Snaggletooth

Before the first attempt the bike idled in the gargage until the fan came to get some heat. Drained oil, pulled middle gear cover, sprayed with degreasr and then Deep Creep. Tried the hand impact with allen bit. Nothing. Gave it a dose of Blaster and let it sit a couple hours. The Torx bit trick I have used more I than care to admit. It works. But I have also busted a few bits inide the allen head several times. PITA to dig that out. with the bolt being where it is, not a good place to have that happen. I started on this yesterday morning using only a hand impact driver with a 6" extention and my good Snap On 3/8 drive allens. I dressed the allen later in the day as it was showing some wear. Kept the end squared up The hand impact, I have used for years. But today, for the first time it started to mushroom on the top. It got USED today. The last thing I did before quiting tonight was mix a batch of the Acetone/Tranny fluid blend and soaked it with that. With all the bragging lately on that mix the screw should be on the floor when I wake up. But no comments on the extractors eh?

I've got a bit of a battle going on with my bike. The clutch slave is blown out and I have parts headed my way. This is one part I would never approach without a reason. It gave me one. It's just being difficult. So with some concentrated effort, the proper allens and extensions, rust buster, a heat gun, hand impact driver, some swearing and sweet talk I managed to get the top bolt out. Badly rusted and danged if there weren't traces of Red Loctite on the threads. Prefect. The bottom one is not working with me. Even with heating up the flange and bolt to 225 degrees it's not breaking loose. It's starting to strip, not completely yet, but it will. So I'm looking for a back up plan for the fight tomorrow. I want to try the local auto part stores and check out their loaner tools. Anybody familiar with this type of extractor? http://www.sears.com/hanson-5-piece-bolt-grip-194-174-deep-well-bolt/p-00919857000P I've always consider these to be good for regular hex head bolts but never tried to use one on an allen head. What I'm dealing with is a 5mm allen bolt with about a 1/4" of head exposed but set way back in and hard to work around. Very limited space. Those that have replaced clutch slaves know what I'm dealing with. If I can find the right extractor to grip the outside I got a chance. Opinions? Thoughts? Thanks

I couldn't take the lean...... This was photo shopped right? A disguise?

Yikes!!! I feel so much better seeing that after tearing into mine last week. I didn't make a dent compared to that. You da man!!

Wow!! I'm loving that shade of red, a lot!! Seat looks great with the paint. The diamond plate is a nice touch to. Very nice.

I'd think any accident report made by an investigating officer would have the MM location on it at the least. These day maybe even GPS coordinates. I know when I was doing safety investgations it was down to the foot by foot reports. And I agree with Kevin. I've seem odos get deranged from a heavy impact. Might of have made some internal adjustments.

Bob, I remember a couple of your "Surprise" packages you sent had so much stuff in them I had to spread it around.

Just that one thanks. That's enough.

For adding LED's I'm thinking these would work well as I already a few starter holes. http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&category=PCB&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2Fbolt_specs.htm The fender light was a fleaBay find. NOS Ventureline package. $5.00. Dual wedge bulbs so I threw in some W5 LED's. Lights up good now.

Sorry. I've got the '84 but it's not a Cali model. Those were just pieces of things I picked up trying to learn more on these bikes. Personal experience with a Cali model..... I got nada.

When I first bought my '84 there were a few things, appearance wise, that I wanted to add to the bike. I had lil idea how hard some of these were to find. I guess my tastes ran towards the "Chicken Lip" side. I've learned the trick now. Buy a newer chicken. But I'd been looking, asking around, watching fleaBay daily and not much coming my way. All I wanted was one of the those nice lil chrome trim chins that goes under the fairing. I'd seen the cataloge, I've seen a couple of pics on different sites but never really saw one in person. I liked it. I wanted one. Where the he{{ are they? The ones I found were rusted way past being saved, bent, missing mounting tabs, or just close to scrap metal. Sure I heard now and then had been on fleaBya but by the time I got to it, it was either gone or the bidding had gone nuts. As much as I wanted one I have my limits. Then there I was cruising our site and we were talking about some things that were hard to find. You know the stuff. Chrome intake grills for the fairing, side cover vents with all the louvers intact, Those nifty like chrome caps for the top corners of the fairings. The usual. I mentioned that I had been chasing a chrome fairing trim for several years with no luck. A few minutes later I got a message from our Prairiehammer asking if I was still looking. he said he had a spare I could have if I wanted it. A spare? This is cruel. Am I being punked? I don't remember the exact words after that but he offered it to me, didn't want any money for it. It was afterall, a spare. I was stunned. And more than pleased. Had it in my hands in a few days. Way better than most I'd seen listed. Straight, shiny and all there. It had a few very small holes drilled in it but that just set me off on where to mount some LED's. This morning I finally got it installed. I'm not even going to get into that as I feel like a fool. Wasn't my first attempt to figure out the way to mount it. But the reason I'm rolling on here is this small event, a simple sharing, a good turn from a member here sums up what this group is like. I'm proud to be a member here. The sharing of friendship, information, ideas and yes even parts makes one heck of bunch of guys to know. So thanks Prairiehammer , Dingy, Bongobob, Squidley, skydoc_17 and all the rest of you for what you do here. Freebird ya got a good crowd here. Sometimes the simple stuff makes somebodies day Thanks to all. Mike

I hear ya George. I do. I'm obsessing over this. My voltage readings have been rock steady since I've done all the upgrades that has been over a year of every day riding. I knew exactly what my voltmeter was going to show with what ever switch I kicked on. I got used to that. But I'm going for a ride. Maybe that will help.

Very cool.

Nope, All disconnectted. Even removed the amp a few years ago. All my marker and tail lights are on seperate harnesses and turned off. And LED's anyway. Fan is not coming on and dragging it down. Even disconnected the temp gauge. I even removed my modded headlight set up just to check. Sometimes when I start cold it only shows 14.1 for a while then goes to 14.4. Other times it starts cold at 14.4 and later changes t0 14.2. Hitting a bump has no affect on the changes. It's just a random event. No change in headlight brightness. Tested with two differnt batteries. One was new. All I got left to consider is a possible fuel pump draw, or the stator has a failing winding. I was taught as a young mechanic to work this system. Evaluate, Isolate and Eliminate. It's not working this time. Whatever it is, I can not create the situation during testing. Would a fuel level sending unit cause something like this? Haven't check that yet.

I doubt that these will help but it's all I got to offer.

Ok, any other Drift owner seen this problem. When I go to power up all I get is a bright white screen. No menu acess. I can click the power button during charging (USB) and it does record but nothing in the display other that the white screen. The batttery has power as the camera functions. I've pulled the SD and the battery and checked contacts. No change. I found their support web site to be less than useless. I sent an e-mail to one of their retailers hoping I can get info through or from them. Anybody seen this happen? Thanks mike

Well, I don't know if I'd call it progress or not but I've done all I can do. I tried cycling to switch on and off but it made no difference. Tore it down and checked it (again) and it looked just like it did last time. Clean an lubed. Touched up the contacts and tried again. No difference. So I swapped out my battery with new one. No difference. Did the same thing. Snapped right up to 14.2 and sat there. Shook and rattled the wires and never changed the reading. Kick on the drivers and it only dropps to 13.8 like before. then snaps back to 14.0 - 14.2 like before. Never got up to 14.4 like I was hoping. I know the stator is good. I'm pretty sure the R/R is holding its own. Wiring is intact and all connections were checked again. Added a new ground from battery to frame. Nuttin'. So I put the old DEKA back in. I wanna see how long the critter will hold up. I'm going to write this off as the beast changed it's life style and let it go at that. It's starts. It runs. It don't throw sparks. And it is charging fine. Just lower than it used to. Go to go. I guess. Got a lot of other dinky stuff done while I was in there and a good cleaning to. Waiting for it to get dark so I can get the Hellas lined back up and Im done. For a while I hope. Thanks for all the advice guys. I like having the help. Mike

But you're not alone........ I think this was the guy that came uo with the idea of a water cooled HD.

You know you can just wash the bike in the driveway right?

The 1st gens, like mine, don't have the tube but I'm assuming the 2nd gens have that coming from the weep hole in the pump to keep it from running all along the frame. That indicates the seal in the water pump is not holding. My '84 started with a mild and random drip last fall. It started getting worse this spring so I did a swap with a rebuilt pump. Only been a couple days but no drip so far. I hate random drips. Never leads to good things for the future.

I had the switch apart about a year ago and it was in good shape. Hoping it still is but may take another look. I called a buddy last night and "borrowing" a new battery from his shop to swap out and try that this morning to see what happens. I checked and cleaned all the grounds the other day while I was doing the water pump and going over the bike. Might add another one to see what happens. I had some gremlins living in my garage when I did Dano's engage clutch upgrade. They pulled the rotor off for me while I was sleeping. I guess they moved out. The bike is still apart this morning. Lil buggers are never around when you need them. I gotta hire some new help around here.

You really, really sure you want to try that one? Ran the front of one trying to get home a few years back. My daugher was waiting for me in the garage when I pulled in just as it hit. Her eyes were wider than mine. She couldn't figure out what I was laughing about. It's a rush I got to tell you. Do want to that again? Not if I can help it. I ran across this by Daniel Meyer who writes the "Life is a Road" book series. Sums it up.

I've done that. Once was enough for me. Make sure to hit the can before you take off. Pit stops can be crappy.

No doubt I've put that DEKA through the wringer. When I was chasing cupcakes for Hostess I'd start the bike 20 or more times a day, 6 days a week. Not to mention driving home 30 miles with burned out R/R. I thought that would kill it. That was several years ago. That was why I had it load tested this morning. It was still showing 12.7 volts static and 80% power on my tester. The load test was good showing better than any other battery he'd tested. But like you said, four years is four years. I'm goin to try a different battery over the week end and see what happens.

Thanks Gary. I'll take a look at that. This is why I did the seperate harness when I installed all the new stuff. Wanted to avoid this type of headache. Figures if I ever had a problem it would be a quick trouble shoot and be done with it. Jsut can't figure out which part to shoot at this point. I keep going back the R/R but I've never seen one act like this. Usually get a big flux and going way high. Maybe tomorrow.....