeep to make sure all the fluids are okay, all the bolts are nice and tight, none of the u-joints or tie rods or anything waggle when I whack'em with a rubber mallet, and so forth. And so things were going along fine until I got to the passenger side motor mount on the underside, looked up to where there's supposed to be a stud and a nut holding the engine side of the mount down, and... err. Yeppers, the blasted stud snapped right off at some point in the recent past!

That's from right after I pulled it. To pull it, you first remove the nut from the stud. Well, if there's a stud :). Then you remove the bolt. Then you put your floor jack and a piece of 2x6 under the oil pan skid plate and jack up the engine until the mount is just barely above the frame. Then you remove the crossbolt and the motor mount slides right out.

So anyhow, thanks to Christmas I can't get a new motormount until January (because all the suppliers are on holiday). So I rednecked a temporary fix: I drilled out the remnants of the stud, and jammed a nut on top of it, grinding out just enough so I could tap in the nut with a drift to retain it. This is a flange nut, which has a serrated bottom, so once there's pressure on it from a bolt pulling it towards the frame, it's not going anywhere. But there has to be enough friction to allow it to get pressure on it. Thus why I had to barely grind out enough to be able to force it in there with the drift and 3-pound hammer:

Once I did this, I then had to properly space out a bolt so that it wouldn't bottom out on that bracket part that's above the nut, yet would grab enough threads to not strip out. That required trial and error with various washers and nuts lying around. But I found the right combination, and now it's all installed again, waiting for a new mount but quite usable in the meantime.

As for why the stud broke: It was a metric grade 8.8 bolt welded to the motor mount before the top part of the motor mount was fabricated. Metric grade 8.8 (not to be confused with SAE grade 8, which is the equivalent of metric 10.9) is barely above compressed oatmeal on the hardness scale, but normally won't break in this application. It does bend fairly easily if not fully retained by a torqued nut, however, and also stretches fairly easily if overtorqued or given a sudden shock in the longitudinal direction. What I'm suspecting is that the bolt stretched, perhaps from the oil pan skid plate getting whacked by a rock, letting the motor mount jump around bending the stud back and forth until it work-hardened and finally snapped off. I didn't catch it because I was testing the nut by putting a wrench on it and seeing if it would move, and of course it was corroded in place and wouldn't move -- and unfortunately the place it was corroded into did not put enough pressure on the now-stretched stud to keep the motor mount from moving around.

All of this is compounded by the fact that I can't get a torque wrench onto most of these bolts due to lack of access -- all my torque wrenches are too big to fit into these cramped quarters and it's problematic running long extensions thru u-joints and expecting to get the right torque reading on a tork wrench -- so I'm just hoping that I'm putting the right torque on them. It may be that I had already put close to too much torque on the bottom, and whacking my belly pan on a rock was just enough to finish it off.

So anyhow, needless to say I'm not happy here, I think they should have gone with at least a metric 10.9 grade bolt for the stud because they don't stretch as easily, but at least I'm on the road again. And that ends today's adventure in Jeep wrenchin'...

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Wow, this place has gotten musty...

2010-12-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

The latest mod to my Jeep is the Savvy Offroad rocker guards, which are heavy aluminum plate with stainless steel skids. So I took'em out to Death Valley to test'em out in Mengel Pass's rock garden. Naw, dadburned rock garden has gotten as well groomed as Justin Bieber's hair. Still, there was a few mildly interesting spots, and I video'ed them with my new iPhone 4...

I'm being followed by a full-sized F-150 4x4 pickup truck, which is big and wide. I have to wait on him a bit from time to time -- like Marines, we 4x4 types don't leave folks behind.

So now you know what it looks like when I'm out there in the desert...

-- Badtux the Jeepin' Penguin

The Six Million err Thousand Dollar Jeep

2010-03-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

"We have the technology, we can rebuild her."

As readers of my blog know, someone ran a red light in front of me and I t-boned him a couple of weeks ago. The right front corner of my Jeep was a mess and the steering box Pitman shaft sheared right off. But never fear, the Silver Demon is back on the road again:

Because the bumper was toast, I bought a cool Warn bumper. It cost the same amount as the OEM bumper but is much stouter. The fender is a new replacement, but rather than the OEM fender flare I bought some Bushwacker flat fender flares to replace the OEM's, this gives me more clearance under the fender for bigger tires and also some trick side running lights (DOT certified so they're street legal, don't worry). The fog light on that side was toast, so I bought some Hella 500 fog lights rather than an OEM replacement light, they actually use the same reflectors so that wasn't a big deal. I had my mechanic do most of this work because a body shop would have been utterly clueless.

I brought her home Thursday evening, and have spent most of this weekend going over her making sure everything's okay. I swapped out the lower control arms with some new JKS control arms and checked the OEM's to see if the impact had caused damage to the bushings, no, it hadn't. Doesn't appear to have hurt anything else either, the Jeep drives the same as it did before it got whacked. Jeeps are *tough*. Well, except for that OEM steering box, but I'm wondering if that fault line might not have been there on purpose so that if the wheel ever got a whack like that, it wouldn't cause the steering wheel to spin and break my fingers.

The shop mostly did things okay, but two things were wrong -- the wiring for the marker lights was reversed (so it would not blink when the lights were on), and the right marker light was hard-wired rather than having connectors (because the original wiring had been sheered off by the fender when it was crumpled). Easy fix for both. And the alignment shop did not center the steering wheel, grrr, but that was an easy fix too, just grab the spinner near the pitman arm and spin away (it doesn't affect alignment, just the centering of the steering wheel)... took me two tries, the first time was a little too far, the second try was successful, the only way to know whether it's okay is to drive it down the center of a straight road (so the crown doesn't make it want to go one way or another) and see whether the steering is straight, clearly the alignment shop didn't do that. Oh well!

Now to put the new (well, used, bought from someone else) Old Man Emu front springs on her to deal with the sagging front springs... I was going to do that today, but discovered that the new (well, used, being thrown away by work) workbench I'd put in my garage was too big and didn't give me enough room to jack the front of the Jeep up. I remedied that by shifting everything around to put the workbench in the corner, where it's now out of the way... but that ate up a bunch of my time, I have too much junk in my garage (for a definition of "junk" that is "tools and supplies"). And of course once I do that, I'll need to align the Jeep *again* and re-center the steering wheel *again*. Meaning I wasted my time centering it the first time, but what the hey, ain't the first time I've wasted my time ;).

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Toyota is the new Philip-Morris

2010-03-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

Philip-Morris, you might recall, is the cigarette company that for years insisted up and down that cigarettes were good to you... all the while knowing, within their labs, that they were addictive and caused cancer. They became the poster child for companies that care more about profits than about the health and safety of their customers, so hated that they had to change their name to "Altria" (I guess if you can't X it out, effin' A it out) to escape their reputation.

So why bring up Toyota and Philip-Morris in the same breath? Well... it's because of the testimony of David Gilbert, an automotive technology professor who demonstrates a fault condition that Toyota's electronic throttle control software doesn't detect. Note that Mr. Gilbert does not say -- or prove -- that this particular error condition is the cause of Toyota's problem. Rather, he shows that there is a condition that Toyota's throttle control should detect -- two shorted wires to the throttle position sensors, which are supposed to have different voltages on them because they go to different resistor packs -- which it does not, in fact, detect, and therefore there is at least one bug in Toyota's throttle control software. And software bugs are like cockroaches -- if you can see one wandering around on your kitchen counter in broad daylight, likely enough there's a thousand more in the wall behind the counter hidden from view.

Toyota can try to spin this all they want, but as someone who has an EE+software engineering background, I agree with Gilbert that this seems to indicate that Toyota's throttle control software is not as robust as they claimed and thus cannot be eliminated as a possible cause of the problem. So what's Toyota's response? A) say that Gilbert was paid by trial lawyers (true, but so what? The software problem doesn't go away just because of who Gilbert is paid by), and B), to hold a dog and pony show claiming that Gilbert's *SPECIFIC* bug is not the cause of the acceleration problem. Uhm, okay, but Gilbert himself did not say his bug was *THE* cause, just that it indicated a problem with the software.

All Toyota is accomplishing is making themselves look like the cigarette companies -- i.e., a bunch of lying bastards more concerned about the bottom line than about the health and safety of their customers. This points to a problem in the Japanese psyche that has been sort of shoveled under the covers since WWII -- the Japanese unwillingness to ever admit that they made a mistake or are not perfect. The Japanese refused to believe that their codes had been broken for years after Pearl Harbor, allowing the U.S. to know exactly what they were doing at all times, and even when things happened that should have just blatantly told them "our codes are broken" (like American carriers appearing off of Midway Island *just in time* to sink their own carriers) they refused to believe that any mere American could ever do such a thing to their "perfect" codes. I'm seeing the same mentality at work on the part of Toyota right now... and it ain't pretty, ain't pretty at all.

-- Badtux the Car Penguin

Gimme heat!

2010-03-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure when the low speed on my Jeep's heater quit working, but I noticed it one day while driving down the street -- no hot air blowing out of my vents. WTF? I checked the next three speeds up, and they all worked. So it wasn't the motor, and given that my Jeep has less than 40,000 miles on it, it didn't seem likely to be the switch. At that point, it clicked: Heater resistor.

To understand what I'm talking about, here's the deal. Your heater blower motor takes 12 volts. The way pretty much all American cars are wired, it takes that 12 volts straight from the fuse box, through a relay controlled by the "Hi" setting on the air conditioner/heater fan control. If you want the motor to run slower, you have to feed it less voltage. The way that American cars do that is to have a resistor network, where each resistor gives you a progressively lower voltage, and use the heater control switch to switch which pin of the resistor network gets sent to the blower motor. The higher the resistance, the lower the voltage, and the lower the fan.

Checking out my handy dandy factory service manual, I decided to pull the resistor out and test it. The problem was, where is the blasted thing? Finally after sufficient digging around I found where it is: mounted right above the passenger side footwell light. So I unbolted the light and unplugged it and put it aside, unplugged a bunch of wires under there and moved them aside, and there we were, two 8mm bolts holding this thing in so that it sticks into the airflow where it can get cooled down while the heater is operating. So I removed it and it turns out to be a flat circuit board with resistive traces on it. I take my ohm meter, and yeppers, the connection between the last two pins (the smallest one is the low speed pin) is gone, and a glance at the circuit board shows that the trace apparently exploded where the connector's pin attaches to it, probably due to a manufacturing defect that allowed moisture to get into the circuit board.

A quick trip to my local Jeep dealer and $25 later, and I have a new resistor, and have all fan speeds going again. And yeah, this was probably caused by a manufacturing defect of this Hecho en Mexico hunk of junk, but my OEM warranty ran out at 36,000 miles, so fat chance of getting reimbursed. WTF, it's just $25. So anyhow, if you ever run into this with your own car, it might be as simple as that: a $25 resistor panel might be blown. It's a cheap and easy first thing to check anyhow, and it's not as if they're (usually) expensive...

-- Badtux the Now-Warm Penguin

What the fuck is the matter with cars?

2010-02-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

Toyotas that accelerate because they feel like it or won't brake because they don't feel like it. Hondas whose airbags deploy with the force of a stick of dynamite. This shit that just came out where all the Jap cars seem broken is just crazy. But you know what? I ain't surprised, because the Japs have gone for that electronic shit big-time -- electric steering, electric brakes, electric throttles, electric everything. And when electronics go wrong, they fucking GO WRONG, unlike old-school shit.

My Jeep is old-school. The cable from the throttle goes to an air flap at the throttle body. I open the throttle, the flap opens. I close the throttle, the flap closes. A throttle position sensor, a mass air sensor in the air intake and two oxygen sensors on the exhaust manifolds send signals to a small computer that adjusts how much fuel gets injected by the injector. If the computer goes out, my engine don't run -- it doesn't suddenly decide to go zooming across the freeway at nine bajillion miles per hour. Same deal with my brakes. The brake pedal attaches to a hydraulic plunger. The hydraulic plunger pushes brake fluid into brake lines and forces the brake pads towards the disk. There's actually two plungers attached to my brake pedal (one in front of the other, one for the front brakes and one for the back brakes) so that if one of the brake lines gets busted, there's still two wheels that have brakes and will stop me.

All these new cars, though, they don't have that kind of old school setup. What they have at the top end of the accelerator pedal is a sensor that tells the computer how much you've pushed down the throttle. Then a motor under the hood opens or closes the throttle flap appropriately to make the car go slower or faster in the most efficient way that the computer has calculated. So if the computer decides that this flap thingy needs to be all the way open even though you've let up on the gas pedal, well, it'll do it.

Same deal with the brakes on the Prius, the Toyota that's been having the problems with braking. The Prius cars that have been having stopping problems, they don't got that old-school piston shit. They got *electric* brakes. You push on the brake pedal, and it signals a computer to start reverse-charging your battery, using the electric motor in reverse as a generator and incidentally slowing the car down. You push even harder, and an electric pump starts squirting brake fluid into the lines until the car stops. If the electric pump decides it's tired and doesn't feel like pumping, or if the computer decides the electric pump doesn't need to pump, you're fucking *screwed*.

Now, I've thought about upgrading to one of those new-school Jeeps with the electric throttle and shit. They get better gas mileage and you can fit bigger tires to them without worrying about breaking shit, because their wheel wells are bigger and their axles are sturdier. But I tell ya, there's something to be said for old school. I can't think of a damned thing that'd make the throttle stick on my hoary old Jeep, and same deal with the brakes -- yeah, old-school master cylinders wear out over time, but they fucking *give you warning* that they're going out, the brake pedal starts going down closer to the floorboard and you might have to pump the brakes, and that's when you know it's time to put another master cylinder in. But that electronic shit... when it decides it ain't gonna work, it just don't fucking *work*. Which is a big-ass problem if you're talking about *stopping*.

What we have here, ladies and gents, is a case where the geeks who programmed these cars have forgotten what the wrenches knew years before the geeks finished kindergarten: cars ain't a place to experiment with shit that could kill people if it goes wrong. I'm stickin' with my old school Jeep. Yeah, it's crude and ugly as shit, but you can fix the goddamned thing with a big fucking hammer and a pair of pliers, and it don't decide it's going to go galumphing down the freeway at a bazillion miles per hour just because some goddamned computer geek forgot to carry a digit somewhere in his code. As someone who programs computers for a living, I'm happy as a clam that the only computer in my Jeep is the one that handles the fuel squirters and spark plug sparkers. If they quit squirting and sparking, all that happens is that the Jeep stops going. Which sure the fuck is preferable to what those goddamned Toyotas with their little electric-motor-controlled throttle thingies have been doing, yessiree.

-- Badtux the Old-school Penguin

And.... it worked!

2009-10-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

The "small leak in evaporative system" was fixed by cleaning the gas cap gasket and firmly replacing the gas cap. No more light. It went out before I could even get around to clearing it, took a couple of days but remember I'm still waiting from my scan tool to arrive. (You can read codes via the odometer on my Jeep, but the only way to clear them without a scan tool is to pull the battery cable, and that causes everything else to lose its presets so I decided not to do that).

My negligent self

2009-09-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, I've been neglecting this blog, haven't I?

So let's review what I've done to my Jeep over the past month, shall we?

M.O.R.E. 1" body lift. This picks the body up off the frame a bit more to a) allow fitting larger tires (I'm trying to make room for 33 inch tires), and b) allow tucking various stuff that hangs below the frame (like the transfer case skid plate and the gas tank) upwards a bit with aftermarket skid plates. I'm going to start with the gas tank because that skid is always clanging on the rocks when I drop off a ledge, and it's a lot easier than tucking the transfer case up (because you need to add a slip-yoke eliminator and CV driveshaft to tuck the transfer case up, which in turn requires adjustable control arms to tilt the rear axle pinion upwards to point at the transfer case rather than being parallel to the transfer case output shaft, which in turn requires relocating the shock and spring mounts slightly because their mounts are now pointing in the wrong direction). It also allows installing:
M.O.R.E. motor mount lifts. This raises the engine up by an inch. This has two effects: a) the fan is now lined up with the shroud again (the radiator and its shroud are body-mounted and are thus now higher, remember?), and b) the revised angle of the engine-transmission-transfer case assembly allows adding longer springs front and back without throwing the driveshafts out of alignment. Remember, the operation of the control arms means that with longer springs (i.e. a lift), the pinion points further upwards on both axles compared to the stock location. This means that a) the front output shaft of the transfer case needs to be higher so that the front pinion is still pointing at it (this happens because the front output shaft extends forward somewhat and got raised a bit when the front of the assembly got raised), and b) the angle of the rear output shaft needs to be greater in order to remain parallel to the rear pinion (since the rear has a non-CV driveshaft). Which raising the front, but not the rear, of the combined assembly accomplishes.
EBC YellowStuff front brake pads. These are race pads that are also good for normal street braking. They both stop faster than regular pads, and are more resistant to fading due to their ceramic construction. They won't last as long as the OEM pads probably, I'll be checking them every 6,000 miles when I rotate my tires, but they'll stop me, and one of the side effects of having bigger tires is that the additional leverage offered by the larger tires makes your brakes suck. I needed more brakes. These give it.
Centric premium rotors. The rotors currently on my Jeep need to be turned before they can be used with new pads -- they have a decided ridge on them from the wear and tear of the OEM pads. But I have to drive the Jeep to the automotive machine shop to get them turned. What to do? Oh yeah, buy new rotors, and then swap between the new ones and the OEM ones on each brake change, that'll do it, I'll drive on the new rotors to get the old ones turned! Plus the Centric rotors are nicely painted. Purty!

So that's what I've done to my Jeep this month. The PITA with the body lift was the transfer case shifter plate (necessary -- even with the motor mount lift, things are otherwise out of whack) and the steering shaft relocation block (needed to relocate the steering shaft bracket to re-align it with the new location of the steering wheel, since the steering wheel is now higher due to the raised body). The PITA with the motor mounts was that picking up the engine moved the engine not only up, but moved the forward bracketry back a bit (simple geometry, dudes!). I struggled with it for a while trying to get the engine to drop into the new mounts, finally realized the problem, loosened the transfer case mounts so they could slide forward some, pried with a *big* prybar to shift the whole assembly forward a bit, and *finally* got it to drop onto the mounting holes in the frame. Remember, the combined engine-transmission-transfer case assembly weighs about 700 pounds (405 for that big cast iron straight-6 engine, about 150 apiece for the transmission and transfer case), so shifting that big honkin' mother takes a *big* prybar :).

As for the brakes, they just slid on. Take tires off. Unbolt calipers (two bolts). Whack disks with rubber mallet to knock them loose from hub, set aside. Remove outer pad. Use giant C-clamp on inner pad to push the piston back (remember to loosen your brake reservoir cap first or you end up with an exploded brake reservoir cap!) . Remove inner pad. Clean with brake cleaner to get all the old dust and grease off. Put new pads on. Put new disc on. Install caliper. 45 minutes per wheel, tops, and that's if you're slow.

So anyhow, all that's working. But now I have a check engine light. I used the on-off-on-off-on quick flick of the key to get the codes onto the odometer, and checked the resulting code against the list of codes. Hmm. P0456 Small Evaporative System Leak Detected. *PROBABLY* means my gas cap was loose. I removed it, wiped the gasket, replaced it. That *should* fix it, but now I need to clear the code to make sure I didn't mess up the evap system somehow when I lifted the Jeep, which means I need to go buy a cheap scan tool from Amazon.com so I can keep clearing it between attempts to solve the problem until I find/resolve the problem. After all, the evap system is mounted on the body, while the gas tank is mounted on the frame -- and remember, I just picked the body up by an inch. Has a hose wiggled loose because it's stretched too tight? Or was the problem just a loose gas cap? I'll replace the gas cap next with a MOPAR locking gas cap if the code recurs, then if it still happens again, I'll pull out the inner fender liners (a PITA but I've been there, done that) and check the evap system (which is hidden between the inner fender liners and the stamped wheel wells). But all this requires having the OBDII scan tool to reset the code between attempts to fix the problem... so off I go to amazon.com to order it! (Why order it? I can get a decent tool from amazon.com for $30 cheaper than the local price, that's why... and it does everything I need to do, so why pay more for a tool that works no better for what I need?).

And that's the month of September for my Jeep. Huh, now that I have no more motorcycles to take up time and money, and no more Jeep payments sucking my paycheck, my Jeep is suddenly getting a flurry of attention :). But that is pretty much over until November, when I will be putting new (well, actually lightly used) springs on it to pick it up higher, and maybe some nice rocker guards and corner guards, or a roll cage reinforcement in case I roll it (eep!) because the stock roll cage works, but the windshield crushes in and can chop your head off if you roll wrong (eep!) so some additional bars to keep that from happening is well worth it...

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

My new iTunes radio

2009-09-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, I actually did install that Sony CDX-GT630UI iRadio that I unboxed in the last post.

The instructions from Crutchfield were complete enough. I popped the top trim panel off, then the two screws for the center console cover, and voila, the old radio was just there. Take out the glove compartment, unbolt the security screw at the back as described in the Crutchfield instructions, unplug the two connectors -- the main harness connector and the Sirius radio connector -- and voila. Finally, I unbolted the soft steel "security bar" (a piece of thick wire little thicker than a clothes hanger) and removed it to make more room, since the new Sony radio has no way of attaching to it and it was just in the way. At this point the center of the dash was as empty as it would be:

I then unplugged the Sirius module from its antenna and pulled the Sirius module out from where I'd stashed it under the dash when I put my Kenwood TM-D710A radio where the Sirius module had originally been stashed.

The next thing I had to do was figure out how to put the new Sirius module in. The old one would not work with the new radio. The new Sirius setup was actually two boxes each a little bigger than a deck of cards, one of which hooked to the antenna and one which hooked to the radio and allowed the radio to control the half that hooks to the antenna. But a Jeep Wrangler dashboard is about 8 inches from the front of the dashboard to the firewall, meaning it's already got 10 pounds of shit stuffed into a 5 pound bucket especially since I already have a ham radio and CB radio stuffed under there. First thing I tried to do was re-use the existing Sirius antenna. No go -- it had a different plug than the new Sirius radio. So I unplugged the old antenna up on the rollbar where it lives (remember, the roof of a Jeep is simple cloth or resin-impregnated fiberglass cloth depending on which on you put up there and thus radio-transparent), and put the antenna that came with the Sirius module up there in its place (it just stuck on the existing bracket with a strong magnet). I then ran the wire up front. Next I had to figure out where to put the two halves of the Sirius radio. I found a place for the antenna module at the top of the driver's side kickpanel, and a place for the radio interface module above the heater box vacuum control motor. So I wired everything together -- no way in hell I was going to be able to wire them *after* I got them in place -- and ran the wires that were to the radio out the radio hole, then stuck the boxes in place with double-sided 3M mounting tape, the heavy duty outdoor-use stuff. No way in hell I was gonna be able to get a drill up there to drill holes to mount them, 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bucket, remember? So they were now wired and everything that had to go to the radio, plus the two power wires, was hanging out the radio hole in the dashboard.

Then came the easy part: mounting the radio. The hardest thing there was taking the adaptor Crutchfield sent and soldering it to the pigtail that Sony sent, but it was a matter of soldering blue-white-stripe to blue-white-stripe, brown to brown, etc. until all the wires were connected. As a matter of principle I checked things out against the Jeep service manual's pinout for the connector and Sony's pinout for the connector to make sure I was soldering the right things together, but it turned out that everything soldered correctly. I also soldered in wires to connectors to provide power to the Sirius radio at the same time I soldered in the power wires for the new harness adaptor I was building here -- I used the same "bullet" connectors that are used on all the Japanese motorcycles, simply because I have bags and bags of them. And finally, I plugged in the antenna adaptor that Crutchfield supplied. So now all the wires I needed to plug into the Sony radio were hanging out the dashboard.

So now all I had to do was mount the Jeep-to-DIN adapter and the Sony radio's DIN mounting bracket. The Crutchfield instructions were complete on how to do that. Once I'd done that, I had a nice Sony-sized hole in the dashboard with wires hanging out. Plug wires into Sony, slide radio back into its little cubby while guiding the wires in the directions I wanted them to go (via sticking my hand behind the radio through the glove compartment hole and guiding/tugging wires in the desired directions), and voila. Fire it up by turning the ignition to the accessory position, and... it worked! Except the Sirius, of course, since the Jeep and I are still inside our garage, but the Sirius at least reports "No Signal" rather than nothing at all.

So now I got to put the dash all back together and test out the iPhone/iPod functionality. And here is what it looks like at the end:

My iPhone now plugs directly into my radio and charges from the radio. I can play my iTunes via the radio, and use either the radio's next/forward buttons to move between songs, or the iPhone's screen. I now have a Griffin Windowseat to hold the iPhone over at the left corner of my windshield, so it can serve as a GPS too if I need one in a jiffy or just have a convenient place to let the phone charge and play tunes during long trips. All in all, it just works -- this is a great radio for those with iPhones. I am quite pleased to no longer have to deal with that clunky Chrysler-provided radio.

Oh yeah, the Sirius? I called them and had my account moved from the old ESN to the new ESN and it just works too. I am pleased. And while the Crutchfield directions weren't as complete as they could be, clearly they were good enough for this project. The only real problem was finding a place for the Sirius radio, the Crutchfield directions were absolutely silent on the Sirius install. But it wasn't all that hard at the end to figure it out myself based on Sirius's own directions.

-- Badtux the Radio Penguin

The unboxing

2009-08-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

My new stereo for the Jeep has arrived! The magic brown truck just delivered it from Crutchfield. I'm pumped. Gonna install it this weekend, after which I will be able to plug my iPhone's USB cable into the stereo while traveling and hear all my iTunes (and keep my iPhone charged at the same time). Here is the unboxing of all the goodies... As you can see, I had a bit of help here :).

-- Badtux the Stereo Penguin

Goodbye to motorcycling

2009-07-28T22:04:00.001-07:00

By this time tomorrow, I will be motorcycle-less for the first time in years.

When I first got a motorcycle, my idea was cheap commuting. But what I found is that a motorcycle is like a fancy mistress, it always wants more money, more trinkets, more of your time to get dirty with it. Motorcycles are high maintenance whores. But I wasn't too upset with that, because it was a fun whore. Problem was, this whore -- a nice fast sport-touring bike -- killed my knees on long rides. Which sort of defeated the purpose of having a nice fast sport-touring bike.

So I got a dual sport so I could go play in the national forests, and also have more room for my knees. But what I found is that playing in the national forests on a dual sport is sort of fun in that you never run into a road that has an end to it (you can turn a dual sport around literally on a dime by laying it on its side and spinning it around), but you can't carry the sorts of supplies that would save your life if you broke down in the middle of nowhere. I was always a bit nervous riding a dual sport well away from anyplace that anybody would venture for days, because if I fell and broke a limb, well, I'd probably die.

So I mostly rode the dual-sport on pavement, got a Jeep for the forest roads, and was much happier with that. So I thought, what about a nice fast sport-touring bike again? And ABS, so I could commute in crappy weather rather than chickening out because of oil-slicked roads? So I bought my Wee-Strom ABS. And it was good. The nice thing about the Suzuki V-Strom 650 is that it is a very comfortable and roomy bike, though the weird styling does tend to make things rather buffety in the cockpit. But then I hurt my leg, to go with my bad knees and my bad back. So now I have a bad leg, bad knees, and bad back.

At this point, I've decided the only reasonable thing to do is hang it up. It's just not fun for me to ride anymore because too many body parts start hurting too soon into the ride. So hopefully by tomorrow evening the V-Strom will have a new home. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with my Jeep, because at this point trying to get myself healthy is much more important than a playtoy that hurts me to ride.

-- Badtux the Gimpy Penguin

The case of the mysterious shimmy

2009-07-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

Jeep Wranglers of my Jeep's vintage have a tendency towards Death Wobble. This is a shimmy that kicks in at around 45mph and makes the front end wobble back and forth.

To a certain extent this is inherent in the inverted-Y type steering that my Jeep has. Modern vehicles have rack-and-pinion steering, where a cog on the end of the steering column moves a toothed rack to the left and right to steer the vehicle left and right. The problem is that rack-and-pinion steering doesn't do too well with long-travel suspension used for offroad purposes. With rack-and-pinion steering, hitting a rock or bump will cause the suspension to thump upwards, which in turn pushes on the rack as the steering rod pivots upwards on its ball joints and shortens the effective distance between the wheel and the steering column, which then makes your steering wheel twist violently. Inverted-Y type steering instead diverts much of the force of the bump into a toe change -- rather than the steering wheel twisting violently, the other tire toes out. Basically, the more you compress the front end of a Jeep, the more the front tires toe out (point slightly outwards rather than straight ahead). If you lift a Jeep, the wheels toe in (point slightly inwards). Adjusting via the driver's side tie rod is necessary whenever you lift a Jeep, and you want a slight amount of toe-in at rest because aerodynamic forces push the front of a Jeep down at speed and cause the front tires to toe-out.

So why does this cause death wobble on lifted Jeeps? Well, first of all, lifting the Jeep increases the angle of the Y. This means that an upward movement of the suspension causes toe-out to increase by a larger amount than with an unlifted Jeep. So if your passenger tire hits a bump, the driver's tire toes out and tries to steer the Jeep towards the driver's side. This then causes the Jeep to lean towards the driver's side, which loads the driver's side and unloads the passenger's side, which in turn causes the passenger's side to toe out and try to steer the Jeep towards the passenger's side. And so on. This can set up a resonance -- the "death wobble" -- when the natural wiggle overcomes the natural damping of caster, shocks, and steering damper (yes, my Jeep has a steering damper -- a shock absorber for the steering -- to help dampen any such motions).

So my Jeep started doing this at 45mph after my last tire rotation. So what did I do? First thing I did was make sure all my steering components were tight. Death wobble often happens when the track bar is loose, for example. But nothing was loose.

Next thing I did was check all ball joints and tie rod ends for play. They were all tight and play-free.

That having failed, I took my Jeep to the tire store and had them balance my tires. They reported that my back tires were fine and they'd removed some weight from the front tires.

That didn't affect things at all, so the next thing I did was check my alignment. I did this by duct-taping two pieces of angle iron to my front tires, one on each of my front tires, with the front and back of each piece of angle iron exactly 10 inches above the ground (this is necessary due to the fact that my Jeep has exactly 10 inches of clearance under the front control arms at the back of the front tires). I then grabbed a pair of $1.99 Cheap Chinese Tool Store tape measures. I duct-taped the end of the first one to the angle iron on the driver's side in front of the tires and laid the other end on top of the angle iron in front of the passenger side, then did the same with the other tape measure *behind* the wheels. I then pulled both tape measures taut, and found that there was 1/8" difference in measurement between front and back -- I was toed in by 1/8".

I checked my service manual and did a bit of trigonometry and that's well within specs for my Jeep. Still, one thing that helps with death wobble is less toe-in, because if the wheels start out pointing outwards more, they don't turn in more when you hit a bump. So I fiddled with the tie rod and reduced toe-in to 1/16", then headed out to test. I was worried that this would make my Jeep more skittish on the highway, but it wasn't significantly more skittish. But what I *did* find was that my Jeep no longer understeered -- when I cut the wheel to make a turn, instead of fighting me and trying to lift the inside tire, my Jeep now dives into turns with alacrity. Much driving since then has verified this: My Jeep now handles *much* better than with the stock suspension geometry, because a slight bit less toe-in has reduced the understeer that Jeep's engineers built in because, well, that's how American automotive engineers think cars are supposed to handle (i.e., with lots of understeer). Although to be fair, the wider tires on my Jeep, and the lift, also contributed to the understeer effect.

Anyhow, my test verified that the reduction of toe-in didn't make my Jeep wander on the highway (what I was worried about) and made it handle better in the curves. But: It did not eliminate the "death wobble" entirely. It made the death wobble less severe, it showed up as a pulsing in the steering rather than a violent shaking, but it was still there.

At this point I decided I must have a broken belt in a tire. That happens when you drive a Jeep offroad and hit a rock too hard with too much air pressure in your tires. I even know where it probably happened -- on the old toll road up Darwin Wash to Darwin, where it goes over the mountain, where I didn't bother airing down because that's a fairly mild road as far as 4x4 roads go (I could do it in a 2wd pickup truck). So I started taking tires off and replacing them with the spare. I started with the right rear tire, because it has a dent in the rim from whacking into a rock (advantage of steel over alloy -- an alloy wheel would have shattered). No change. Next, I put that tire back on the rear and rolled the spare over to the front right and replaced that tire. And...

Wobble gone.

So it appears that my new spare has a broken belt that causes a vibration at around 45mph. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. Probably just leave it as a spare for now... I only have about 15,000 miles of wear left in this set of tires, and it works well enough to serve as a spare, so if I get a blowout I'll just put it on in place of whatever tire, then head over to the tire store and get some new tires (bigger meats, 33" ones, this time).

So lessons learned?

The stock settings for toe-in are bunk once you put bigger slower-steering tires and a suspension lift on the beast. You want less toe-in then, because the bigger tires will steer slower than the OEM tires (meaning they don't need as much toe in order to keep the Jeep from wandering on the highway) and the taller suspension will make the inverted-Y add more toe-in when you lean over to do a turn, thus causing more understeer than with a stock Jeep.
And don't eliminate tires as the culprit even if they are balanced, because there's far more than being out of balance that can cause a tire to add a "thump" that can set up a shimmy. This tire isn't even out-of-round when you spin it with no load on the tire. But once you put weight on the tire, the broken belt shifts and lets the rubber stretch, making it effectively out of round as you roll it down the highway.

And thus ends this session of Jeeping Suspension 101...

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Baby loves her Kraut plugs

2009-06-10T15:31:00.000-07:00

Drove the Silver Demon to Point Reyes National Seashore last weekend. She got close to 17mpg. Baby apparently loves her Kraut plugs (the Bosch Platinum+4 ones), because I never got that even when she was new and lower to the ground/skinnier smaller tires. Jeep Wranglers aren't known for their fuel economy :}.

I also took the Weestrom shopping last Saturday. She's a nice pleasant bike, but I don't ride her enough, especially since I now live only 4 miles from work and could even bicycle it if I wanted to do so. Still conflicted over whether to sell her or not. Probably will hang on to her until next spring now, given that we're already in the second week of June (heh!). Guess that means I need to plan a trip with the Wee just to let her spread her wings a little... So tonight I'll go ahead and install the new GPS wiring to my fuse panel, because the old wiring was pretty much fail. Might also go see if I can find that handlebar-mounted windshield in my storage, which might give calmer air behind my fairing... I don't *really* need to see my speedometer (cowling-mounted) if I can glance at the GPS and see how fast I'm going, right? :-).

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Where's my coolant going?

2009-05-20T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm baffled. My coolant tank was down to the "Min" mark. I'd filled it up to the "Max" mark maybe 10,000 miles ago. My oil has no water in it -- I'd notice when I dumped it. I don't see any leaks anywhere. I don't smell anything inside the Jeep. Should I take it to the dealer under warranty and have them do that black light thing?

Now, my brake fluid and my clutch fluid, I can see why they went down. My front brake pads are about half worn out (at 30,000 miles!), assuming they started out at the same thickness as my rear brake pads (which look barely worn). They're about a quarter inch thick now, which is a fair amount of fluid. I assume my clutch has worn some too. So I poured a bit of DOT3 fluid into both from a fresh container of brake fluid (unopened until I did this), and they should be good for a while. But there ain't no wear parts in my cooling system!

Oh yeah, finished greasing my zerks, and rotating my tires, and changed out the air filter while I was at it too. I'm not going to change the oil right now because it only has 2,000 miles on it, so I'll check the rear diff fluid (#$!@ diff seeps fluid despite my best attempts to seal it with black RTV after the last diff oil change, I'm going to have to go to the aftermarket gasket to see if that works), put the (new, formerly passenger front) spare back on the back of the Jeep, and then I'm done for the 30,000 mile service. The next "big" service will be at 36,000 miles, when I change the diff fluid again, 33K will just be an oil change and zerk puffer.

Last thing: I put anti-seize on the wheel studs. The threads were feeling mighty sticky, which is a bad thing, but this is the first time I've rotated the tires myself since the 6,000 mile rotation (which was the first -- and last -- with the original tires). I suspect the tire shop of not using anti-seize on these things and now they're a bit galled from the rotations every 5-6K miles. At least the tire shop didn't use an air wrench to put the lug nuts back on, I watched'em torque them down right, but I didn't think to check behind them on stud wear caused by galling. Oh well, when I do the brakes in 20,000 miles or so (based on current wear patterns) I'll see about whacking some new studs in. It's really easy to do on a Jeep, just take the caliper off, knock the disk off with the rubber mallet, and then you can whack the studs right out and knock new ones without having to take the axle end off and put it in a hydraulic press. We've done it on the trail before, when a guy who had his studs overstretched by morons with an air hammer had the studs break on the trail and we had to round up some studs from people's spare tire carriers and whack'em in to get him on four wheels again... crap, you can just about fix a pre-2007 Jeep Wrangler with a rock tied to a stick, when it comes down to it :-).

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

The downsides of wrenching late at night

2009-05-20T00:18:00.001-07:00

I got the new spark plugs into the Silver Demon tonight. I was going to ride down to the nearest NAPA auto parts and get some NAPA goodness, but they went out of business :-(. So I kept riding down El Camino Real until I passed a Kragen's on the left, at which point I got over into the left lane and did a U-turn. I asked the parts guy to give me the best plugs he had, and he started scrolling down the list on his computer. I stopped him on the Bosch plugs and got the best ones he had. Six of them for $6 apiece isn't bad at all for plugs you don't have to gap and the Krauts know how to make good shit, hell, I got a German transmission and German rear brakes (Bosch rear brakes, believe it or not!) so those plugs ought to feel right at home in my Jeep.

So the next problem was getting the coil-over-plug rail out of the way. I had to figure out how to get that $#%! connector off the end of it without being able to, like, actually *see* the bloody thing because the tabs are facing the firewall. But I figured it out eventually, and figured out a way to wiggle the coil-over-plug rail so that I could get it out of there. Six teats in a row, remember? That reliable old 4.0L I-6 engine might date to 1964 in many of its details, but that coil-over-plug rail is state of the art as of 2003. o that's a long, long coil-over rail, and a PITA to wiggle outta there.

The OEM plugs were semi-frozen in the heads (30K miles on'em), but a big 1/2" ratchet worked. The one on the end, in the indentation of the firewall, I had to grab my cheater pipe and a metal bar to get it out. But I got it out, and anti-seized the new plugs and put'em in and torqued'em to 260 inch-pounds (comes out to something like 29.7 n/m, the spec says to put'em to 30 n/m, close 'nuff already), wiggled the rail back in and hooked it back up, and then headed out to test-drive the beast. It test drove fine. Seemed to be a bit smoother, but that may have just been my imagination.

So anyhow, it was only 9:30PM by this time, so I started the next task on my list -- rotate the tires and check the brakes. I do a five-tire rotation, that way I only need one jack, besides it helps keep wear down on the locker up front to have all the tires be the same general wear level. I inspected the brakes while doing so this time because the brake fluid is looking a little low. So the spare went onto the rear driver's side. While it was off, I looked at the brake pads (rear disks). Damned things looked new -- they were freakin' half an inch thick. So I put the spare on and torqued it down to 100 ft/lbs (in stages), rolled the former rear tire to the front of the Jeep, and jacked that wheel up and took it off. That brake pad looked considerably more worn, and I found another oddity: My factory service manual has no minimum spec listed for the friggin' brake pad thickness! However, I do have a Chilton manual around and it said 0.125 inches. Well, I grabbed my micrometer and the brake pads are considerably thicker than that, probably half-worn, so that was that.

So next thing I realize is that, with my wheel off, all my zerks are right there in front of me instead of me having to crawl under the car. So I grab the grease gun and start pumping grease into zerks. One... two... three... four -- oops, what happened to my grease pressure?! Turns out I managed to run out of grease. Darn, and I just put this grease cartridge in there a year or so ago, wonder what happened to the grease given that I only use it to pump grease into my Jeep?

So now it's 10:30PM, and I'm out of grease, and I go look for grease on my lubricants shelf. I find a vat of grease, but no friggin' tube. Oh come on now, I know I had a spare tube of grease! Oh yeah, that's right, that's the empty tube of grease that I just took out of the grease gun because I did not buy another tube of grease when I put my spare into the grease gun! GAH! And it's 10:30PM. Nothing open. I wish I lived in a real city that didn't close down at 9PM!

So I put the rear tire onto the front, and roll the former front tire to the back for tomorrow, and wrap everything up for the night. Tomorrow I'll ride the Nightstrom to Kragen's again and buy a couple of tubes of Mobil 1 grease for my grease gun (*gonna buy that spare this time*!) and a new air filter because my air filter looked dirty too and I've already knocked sand out of it enough times that I'm starting to get dubious about its integrity (you can whack an airfilter on your fender only so many times before it starts getting a bit, well, mushy). That's what happens when ya drive around in the desert a lot eating the dust of other Jeeps, heh!

So g'nite, all. And the continued saga of the Silver Demon's 30,000 mile service shall, well, continue, 'cause I still got the other side of the tire rotatin' to do, as well as the air filter, add some brake fluid (checked and yeppers I still have a sealed DOT3 container), and finally, change the oil... not to mention finish greasing all those damned zerks!

Oh yah: Before taking tires off:

Put yer emergency brake on.
Put the transmission in first gear, or park if it's an auto. (Or if your reverse is lower than first, put it in reverse, but my 1st is lower).
Put the transfer case into 4-Hi (if you have 4wd of the part-time type)
Block the wheels with wheel chocks that are opposite the side you're working on.

Safety counts. I'm using the OEM jack which fits up under the axle and is mechanical in nature (it's a screw-type jack) so it's pretty much bullet-proof, but you're darn tootin' that I ain't gettin' under that Heep without jackstands even so. I ain't interested in being a flat penguin, nosirree...

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Piece of shit spark plugs

2009-05-18T22:45:00.001-07:00

I've been working on cars for over 30 years now. I thought I'd seen every fucking piece of shit car that had ever come down the pike, every crappy half-assed aftermarket part that was possible to see. But this is the first time I've ever seen a brand name that was so fucking cheap ass I wouldn't put it in the car of my goddamned worst enemy.

The culprit: Champion "Platinum Power Premium Spark Plug, part number 3034 RC12PEC5". Look. I've put spark plugs in everything from a 1971 Ford Torino to a 2008 Suzuki V-Strom. I didn't expect a problem putting spark plugs into my Jeep. I mean, fuck. That goddamned I-6 engine dates back to before I was fucking born. So I took the spark plug coil rail off, and grabbed one of these spark plugs out of the box and... what the fuck? The goddamned electrode was set at like 0.60, when a Jeep wants 0.35. Well, fuck, that's not a problem, you just rap the plug on the front bumper with your feeler gage at .35 between the electrodes and... what the fuck? The goddamned electrode won't fucking bend straight it's so over-long for the gap required for the Jeep 4.0L I6, it's like all half-ass and shit? Yeppers, I tried it on two different plugs, same goddamned result. There's just too much motherfucking electrode for a Jeep 4.0L I6.

Fuck this shit. I threw these goddamned piece of shit spark plugs in the fucking trash. I'm going back to the parts house tomorrow and get some better plugs. Sue me for fucking cheaping out on spark plugs, I shoulda known better. "Platinum" or no, these are fucking bottom feeder piece of shit spark plugs, not fit for my worst enemy's car, much less my own.

-- Badtux the Rude Penguin

Gears!

2009-05-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here's the deal. The Silver Demon (my Jeep LJ) came with 30 inch tires (that's 30 inches from top to bottom, on 15 inch wheels) and 3.73 gearing in the differentials (remember, I have two differentials). So what happens if I go to 35 inch tires?

Well, here's what happens. The 30 inch tires are 86% smaller than the 35 inch tires. What that means is that the effective gear ratio becomes 3.73 * 0.86, or 3.21. Which is very tall gearing for a manual-transmission Jeep LJ. Frankly, the stock gearing was already a little tall in 6th gear, I had to downshift every time I hit a hill, this would make it horrible indeed. How horrible? 6th gear in a Chrysler NSG370 manual transmission is a 0.83 overdrive. Using this gear calculator, at 75mph I'd be at 2256 rpm, rendering 6th gear useless for pretty much anything slower or on any slope steeper than my bedroom floor. Whereas with the stock 30 inch tires, I'd be at 2632 rpm, which is much closer to the torque peak of the venerable old 4.0L AMC I-6. 235 lb-ft @ 3,200 rpm. But more important, my crawl speed at idle (1000 rpm) with 2.71 low range transfer case and 4.46 1st gear ratio goes from 1.98mph to 2.31mph -- which is significant when you're rock-crawling, where slower is better. And the 1st gear mph at 1000rpm in 2hi (1:0 transfer case ratio) is 6.26mph, which would make it hard to start off without slipping the clutch as vs. the 5.37mph of the stock tires. Not Good.

So I can upgrade to 35 inch tires, but to do that, I have to go to lower gearing (higher multiplication ratio). My Jeep LJ is equipped with the Dana 30 axle. This is a relatively small axle that has only three gearsets available that are lower than the 3.73 in my Jeep: 4.10, 4.56, and 4.88. Because of the small size of the axle housing, the pinion for 4.88 is *very* small -- Dana only recommends 4.56 as the maximum. So I plug 4.56 into the gear calculator to compute 1st gear mph at 1000 rpm and... 1.88mph crawl speed in 1st at 1000 in 4-lo, or slightly lower than OEM. At 75mph, I'd be going at 2758rpm as vs. 2632rpm with the stock gearing. Not a big deal, it'd make 6th gear more usable in less-than-flat terrain though I'd still have to downshift for big hills.

Now, why am I talking about gears? Because I'm thinking about putting a ARB Air Locker in my rear end for better traction off-road. The stock limited slip has very little friction material and is slowly losing its capability to provide any traction benefit at all in offroad situations. Thing is, this replaces the stock spider gear carrier with the ARB spider carrier, and requires complete gear setup as a result. Gear setup on a Dana 44 rear axle is a PITA, requiring you to set pinion depth with a crush sleeve and a 250 ft/lb torque wrench, set pinion bearing preload with a 15 inch-pound torque wrench and spacers prior to setting pinion depth, spread the case with a case spreader and use shims on the insides of the bearings to properly preload the carrier bearings, and adjust the shims on the inside of the carrier bearings side to side to properly adjust the side-to-side gear lash. It can take a couple of hours and a lot of cursing to get all the depths and preloads and everything right (and remember that the shims are on the *insides* of the bearings and the bearings are pressed on and pulled off with a bearing puller), and people justifiably charge an arm and a leg to do it. So when I have someone put in the ARB, it makes sense to do the gear setup for the 4.56 gears at the same time. That way they only have to do the gear setup *once*, not *twice* (once for the 3.73, once for the 4.56), which would save a lot of time and hassle. And remember, when you're talking about wrenching, time and hassle is $$$.

So anyhow, that leaves one last problem. Right now I have 32" tires on my Jeep. They still have at least 20,000 miles of wear left on them before I am ready to replace them (i.e., until the tread depth gets low enough to start affecting offroad traction). What happens if I put 4.56 gears on the Jeep before I put the 35" tires? Well... rpm at 75mph goes to 3016 rpm. As vs. 2937 rpm if I am running 5th gear (1:0 ration) with 32 inch tires at 75mph. So I tested 5th gear at 75mph, and it's a bit busier than 2600 rpm was with the stock tires and gearing, but still acceptable. Note that I never -- ever -- go faster than 75mph in my Jeep. It just isn't what a Jeep is made for. So I could go ahead and get my Jeep re-geared at the same time I get the locker put into the rear, and I'll still be fine, it's just that my Jeep will be a bit buzzy (but not excessively so -- 3000 rpm isn't all that high).

Now comes the final issue: Should I pay to have someone do the locker install and gear setup, or should I do it myself? Well, here's the deal. To do it myself, I'd need the following spendy stuff: A 0-30 in/lb torque wrench. A hydraulic press. A 500 ft/lb torque wrench. A case spreader. Probably a couple other things I've forgotten, while adding up the above $500+ worth of tools (all by itself) which is more than I'd pay for the gear setup. Given that we're talking about a job that'd take me several days, I'm taking names of any competent axle people you know in the San Francisco Bay area. Heck, anywhere else within reasonable driving distance, for that matter... I'd rather pay to have it done right but have to drive 250 miles to get there, than to pay someone local who screws it up and then I end up with the axle tearing apart and needing to buy a new axle. Bummer, big time, dude!

-- Badtux the Jeepin' Penguin

It'll buff out

2009-05-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

A few things here:

The driver was *not* hurt, she was wearing her seat belt and Jeep Wranglers have a very effective roll bar.
The Jeep itself wasn't significantly hurt. Her hood needed banging back into shape but bungied right back down with the stock bungies, and there were a couple of holes in the top that needed duct tape to make it watertight again, and the rocks left a few dents in the sheetmetal here and there, but that was pretty much the extent of the damage. Jeeps are *tough*, and the sheetmetal is just that -- sheetmetal, with no structural role. So dented sheetmetal is nothing to a Jeep.
The driver claims that the reason she didn't follow her spotter's direction to cut hard right to follow the seam was because the sun was in her eyes.

Which brings up the fatal flaw in this driver's excuse. If I'm heading up a seam like this and my left front starts heading up into the air and I can't see my spotter, I *stop*. I then wait either for my spotter to come running to my window to tell me what I should be doing, or for him to tell me over my CB radio what I should be doing, or for him to send a runner to tell me what I should be doing. It may be that the best thing to do is to back up and take another cut, it may be that I'm in a position where I can cut hard right where I am and still make it, it may be that the best thing to do is to put the hook (winch cable) on me to make sure I don't flip backwards and just keep bulling forward, but thing is, I'm inside the Jeep where I can't see clearly, and my spotter is outside where he can see everything.

In short, I don't buy this driver's excuse. She was an idiot, plain and simple. Bulling forward after she lost her spotter was just *stupid*. If she was a guy I'd accuse her of testosterone poisoning, wanting to prove how macho he was. Since she's not a guy, well, not much to say there.

So remember, boys and girls, if you're in a tricky spot like this where it's possible to roll over, and you can't see your spotter, and your wheel starts heading up, *stop*. Maybe slowly back up a little to get your wheel back down, but at the very least, stop! You might need the hook to make it up this seam, or you may need to back up and take another cut, or a hard cut to the right might get you out of it, but simply bulling straight forward when you can't see your spotter is just, well, DUMB.

-- Badtux the Jeepin' Penguin

Performance parts

2009-05-04T14:33:00.001-07:00

I've had great fun looking at the excellent selection of performance parts at Kaleco Auto Supply. They have a plentiful supply of flux capacitors and muffler bearings for those tricky repair jobs.

-- Badtux the Easily Amused Penguin

Summer wind

2009-04-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

Well, the thermometer crept near 90F here in Sodom by the Bay, so this was decidedly the time for the Changing of the Windshields. Since the Mule is gone to a new home, the Knightstrom was the recipient of its seasonal windshield transplant. I went from the big winter windshield: to the small summer windshield (the one that came with the bike): The fancy bracket that the windshield is mounted on is a Madstad bracket and allows moving the windshield up and down and tilting it back and forth and allows air underneath the shield to help reduce backpressure and buffeting. For the winter windshield it was set about midway, too high and too far back and the mirrors or the handguards hit it when I turned the wheel lock to lock. For summer use, I put the summer shield all the way down and all the way pointing back. This puts the maximum air on me.

In other news, I paid off the Knightstrom today. The loan lady gave me the choice of either giving me the title with a signed lien release, or having her handle the paperwork to send the title to the State with the lien release and they send me a clear title. The latter takes four to six weeks for the state to send the clear title back. So I told her to go ahead and do the second one, of course. That gives me four to six weeks to decide whether to sell the Knightstrom or not. I'm a bit reluctant to do so, it's a great bike, but I really do need to simplify my life...

-- Badtux the Wrenching Penguin

Goodbye to the Mule

2009-04-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well, the Mule is sold. An era is ended. Sigh. I am becoming ordinary.

-- Badtux the Ordinary Penguin

Kenwood TM-D710A

2009-04-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I installed the radio today. Not much more to say. Now I have to figure out its obscure menu system and so forth, and input some channels... it was starting to get dusk by the time I was done. 'Nuff said there.

Last thing left to do: Add some speakers so I can actually hear the thing in my loud (!) Jeep...

-- Badtux the Experimenting Penguin

Procrastination

2009-04-05T00:26:00.001-07:00

Dammit, I still haven't put the Mule on Craigslist! It's just sitting in my garage with a couple gallons of fuel in the tank (with fuel stabilizer in it, of course). It runs fine, the cruise control works great when I ran it up and down the street for ten minutes or so to warm it up and make sure everything worked, just haven't listed it. Sigh.

-- Badtux the Procrastinating Penguin

The Mule at ready

2009-03-15T22:25:00.001-07:00

Well, I got the wiring sorted out on the Green Mule today. There's a big pile of wires sitting by the bike, I took off my ad-hoc relay kit for the headlights that never seemed to give any improvement for some reason (I think my ground wasn't good enough), I took off all the GPS wiring (for two different GPS'es!), the brackets for handlebar-mounted windshield and GPS, and I got all the cruise control wiring sorted out I hope (still need to test it). The fuel tank is bone dry empty and clean (it's plastic so no worries about rust), the float bowl is empty, it's waiting for fresh gas. I took the lowering links off the back and lubricated the needle bearings and put the original dogbones back on, and put the front forks back at their regular position.

The only thing left to do, really, is to change that frackin' fork seal. Now, there's a number of ways to do this, but I'm going to try to take the shortcut way. I'm going to take the fork leg off, remove the boot and then the C-clip that holds in the fork seal, and then put some air into the fork leg. The old fork seal ought to pop right on out at that point, then I can slide it off the end of the fork, slide the new one in, and push it right on down to where it needs to be. The "canonical" way is to disassemble the fork and use a seal remover, but that requires a looooooong extension to unbolt the bolt at the bottom of the fork tube that keeps the fork tube from escaping from the fork lower, and it's a general PITA all the way around. But anyhow, once that's done, I'll be ready to list it on Craigslist for sale -- hopefully just as the warm weather arrives and people's minds turn to thoughts of dual-sport bikes :-).

-- Badtux the Motorcyclin' Penguin

Antennae

2009-03-13T11:34:00.001-07:00

Communications are important when you're far from civilization. So my Jeep has four antennas on it. The satellite radio antenna is hidden under the padding for my roll bar. The AM/FM antenna is on the right front fender. Then here, on the back of my Jeep, are a CB (11 meter) antenna, and an amateur radio 2m/70cm antenna. Not visible is the FRS/GMSR antenna, which is fixed onto the "walkie talkie" that it came on and clips to the headrest in my Jeep, or the internal antenna of the SPOT satellite messenger, or of my iPhone (which, however, is mostly an inert lump if I'm away from pavement).

The AM/FM antenna and satellite antenna came with the Jeep, so let's talk about the CB and ham radio antennas. The CB antenna is a Firestik wire-wound fiberglass antenna that someone gave me. I mounted it on the center brake light housing on a Firestik spring through-hole mount, by drilling a hole in the brake light housing for the stud of the spring mount. I then ran the coax alongside the brake light wiring to inside the rear tailgate of the Jeep, made a semi-loop inside to allow opening and closing the tailgate, and from there along the seam of the tailgate doorsill, protected by a lot of duct tape. Once I reached the driver's side of the Jeep I then ran it alongside the existing wiring until it got to under the dash, where it hooks into the junction box of my CB radio. From the junction box I then ran the CB handset's wiring across the interior bottom of the dashboard (on the frame structure for the bar that keeps you from sliding under the dash if you're not belted and the airbag goes off, part of the federally-required airbag system), then inside the center console on top of the driveshaft tunnel, then it comes out under my seat, from whence it can be stashed alongside my seat or hooked on the dashboard microphone hook depending on whether I want that big heavy handset and coil wire hanging around (if I'm not on the trail and thus don't need the CB, it lives alongside my seat).

So anyhow, that's my CB setup. It shouldn't work, the textbooks say. Up there on the plastic brake light housing it doesn't have a good enough ground, they say, and it's too far above the tub of the Jeep for the tub of the Jeep to serve as a good ground plane (remember, the roof of my Jeep is fiberglass -- it's basically transparent to radio waves). But the 10 gauge wire running down to a ring connector slipped over one of the brake light housing mounting bolts appears to give enough ground for it to work, I hear fine on the trail, and talk good enough, and has fairly low SWR. So it works as good as the cheesy freebie antenna will ever work, I suppose, and good enough for the communicating I do with it.

Which brings us to the ham radio antenna. Now, one thing a lot of people have a problem with is the idea of putting holes into their nice purty vehicle. I've had the mount that I use for the ham radio antenna for, like, forever, but I had that same problem back when the Jeep was new. Not anymore. I put a Rock-It Parts CB Antenna Mounting Plate between the driver's side tail light and the body of the Jeep. This required drilling two holes into the body of the Jeep for supporting the top part of the bracket (the template for doing this came with the bracket), which raises the antenna up to above the level of the body of the Jeep to prevent reflected waves from messing things up and allows using the tub of the Jeep as an (asymmetric) ground plane (remember, my roof is either fiberglass or cloth depending on whether I have the hard-top or convertible top on, both will attenuate radio waves but do not reflect them). I then spaced the tail light out from the bracket a bit to give more room to get the antenna wire down into the hole for the tail light wires.

The next thing to add was the actual mount. I used a Diamond C101. I had to drill out the hole in the CB mount to be big enough for the UHF connectors and I did not have a big enough drill bit, so I went over to Cheap Chinese Tool Place and bought 2 Piece Titanium Nitride Coated M2 High Speed Steel Step Drill Bit Set for my drill, which did the job of reaming that hole out nicely. I just kept going up one step until the mount fit through it! I could then put the antenna onto the mount. I chose a Diamond NR77HA antenna. I wanted a 2m/70cm antenna because those are the two frequencies most used by repeaters (the 2m for local repeaters, the 70cm for interconnected repeaters), and the longest antenna that could still be protected by the roof of my Jeep from being whacked by brush, and the vibration of offroad driving also was a factor limiting me to about 40 inches of total length. Size matters with antennas (unlike with, err, other pointy things), but like with all good things too big is just too big. This was the best size I found for my Jeep.

Once I had the mount mounted in the hole, there came the job of running the supplied coax into the Jeep. I just looped it on the *inside* of the tail light and ran it through the existing hole behind the tail light. I protected it with plastic wire loom to protect it from anything that might abrade the coax. There is a rubber grommet where the existing wiring passes into the tub of the Jeep, I poked a new hole through it and pulled the coax through the new hole into the Jeep, then ran it alongside the existing wiring to the front of the Jeep, adding a mini-UHF to UHF converter and coupler to extend the wiring enough to get to the antenna location. Then I tested the antenna system by using an SMA-to-UHF converter to attach it to my VX-8 portable radio, used a local repeater's signal test function late at night (when nobody is using that repeater, which is 20 miles from my apartment), and found that it gives approximately twice the transmitted power as even the long Diamond SHR940 HT antenna on my VX-8.

The next thing to add will be a mobile 2M/70cm radio. I am looking at the Kenwood TM-D710A, which has some nice features. It will output 50 watts, unlike the 5 watts of my little Yaesu VX-8, and will make long-distance communications within line-of-sight much more reliable in the desert areas where I travel. The big issue is money, but that should be resolved shortly for reasons I won't say more about here. Once I am finished with that, my Jeep's communication systems will be pretty much finished, and I can then move on to other mods to the Jeep. More as that unfolds...

-- Badtux the Radio Penguin

End of an era

2009-02-25T15:43:00.000-08:00

Last night I started the process of preparing my 2002 Kawasaki KLR 650 for sale. Given the fact that I can't stand on the pegs and really will never be able to trust my left leg to hold up again when doing so even after it's finished healing, having a dirt-ready motorcycle just doesn't seem like a reasonable thing right now. The trusty KLR has been a reliable steed and I'm not feeling good about selling it. I just don't trust the machinery that operates it anymore when it comes to offroading, and my V-Strom is a much better on-road motorcycle.

One part of this process is removing whatever accessories have value once removed, because accessories really don't add anything to the value of the bike at sale. I took out the Brake! LED tail light / brake light module and put the old-style filament tail light back in. I also put the license sticker on it and started going over the bike looking for problems that I need to solve. In the process I discovered a puddle of ATF on my right wheel. Yeppers, my right fork seal is leaking (I use Mobil 1 synthetic ATF in my forks, which about an 8W fork oil but easier to find and a lot cheaper than "fork oil"). Sigh. So I'll have to fix that before I can sell it. Luckily fork seals are cheap! Over the next few days I'll clean up the bike to make it showroom shiny (yeah right, it's a KLR!) and repair any other problems I find and remove any other accessories that I can sell separately without hurting the resale value of the bike (e.g., the hand guards, skid plate, and engine guards go with the bike, because I'm selling it as a rugged desert cruiser, but the relay kit for the headlights comes off as do the GPS power cables and the GPS RAM mount).

And so the process of simplifying my life begins...

-- Badtux the Saddened Penguin

A bad joke

2009-01-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

This isn't mine, just passing it along. Don't have much else for this blog because this month's been a waste -- haven't been able to walk worth a flip for most of it due to injury, so my motorcycles are lurking unhappily in the garage and the Jeep is getting tired of the trek to work and back every day not getting any raw beef thrown its way.

So...

A gynecologist had become fed up with malpractice insurance and HMO paperwork and was burned out. Hoping to try another career where skillful hands would be beneficial, he decided to become a mechanic. He went to the local technical college, signed up for evening classes, attended diligently, and learned all he could. When the time for the practical exam approached, the gynecologist prepared carefully for weeks and completed the exam with tremendous skill. When the results came back, he was surprised to find that he had obtained a score of 150%.

Fearing an error, he called the instructor, saying, "I don't want to appear ungrateful for such an outstanding result, but I wonder if there is an error in the grade."

The instructor said, "During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly, which was worth 50% of the total mark. "You put the engine back together again perfectly, which is also worth 50% of the mark."

After a pause, the instructor added, "I gave you an extra 50% because you did it all through the tailpipe, which I've never seen done in my entire career."

-- Badtux the Easily-amused Penguin

Trabant!

2009-01-05T16:54:00.001-08:00

East Germany's national car was the Trabant, a cramped and woefully obsolete atrocity with a maximum speed of 62mph that was suspended on transverse coach springs (no shock absorbers) and powered by a 600cc 2-stroke engine that smoked (and sounded) like a chainsaw engine. The only advanced feature of the Trabant was its front-engine front-wheel-drive layout, in an era (the early 50's) when most cars had a rear-engine rear-wheel-drive layout. Here is an example of a Trabant in action, trying to tow a dead Czech 4x4 out of a yard:

Heh!

-- Badtux the Auto Penguin

The Two-story Outhouse Principle

2008-12-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

The average GM assembly line worker makes $27/hour, the average Toyota assembly line worker makes $25/hour (but with profit sharing and overtime, the average GM worker makes $29/hour and the average Toyota worker makes $31/hour). So clearly the wages of line workers are not the problem with competitiveness. But the "corporate culture" of the United States cannot assign blame to management and government policies because that violates the hierarchical principal underlying all large organizations, the most sacred of which is "sh*t falls downwards". That is, no executive in American corporate (or governmental) culture today will ever admit that blame lies in flawed management decisions. That conflicts with the culture of arrogance. Rather, all blame will automatically be passed downward until it reaches the level of people unable to pass the blame further down even if said people have nothing to do with the decisions that led to the current problems -- line workers, in the case of Big 3 auto makers.

-- Badtux the Auto Penguin

Trip update

2008-12-04T23:41:00.000-08:00

The Silver Demon worked perfectly on this trip. Granted, I didn't do any hard-core offroading -- I didn't even need to disconnect my sway bars. But it was just reliable as dirt. Which is pretty much what you expect from a design that is as simple as dirt.

I'm going to eventually put a long-arm suspension system and some big-ass tires on the beasty, but that'll wait until it's paid off. Until then, its current configuration -- a Jeep on the cheap -- does everything I need, if not necessarily everything that I want.

-- Badtux the Jeeping Penguin

The world's slowest mechanic strikes again

2008-11-15T22:21:00.000-08:00

I'm doing the 24,000 mile service on my Jeep, and it took almost five hours just to change the front differential fluid and the engine oil and filter. Now, granted, I'm also inspecting other things, like the radiator fluid (added some distilled water and glycol), the power steering fluid (seems okay), and the brake fluid (doesn't need any yet, but it's on the line, so keep an eye on it). Not to mention inspecting the crosspin for wear, inspecting the Aussie Locker for proper operation (should ratchet if not being driven by the pinion, should lock solid if being driven by the pinion), and so forth. But still. This is ridiculous!

If I could rely on someone else to be as meticulous as me, I think it'd be worth it for me to pay someone. Problem is how to find someone as meticulous as I am who is educable as to the quirks of my Jeep (as vs. the sort who go, "I've been working on cars for 99 years, I know what I'm doing", well, okay, but the cars you were working on don't have the mods of my Jeep, which has a few more zerk fittings than a standard Jeep as well as that trick front differential with the ratchet in it!). Well, that and being able to afford that person, since you ain't gettin' that for cheap!

- Badtux the Wrenching Penguin
(Who still ain't done, I need to grease the zerks and inspect the brake pads, oh joy!).

Should we save General Motors?

2008-11-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot said about General Motors - that the straits they're in are because they made bad cars or not enough small cars. Thing is, they sold more small cars last year than Chrysler and Ford combined and their cars were pretty good technically, if a bit cheap in the fit and finish department (plastick-y interiors and such) because of rampant cost-cutting. If I want a work truck, for example, I want a Chevrolet. Ford and Dodge trucks are designed for rich suburbanites as penis enhancement devices, Chevrolets are designed for work, which is why they have wider and lower beds than Dodge and Ford trucks (who wants to lift a hay bale up five feet into the bed of a jacked-up Dodge when they can lift it up three feet into the bed of a Chevy?). Then there's the notion of bad management. Well, their management certainly isn't the best on the planet, but it's no worse than any other automaker's management.

So what's the deal, then? Well, the deal is simple: HEALTH CARE. General Motors turned into a health care provider that sold cars. There is more health care than steel in a GM car, on a dollars and cents basis. The cost of providing health coverage for 1.1 million GM workers, retirees and dependents is over $10 billion per year. So we can say to GM, "okay, you can go bankrupt". But then 1.1 million people lose their health care coverage. Hundreds of thousands lose their pensions. Probably half a million Americans who are paid directly or indirectly by General Motors lose their jobs, as the failure reverberates through GM's suppliers, most of whom themselves would end up going bankrupt.

So while there's something to say about the notion "GM should not survive", this isn't the time. A down economy such as we have now simply can't take that sort of hit without going further into the hole. In the long term, we need to fix the health care system to take that burden off of GM's back and then do something about GM's management, which has not done a good job of thinking long-term over the past thirty years. But in the short term, unless something is done quickly GM is dead. And we get another half a million people without jobs on the street, and 1.1 million people with no health care. That's called "economic death spiral", folks. And no matter how much you detest GM, we can afford that even less than a bailout of GM.

-- Badtux the Economics Penguin

Hell's Grannies

2008-11-07T17:31:00.001-08:00

They're coming for you!

-- Badtux the Easily Amused Penguin

Mirror extenders came today!

2008-11-06T23:11:00.000-08:00

They were in the mailbox when I got home. So I went ahead and put them on the Weestrom, and then tried adjusting the windshield again to a good place. Better. But still not perfect. There is more room for the mirrors, but the biggest problem now is that when I turn the handlebars lock to lock, the handguards hit on the "ears" of the windshield if I tilt it back further. Still, I can tilt it back further than I had it when I didn't have the mirror relocation widgets, so I'll see tomorrow how well it works in its new position. If all else fails, I can always fiddle more with the location of the handlebars (adjustability, what a joy!) and even modify the windshield itself to cut off some of its "ears" if necessary. It's just a big friggin' piece of Lexan, after all, perfectly cuttable by half a dozen tools in my toolbox...

-- Badtux the Wrenching Penguin

My first ride with the new windshield

2008-11-06T10:21:00.000-08:00

On Monday, I needed to go to Costco for some noodles. I drove the Jeep to work. On Tuesday, I needed to take the Jeep to the tire place to get my tires rotated and balanced (free lifetime rotation and balancing at America's Tire/ Discount Tire if you buy your tires there!). On Wednesday I just plain overslept and drove the Jeep because you can just jump in the thing and get to work on it.

So today I got to ride the new windshield and... meh. We'll have to see what happens once my mirror extenders come in and I can get the mirrors out of the way so I can tilt it back further, but so far, it doesn't seem to be much better than the stock windshield. At least it's not too tall, which was Gordon's fear -- the way I had it adjusted put the top of the windshield basically at the bottom of my visor. I've adjusted it a little taller for the ride home, we'll see if that's any better, but I don't think it'll be "right" until I can tilt it back further towards me, which I can't do until I move the mirrors out of the way. Alas, I forgot my camera, so couldn't get a picture of the bike w/windshield installed on it today... oh well!

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Windshield came in!

2008-10-29T22:57:00.000-07:00

Yeppers, the World's Ugliest Windshield came in for the 'Strom. I tried to install it on my V-Strom, but my V-Strom has a Madstad windshield bracket, not the OEM one, and has bar risers. The bar risers raise the mirrors up to the point where they miss the cut-out in the windshield and hit the plastic instead. So I adjusted the windshield forward and the bars back towards me (remember, I have those funky Rox adjustable risers on my bike), but I think the real solution is to move my mirrors out of the way. Like with these mirror extenders, which would also move the turbulence from the mirrors away from me and also make it easier to see what is behind me rather than having a nice view of my shoulder.

Funny how this works. All I wanted was a better windshield, and now I'm doing all this other stuff? WTF? Heh. These beasts always seem to work like that...

So anyhow, I'll test the windshield tomorrow, assuming it's not raining. My trip to the Mojave Desert on the V-Strom showed that the windshield was one of the two weaknesses left in the bike -- the other one being lack of a throttle lock or cruise control, which resulted in my right hand getting somewhat tired. Hopefully I'll get this all sorted out soon and have the bike really dialed in. It's close -- really close. But not there yet.

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Craig Highline down

2008-10-17T20:56:00.001-07:00

Kawasaki KLR-650 rider Craig Highline hit from behind while stopped at a red light, killed, while riding his KLR.

First Cary, now this. I think it's time to put an armed mortar shell facing backwards on a stalk on my KLR so that if any son-of-a-bitch hits me, he gets his ass blown to the next kingdom at the same time I get mine sent onward. Fucking bastards. Too fucking busy talking on their goddamned cell phones about nothing important to watch where the fuck they're going...

-- Badtux the Targetted Motorcyclin' Penguin

WIndshield for the 'Strom

2008-10-17T17:19:00.001-07:00

To deal with the upcoming winter rainy season I just ordered what must be the world's ugliest windshield for my Suzuki DL650 V-Strom: That is the National Cycle VStream. The weird cut-outs are to make room for the mirrors and the handguards on bikes that don't have bar-backs like mine, otherwise the windshield is too wide for the bike. The cut-outs also help with reducing buffeting behind the windshield, since the air coming around the cut-outs helps reduce the backpressure behind the shield.

We'll have to see what happens. This windshield was at least $80 cheaper than the other high-end windshield I was looking at, so hopefully it'll work. Otherwise I'll have to sell it off on Fleabay and fork out more money, bummer :-(.

-- Badtux the Motorcyclin' Penguin

R.I.P. Cary Aspy

2008-10-08T11:13:00.001-07:00

Cary Aspy was the creator of the 685 and 705cc overbore kits and "Big Valve" modification for the Kawasaki KLR-650 at Schnitz Racing. That was what he did when he felt like riding in the slow lane, which was when not building race engines for some of the quickest motorcycles in history. He built complete race engines from superstock, to nitrous injected and turbocharged. He hand ported every cylinder head and fit every piston.

Cary was truly dedicated to what he loved... spending 7 days a week at the shop when he wasn't enjoying a ride or weekend trip. He was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident Monday evening when a SUV hit him while he was riding his KLR on his way home from a weekend riding trip to Tennessee.

Dangerous hobby, we motorcyclists have. I was thinking about buying one of his 685cc kits for my KLR, which is getting a bit tired in the engine department. Now... I guess not :-(.

-- Badtux the Saddened Penguin

A reminder

2008-10-06T01:39:00.001-07:00

Change your wiper blades!. With the crap rubber they sell nowdays, you should always change'em every six months. Unless you're out here in California, where for six months of the year there's no rain, then you can just change them before rainy season starts. Which is exactly what I did -- last week I bought some new blades and changed'em. So when the rains hit this weekend, well, no problem! I could see -- and, alas, most of the other cars on the road couldn't.

The time to do this shit is before you need it. So have you changed your blades within the past six months? No? What the f*** you waitin' for?!

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Heated grips for the Weestrom...

2008-10-06T01:27:00.000-07:00

They're coming along. I finally found the heated grip connector that everybody was telling me about. It's a small connector just dangling in mid-air behind the radiator immediately below the lower throttle cable. I had to pull all the $%@!#@ plastics off, *and* loosen up the radiator so I could tilt it out of the way a little to make room to get back there, in order to plug in my heated grip cable from Eastern Beaver into the thing. I then loosened up the cable clamp that the wires and throttle and clutch cables go through and ran it through there and to the Rick's Shelf from whence I could hook up the grip heaters. This stock cable connects to the signals circuit, which means that my turn signals might work slower with the grip heaters on. Oh well!

I am using the el-cheapo Symtec motorcycle grip heaters with the round (not toggle) switch. It goes well into the Rick's Shelf that I bought previously for the Wee-strom. So right now my status is that I've put the heated grips on, but I need to hook up the electrical circuit before I can put everything back together. Hopefully I'll be able to do that tomorrow night, so I can get to commuting on the Suzuki V-Strom 650 again!

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Grr... blogger bloggered!

2008-09-30T23:47:00.000-07:00

Blogger has for some reason quit resolving blog.badtux.net, instead it gets Google. It's not a problem just for blog.badtux.net, it affects my attic too. Grrrr!

-- Badtux the Bloggered Penguin

Scottoiler!

2008-09-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

I just finished installing a Scottoiler on the Blackstrom. I'll add some photos to this post once I'm not so tired, but basically, here's how it went:

The first thing I had to do was find a place to put the reservoir. Finally I noticed that there was a plastic trim poprivet (the kind you push the center in to remove, then pop the center back out to re-insert, that holds two plastic trim pieces together) right beneath the rear left fender where an exhaust pipe might be if the Blackstrom had dual exhausts. I popped it out and looked at the mounting bracket for the reservoir and yep, the reservoir's mounting stud was almost exactly the same size as that hole. A couple of washers later, and the reservoir was mounted. Most people mount it inside the rear left fender rather than hanging under it, but I like it outside so I can glance at it to see if it needs filling and fill it up without taking the seat off. Besides, to put it inside the rear left fender I would have needed to take the plastics off, and that would have required taking the rear luggage rack off, which is a PITA...

The next thing was to route the vacuum line. The Scottoiler uses engine vacuum to open a plunger to let oil drip out onto the chain. That keeps all your chain oil from dripping out when the bike is off. I had to glue one guide onto the plastics in order to keep the vacuum line from flopping into the wheelwell. Oh well. It's hidden up under the fender, and from there the vacuum line goes through an already-existing hole in the plastics and forward to the forward throttle body, where it plugs into the throttle body sync port (previously covered with a vacuum cap) using the adapter in the kit. At some point in time I need to re-plumb this port with a "T" so you don't have to pull off the Scottoiler vacuum hose to sync the throttle bodies, but this is okay for now.

The last and final thing to do was to route the oil line. I routed it basically down the rear subframe member until reaching a point where I could hop it down to the swingarm, then of course to the side of the swingarm, then down underneath it until I could bend the nozzle so that the tip was just above the chain at the sprocket.

Once all that was done, I could prime it. I use GM Dexron III ATF as my chain lube in my Scottoiler on my KLR, so in the interests of keeping a common lube, I primed this Scottoiler with ATF also. Unlike the weird "Scott-oil", Dexron III is available for cheap at every Wally World and roadside Kwicky-mart in the USA, so it makes more sense to put ATF in the chain oiler if you intend to take long trips, as I do. So I shoved fluid into it using the sealed priming intake port until nice pink fluid started dripping onto the chain, then popped the cap and finished filling up the reservoir with ATF.

Tomorrow I'll need to calibrate the thing to have the correct number of drops per minute. It doesn't take much, I don't intend to ride this bike through the dirt so I just need enough slow drip drip drip to keep the chain o-rings moist and conditioned and keep the chain from rusting. Any more than that and it just makes a friggin' mess. But in case it's raining or I do go through the dirt or something, all I have to do is turn the dial turn make it drip faster, and there we go. A mess on the back of my bike is better than having a rusty chain, after all...

-- Badtux the Motorcyclin' Penguin

Bumper

2008-09-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

I needed a tow hitch. I could buy either a tow hitch that fit under the bumper, or I could buy a new bumper with a tow hitch receiver built into it. I found an Olympic Wrecker bumper for cheap (under $140), so bought that instead of the under-bumper hitch -- it preserves ground clearance and so forth and so on. But it's a little minimal (heh!)... In case you don't remember what the original bumper looked like, here's the original bumper right after I got the new tires, before I took the Jeep out and got it dirty: You'll note that there's no tow hook on this setup like there was on the old setup, but I bought a tow hook that fits in the receiver from Cheap Chinese Tool Company. The old tow hook is beat to hell anyhow, it spent more time grinding itself against the rocks than anything else, because it hung down well below the bumper.

I also added a trailer wiring kit by Draw-Tite. It was completely plug-and-play, and gives me a flat four-wire connector that you can plug e.g. a U-Haul trailer plug into. Given that the Jeep's OEM lights are trailer lights (heh!), you can see why a plug-and-play trailer light kit was so easy to make for the Wrangler...

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Adding an electrical socket

2008-09-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

One of the things I wanted for the Nightstrom was a way to pump up the tires using a small electric pump. See, it's always wise to air down your tires if you're going to ride down a gravel road, it makes your tires ride smoother, gives you more traction because they can conform to the rough road rather than just the tips of the rocks hitting your rubber, and it keeps the sharp rocks from slicing your tires up because your tires deform instead of slicing. But then once you hit pavement again you have to air your tires back up. Given that the tires on my V-Strom 650 want to be pumped up to 40PSI, doing that with a hand pump is a PITA.

Another thing I wanted was a socket on the side that I could power a heated vest with. A Powerlet socket seemed just the thing for both, since it had positive retention for a heated vest jack, but there is an adaptor to plug a cigarette-lighter-driven airpump into it. So I headed off to Easter Beaver and got the V-Strom rear electrical outlet kit. And here it is:

The first thing I did was put the bracket on. Here is the bracket(note: click on any picture to embiggen): The bracket fits behind the footpeg mount. There is also a washer/spacer (in the little baggie with the fuses in the first photo) that goes under the other footpeg mount bolt to space it out equally. The bolts were locked on with threadlocker, as is usual for this bike (Suzuki apparently got tired of bolts rattling loose so threadlocks *everything*), but unlike some bolts I didn't need to pull out the butane torch and heat these up to get'em out, the threadlock compound let loose fairly easily. So:

Loosen both footpeg mount bolts by about the thickness of the bracket
Take out the upper footpeg mount bolt (the one where the bracket goes).
Clean the old dried-up threadlocker compound off with a brass wire brush
Put fresh new blue threadlocker on it.
Slide the bracket in, and then put the bolt back in through mount and hole in bracket and tighten it until just barely snugged.
Take out the lower footpeg mount bolt, wirebrush it, and re-threadlock it.
Slide the spacer back behind the lower footpeg mount until you can see through it to the threads in the frame.
Tighten the lower footpeg mount bolt until snug, tighten the upper footpeg mount bolt until tight, then lower footpeg mount bolt until tight.

So here is the result:

And now that the bracket is installed, now I put the socket through the hole in the bracket, with the spacers, washers, and nuts in the order specified on a sheet of paper inside the little baggie. Once the socket was tight in the bracket, I inserted the rubber boot over the end of the wires, and then shoved the connector ends into the empty socket where they belonged, and plugged in the connectors to connect it to the wire to be run to the fuse panel. Then I ran all the wires up behind the side panel to the vicinity of the battery. Here is where we are at this stage:

Now, I have an auxiliary fuse panel, previously installed (sorry that I never finished talking about that, but I'm not quite satisfied with my installation yet, oh well!). So now it was time to hook the wires up. Always pull the main fuse to whatever fuse panel you're working with, or if there is no main fuse, disconnect the ground wire from the battery. In this case, I pulled my 30 amp main fuse for the auxiliary panel, then ran the new wires to the auxiliary panel, cut them to length, stripped, and inserted into the connectors on the fuse panel. Here is the result, before I put the cover back on the auxiliary panel. The new wire is the one hooked to the 15A circuit, which is a permanently-on circuit (this being a Centech AP2, where the first three circuits are switched and the two nearest the front are permanently-on). I hooked it to a permanently-on circuit because I don't want to have to start the bike to pump up the tires. Before I put the cover back on the Centech, I temporarily replaced the 30A main fuse, and tested the socket by, err, plugging the Powerlet-to-cigarette-lighter adaptor in then the air pump, and turning on the air pump. It worked! So then I took the 30A fuse back out, and put the cover back on the Centech. Here is the final result: The new wires go through the grommet into the underseat compartment, and you can see the empty main fuse holder towards the left of the photo near the negative pole of the battery. Behind that is the relay for the Centech AP2 so that the first three circuits will be on only when the ignition is on, this was another Eastern Beaver kit, it plug-and-plays once you find room for it, no cutting of the OEM wiring harness required. The three fuse holders immediately to the right of the relay (as we look at this photo) used to be spaced along the backside of the battery compartment on three molded-in pegs, but I cut the pegs off and shoved them over to the side to make room for the Centech relay.

And anyhow, that's the end of the story. Hopefully I'll get back to providing a tutorial on electrical work, but it's hard work, and I've been very busy recently due to a project at work. If you have any questions, just ask!

Thanks,
- Badtux the Electrifyin' Penguin

Why C-clip axles are evil

2008-09-10T16:35:00.001-07:00

Some folks wonder why Jeepers hate thems some Dana 35 axles. Well, it's not just that Dana 35's are weak and break if you look at them wrong. It's what happens after they break that Jeepers hate. See, a Dana 35 is what's known as a "C-clip axle". There is nothing holding the axle on but a big C-shaped clip on the end of the axle shaft inside the differential. Here's the end of the axle shaft inside the differential (note that the cross shaft and spider gears have been taken out, that's the only way to push the axles in far enough to get to the C-clip which otherwise nests in the side gears): If part A (end inside the differential) is no longer on the same physical plane as part B (end outside the differential) because, duh, the axle broke, here is what happens: Is it a little clearer, now, why Jeepers hate Dana 35 (or any C-clip) axles?

-- Badtux the Jeepin' Penguin

Zen and Now

2008-09-08T20:24:00.001-07:00

Another Jesuit scholar examines Robert Persig's classic motorcycling tome, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Mark Richardson's new book, Zen and Now, examines Robert Persig and the connections between technology and nature...

-- Badtux the Literatary Penguin

Nevermore

2008-09-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

Two Ravens

I bought a new pair of leather gloves with gel palms and knuckle protectors today, then took the Wee-strom for a ride. Forgot my camera, alas (not the only thing I forgot). Anyhow, I rode it in a loop, from South SF Bay to CA 17 to Santa Cruz then along CA 1 to Half Moon Bay, then back over the mountain and home again. Some things I figured out along the way:

The Madstad bracket and the OEM windshield makes a nice combination when it's all the way down and tilted all the way back. There's no buffeting and side winds just make the bike flop left and right a little, they don't move the bike around on the highway. There's plenty of air flow to help keep cool on a hot day like today, but there's no wind blast making things uncomfortable.
The highway pegs mounted on the Pat Walsh guards (courtesy of some slightly shorter mounting bolts from Orchard Supply Hardware, the ones that came with the pegs were a little too long to work without the bracket) work great. These particular pegs are very heavy and have rubber insulating pieces. The location of the pegs is perfect for stretching out when on the road, without putting you into an uncomfortable position.
The Suzuki gel seat is just too darned hard! Folks say that the Corbin seat is hard. My Corbin seat on my KLR broke in just fine, it's not hard, it's just firm. So anyhow, I have a Sargent seat on order (the Corbin for the V-Strom is too tall for me). The seat is shaped right, it would be comfortable if it wasn't so darned hard, but I think the only way it would be a good seat would be to take the cover off, remove the gel insert, and replace it with some firm foam that shapes to your butt like memory foam. Not to mention that the gel will roast your 'nads if you leave the seat out in the sun!
The Rox adjustable risers rock. My handlebars are *exactly* where I want them to be. I can lean forward into a semi-sportbike position and still have good control, I can relax upright and put my feet up on the highway pegs and the bars are just there, in the exact right location.
I need to get some of that motocross underwear. It's like bicycle shorts, except not as long in the legs and without that padding that keeps your 'nads wet on a motorcycle (since the tank blocks the air to the 'nads). Regular underwear simply has the seams in the wrong friggin' place to be comfortable for long rides on a motorcycle...
The BMW electrical plug for the GPS crapped out *again*. This is two long rides I've taken, and two rides that the GPS wiring went AWOL. I think I'm just going to hard-wire the bloody thing, this is getting ridiculous.
The Black Raven is a sweetheart of a motorcycle. She heels over into a bank without any complaints, holds her bank without a problem, and comes back upright with no problem. She's a bit fat and heavy to flick as easily as a sportbike but she handles fine for a bike of her heft. And that 90 degree V-twin engine is just sweet, sweet, sweet.
Still to do: Put on the automatic chain oiler (a must for long-distance travel especially in the rain), put on the side Powerlet outlet for use with the heated vest, put on the heated grips, and maybe install electronic cruise control. Maybe. I'm not convinced yet, electronic cruise control on a motorcycle is like that damned Powerlet plug for my GPS, something is always vibrating loose and making it quit and then it's just a pile of parts taking up space until you get to a garage somewhere so that you can diagnose it.

In the meantime, I need to take the Jeep to the car-wash to have last fall's dirt washed off of it and last falls' dirt vacuumed out of its carpets (its annual car wash, yippee!) and get some new windshield wiper blades front and back to the thing. A penguin's chores never seem to end...

-- Badtux the Ridin' Penguin

A nickel and dime problem

2008-09-06T22:30:00.001-07:00

The recliner mechanism on my Jeep Wrangler's driver's seat quit working correctly. The pawl on the right side wasn't catching, leaving that side of the seat flopping around. The Jeep is still under warranty so I considered taking it to the dealership. But instead, I decided tonight to unbolt the seat and see what I can spot. And I found the problem.... Yes, that is literally a nickel and dime stuck in the ratchet mechanism for the recliner mechanism. Once I removed all the coins that were jammed in the mechanism, it worked fine.

I guess point of the thing is:

Don't carry change in your pocket
Don't rush to the dealership to get charged $110 (an hour's labor) so that the technician can have a laugh at your expense, and
Sometimes the problems really are nickel and dime.

Oh -- three of the seat bolts (the 1/2" ones) go all the way through your Jeep. If you have a Jeep and haven't already, blast the underside of those seat bolts with PJ Blaster and after letting them soak a bit take those suckers out and put some anti-seize on them. They were just about jammed on my two-year-old Jeep. A little more wet weather, and I'd have ended up twisting those suckers off and having to put a nut-and-bolt setup in there...

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Why can't I find an online Jeep parts fiche?

2008-09-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Kawasaki provides one on their web site. Suzuki has one via a third party company. Yet when I want to find parts for my Jeep Wrangler, there's nothing?!

This is just plain nuts. Less than 3% of the vehicles sold every year in the United States are motorcycles. Yet I can find better online services for my motorcycles than for my Jeep?

But maybe I'm just not looking in the right places. What do you think?

-- Badtux the Baffled Penguin

A very lucky dude

2008-08-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

Watch near the end. A guy slides down and whacks into the barrier. He falls, and just as he hits the ground, a 400 pound motorcycle flies right over him and slams mostly through the barrier. The guy gets up and runs like hell to get out of the way of any other flying motorcycles that may be coming. Makes me glad that penguins don't race motorcycles...

Also: Be sure to tighten your front axle nut, people:

-- Badtux the Flightless Penguin

Leaky rear axle

2008-08-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

The last time I changed the differential fluid in the rear of my Jeep, I apparently missed a spot with my RTV bead when I installed the differential cover. It's been doing a slow drip... drip... drip... ever since. Not a lot. If I left the Jeep sitting in one spot for a week, I might see a small quarter-sized spot of fluid on the ground. But a rear axle don't have no oil gauge or nuthin' to tell ya that it's low on fluid, so it was a PITA to get under there and pull the plug and check it and pump a few ounces more fluid into the axle every now and then, especially since the plug is partially hidden behind the gas tank so you literally have to *pump* fluid into the thing unless you jack up the body a bit.

So anyhow, it's getting close to the time where I should change it anyhow (I have 22,000 miles on the Jeep, I should change it at 24,000 miles because it's a limited-slip Dana 44 and the plates wear and there's no oil filter so the only way to get that crap out of the differential is to dump the fluid every 12,000 miles) so tonight I took the bikes out of the garage and parked them beside the apartment building, and backed the Jeep into the garage. Now, one reason why I didn't do so well on the rear axle last time was because the rear axle is partially hidden by the gas tank skid plate. So this time, I stuck the Hi-Lift farm jack on the back bumper of the Jeep and jacked it up a little. Not enough to get the wheels off the ground, just enough to lift up the body of the Jeep so that the rear axle wasn't buried so deep by the gas tank. Boy, I'm glad my Jeep has a nice sturdy steel bumper instead of that plastic bullshit on the modern vehicles!

So anyhow, I just popped the differential cover bolts off, whacked the cover a few times with a rubber mallet to get the old RTV to let loose so I could pull it off, and let the fluid drain into the drain pan beneath it. Then I cleaned everything off with a gasket scraper, then brake cleaner (ooh! ether! whoooo!), and put a bead of black RTV around the cover and slapped that sucker back on and torqued the bolts to 30 ft/lbs. So now I'm waiting an hour for the RTV to dry, then I'm going to head back down and put in the differential fluid -- Royal Purple 75W140 synthetic, in case you're wondering (that's the recommended viscosity for this differential when used for off-road duty, and Royal Purple comes with the limited slip additive already included).

Next up, I get to take it to the dealership for a warranty repair on the seat, which seems to have a broken recliner mechanism... grrrr!

-- Badtux the Jeepin' Penguin

The never-ending electrical project done!

2008-08-20T00:45:00.001-07:00

Got it all back together and it works. So I'll put together the remainder of the postings describing the project, and maybe enlighten you a bit about how electricity works while I'm at it. Next up, I add a socket on the side for the heated vest and air pump (that one doesn't get switched, unlike the one at the front), and then go looking for that mysterious heated grips connector up front and add my heated grips. That should pretty much do it for the electrical stuff, unless I add electronic cruise control, which has a fair amount of electrical work of its own...

-- Badtux the Electrifying Penguin

The never-ending electrical project again

2008-08-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

The Wee-strom is starting to get electrifying. I have the new fuse panel installed, the relay kit installed, and I've used my volt-ohmmeter to verify that the fuse panel switches on and off with the ignition (for the switched circuits -- it has three switched circuits and two non-switched circuits). Now all I have to do is drill another hole in the underseat tray and extend the wires for my Powerlet outlet at the handlebars to the new fuse panel, and I'll have my first circuit hooked up to it.

I've been taking photographs, and hopefully will get some posted and online shortly. But it's late and I'm tired, so I'm going to bed.

-- Badtux the Electrifying Penguin

How to get to good riding places fast

2008-08-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

Now, one thing I don't like about owning a Kawasaki KLR 650 is that if you want to explore someplace like Death Valley or Moab, you have to ride there. And ride. And ride. And ride. And ride. And ride. And when you get there, you still have a 400 pound dual-sport, not a 250 pound trail bike. And pushing a 400 pound dual-sport around in the dirt is hard work.

But courtesy of Gizmodo, there is a solution. Just take your lightweight Yamaha XT220 trail bike with you and *fly* in to those areas! Yeah the dirt strips in Death Valley are kinda a pain, but hey, it's better than spending 9 hours riding only to end up with a too-big bike once you get there, right?

Of course, the other possibility is to just hitch a trailer behind your car and haul your trail bike behind you. That's a little more affordable for this flightless waterfowl, as well as a bit safer than flying a light airplane into a dirt strip, heh!

-- Badtux the Flightless Penguin

The never-ending electrical project

2008-08-12T11:13:00.001-07:00

Last night I got about 45 minutes to work on the Nightstrom, my flat black 2008 Suzuki DL650 V-Strom. I gave up on relocating the ABS fuses and relay to behind the left side panel. It was too hard to get the left side panel off, requiring too much disassembly of the bike, and replacing those relays and fuses isn't something I want to spend hours doing on the side of a road (eep!). With the relays and fuses still relegated to their original general location behind the battery, I finally gave up on putting the new fuse panel immediately behind the battery. There just was not enough room there. Instead the new fuse panel will have to go in the owner's manual tray.

That decision made, I took some stick-on plastic hooks and moved the ABS fuses and ABS relay to a more compact configuration. They were originally hooked via rubber slots to tabs on a piece of plastic attached to the battery tray. I cut off that plastic extrusion of the battery tray and moved them back to the front side of the owner's manual tray, more to the left. This leaves me room to put the fuse panel relay alongside them in the space to the right of them.

So anyhow, I'm going to stick the fuse panel into the tray with velcro, rather than screws. That way I can more easily lift it when I want to screw new wires into it (otherwise it's damnably hard for my beady little penguin eyes to get a wire into the correct location on the panel). I ran out of velcro so I'm going to need to run to Radio Shack this afternoon and get some. I am taking photographs of everything I am doing, and will post a nice big summary when I'm done. Just remember that what you will see there leaves out all the mis-steps and false starts that thus far have characterized this project, heh :-).

-- Badtux the Electrifying Penguin

Glad I don't have a BMW

2008-08-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

Ouch. Apparently not the first time this has happened to BMW motorcycle forks. The rider reports that the bike acted like it was entering a tank slapper, and then the bottom of the forks ripped right off and the bike went down while the wheel went its own merry way.

Jap bikes have their own quirks, but they don't send their wheels in random directions, and their sidestands generally don't just collapse underneath you (another quirk of these BMW's -- flimsy sidestands, probably because for many years BMW motorcycles didn't have sidestands at all, just centerstands). German "engineering". Bah humbug!

-- Badtux the Jap-bike-ownin' Penguin

Motorcycle wiring sucks

2008-08-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

I am currently engaged in trying to get my fuse block installed on the Nightstrom. To do that, I had to first find a place to put the fuse block. I finally decided I could re-arrange the ABS relay and fuses into a more compact arrangement and put the fuse block in the area behind the battery where those are located. Now I have to fish the rear brake wire out from under the coolant reservoir and tap in to it for my relay that will turn the fuse block on and off, and find a place to put that relay. It's looking like I might have to take the rear rack off my bike to get the side cover off to find a place to put the relay. Which also requires taking the Givi luggage racks off the bike because they either block access to the rear rack bolts or are blocking the removal of the panel I need to take off.

All I wanted to do was install a simple wire harness and fuse block, not disassemble my bike! Oh well, at least I still have my KLR to ride to work tomorrow...

-- Badtux the Dissassembling Penguin

When farkles go bad

2008-08-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of owning any motorcycle is farkling it -- adding accessories and modifications to make it exactly what you want. But sometimes what you think is the right thing just doesn't work, and then is when you have to make some choices.

In my case, I was wanting to do two things for the Nightstrom -- protect the plastics, and have highway pegs. I have bad knees so the highway pegs were the biggy -- I can replace plastics, but replacing knees is a far more painful thought. So I looked around at the options, and decided what gave me the best protection for a reasonable price was the Givi crash guards for the Suzuki DL650 V-Strom. Then I could mount my Harley highway pegs to the thing, the kind meant to install on crashbars on a cruiser that I happened to have sitting on a box on the shelf, and voila!

So I put the Givi engine guards on, after waiting for a few weeks for a slow boat from Italy, and then tried to fit the highway pegs. No dice. If I put them where the bars were vertical, they were too high and too close to me. Further out and down, they were hidden under the arch where the engine guard wrapped upward around the plastics and my leg hit the up-bar.

So next thing I thought was an AMotostuff skid plate. Then I could put a Happy Trail highway peg bar intended to bolt to the skid plate of a Honda XR650 dual-sport to the AMotostuff skid plate, and voila. So I forked over another couple hundred bucks (eep!) for a skid plate. And mounted the highway peg bar to that, and... well, the skid plate is *rubber mounted* to reduce the force it puts onto the somewhat fragile bracket the rear mounts to, and my footpegs wobbled so much as to be practically useless!

I tried a few more options, and none of them worked. Finally I settled on a Pat Walsh Design motor guard and now have nice usable highway pegs, at the expense of less protection for my plastics. You've seen that setup further down the page.

So anyhow, what do you do with $350 worth of farkle that don't work for you? Well, that's easy -- you fleaBay it. So it's on its way to a new owner as we speak, and while I'm out some money, at least I'm not out $350 worth of money. The new owner doesn't care about highway pegs, he just wants protection for his plastics and the underside of his bike. So he gets what he wants, and I have what I need -- servicable highway pegs.

So today's lesson: Mistakes aren't the end of things. If you make a mistake and buy the wrong accessories for your bike, it's not the end of the world. Just fleaBay it, and then get what works for your bike. Maybe you'll be out a few bucks, but (shrug). So it goes, in motorcyclin' land.

-- Badtux the Farkle Penguin

Dead batteries and KLR's

2008-07-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to ride my KLR to work today to keep it charged up and ready to go, and the battery was dead. It shouldn't have been dead -- it's just been two weeks since I last rode it, and I rode it for about 100 miles on several consecutive days then -- so either the voltage regulator has gone kaput and it's not charging, or the battery has an internal short and is dying.

So the first thing I'm going to do is put the battery on my Battery Tender when I get home tonight and let it charge for 24 hours. Then I can unplug the Battery Tender, let the bike sit for a few days, and check the battery charge by plugging the Battery Tender back in. If the Battery Tender does anything other than cut right off after a couple of minutes max, the battery has an internal short and needs replacing. Luckily since I have the Nightstrom, I don't need this bike to commute.

Oh, here's something to remember: When you're pissed because your motorcycle won't start, don't lean it over onto the sidestand without, uhm, putting the sidestand down first :-). The KLR fell over onto the Nightstrom. Luckily the topbag hit the Givi rack and stopped the KLR from falling over all the way, giving me the chance to swing my boot out from the other side of the KLR and push it back upright again. Then I pushed the KLR back to the front of the garage, backed the Nightstrom out of the garage, and rode the Nightstrom to work. Oh well!

-- Badtux the Motorcyclin' Penguin

Postscript: Yeppers, the battery is the problem. I took it off the Battery Tender once it went to maintain, put it back on again a couple of hours later, and it started charging again. The Battery Tender will, with a healthy fully-charged battery, do its red light, then start flashing its green light, then within a minute go to a steady green for "maintenance"... if the battery lost enough charge in two hours to stay in the 80% flashing mode for more than a minute or so, the battery has a short and is losing charge and needs to be replaced.

Stone age vs. Digital age and the Nightstrom

2008-07-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

Here's what I spent this morning doing: I spent this morning taking the Nightstrom to the Suzuki dealer for its 600 mile service. Yes, I, a motorcycle wrench of long standing, took my motorcycle to (sob) THE DEALER for servicing!

So why did I do this, when my Kawasaki KLR-650 has never darkened the interior of a dealer's door? Well, it's the stone age vs. the digital age. My KLR-650 is defiantly stone-age. It has one cylinder. The ignition has its own coil at the magneto and does not need the battery in any way to operate. It has a stone-age carburetor that is gravity-fed with no pumps or anything involved, as long as the bike is upright enough that the carb is below the gas petcock, the carb gets gas. If you kill the battery somehow, no problem -- just push-start the thing. The downside of course is that it makes about as much power as a riding lawn mower (34hp in actual dyno tests), has a top speed similar to a Ford Pinto, and gets fairly humdrum gas mileage for a 650cc motorcycle (around 40mpg).

But my new DL650 V-Strom is digital age all the way. You can't look up at the clocks and read off the odometer mileage when the bike is off. That's digital. You gotta turn the key on. You have a digital fuel gauge, digital temperature gauge, digital Antilock Braking System. The fuel pump is inside the gas tank and requires up to 40 watts of power to operate, and drives digital fuel injectors on digitally controlled throttle bodies. If you have no battery power you aren't going anywhere -- the injectors won't run, the fuel pump won't run, the stepper motors controlling the idle valves won't run, you're SOL. The upside is that you get 60 horsepower, a smooth power curve from idle to redline thanks to the oxygen sensor allowing the fuel injection to precisely map the fuel-air ratio at all throttle settings and RPM's, clean emissions thanks to the catalytic converter in the tailpipe, and even if you ride it fairly aggressively you still get 50mpg, and can get better if you keep your RPM's below 5,000 RPM (but that's boring!).

Now, for the most part I don't mind the fact that my Nightstrom is completely digital age. The upside is that it has tremendous power, excellent ridability, and gets great gas mileage. But one of the things required at 600 miles for a DL650 V-Strom in California is a throttle valve sync. And because idle is computer-controlled on the Nightstrom, this requires Suzuki's special computer to disable the computer-controlled idle and center the idle stepper motors on that computer-controlled throttle body. Then, and only then, can you adjust the idle air bypass screws so that a) each throttle body has equal vacuum and b) the bike is idling at the specified 1300 rpm when the idle stepper motors are centered. Anything else would be Just Wrong(tm).

See, here's the deal. Idle speed is controlled by the computer on this bike. There is a flap in each throttle body that allows more or less air to pass into the throttle body at idle. This flap is controlled by the idle stepper motor. When the bike is cold, the idle stepper motor will adjust the idle slightly upward at the same time that the injection system enrichens the mixture slightly. When you are at high altitude, again the idle stepper motor will adjust to give you slightly more air while the injectors lean out the mixture slightly (remember, we have an oxygen sensor down by the catalytic converter, so the injection system always knows how much fuel to inject to get ideal combustion).

So anyhow, under normal conditions, you want the idle stepper to be in the middle, so that it can open or close the idle air flaps as needed when conditions are *not* normal. Thus the need to use the special Suzuki computer to lock the idle stepper in the middle. If you try to adjust the idle air bypass screws without first locking the idle stepper in the middle, the computer will notice that you're giving a little more air to cylinder A that was showing more vacuum than cylinder B, and will tick the idle stepper downward to reduce the idle back down (since giving more air raised the idle to above 1300rpm). It is easily possible to get the idle stepper into such a position that it's no longer capable of adjusting idle. You can sorta compensate by giving a little less air to B at the same time as you give a little more air to A, which hopefully would avoid clicking the stepper, and I would do that if I was in the middle of Africa and didn't have Suzuki's special computer available to me, but there's no guarantees that this will keep the idle stepper centered when the bike is idling at 1300 rpm under normal conditions. The only guarantee is to use Suzuki's computer to lock the idle steppers in the center before you start twiddling the air screws.

So anyhow, that's the downside of the digital age: trips to the dealer (or potentially to an independent mechanic who happens to have that digital tool). Sigh. Computers. Talk about your love-hate relationship... I love the benefits of the thingies, but sometimes I do pine for the days of stone-age motorcycles where you didn't need much beyond a screwdriver, a big hammer, and a pair of pliers to fix pretty much anything. Luckily I have my KLR for when I'm pining for those days :-).

-- Badtux the Motorcyclin' Penguin

Motorcycle Wiring, Part 2

2008-07-13T20:15:00.001-07:00

Now, one reason why folks think that electrical wiring is brain surgery is because you need a buncha shit to do it. Tools and connectors and supplies, that is. None of what you need to do electrical wiring is all that hard to figure out, but there's just a lot of it. So let's start with some of the stuff that's going to be needed to add the fuse box to my Weestrom. Okay, here's the key:

A - bullet-type crimp-on connectors. Jap bikes love these things. I have more of a 'meh' connection to them. I have two sizes (large/small), male and female here, I get'em from Halted Supply Company here in Sunnyvale. These are used to hook two wires together, generally one from your gizmo and one to the "+" or "-" on your fuse block. Make sure that the female side (the side with the hole, not the side with the penis that sticks into your hole) is on the *battery* half of the wire for the "+" side, and on the *gizmo* half of the wire for the "-" side. That keeps your elves from escaping out the leaky penis on the end of the wire to your frame (a "short circuit") when you unplug the wire, heh!
B - Heat-shrink tubing. You slide this over a connection (*before* you crimp on the connector, heh!), then blow hot air on it with the heat gun. It then shrinks to make an airtight/watertight connection. You can also slide the bigger size over a bunch of wires and blow on'em to get'em all nice and tight together and protected from sharp stuff like brackets and such.
C - self-sticking electrical tape, sticky electrical tape. This keeps your elves from escaping from the wire (heh!). The self-sticking stuff is neater because you just stretch it over itself and it sticks to itself, but it doesn't leave sticky glue all over. Sometimes you just can't get down there to do it, so the sticky stuff is needed. Mostly you use electrical tape when you have to solder two wires together (no, not slobber, solder, I'll talk about that later). I don't do that soldering shit a whole lot nowdays, soldered connections on a bike tend to break because they're not flexible and the vibration gets'em.
D - dielectric silicone grease. This keeps your push-on connectors from arcing or corroding. Just poke a little into the hole to, err, lube, the female part (hmm, where have I done that kinda shit before?), then wipe a thin layer on the male part so it slides in nice and fine, and it'll keep your connector passing electrons just fine and dandy from one half to the other.
E - Crimping and wire stripping tool, yet *more* crimp-on connectors. The crimping tool lets you strip the plastic insulation off the end of a wire (the plastic insulation is what keeps your electrons from jumpin' ship, so obviously you gotta have it gone off the end of your wire if you want the electrons to pass thru the connection!) and then you use the tool to crimp the connector onto the bare end of the wire. I won't need this other set of crimp-on connectors for my current project, but this assortment from Radio Shack is a nice assortment to have around. Pretty much any kinda connector you need for any project, you'll find one there. But like I said, Jap bikes love them bullet connectors, so those blue and red bullets over on the left are what I use most.
F - the heat gun for the heat-shrink tubing! You can use a hair dryer instead of this thing, but my hair dryer is upstairs, not in my garage, and the heat gun concentrates the heat better, so I finally bought one. Use it on *low*, hi will strip paint off your bike!
G - The Volt-ohm meter. This is a cute little one from Radio Shack that lives in my toolbox because it has a nice little lid to keep it safe. Basically, when set to "Volt", it lets you know whether you have some nice little elves ready to do work. Put one lead on the "-" of the battery, put the other where you're supposed to have some "+" juice, and it should read somewhere between 12 and 13 volts. If not, you got somethin' wrong, a broken wire or something where your li'l elven electrons can't get from the "+" pole of the battery to where you're expecting them! When set to Ohms, you hook one lead to one end of a wire and the other lead to the other end of the wire. You ought to get a reading of 0 (zero) ohms or somewhere close to that. Anything higher, you either have a corroded connection somewhere, or a broken wire. More on actual use of this little gadget later.

Now let's look on the right side of my workbench:

H - some rubber grommets. I will be passing wires through a hole drilled in a tray to get them to the new fuse box. These grommets will protect the wires from being cut by the sharp plastic of the tray.
I - Some zip-ties. For zip-tying wires together or to frame tubes or shit to keep them neat and clean (and keep them from flopping around and rubbing against shit and rubbing through and shorting out or breaking).
J - Wire cutters. For cutting wires to the correct length. Duh. Also good for cutting the excess length of zip-ties off.
K - A 50 watt soldering iron. M - the solder. The fuse block that I bought has screw-down terminals. To do motorcycle wiring, you use multi-stranded wire, wire that's made of lots of little wires woven together, because solid wire vibrates and flexes and breaks. Multi-stranded wire squishes down in screw-down terminals and tends to pull out easily. So I am going to "tin" the ends of my wires -- I am going to heat up the end of the wire with the soldering iron until it is hot enough to melt solder applied to the top of the wire. This will leave the strands held together by the melted tin-lead mix (the solder) so that they don't squish down and pull out as easily when I screw the terminals down on them. Also protects the wires from corrosion somewhat (but I'll still use the dielectric grease here, yessiree!).
L - wire. Wire comes in a lot of sizes, called "gauges". The smaller the wire, the bigger the gauge number. A tiny thread-like wire used inside computers, so tiny it's hard to see, would be 28 gauge wire -- a big number. The big wire coming into your house from the electric meter, the one that's bigger around than your thumb, is so big that it's 00 gauge -- one zero wasn't enough, they had to add another 0 to it to let ya know it was *really* big! Most of what we do in motorcycle wiring is with 16 gauge wire, which will carry 15 amps of current pretty much anywhere on a motorcycle. What you're looking at is three spools of 16 gauge wire and one spool of 14 gauge wire, which is slightly bigger and might be used to carry juice to your headlights or from the battery to your fuse panel. The bigger the wire, the more of your little elven electrons it can carry without heating up and causing energy to get used to heat up your wire rather than to operate your gizmo. But most of the time, 14 gauge on a motorcycle is a waste. More on wire later on.
N - Some jumpers to use when testing things with the volt meter. On bikes that have the battery grounded to the frame, you can just touch one lead to the frame and one lead to what you want to test. But with the V-Strom, which has an aluminum frame that is not grounded (i.e. all wires have to go back to the distribution block for their ground), you have to get the "-" lead of your voltmeter back to the "-" on the battery, or else ain't nothin' happenin'. Thus this set of small alligator-clip jumper wires.

Not shown: The drill I'll use to drill a hole in the underseat tray, the screws I'll use to screw the fuse panel into the underseat tray, and the bag full of nuts and bolts that I'll search through to find the ones just the right size to hold the fuse panel to the underseat tray. (Yeah yeah, I know I ought to have those all sorted out according to size and shit, but so it goes).

Now, this all seems sorta overload. But all of these tools and supplies are pretty simple to use, and we're going to use most of them for the next part of the project. I'll show you what's what in actual action when we do that. So next, we get to install the fuse panel and then extend the wiring currently going up to the GPS to go to the fuse panel instead of directly to the battery. We are now entering into the meat of this project... but one where I take a big, BIG short-cut rather than do it all from scratch like I did the previous three times I did this project. You'll just have to wait and see to see what kind of short-cut I take, eh?

-- Badtux the Electrifying Penguin

Motorcycle wiring, Part 1

2008-07-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

In which the penguin talks about wiring up accessories on motorcycles (and which will work on pretty much anything else too)...

Okay, first, why am I talking about wiring stuff up in the first place? Well, here's the deal. I have the following electrical gear that needs juice from my motorcycle:

GPS
Voltmeter/Thermometer/Clock
Air pump
Cruise control
Heated jacket liner
Heated grips

Of all the above, the only thing my bike has a spare connector and fuse set up to drive is the heated grips. Everything else I'm going to have to set up an auxiliary fuse panel wired to my battery and run them off of that.

Now, lots of folks, they get sorta panicky around electricity. They don't understand it, they don't want to understand it, so they won't. But really, it's pretty much bog simple. Your battery in your motorcycle or car has two poles on it, marked "+" and "-". Consider electricity to be a buncha little elves that march around in circles (we'll just call these elves "electrons", okay). You can imagine these elves marching out of the "+" pole on your battery, marching through your gizmo where they then spin the handles to make your air pump pump or whatever, then once they're all tired out they march out the other side of your gizmo to the "-" side of the battery. (Actually the electrons march from the "-" to the "+" but for historical reasons we pretend they march the other way, sorta like we pretend that we're civilized and shit like that).

So anyhow, everything electrical in a car or boat or motorcycle looks like this:

+ ------------GIZMO---------- -

Every gizmo has two wires. You got a wire from the "+" on your battery to the gizmo for your little energized ("voltage") elves to march through, then another wire from the gizmo to the "-" on the battery for the tired out elves, tired out from doing all that work in your gizmo, to march back out of until they can get re-energized in your battery. (Now note that this is not exactly how it works, but this is close 'nuff for your purposes :-).

Now I hear you saying, "but I have this gizmo that has only one wire going into it!" Well, if that's the case, that one wire goes to the "+". Then there's some stud or something which has to be hooked up to the "-" for the electron elves to march back out of. Because see, on older cars and motorcycles, rather than spend money running two wires, they just ran a wire from the "-" on the battery to the steel frame of the car or motorcycle. Then the tired elves just marched out of the tail light or whatever through the mounting bolts that held it to the back of your old Rambler, and marched through the steel frame of your car until they got back to the "-" on the battery. So there was two wires, but one was sorta implied, the second wire was the frame of your car or motorcycle.

But you definitely do not want to do that with any gizmo on a modern motorcycle that has an aluminum frame, because then you set up a galvanic current that causes corrosion where the aluminum hits steel (such as the steel of the bolts holding the engine to your frame, duh!). The result is that your frame rots to death. Instead, you want to run a wire all the way back to the "-" on your battery. So we need a way to distribute both the "+" and "-" to gizmos without having a jillion wires hooked to the battery. Something like, say, this Blue Sea fuse panel: See, you can run the "+" on the bottom to the "+ on the battery, and the "-" on the top to the "-" on the battery, then you can hook your gizmos up to the respective "+" terminals (on the bottom) and "-" terminals (on the top) of this fuse block, and voila! And aside from distribution, you get protection from short circuits also. Which is good. Because short circuits are bad.

So what's a short circuit? Well, remember, we had a wire that went like this:

+ ----------GIZMO--------- -

Our little electron elves marched out of the "+", did some work in the gizmo, then marched out to the "-". But a short circuit is when something melts down or connects so we end up with this instead:

+ ------------------------- -

Now our little electron elves march out of the "+", and lookie! Nothing to do! But they're just so full of energy and just want to work their little elve fingers off, so what do they do? Why, they make heat, that's what, as they march their merry little ways from point A to point B. Enough heat to make the insulation of the wiring melt and make things catch on fire. And remember, the battery of your motorcycle and a lot of its wiring is under your seat. Which, remember, is what your butt is sittin' on. OUCH! So anyhow, short circuits starting a fire is something we want to avoid just to preserve our butts, if ya know what I mean. Toasty buns are good only if yer eatin' hamburgers, not when you're riding your motorcycle!

So anyhow, that's what fuses are there to handle. Our little elves melt the fuse wires before they manage to heat up the rest of the wiring, the fuse wire breaks the circuit, our little electron elves no longer have a path to use to march from "+" to "-", so they don't. They just kinda stand around doing nothing, sorta like the five construction workers you see standin' around the one guy down in the hole diggin' like a mole. Which is fine and dandy, if we can't get any work from them by shippin' them through the GIZMO, they can stand around all they want, dig?

So anyhow, now you have the basics of motorcycle wiring. Yes, you do. It ain't rocket science, no matter what folks tell ya! So tomorrow I'm going to introduce you to the major tools needed for motorcycle electrical work, and then maybe we'll even get to play with some of those new toys I introduce you to. Don't worry, it'll be fun! For some definition of fun. That definition being more like, "damned tedious". It ain't rocket science, but it is a lot of fiddly work with skinny little wires, connectors, scissors, shrink-tubing, cranky crimpers, and so forth, all of which are put to the task at hand, which is getting those electrons to march from the "+" on the battery, through our gizmo, and finally to the "-" of the battery on the other side of the gizmo. So tune in for Motorcycle Wiring, Part 2 tomorrow!

-- Badtux the Electrifying Penguin

A journey

2008-07-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I rode the Wabs (V-Strom 650 ABS) around 180 miles through the heart of the Sierra Diablo. Here is a view from the top, where we are looking down on the Silicon Valley. Or we would be, if it was not covered with a smokey haze drifting in from Big Sur... The road up to Mount Hamilton has a number of hairpin turns, and is done mostly in 2nd gear on the 'Wee, with a few places (the 180 degree switchbacks) needing 1st gear. The road down the other side seems a bit less severe, or maybe it's just that you're going downhill. With the torque and power of a 650cc V-twin fed to pavement through a 150R17 radial rear tire, you rarely need to use any brakes on the downhill, unless you're trying for speed and trail braking. Me, I was enjoying the scenery (such as it was -- is chaparral scrub scenery?). The Weestrom is a predictably-handling bike and had no problem with the curvy road, but I didn't push it either -- pushing a motorcycle you're still learning on an unfamiliar highway is how you die.

Here is the 'Wee in all its glory with its new crash bars and highway pegs. It's wonderful what some rattlecan "satin black" will do, eh? Note how the skid plate reduces the already-limited ground clearance. This just goes to show that the V-Strom is not a dual-sport, no matter how Suzuki classifies it on its web site. Anyhow, I was still in very curvy and steep terrain here, mostly with no shoulder. This was the closest thing to level terrain I could find to stop. Here's another place I stopped: I almost got to test the crash bars here. The sidestand sunk about an inch into the soft tar of the shoulder. It was well over 90F outside, and I was stopping primarily to shove water into me (there was a bottle of water in the tank bag, which is also where the camera lived when I wasn't using it to take pictures of the bike, and there was two more bottles of water in the tailbag).

Somewhere around here, the GPS quit working altogether. I later examined the cable and found that a wire had pulled out of the plug because the screw holding the wire had come loose. A re-insertion of the wire and tightening the screw solved that problem. Here is a closer side view of the bike. You can see the sidestand starting to posthole... The GPS is the silver thing perched on the handlebar on the other side. You can also see the sheepskin on top of the gel seat. This is mostly to keep the sun from turning the seat into a torture instrument ("fried hueves, senor?"). Also note that I've used the aftermarket Madstad bracket to put the windshield down as far as it'll go and tilt back towards me as far as it'll go in an effort to get more air. At the top (Mount Hamilton) I ran into a guy on a Goldwing, he had air deflectors all over the place to try to get some air back into that stable bubble behind a Goldwing's massive windshield. The 'Wee doesn't put as much air on me as the KLR does even with the windshield at its lowest/tilted most position, but it was enough.

After about 60 miles more of curvy road, I arrived at I-5 and headed towards Altamont Pass to get back home on the 'slab. At first I was relaxing, feet on the highway pegs. It was like sitting in an easy chair. The only thing I needed then was a backrest and I would have been completely relaxed. Then the first gust of air from the west hit me -- the winds from Altamont Pass, hitting me from the side. I adjusted the windshield further up and tilted it a little more forward to give me more wind protection, but it didn't help much. Heading crosswise towards the pass, I was getting constantly pounded from the side by the air coming through the pass. It felt like it was gonna rip my helmet off the side of my head! Through it all, the Blackstrom happily chugged straight ahead at 80mph indicated on the speedometer, not breathing hard even on the uphills. Even heading up over the pass straight into the teeth of the gale, the 'strom had no problem maintaining speed without downshifting. 70hp for a 500 pound bike (with 200 pounds of rider and gear on board) simply laughs at such grades and winds.

For the rest... (shrug). I've ridden this route often enough that I don't need the GPS, lucky me because the GPS still wasn't working. I got home, and considered what I'd learned. What I'd learned was this:

The windshield doesn't do a very good job of wind protection when there's a lot of wind blowing. No big deal in the summertime, I'll need a better windshield when winter gets here.
The Suzuki gel seat feels like a friggin' 2x6 under my buns even through the dead sheep pelt covering my seat. The sharp edges between the gel and the foam feel like creases under my buns. Sad to say, I think I'm going to have to invest major bucks into an aftermarket seat.
The highway pegs are very comfortable when buzzing away on the superslab just covering miles. Can't use them in the twisties, of course. But who wants to use them in the twisties?
I need a backrest for best use of the highway pegs.
This is a nice bike for putting a lot of miles on quickly, it is very stable on the highway and has plenty of power to cruise at 80mph all day just as I'd hoped. When I get the automatic chain oiler and the cruise control in place, it'll be perfectly suited for visiting friends in other states.

All in all, it is getting close to exactly what I want it to be. As soon as I get it to that point, then my attention will turn either to the KLR or to the Jeep, and you'll quit seeing so much of the V-strom 650 ABS on these pages.

-- Badtux the Motorin' Penguin

Does this luggage make me look fat?

2008-07-04T22:30:00.001-07:00

With and without luggage But that was before I put on the crash bars last night and the highway pegs this morning and the Fenda Extenda this afternoon. I also changed out the oil again to see how breakin was coming along. Apparently quite fine, there was no residue in the oil and very little "fuzz" on the magnetic drain plug. I put Shell Rotella T 15W40 into the crankcase, yes that is an allowed fill according to the owner's manual and I know from experience and other peoples' oil analysis tests that it's a good oil.

Now all that's left is to put on the automatic chain oiler, the electronic cruise control, and the heated grips, and then she's ready for a trans-continental trip. Yes, I have all the parts for this, including a new fusebox and associated relay and plugs and such, but I'm dreading the electrical parts of this project. Not because they're hard, mind you. Rather, because they're tedious. Doing electrical wiring right is a major chore, and if you don't do it right, then Lucas electrics seem reliable...

-- Badtux the (soon to be) Electrifying Penguin

Oops, I did it again!

2008-07-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

Everybody who wrenches at some time or another strips out a hole or breaks off a bolt in a hole. What to do next depends on what kinda hole it was and whether you can easily replace the part that is stripped out or has a bolt jammed in it. If it's a $1,000 cylinder head, for example, you ain't gonna replace it -- you're gonna fix it. But how?!

Okay, first a digression: buy a set of torque wrenches, and use them. Don't gimme that crap about how you have been wrenchin' fer forty years and you know the right torque by "feel". It's bullshit. I can "feel" the right torque if I just used a torque wrench on a bolt and torqued it to the exact same torque from the same moment arm, otherwise I'm like every other wrench on this planet -- I overtorque small bolts, and undertorque big'uns. My use of torque wrenches tends to bear that out -- my torque wrench always clicks long before I think the bolt is "tight enough" on small bolts, and on large bolts I'm always sayin', "is this damned torque wrench gonna ever friggin' click? Is it broken or somethin'?" Of course it ain't. I just haven't torqued the big bolt enough yet.

My recommendations for torque wrenches: Sears "click" types. First of all, you can get'em calibrated by Sears Roebuck & Company, though if you properly care for them by putting them away in their cases with the dial set to zero between uses, they generally don't need calibrating more than every five years or so. These make a little "click" noise when you reach the set torque. You may not be able to see a dial or lever when your ass is buried deep under a car hood, but you can damn well hear the "click". Furthermore, get a set. I got a little inch pounds one, a medium-sized one that goes to about 50 foot-pounds, then a big'un that goes all the way to 150 ft/lbs. Deal is that big torque wrenches are no good at the low end of their scale, they're just not very accurate down there, so you need small torque wrenches to handle those. But when you're torquing lug nuts to 100 ft/lbs (gotta do it evenly so that you don't warp the brake rotor)1, you damn well need that big friggin' wrench. And yeah, they're expensive. So what. Don't buy cheap tools, that's how ya get busted knuckles. (Sorry, Ornery Bastard, had to steal yer tag line there).

Anyhow, back to the thread repair. What kind of thread repair you use depends on what you're fixing. Me, I'm going to take that cross-member that I broke a bolt off in the other day, drill that bolt out of there, and then put a thread repair coil in there. If it was a spark plug hole or a brake cylinder bleeder hole I'd use something different -- a Timesert, which is a solid repair that won't leak like a Heli-coil or its clones. But for a general frame tube that's expensive overkill. Anyhow, here's a Heli-coil kit, a Makita drill, a bench vise, and a left-handed drill bit for drilling out a bolt broke off in a hole: Now, one thing you'll find out, pricing thread repair kits, is that they're expensive. The good part is that you can re-use them and just buy coils. That particular Heli-coil kit is so old that the packaging has yellowed, but the tap and insert in it work just fine. As for the Makita drill, a word of advice -- have a second fully-charged battery available if you're using a battery-powered drill. This is my only drill that will hold a 31/64 drill bit (needed for the Heli-coil kit), so that's what I gotta use. Finally, it's a lot easier to work on a piece if you can get it up on your bench. Obviously that won't work if you're working on the frame of a car, but here I took a bit of inner tube and stuck that frame tube on my bench and started drilling, first punching a small indention with a punch then drilling like my life depended on it: Until finally, I drilled all the way through: Once through, I moved up one drill bit size at a time until I was up to the size specified on the Heli-coil packaging, then tapped new threads into it to wind the Heli-coil into. Note: I used the can of cutting oil in the pump can below the bench to lubricate the tap, those things are expensive ($55 for a Helicoil kit nowdays, and most of that is for the tap!). Said cutting oil actually being 80w gear oil :-). Note that I'm using a high-tech tap wrench on this tap, but you'll see a "real" tap wrench later: Once the hole is threaded, then you put the coil on its inserter so that the tang is resting against its end: And then screw it into the hole using the inserter and a tap wrench (from my tap and die set, duh). Until finally it's all the way in! And then you have to break off the tang on the bottom using a punch and a hammer. Luckily I have a punch set from Cheap Chinese Tool Company in the second drawer from the top of my rightmost tool chest-of-drawers (which used to be a bedroom chest-of-drawers before I retired its ugly ass to the garage). One whack with the hammer, and the tang was history. And now the end result: Yay, my (replacement) bolt screws in! And now I'm ready to put this cross-member back on the bike until its replacement gets here. Beats bein' out of commission for a week!

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Pretty

2008-06-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

One of the things you do with a motorcycle is customize it to your own needs. Except for squids riding crotch rockets, few motorcycles stay looking the same a year later as they looked straight from the factory.

There's a lot of reasons to customize a motorcycle, but one biggy is to make it physically fit you. So behold Rox adjustable handlebar risers:

I set them to be mostly up, and a bit back. That gets me sitting pretty much straight up and down on the other thing important for me fitting well: a taller seat. Sorry, no picture of the seat, it looks like a motorcycle seat, but I put on the Suzuki gel seat, which is about an inch taller than stock. Any taller would be too high for me to easily handle. But I need that distance between the pegs and the seat because my knees hurt if I'm too cramped in the cockpit.

One thing I had to do was get a longer brake line, the stock one was too short. Everything else works pretty well though. All I had to do was snip off the zip ties holding the wires to the handlebars to have enough slack in the wires, now the zip tie is up at the switch gear rather than halfway down the bar. The zip-tie you see hanging from near the clutch cable is suspending the throttle cables above a protuberance from the frame, the throttle cables normally wouldn't hit that protuberance but now that the handlebars are higher there's no slack left. Other than that, no problems.

Now, another thing you see here is Rick's Shelf. That's the thing that has the Powerlet outlet and another hole on the other side. The hole on the other side is going to be for the switch for the heated grips, when I install them. Heated grips when the weather turns cool in the fall is a real luxury. Now, this thing is CNC-milled out of a hunk of aluminum, and had sharp edges. I whacked the edges with a grinding wheel to blunt them a bit, but you'll notice another of my mods -- split fuel line protecting my cables.

Now, the whole point of all this is to be able to go long distances on two wheels. To do that, you need luggage. Tada: Givi luggage. On Givi racks. The side racks attach to the OEM mounting point at the passenger footpegs and to the four bolts that hold on the rear luggage rack and passenger grab handles, with a cross bar tucked under the rear fender. I had to clean out the threads on the right front luggage rack bolt with a tap. My stock tip for today: Buy stock in Black & Decker, the makers of Helicoil thread repair kits. My suspicion is that this bike is gonna keep them in business, sooner or later that right front luggage rack captive nut is gonna need a helicoil shot into it... and that ain't the only place. Anyhow, the Givis need a good bath, they been living on the Mule too long and are covered with grease and mud. If I had a closer photo of them you'd see just how bad they look, but all they need is a bath and a dose of McGuire's Back To Black and they'll be good as new.

Anyhow, you can see the seat too, as well as the ass end of the Mule. The seat looks like, well, a seat -- ain't nothin to tell ya that it's 1" taller than the stock seat. Also visible are the Suzuki OEM hand guards, which do good to keep bugs (and rain, presumably) from whacking your hands. I had to do a little engineering on the brake side hand guard, the stock mounting method for the lower inboard mount was no good, so I grabbed a slightly larger washer and all is well. Sigh. Factory accessories that are as fiddly to mount as aftermarket accessories. Go figger. But at least they look purty.

So anyhow, the wee touring bike is getting closer to show time. I need to get the fuse panel installed under the seat so I can get my electrics installed, and there's some other fiddly stuff I need to get installed -- first one being the automatic chain oiler, I hate having to keep shooting the chain with WD-40 to keep it from rusting. And of course I need to get the engine guard/skidplate thingy fixed so I can mount my highway pegs (duh, of course I have highway pegs, they're actually left over from an old motorcycle I don't own anymore).

Note that I know exactly what I want on the Weestrom because most of this stuff I'd already had a version of on the Mule, e.g. the Givi racks. I do *not* recommend that you do what I'm doing if you're new to motorcycling and haven't spent a long time getting your prejudices in place as to what you like and don't like. It took me four years to get the Mule to where it was "perfect" insofar as seating position, peg to seat to highway peg locations, handlebar position, accessories, etc., and figure it'll take you as long for whatever sled you buy.

So anyhow, it's time for bed, and I'm tired from all this wrenchin'. G'nite!

-- Badtux the Sleepy Penguin

PS for Gordon: A better photo of the throttle cables. Note that the reason they're at that particular angle is to keep them off the fairing bracket. That's a primo electrician-grade UV-resistant zip tie rated at 20 pounds, not a Cheap Chinese Tool Company special, so it ought to have no problems. Plenty of slack on the other side of that zip-tie.

Motorcycle wheel bearing tool

2008-06-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hmm, this looks like a slick little setup. Lessee, do I want to risk bumming my wheel with a drift, or no?

No point, just sorta insta-bookmarking another tool for this tool geek to buy next time he wants to extract motorcycle wheel bearings.

-- Badtux the Tool Geek Penguin

Proper protection

2008-06-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

Now, one thing I gotta say about riding a motorcycle. It's dangerous. All those damned fool drivers are trying to run you over, and all you have going for you is your superior acceleration and maneuverability (motorcycles brake about the same as cars, so alas that's not an advantage you have over cagers). And you won't win every time. I'm missing a chunk out of my foot and have a wrist that tells the weather to prove that.

Yet I still see damned fools riding motorcycles wearing t-shirts and jeans. Well, and a helmet, since this is Californication and thus a helmet is required by law, but if not for that law, I betcha they wouldn't be wearing a helmet either.

Now, one argument I hear from the damned fools is the whine, It's hot!. Yeah? So? Guess what. There's this new shit on the market called mesh riding gear. Lets air flow through it. Just like your t-shirt that's riding up your ass and flappin' so I can see your butt-crack as you crouch over on your crotch rocket (eww gross). Except it's got impact armor so your stupid knees don't get shattered to shards when you hit the pavement, and a back protector so you don't get paralyzed when your backbone hits the pavement, and so forth. You know, protection. Duh.

So anyhow, that's what I spent the last couple of weekends doing, was shopping for some new mesh riding gear. I have some old mesh gear I bought in, hmm, must have been 2004, closeouts of the 2002 model year gear that I got for cheap. But technology has moved on since then. Mesh gear was new in 2002, and wasn't very good. Now they got EU-spec armor in them and more Cordura nylon or other such abrasion-resistant materials in places where your ass would get road rash.

Now, the cream de la creme of mesh gear is the Motoport Kevlar mesh gear. That shit don't rip or burn if you fall down. It's stout. It's also heavy as hell and a full suit of this gear costs around $1200. Eeep! I ain't payin' no $1200 for gear that is just gonna shrink so I can't wear it in a few years! (Now, some folks say I eat too much herring in cream sauce and it's not my clothes shrinkin' but the other way around, but same effect, okay?).

So anyhow, I got some Olympia Airglide gear. The jacket looks like this: You betcher life I bought the hi-viz yellow jacket. Like I said, those damned fools out there are tryin' ta kill me! Now, imagine my shark lawyer holdin' that jacket up in a court of law and sayin' to a jury, "This is what my client was wearing. Do you really believe that Damn D. Fool did not see my client?" I betcha that jacket would be worth an extra half a million bucks in punitive damages for general stupidity on the part of the damned fool. Anyhow, it's about half and half Cordura nylon (very abrasion resistant) with nylon mesh panels (so I don't damn well suffocate when it's hot outside), with the Cordura everywhere that you'd normally slide on the thing, plus has a winter liner that'll let me wear it in a wide variety of conditions. Then there's the pants:

I actually got the black, not the silver, but the mesh vs. Cordura nylon shows up better on the picture of the silver. As for why black, well, because when you're riding a motorcycle you're often kneeling on your knees and shit to oil your chain, check your oil level, that kinda stuff. Not to mention that when you're riding in the rain all the oil and shit from the road gets kicked up onto your pants by the cars in front of you. Any other color starts looking like crap after a while. So black it is.

So anyhow, take it from a wise penguin. Wear your fuckin' gear, dipsticks! And now that good mesh gear is available, heat ain't no excuse. And look, that flappin' t-shirt showin' your butt crack as you crouch on your little crotch rocket? Bad taste, dude. BAAAAD taste. Ugh.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Thought for the day

2008-06-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

"[A KTM motorcycle] needs maintenance and attention constantly. Like supporting an Austrian hooker." -- CA Stu, KTM owner.

Heh.

-- Badtux the Kawi/Suzi Ownin' Penguin

A disappointment

2008-06-28T01:01:00.000-07:00

This is a Pat Walsh Designs Engine Guard and Skid Plate combo for the Suzuki V-Strom 650. It took them over two weeks to get it to me after I ordered it -- it came in today, and I ordered it back on the 9th. When I called Pat yesterday he claimed that Paypal has not been sending him his email, which is possible, I suppose, the shipment does contain a copy of an email I sent several days ago re-forwarding Paypal's email to me, so obviously his people got my email, but did not reply to it so I had no idea what was going on. Anyhow, the skid plate is the plate. The engine guard bars are the curved bars. The cross bar is the mostly straight bar with the little zig-zag in it. It mounts sorta like this: Click the photo for a bigger picture. The curved bar mounts to the upper engine mount bolt (arrow), the cross bar, and to the skid plate. The skid plate mounts to the curved bar, and to one of the kickstand bracket bolts (lower left arrow). On the other side, the back of the skid plate mounts to the exhaust mount bracket, which is fairly sturdy but the exhaust mount bolt is sorta wimpy so that side isn't as well supported.

Unfortunately, one of the captive nuts welded into one end of the crossbar had a bad weld that impinged upon the thread area. The result was that when I tried to screw the bolt in, it seized. I had to use a pipe wrench on the crossbar and a 4-foot breaker bar to unscrew the bolt until it completely seized and I twisted its head off. This messed up the cross bar (the pipe wrench crushed it) and of course messed up the bolt, but at least I got this mess off my bike. This is the best photo I have of the damage (click on the photo for a bigger picture). You can see the welded-in captive nut, and the crushed area where I held it with the pipe wrench, and you can see the head of the bolt that I twisted off down below. The bolt twisted off at a point within the captive nut where apparently a bead of welding slag came to rest and jammed up the works -- this wasn't a case of me over-torquing a bolt (the bolt would have broken off at the point where head and shaft meet in that case).

I will call Pat on Monday and see if he can fix me up with a new crossbar and bolt in a timely manner. Needless to say I was using the sort of language in my garage that is not fit for polite company. Especially since I had to take that blasted kickstand bolt off again and it was partially hidden by the skid plate, meaning I had to use a box wrench and very slowly one tiny bit at a time unbolt it, plus my garage was hot so I was sweating like a pig... so anyhow, my bike is unprotected again, stripped of all skid plate and crash bars. Sigh.

-- Badtux the Still-unprotected Penguin

And what were you doing at 2AM?

2008-06-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Me, I was working on my Suzuki V-Strom 650 ABS, adding a Powerlet socket to the Rick's Shelf using the Left Front Panel socket kit from Eastern Beaver. I also mounted the Garmin Zumo 550 GPS's RAM ball to the handlebar and used the Garmin Zumo to Powerlet short power cord to plug it in. I also have an adaptor so I can power a regular cigarette-lighter-type electric air pump off of this socket to air up my tires.

The core problem is that I had to take off the gas tank and this was the first time I ever took off the gas tank so it took me a while to get everything off. To take off the gas tank, here's what I did:

Take off the side gas tank panels by unscrewing the one screw at the front that holds them on and popping them out of their rubber donuts that holds the rear part of the panels on.
Remove the rearmost screws on the side fairing panels (there will be two of them).
Locate the center fairing strip between the gas tank and the steering column, and the two plastic retainer buttons at the front. Push in the center peg of those buttons until they make a "snap" sound (use a ballpoint pen or something), and remove the buttons.
Remove the center fairing strip -- the sides just snap under the side fairing, you should be able to pop the side fairings outward a little and it'll just come out.
Remove the seat
Grab a 12mm wrench and remove the single bolt holding the back of the tank on
Take the silver tank prop that serves as the top of the tank mount and lift the tank up enough to prop the tank up with it. DO NOT TRY TO LIFT IT HIGHER THAN THE PROP, there is a stop on the pivot hinge up front that you can damage if you try to lift it against the stop.
Unplug the fuel gauge wire on the left side
Unplug the fuel line on the left side
Unplug the overflow line on the right side (just pop it off the tank)
Unplug the charcoal canister condensate return line on the right side. (Was easier for me to pop it off the frame mounted fitting than to pop it off the tank, also kept clear which line went where).
Remove the prop and let the tank back down. Grab a pair of 10mm wrenches (I had one socket wrench and one box-end wrench), and remove the pivot bolt at the front of the tank.
Lift the tank and slide it backward off its rubber mounts up front, then lift and place aside.

Now you have the top of the bike naked and can just lay the wire from the battery all the way to the front of the bike on top of the existing wires. The only exception is that I ran it around the side of the head instead of through the box and clamp behind the radiator then the hole at the front of the frame. I then plugged it into the Powerlet outlet (which I had previously installed on the dashboard then installed the dashboard), and moved the steering from lock to lock to insure that I had enough slack. I did -- barely. I zip-tied the front in place, checked my steering slack again, still okay, then zip-tied the rest in place all the way back to the battery.

This kit was intended for the left dashboard panel, and was cut to be very slightly longer than required for that purpose. Going rightward and requiring some slack for turning the steering wheel means that I only barely have enough wire to get back to the battery. When I add a fuse panel in the tray behind the battery, I will have to cut off the battery end of this kit and add some longer wires to get to the fuse panel using Posilocks or regular crimp connectors. So it goes.

Now, what took me so long: I was following the directions in the factory service manual, which calls for removing the front side cowling panels also as part of removing the fuel tank. To remove the front side cowling panels, take out all the visible screws. Next you have to remove the chin cowling underneath the headlights. This is done by pushing in the center of a dozen of those button-type fasteners and removing them, then removing two screws hidden deep in the wells of those fake air inlets. You can then wiggle the chin cowling out. Then you'll find out why we had to remove the chin cowling -- there's two more screws hidden behind the chin cowling holding on the side panels. Remove those screws. Then slide the side panels *forward* to get them out of their little rubber donut thingies, and when you feel them "pop" out of the little donut thingy wiggle them out from under the top panel (still sliding forward a bit). Then you'll have a nice open space to work in with no side panels in the way, which I suppose is why the service manual calls for removing these.

Anyhow, it's nowhere near as arduous a process as pulling all the plastics on my old Kawasaki Concours touring bike (now that bike had a lot of plastic on it!), but it was my first time doing it, so I was going very slow and careful. So that's why it took me four hours to do all this yanking of plastics, pulling the tank, running the wire on top of the existing wires, then putting it all back together again, and why I was in my garage until 2am last night. I wanted to ride that bike to work today. And did :-).

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Tip for removing the bar-end weights on a V-Strom

2008-06-23T17:00:00.001-07:00

Do *NOT* unscrew the long screw all the way! The bar end weights are held in by a nut compressing a rubber washer. If you unscrew the long screw all the way, the nut will get left behind in the handlebar! Instead, loosen the long screw just enough so you can easily turn the bar-end weight. Then yank.

And oh, if you DO happen to do this, the nut can be extracted using the cleaning rod for a Camelbak reservoir, the long one with the little brush on the end. Just push it through until it goes through the hole in the nut, pull back, and the bristles will catch the nut just enough to pull it out.

Yeah, you know how I know this... :-).

-- Badtux the "oops!" Penguin

Zen and the art of the centerstand

2008-06-21T22:03:00.001-07:00

I have a love-hate relationship with centerstands.

First, let us be blunt: Centerstands are a terrible solution for keeping the rubber side down on a parked motorcycle. The basic problem is that they are narrower than the triangle formed by the wheels and a sidestand, and thus the motorcycle can be more easily toppled off of a centerstand. Furthermore, they are sensitive to tire height -- if you put shorter tires onto your motorcycle you may have trouble getting the bike up on the stand, if you put taller tires onto your motorcycle the tire may no longer be off the ground when you try to put the bike onto the centerstand.

And finally, not all bikes are good candidates for centerstands. Centerstands tend to reduce your ground clearance because of all those levers and rods and springs and such hanging down below your bike, and some bikes have inadequate places to mount a centerstand. For example, on a KLR650 dual sport, the centerstands available on the market mount to the footpeg bolts -- a known weak point on the KLR motorcycle due to the mild-steel captive nuts inside the mounting boxes. A centerstand simply helps those captive nuts strip out even faster than they already do without help from a centerstand.

All of the above is why my KLR-650 has no centerstand. I had one on the bike, but took it off because it did more harm than good. If I need to loft a wheel off the ground and I'm not at home in my garage where I can just wheel the lift under it, it's pretty easy to do -- click the Givi topbox off and place it on the right hand side of the parked motorcycle. Push the motorcycle over onto its sidestand until the rear tire (or front tire) is off the ground. Kick Givi topbox underneath the skidplate at the appropriate place so that said tire *stays* off the ground. Voila.

So on a dual-sport motorcycle, a centerstand is not necessary. If all else failed, I could turn off the gas and lay my KLR on its side and do whatever I needed. It wouldn't hurt the KLR, as long as I kept the cylinder above the oil level so that I don't get hydrolock. My KLR has spent a weekend on its side before when I was off camping and a bear knocked it open and ripped all the luggage apart looking for WD-40 to eat (he found it, BTW -- I have a picture somewhere of the WD-40 can, crushed by bear jaws, holes from bear teeth in it). Didn't hurt the KLR at all, though the luggage was trashed.

So anyhow, now we come to my new Suzuki DL650 V-Strom, and we find one very big reason to have a center stand: There's no skid plate or frame members to use to lift the bike! Yeppers, the oil pan is just a hangin' out there in the breeze, and it's not a *big* oil pan, and you wouldn't want to try to lift the bike on it. So how do you change the tires? Well, look back by the suspension dog bones, and what do you see? CENTER STAND MOUNTING HOLES!

So I researched the available center stands and chose the one that I liked the most -- the SW-Motech, which is a bit narrower than the OEM one, and reduces ground clearance a little more, but does not interfere with cornering clearance. So in my next article, I install this sucker on my V-Strom 650...

-- Badtux the Motorcycle Penguin

The Menagerie

2008-06-19T22:55:00.000-07:00

The Silver Demon, so-called because it whispered in my ear, "Buy me! Buy me!" until I did: The Demon is a 2006 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited with a 2" spacer lift, 32" tires, and an Aussie Locker in the front axle. This was the last year of the classic Jeep TJ design and 4.0L inline 6 engine that could trace its heritage to the Rambler six's of the 1960's. It is slow, crude, evil-handling, drinks gas like it's going out of style, reliable as dirt as long as you keep on top of the maintenance, and it'll go anywhere reasonable for a 4x4 to go, and some places that aren't -- I have a couple of dents on the underside to prove the latter.

The Green Mule, so-called because, well, you'll see: The Mule is a 2002 Kawasaki KLR-650 dual-sport, outfitted here for some serious desert expeditioning. With the 7 gallon gas tank and 40mpg fuel economy it'll go over 250 miles on a tank of gas in relative comfort. The KLR is a crude and simple design that will run on any gasoline capable of being called "gas", is fixable with duct tape and a BFH (Big Fuckin' Hammer), and reliable as dirt. It's main problems are a) very weak on power (as in, top speed of about 75mph loaded down like the picture slowing down to about 50mph on long mountain grades), b) a ton of vibration, and c) a feeble headlight that fireflies laugh at. Unfortunately fixing parts a and b is very expensive and part c is unfixable without dumping the OEM headlight cluster entirely because the square headlight reflector simply won't produce an acceptable headlight pattern. Plus the KLR lacks the electrical generator capacity to run a high wattage bulb even if you did dump the OEM headlight and fairing.

The Wabs: Sorry I don't have a better picture yet, I just brought it home and this is the best that I can do in my garage. This is a 2008 Suzuki DL650AK8 V-Strom ABS. It is a sweet bike that is comfortable for the solo tourer when equipped with hard luggage and a big windshield (which this one will be), but still lightweight enough to be a fun commuter in the city when you strip the luggage off and run with the small OEM windshield. It has nearly twice the horsepower of the KLR and headlights that'll light up the night, especially now that I've put Phillips +50 H4 bulbs in there -- twice the headlight power of my KLR, with much better reflectors that put the light where it needs to be. The Weestrom (as the 650 V-Strom is nicknamed) has only one real weakness as a light tourer, and that's a lack of electrical power. You can run heated grips and a heated jacket liner, and a couple of light electronic gadgets like a GPS and an XM radio, and that's pretty much it. But you don't need auxiliary lights with the excellent headlights that the Weestrom has, so that's not a real problem. The Wee has only one big problem, and that problem is a serious lack of personality -- it is a pleasant bike that is good at everything but doesn't have the character of the KLR or Jeep. On the upside it gets 60mpg due to the more modern fuel-injected engine and while it has all the personality of a blender, it is as reliable as one too.

So that's the menagerie. More on them as we go along...

-- Badtux the Motorin' Penguin

Adding a GIVI topbox mount to V-Strom 650

2008-06-18T21:24:00.001-07:00

This is how to add a Givi hard luggage topbox mount to a 2008 Suzuki V-Strom 650. The Givi kit is the E528 plate kit. It should be identical on everything V-Strom.

When you open the Givi box and unpack the kit, you find this: There are the two brackets that mount on the OEM luggage rack, the top plate that mounts to the brackets, and the hardware packet with all the screws for doing this. There's also an insert (the hard plastic thing), but I never put that on because it makes it hard to take the top plate off when necessary (remember, you have to take the top plate off to get to the luggage rack bolts, and you have to take the luggage rack off to get into the side covers to do things like, e.g., add brake fluid to the rear brake).

To do this task easily, you need these tools: From left to right: a 5mm allen wrench, a 4mm allen wrench, a 10mm open-end wrench, a tube of blue (medium) thread-locker, a pair of bent-nose pliers, a pair of scissors, and a 10mm socket wrench. You can actually do this job with the contents of your Suzuki toolkit plus the thread locker, but it's a lot easier with better-quality tools.

Okay. now here's the ground rules. There's other ways to do some of this. For example, I will take the luggage rack off. But someone with smaller fingers or better eyesight may just need to loosen the luggage rack screws. The way I'm going to do it is the easiest way (not necessarily the way I *actually* did it, mind you, but the way I'd do it again!).

So here we go:

Remove the seat.
Remove the luggage rack by unbolting the following four bolts with your 10mm socket wrench.

Place the rack on old newspaper or some other surface where it won't get scratched up, and remove the rubber top cover on the luggage rack. There are five rubber nubs holding it in. To remove one of the rubber nubs, take the bent-nose pliers and use them to tuck one edge of the flange on the backside into the hole, while at the same time you pull on the other side. If you keep tucking pieces of the flange into the hole while tugging on the other side, eventually the whole thing will pop out. Repeat until all five are out, and lay the rubber top cover aside. (Sorry I have no picture of me doing this, hard for me to take pictures when doing something that takes two hands plus my knees!).

Once the rubber cover is off, we're ready to mount the brackets onto it. Here is the hardware we need to mount the brackets. Note that the FLAT-sided bracket goes on the back. The ANGLE-sided bracket goes on the front. Assemble the hardware as such:

Round-top 4mm allen-head screws with washers on top, washers then the bright-colored 10mm ny-lock nuts on the bottom. Here we are going to put the front bracket on first, which is the bracket with the ANGLED sides. The rear bracket is the one with the FLAT sides. You only need to snug up the bolts, you don't need to twist the heads off, remember we have nylock nuts here which won't come off easily. Note that the front bracket is supposed to point the other way, towards the front. Having it this way moves the mounting plate and topbox backward slightly and gives more room to the passenger, but at the expense of making the top plate harder to mount (since the top-plate nuts are hidden behind the bracket to a certain extent). Experiment to see what works best for you -- this is motorcycle science, not rocket science, and there's no One True Way.

Now bolt the rack with brackets back onto the bike. Put a couple of drops of blue thread locker on each of the long 10mm bolts when you snug them down. Thus far I have not found a Suzuki spec on what these things are supposed to be torqued to...

Now place the plastic Givi mount on top of the brackets so that you can see the bracket's mounting holes through the diamond-shaped holes in the mount. Drop a diamond-shaped silver plate into each of the diamond-shaped holes and position so you can see the mounting bracket holes through the holes in the silver plates. Assemble a 5mm allen head screw and washer, and shove through the hole in the plate and through the hole in the bracket. Now, using your 10mm open-head wrench, take the black nylock nut and position it under the plate next to the screw, lift the screw from the top and then shove the nut into place with your open-head wrench and jam the screw back down onto it. Tighten a few threads using the 5mm allen wrench on top and the 10mm open head wrench on bottom. Repeat for all screws. Now, tighten all four corners so that the nuts are barely touching the brackets, and then position the top plate to your desired position. Snug down the allen-head screws. You're now done! Note -- I never put the smooth cover that says "Givi" onto the Givi mount. It makes it harder to take the top plate off, and the diamond-shaped holes in the Givi top-plate give places to poke bungee cords through the thing when you're using it as a luggage rack rather than a luggage mount. This is how I leave it. And here is my Givi E45 mounted on it:

My SOLAS tape is really doing its job of shining, eh?!

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Moto Tux

Exhausting work

Springity sproing

Diesels in American vehicles

Removing "wheel locks"

50,000 miles and five years

Motor mount woes

Wow, this place has gotten musty...

The Six Million err Thousand Dollar Jeep

Toyota is the new Philip-Morris

Gimme heat!

What the fuck is the matter with cars?

And.... it worked!

My negligent self

My new iTunes radio

The unboxing

Goodbye to motorcycling

The case of the mysterious shimmy

Baby loves her Kraut plugs

Where's my coolant going?

The downsides of wrenching late at night

Piece of shit spark plugs

Gears!

It'll buff out

Performance parts

Summer wind

Goodbye to the Mule

Kenwood TM-D710A

Procrastination

The Mule at ready

Antennae

End of an era

A bad joke

Trabant!

The Two-story Outhouse Principle

Trip update

The world's slowest mechanic strikes again

Should we save General Motors?

Hell's Grannies

Mirror extenders came today!

My first ride with the new windshield

Windshield came in!

Craig Highline down

WIndshield for the 'Strom

R.I.P. Cary Aspy

A reminder

Heated grips for the Weestrom...

Grr... blogger bloggered!

Scottoiler!

Bumper

Adding an electrical socket

Why C-clip axles are evil

Zen and Now

Nevermore

A nickel and dime problem

Why can't I find an online Jeep parts fiche?

A very lucky dude

Leaky rear axle

The never-ending electrical project done!

The never-ending electrical project again

How to get to good riding places *fast*

The never-ending electrical project

Glad I don't have a BMW

Motorcycle wiring sucks

When farkles go bad

Dead batteries and KLR's

Stone age vs. Digital age and the Nightstrom

Motorcycle Wiring, Part 2

Motorcycle wiring, Part 1

A journey

Does this luggage make me look fat?

Oops, I did it again!

Pretty

Motorcycle wheel bearing tool

Proper protection

Thought for the day

A disappointment

And what were *you* doing at 2AM?

Tip for removing the bar-end weights on a V-Strom

Zen and the art of the centerstand

How to get to good riding places fast

And what were you doing at 2AM?