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timgray

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  1. timgray
    $5.00 in paint supplies does the same thing. Wet Sand headlights with a 1000 grit sandpaper, sand until all discoloration is gone and they are foggy. Wet Sand with 2000 grit sandpaper, do this twice once in each direction. Rub it out with rubbing compound. Rub it out with polishing compound. All done. works great and looks like new.
  2. timgray
    get a small set of brass washers and put 1 under each screw holding the connectors on to the removeable radio assembly. I.E. the part you can remove with the key and the two spring clips. use as thin as you can find in brass,stainless, or plastic under the connector's screws to list it a tiny bit and seat tighter when you reassemble it.
  3. timgray
    On the Master Cyl Reservoir cap for my front brakes one of the screws is stripped out. It looked like the Previous Owner tried to open it and butchered the head and stopped. I noticed this so I bought 4 stainless replacements for the Clutch and Front brake reservoir caps. I cant get this last one out. I gave it a small squirt from some WD-40 and let it soak for a couple of hours, but it still stripped out. Any ideas on how to get the screw out without damaging the reservoir?
  4. timgray

    venting

    timgray replied to footsie's topic in Watering Hole

    I was on a Ride to the Balwin Blessing of the bikes this year, My buddy and I were the only two non HD's in the pack, and because we are greenies we took up the tail. After about 15 intersections we were up near the middle of the pack. We all stopped for Gas and a walkaround when 4 of the guys walked up to me and asked... "what is that bike?" I guess on the last twisties they could not keep up, I' was scraping pegs and passing in the inside lane the pack trying to get to the front to take my turn at intersection blocking. No effort in my part, the bike felt solid and I was not pushing it. I guess harleys cant take corners well. The second time was when the wife was slow getting her helmet on and I had to catch up to the pack. Gloves accidentally slipped off the clutch when I was gunning it and the front wheel came off the ground by about a foot. When we arrived at baldwin I was asked by several riders again what I was riding and the did I change the engine or hotrod it to make it pull the front off the ground like that. I was smiling from ear to ear for the rest of the day that a bunch of really seasoned and old Harley riders were impressed with my old clunker bike. REAL bikers will respect you and your ride. The wanna-be bikers will look down upon your "not a harley". That's how you can tell the real bikers from the ones who are simply faking it.
  5. timgray
    Those should work fine, the specifications are correct for the type of setup. They did not list a sensitivity for them online though....
  6. timgray
    My troubleshooting and wiring documentation will be slowed down for a bit. Yesterday I was working on the radio/amp and the positive lead from the power slipped off and hit the speaker right on a bare wire. I blew out the left audio channel. I was so angry at myself I opened the amp and discovered a major flaw in the Amplifier design. The Speaker wires run directly from the speakers to the output of the amplifier chips in the unit. No filtering, fuses, or protection. This makes it very easy to fry your amp if your speakers go bad. I am already in search of new parts to put in place to fix the AMP, a Toshiba TA7227P for headphones. Toshiba TA7237P for the speakers, they are discontinued but are available in the old electronics supply line, I am trying to find a supply of them so that the amps can be repaired in the future as well. Some interesting info though... Headphones has their own amplifier system. Killing the amp for the dash speaker did not kill the headphones. Headphones have a 5.5 Watt amp, Speakers use 2 to give it 17 watts per side. (Stronger amp chips for speakers. Headphones do NOT have protection on the amp line. so you can easily kill the headphone amp if you get a short or power feedback into them I strongly suggest only plugging and unplugging when off to reduce stress load on the amp chip. Photos of the inside of the amplifier module coming soon. I have the datasheets for both of the chips mentioned above. If anyone is interested in the chip information. The main AMP chips are simply a single sheet describing a example circuit, which is what the AMP in our bikes use, almost identically. Side note: The chips have a HORRIBLE audio quality rating, 10%THD at the rated power. Anything above 0.05%THD is considered bad. THD is Total Harmonic Distortion. This is why they sound really bad when cranked way up. They are rated for 4 ohm loads, so any car speaker is good and safe to use on the 1st gens. Simply get something with a good sensitivity. Three-way speakers might bring out some of the distortion though because of the added clarity of the speakers.
  7. timgray
    Check your ground on the temp sensor. It is on the right side up under the fairing right by the radiator. You have to remove the grille trim pieces above the horn to get to it.
  8. timgray
    What did you use for speakers? I have Pyle and some "roadmaster" ones here and they crank really loud on the stock amp. You might have bought a set that do not have a high sensitivity.
  9. timgray
    Finally got time to get back to the project. On the cable that goes to the Cassette player. White - 12V Gray - Enable Radio (connect to the White wire to make radio work. Black - Audio common Brown - Audio Left Blue - Audio Right Red - 6Volts -- Unknown use but a good source for the voltage needed to trip the CB mute Yellow -- Unknown green -- Unknown I did this instead of a connector because the 8 pin din connectors and cables are near impossible to find, and If I'm never going to put a cassette back in, Chop off the connector and use my own connections. I recommend always using 100uf capacitors in line for interfacing to any audio gear. it will remove any DC bias that the equipment might have. When things get going more I'll be making up some schematics and drawings. I will be wiring to two headphone jacks. 1 for the switch to enable the MP3 player/Radio switching and the other for audio. Easy to get parts, and I can still disassemble everything. Next up -- Interfacing el-cheapo Midland helmet headsets to the intercom. $30.00 each is far FAR cheaper than even the cheapest J&M headset. I think I can use the 6V signal here to power the Midland microphones as they are electre instead of dynamic.
  10. timgray
    This morning I rode in to work and was given a gift by the city of a surprise of loose gravel on pavement by the city. Right on a highway off ramp. I made it to work safe, and decided that the only way to get things done is to be noisy. I decided to email the mayor and politely described what was wrong and how a simple sign warning me would have made the highly dangerous situation his guys caused a less dangerous one. I also informed him that another motorcyclist may get seriously hurt if they don't get a sign posted right away. I also let city officials know about sand on the roads and other problems that make a road incredibly dangerous to a motorcycle. Do you? are you your community's Squeaky wheel that complains about dangers and dangerous roads?
  11. timgray
    Wow that stuff must be expensive up there. My local Parts store carries it at $6.95US a bottle of Seafoam. Why do they charge you guys up there a premium for everything?
  12. timgray
    Honestly, If a dealer cant work on older bikes then run away from them. Motorcycles are far easier to work on than cars, and if they dont have mechanics that can work on anything with 2 wheels that come into the shop then they need to be avoided. The one dealer I trust locally is actually 35 miles away and a Harley dealer. Most competent Yamaha mechanic in 150 miles.
  13. timgray
    Not hard to come by at all, go to any junk yard and get the defroster relay out of any 80's car. It activates and runs for 10 minutes and kicks off on it's own. These are really common
  14. timgray
    http://majorgeeks.com/downloads15.html Pick one of the high rated free ones. the ONLY registry cleaner that is worth anything is Amust registry cleaner. It's a pay for program, but I always try the free stuff first. Microsoft's installer are incredibly poorly written so they leave orphaned and bad information in the registry. 90% of the time this causes no effect, but after installing and uninstalling stuff over 2 years the registry can get all messed up.
  15. timgray
    I phased out this weekend with a back injury and never sent you my cash. Did you order an extra and I can paypal you right away? I hate it when life get's in the way of everything else.
  16. timgray
    I get 10 of those a day, plus 10 that my Ebay account is compromised. Oh and my chase card is compromised (I dont use Chase) basically assume that ANY email from your bank or other important site is fake. Close your browser and log in by typing in the website name and check there. I also have been getting lots of offers to hold billions of dollars for exiled Africian kings If I just give them my banking account info they will put the money in there and give me a Million for my trouble. Treat most all email as fake and you'll be fine.
  17. timgray
    I have had mine for a year now and there is one drawback for these china covers.. They let Infared light in as if they were not there. When I parked my bike outside one evening because the garage was fulll of garage sale stuff, I looked at the security cameras and saw my bike. I SWORE I put the cover on. So I wander back to the garage and the cover is on it. They are Infared transparent, the cameras can see through it, and when I cover the bike on a sunny day, the grips and the bike are as hot as if it was sitting in the sun uncovered. I dont know if they let through UV light, but they probably do. They do keep light rain off the bike, but a heavy downpour will get through it.
  18. timgray
    I have one of those, they dont work all the time and are INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE to keep running and working. They break very easily and also tend to make lots of noise as well. If I had not bought one, I could have easily afforded another Bike and a sportscar with the amount of money I sunk into mine already.
  19. timgray
    I use whatever cheap synthetic I can get that does not have the energy conserving starburst. I get the bonus of smoother shifting, I mean WAY smoother shifting. I started with Mobil-1 and tried the Amsoil. But ended with the off brand cheapie synthetic for trucks I can get at the local parts store. Value-tech brand. The benefit I get from the cheapie stuff is identical to the high priced amsoil I get and it's 1/2 the price at $15.00 a 5 quart jug. I use $4.95 Wix filters and they work great. I cant tell the difference between the high price stuff and the cheapie stuff. but it is better in shifting compared to Yamalube so I'm sold on the synthetic. If it shifts easier ,then it's making the transmission last longer. I still do the 3000-3500 change interval that is typical simply because I want the thing to last forever.
  20. timgray
    This is how I shoot them. (Yes I'm a photographer, it's my second job) Typically you have a monochromatic background, so you either put it on the center stand if it has one, or use wooden blocks and set it on those to stand upright Or sandbags. I have propped up a bike on sandbags before.. Then you wrap the stand or blocks in the same fabric as you use for the background making it disappear. In some studios they use piano wire running to the light clamping pipes on the ceiling so you can adjust a lot more of the bike's stance. Most everything today is photoshopped, but I consider that lazy. You can shoot it the first time right to not need any changes.
  21. timgray
    I'm still in, I need to wait until friday to send the cash. Things have been crazy around here for me.
  22. timgray
    the MOST IMPORTANT feature is that when you take it out into full sunlight it is easily readable. 90% of all GPS's cant be read in full sunlight. Most of the cheapies cant be read even on a bright cloudy day. If you want to use the GPS you need to be able to see it, so start there. Roadmate 760 is daylight viewable, but it's large. But it's really cheap at the above store link.
  23. timgray
    Most motorcycle shops have no idea what a colortune is. I have yet to find one that knows how to correctly sync carbs.
  24. timgray
    What speed internet service you have is only part of the download speed, Where it comes from is the other part. Try it again. I just re-downloaded it on my Mac and it's just fine here. The manual really does not have a detailed step-by-step clutch bleeding procedure, they cover some basics in a few sentences. You need bleeding tools like a bleeder bottle, or a mighty-vac, or better yet speed bleeders installed and a bleeder bottle. you can make your own bleeder bottle by drilling a hole in the top of a empty pop bottle, inserting clear tubing down to the bottom, and put about 1" of new fluid in it. you need to make sure the reservoir never get's empty or you'll fill the system with air. If you went out and bought all the tools and messed it up 10 times, you will still be far cheaper than the dealer will charge you, Local dealer here wanted $250.00 to bleed the clutch.
  25. timgray
    I've been to Yamaha Dealers that don't know any of that. One told me that carbs never need synchronization, the only solution is complete carb rebuilds. He must be buying a new boat and needs to make extra money for the payments.
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