Category: Joe Gresh

Another Day, Another Leak

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. It sounds like I’m having lots of trouble getting Zed back on the road but it’s really more a function of my resurrection approach. I tried to spend the minimum amount required to get the 1975 Kawasaki Z1 operational because I didn’t know if the engine was shot or if the transmission slipped out of gear under load. Having done that, and proven to myself that this 900cc mill is a sweet one I can invest more money into some age-related issues.

On my first 30-mile road test I had a two copious oil leaks and I resolved those in a previous story. Zed was ready for a more ambitious undertaking. I laid out an 80-mile round trip to the Three Rivers, Santa Nino De Atocha church. The Santa Nino is off the beaten path but is still in use. Next door to the church is an interesting graveyard that I planned to commune with the spirits in while I sipped my thermos of Batdorf & Bronson® coffee. Hanging out with dead people is a great way to avoid catching the corona virus.

Zed ran strong and we made it out to church in fine tune. I parked the bike, pulled out my thermos and prepared for the séance. Then I noticed the gas leak. A panic set in: how long has it been leaking? Will I have enough fuel to get home? Won’t I look pretty stupid after hating on tank sealer for so long?

I took a big slug of coffee in case the situation spun out of control and I had no time later. Popping the seat I could see a thin stream of fuel shooting from the left rear seam directly into the air box inlet screen. It was strong, pretty thin and 3-inches long…Ahem…

I never go anywhere on a motorcycle without tools so I had vise grips in my bag (that was strapped to the much-hated luggage rack) and managed to crimp the seam slowing the pinhole leak. Fuel was still seeping but at least it wasn’t spraying out. I took one more slug of coffee for the road and reloaded the bike. Since the leak was using fuel faster than I was burning it I cruised back at a brisk 80 miles per hour. I had less than a gallon left when I got home, a 20-mpg average.

This next part will require so many disclaimers that the blog would crash under the weight of them. Listen, if you don’t know how or are even slightly worried about welding a fuel tank then don’t do it. If you choose to weld on a fuel tank don’t come crying to me pointing at bits of sheet metal stuck in your eye.

After draining the tank I blew it out with a grass blower to dry out any residue. Next I shot a heat gun into the filler neck to warm up the tank, hoping to evaporate any remaining fuel. Then I blew it out again and gave it the heat gun treatment again. This all took about ½ hour.

My finely calibrated nose told me that the fuel/air ratio inside the tank had dropped to safe levels. You can’t teach this skill; it’s like wine tasting. You have to blow up a few gas tanks to get the knack. I took the tank outside where there was plenty of room to explode and stuck a lighted propane torch nozzle inside the tank. The tank did not kill me. I was ready to weld.

I knew where the pinhole leak was but I brazed a wide area on either side in case other leaks were concealed by the main leak. I use brazing rod instead of welding the tank because the metal was so thin I would burn through trying to cover the amount of tank I wanted to cover. Once I thought that I had piled on enough material I reinstalled the fuel tap, filled the tank and waited to see if it would leak.

The tank stayed nice and dry. It was time for another test run, this one 140 miles in duration. Zed passed with flying colors. This bike runs smooth at 4800 RPM and 70-ish miles per hour. Hills and headwinds don’t bother the thing and I had plenty of both on the third test run. I averaged 40 miles per gallon running 70 most of the trip.

The half-circle cam-end rubbers leaked oil but I knew they were leaking and I have new ones on order. The alternator wire harness leaks a few drops where it exits the stator housing. That will require a new grommet. The speedometer is jumpy above 60 miles per hour. I’ll try a new cable but I suspect the grease has dried out inside the gauge. Low beam blew out in the headlight. That may be due to the 14.8-volt charge rate or the old bulb that came in the headlight was ready to go. I’ll install another bulb and if it blows I’ll knock down the voltage to the headlight. Otherwise nothing really bad happened.

Zed has proven to be an excellent runner so there are a few more things I want to do to the carburetors. New needles and seats, enrichener plunger seals, bowl gaskets and free up the stuck bowl drain screws. Kind of tighten up the carbs as it were.

Now we come to the elephant in the room: the fuel tank. Zed’s tank was very rusty before I cleaned it out. That rust has eaten deep into the seams of the gas tank. I don’t believe my patch job is a permanent fix. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday another thin spot on the seam will give way and start spewing gasoline. Zed’s patina is cool and all but I plan on taking some long, lonely motorcycle rides and that gas tank worries me. I know I could pour that devil’s brew tank liner crap inside and buy a few years of service. A new Z1 aftermarket tank in grey primer is $300. Or I could use Trump’s stimulus check on a whole new set of Z1 Enterprise’s red bodywork (tank, fender, side covers) beautifully painted in the original Kawasaki style for $1300.

I’m cheap but that Z1E bodywork would make old Zed look like a new motorcycle. I have no bias against a nice looking motorcycle. I don’t need to ride a ratty bike, you know? Any suggestions?

Check out the compleat Z1 resurrection here!

Product Test: British Motorcycle Gear Rapido Gloves

I have managed to use British Motorcycle Gear’s Rapido gloves in temperatures ranging from the low 40s to the mid-90s and they have worked well across that range. All in, I’ve done about 600 miles wearing these gloves. Despite the wide temperature variations the gloves were never uncomfortably hot on my rides around muggy, warm Daytona last month.

The Rapidos are fairly stiff when you first put them on. Normally stiff is an attribute men aspire to but getting the Rapidos on and off was a bit of a struggle the first day. By day 4 the gloves had loosened up quite a bit and I no longer thought about the process.

Another reason I had trouble getting in the Rapidos was because they come with triple hook and loop straps, two on the gauntlet and one on the wrist. I didn’t realize the wrist strap adjusted and so was forcing them on willy-nilly. Loosening all the straps made it easier.

One benefit to all those straps is security: once tightened down this glove is not going to fly off in a crash unless your hand is still inside it. More security is provided by the thick rubber finger guards on the leading edge of the glove. If you’ve done much off-roading with faster buddies you know how painful a rock tossed into your hand can be. I wish I had these on a few months ago when Mike kicked up a boulder into my finger. It felt like the thing was broken. Three of the finger guards have little vents built into them, kind of like little hood scoops. The vents don’t pass much air but if you hold your hand out fingers forward you can feel the air coming in.

Yet more security comes in the form of a carbon fiber looking knuckle plate attached to the glove. BMG calls it Carbon Leather, I think. I haven’t managed to test this bit because I don’t want to hurt myself but if your hand became pinned beneath the bike and the pavement (never let go of the bike!) I imagine it would buy a few hundred feet of abrasion before you started to lose any knuckle. Amazingly, all that armor does not restrict hand movement much and once the gloves are broken in you can make a fist easily.

The Rapidos have a fairly long gauntlet and with the straps disconnected the mouth opens wide to fit big jacket sleeves. There’s a decent range of adjustment on the gauntlet. I was able to snug them down while riding in just a T-shirt and a G-string. The Rapido’s palm area has a lot of activity going on what with extra pads and stitches but none of it seemed to cause blisters. The Rapidos are heavier duty gloves than I’m used to wearing. They feel like they might actually protect your hands in a wipeout. I usually wear long white opera gloves or Harbor freight Nitrile gloves when riding motorcycles.

My red Rapido glove’s appearance is not exactly conservative; in fact they’re downright flashy. When I put them on I get a strange urge to crash The Avengers from the Marvel movie series. If you’re an under-the-radar guy get the black Rapidos. At $79 list price the Rapidos are not cheap but my regular work gloves run 10 or 12 bucks a pair and they don’t have near as many nifty features as the Rapidos.

I’m going to use the Rapidos for the next few years and I’ll be sure to write an Exhaustnotes long term review if the world doesn’t end before the gloves do. Maybe we’ll get lucky and I’ll get to crash test the Rapidos.

The Leaky Wheel Gets The Seal

I’ve been watching Berk’s incredible ExhaustNotes content tsunami from afar. The man is amazing, filing stories at a pace that would take 10 or more standard journalists to match. I, on the other hand, have been sleeping until noon and never change out of my pajamas. I managed to avoid getting Covid-19 so far and for a lot of Americans that would be considered success. I’m not most Americans. I want it all so I tore into Zed hoping to stop a few nagging oil leaks that are messing up my nice new concrete floor.

The biggest leak on Zed was the tach drive. And on that part the hardened, dry O-ring was the major source of oil. I dismantled the thing anyway and replaced the shaft seal with a new one from an EBay seal kit. I went EBay for the seals even though my favorite store Z1 Enterprises was cheaper. It was the shipping. The EBay kit was only a $1 more but included free shipping, which made the seal, kit $10 less. Yes, I’m that cheap.

The O-ring had to be gently cut off and it broke into two pieces as the razor knife dug in. For the internal seal I inserted a small screwdriver at an angle and using a small pin punch, tapped the screwdriver until the seal popped out. It wasn’t that tight. Reassembly was a breeze.

While the leak from the tach drive was dependent on the engine running, a constant drip from the very bottom of the engine was not. It leaked all the time. I traced that leak to the shifter shaft seal. This seal is submerged in oil, hence the steady if unspectacular leak. This leak wasn’t the end of the world as a week’s worth added up to a dime-sized puddle. I figured I had the seal so why not change it?

To do the shifter seal right you really need to remove the countershaft sprocket and the shift ratchet housing. I’m way too lazy to mess with all that, Besides, I didn’t have a gasket for the shifter casting and I didn’t want to create more work. Instead, I used two thin strips of metal and bent short hooks on the ends. The hooks were small enough to fit between the shifter shaft and the outer metal ring of the seal. After jiggling them into place I clamped the ends together with vise grips and used a long paddle bit to lever the seal out of its housing.

It worked so well it caught me off guard. Oil poured out of the shift seal housing onto my nice, new concrete. I rushed around looking for something to catch the mess. Nothing was low enough to fit under Zed’s 4-into-1 headers. Ultimately I cut down an empty kitty litter jug and shoved the plastic tray under Zed. What a mess.

Oil was still dribbling out when I managed to get the seal somewhat started using a short piece of ½” CPVC pipe as a driver. The CPVC pipe wasn’t quite thick enough to make a good, flat push so I drilled a ½” galvanized nut to slip over the shifter shaft and then pounded the nut with the CPVC. That combination made a satisfying thunk when the seal quit moving and the new seal looks seated about the same as the old seal depth wise.

I lost a quart of oil in the shifter shaft mess so I topped up the Kawasaki and after cleaning the floor, ran the bike 5 minutes with out seeing any major leaks. This is good news. The seal changing kit has been taped together and labeled so that when I die anyone going through my tools will know what it’s for.

Time to take Zed out on a run to see what else leaks. I still don’t have a tag because the tag places are closed here in New Mexico. I should have insurance soon. I’m going to bring along the title in my name, proof of insurance and a line of BS for when I get stopped due to my tag being expired 17 years.

There are a few other seals that I’m going to change because they are old. They’re not leaking yet but I plan on taking Zed on some long rides. I figure 45 years is long enough for a seal to last.

A Joe Gresh burnout…

Joe Gresh recently returned from Daytona and while he was there he rode an Indian FTR 1200 Rally.    Joe created one of his outstanding videos and we’re sharing it here on the ExNotes blog.

Joe does a pretty mean burnout, as I learned one day in Port Orford, Oregon. That’s a story for another time, and no, I didn’t capture it on video. But it’s a hell of a story.  Maybe one for another time.

Social Distancing, Daytona style…

Our very own Joe Gresh was in Daytona last week, except the Daytona show did not go on.  The formal show, anyway.  What others do or don’t do would never put the binders on a Joe Gresh adventure, and he published the story of his visit and the mighty Indian FTR 1200 Rally on Motorcycle.com.  It’s typical Joe G, which is to say it’s great, and you can read it here:

Social Distancing with Indian’s New FTR1200 Rally

Nicely done, Joe!

Chinese food, anyone?

Man, we are through the looking glass, living in what feels like a bad science fiction movie.  The freeways and malls are empty, parking lots are empty, and we are sheltered in place.  To top it all off, Susie and I are recovering from two of the worst colds we’ve ever had, and you can imagine what we’ve been imagining.  And it may have all started because some dude in Wuhan wanted to eat a bat.  A bat!

This current situation will bring out the worst in us, and it will bring out the best in us.  We’re already seeing some of the worst, with the accusations flying back and forth about where the virus originated, who did what to who (or who failed to do what and when), and on and on it goes.  But we’ll get through it, and we’ll come out on the other side better.  We always do.

I have good friends in China, and I feel for them.  I think I feel for us, too, with the COVID-19 virus emerging here.  The market is way down, on paper we’ve lost a ton of wealth, and people are losing jobs.  I had a gig in Singapore and I would have been heading over there.  Nope.  Not now.

All the above aside, I find myself thinking more and more about my friends in China, and the ride Joe Gresh and I took across China.  And the food we ate (we ate a lot of strange stuff, and a lot of watermelon).  And the pretty girls.  And the roads and the people.  This summer it will be four years since that ride.  It was the grandest ride I’ve ever done and the greatest adventure I’ve ever had.  With that as an introduction and without a lot of narrative, I’ve got a ton of photos to share with you from that epic road trip. Enjoy, my friends…

Riding China was a good ride.  I’d like to do it again someday.  In the meantime, keep the faith, folks.  Things will get better.

Hasty Conclusions: First Test of The British Motorcycle Gear Mercury Jacket

Here at Exhaustnotes.us we don’t have to wait until we know what we are talking about to give you our impressions of new gear sent to us for review. No, we can do whatever, whenever we want and right now I want to tell you about this swell jacket. You’ll get a longer-term review after Daytona Bike week.

BMG’s Mercury jacket is warm. The thing comes with a liner made of something like plutonium or krypton. The (only) day I tried the jacket temperatures ranged from 45 degrees to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. My base layer was a cotton T-shirt, no logo. At 45 degrees I was a bit cold but nothing unbearable. As the temps got into the high 60’s low 70’s the jacket became warm. It was fine as long as your speeds were above 40-50 miles per hour.

I could have taken several steps as the weather warmed up. I could have taken the liner out. I could have opened the vents (which I did later on) but I’m lazy and just put up with the heat.

The collar on the BMG Mercury jacket is designed well. I can lock it in solid and it doesn’t chafe on my helmet when I rotate my head to preen. Some jackets catch helmet parts and make cleaning tail feathers a less rider-friendly operation.

The sleeves have both a zipper and hook-and-loop fasteners strips to seal off your wrists. This is great for me because I ride without gloves when I am operating a camera or getting on and off the bike frequently. Using the two closing methods you can achieve an airtight wrap and stop the cold from entering your arm area.

Closing the jacket is also a multi-level affair; a zipper, hook-and-loop strips then snaps should pretty much keep the coat from opening up in a crash. The jacket has light shoulder/elbow armor that doesn’t intrude on comfort. Which is fine by me, I don’t like heavily armored motorcycle gear.

There are two front and two rear vents that are not huge but when open make the jacket noticeably cooler. After getting a bit hot on slower trails I ran them open until around 5pm when New Mexico’s February temps start dropping. I closed the vents and had a snug, evening ride home, arriving back at Tinfiny Ranch around 55 degrees, the perfect temperature for using the Mercury fully deployed.

The Mercury comes with a lot of adjustable straps to control the shape of the thing. I didn’t mess with them because it was fine with the liner installed. I imagine in hot weather I’ll have to take the liner out and then those extra snaps and straps will help prevent flutter.

The British Motorcycle Gear Mercury Jacket really works well for New Mexico’s daily 40-degree temperature swings. I think if I combined it with a t-shirt and my electric vest I would be good down to the mid-30 degree range. Available from BritishMotorcycleGear.com at a list price of $250 the jacket is not outrageously expensive and appears well made. I’m taking it with me to Daytona’s Bike Week where I hope to gather more information on the Mercury’s rain proofing and function without the liner.

More great gear reviews are here!

Zed’s Not Dead: Part 20

You may recall from Zed 19 I had to re-soak Zed’s gas tank as 10 days were not enough to dissolve the rust. I drained, dried and reloaded the tank with apple cider vinegar and let it sit for 4 more days. This is what it looked like originally:

The second session really knocked most of the rust out. After rinsing I dumped a large box of baking soda into the tank and added clean rainwater sloshing it as I filled to mix thoroughly. I don’t know the chemical reaction that takes place but the baking soda neutralizes the acid, turning the metal a dull grey, almost white color. This treated metal does not flash rust and I’ve been going 3-4 years on another tank I cleaned like this without rust reappearing. It’s like the metal turns passive and stops reacting to oxygen.

If I wasn’t so hell-bent on riding this bike I think I would flush and cider the tank one more time but it looks good enough and I’ve got to ride! I connected a small hose to my shop vac and played it all over inside the tank. I can hear nothing when I shake the tank so at least there are no big chunks loose inside.

Proving that even the simplest life forms can learn I bought an entire new petcock for $23 rather than the rebuild kit for $8. This is real growth on my part. Usually I buy the kit, mess with it for hours then put it on only to have it leak. Only then will I buy the new one. Kawasaki uses a turnbuckle-type left-hand/right-hand thread on the Z1 petcock. It took about 145 tries to get it to tighten up facing the correct direction.

The new petcock has screens inside the tank and a bowl filter but with 40% of Zed’s tank out of my view-field I can only assume the entire tank is as clean as the places I can see. Inline fuel filters, one for each set of two carbs will hopefully catch any debris still in Zed’s tank.

An update on the Z1 Enterprises regulator/rectifier: It works. The battery charges @ 14.8 volts which is still a tad high but much better than the 17 volts Kawasaki’s setup was doing.

From the top Zed looks pretty well sorted. I took it for a ride and it ran really well for off the bench carb settings. It might be a little rich at idle or it might just be our 6000-foot elevation. I’m not going to tinker with it for now. I’d rather get some miles on the bike.

I don’t know what this bracket is for. Located on the right side down tube near the tach drive, it’d too light for a steering damper mount. Anyway, there’s enough stuff on the bike as is so I’m not going to worry about it.

I took Zed to my secret proving grounds and she ran through all 5 gears smoothly. The bike hit 90 MPH without even trying. I’ll need a better front tire to do any high-speed work. The brakes work ok. When you ride a SMR 510 Husqvarna all other motorcycle brakes seem like crap. After 33 miles there are small oil leaks at the tach drive and countershaft area. Maybe the clutch pushrod seal or sprocket seal is the culprit. That stuff is easy to fix.

The patina on Zed is excessive, bordering on shabby. The bike sat outside for years and paint wise there’s nothing left to polish or wax. The finish is just not there. The pin striping is cracked and missing sections. I’m not sure what to do about that. On the one hand a ratty bike may be less attractive to thieves and old Z1’s are getting fairly expensive. On the other hand it does look pretty bad. I’ve seen my Enduro buddy Mr. French do some amazing work with rattle cans. Maybe I’ll give it a go. The paint can’t look any worse.

That’s it: from Dead to Zed in 20 easy sessions. Don’t worry, this won’t be the last you’ll hear of Zed. I’ll be doing some long trips on this bike, maybe Mexico, maybe ride to a few flat track races. I’ll update the blog if I do any more major work on the bike. The story of Zed’s resurrection may be ending but the story of Zed is just beginning.

And there you have it.  If you’d like to run through the gears (i.e., the previous 19 installments of Zed’s Not Dead), you can do so here!

Zed’s Not Dead: Part 19

It’s time to clean out Zed’s rusty gas tank. Before I bought it Zed sat outdoors for a long, long time and heavy rust inside the tank had gotten out of control. Clean gasoline is critical when there are 4 carburetors to clog up. You know how I feel about tank liners and new Z1 tanks aren’t very expensive so I won’t be doing any heroics to save this one. If it doesn’t come clean I’ll go to plan B. I’m just looking for any excuse to buy one of Z1E’s beautiful painted body sets.

A few years back I read a story on using apple cider vinegar to dissolve rust. I used the stuff to clean Godzilla’s rusty tank and it worked great. Of course, Godzilla’s tank wasn’t nearly this bad. The cider vinegar is a very mild acid and works slowly so you don’t have to worry about eating a hole in your gas tank.

Available at Wal-Mart, cider and baking soda are the two ingredients used. I also pressure washed the inside of the tank to knock loose any flakey rust. After pressure washing I dried the tank with a heat gun and dumped in 4.25 gallons of apple cider vinegar.

With the tank jugged all you can do is wait. Zed’s tank was really bad so I left the cider in for 10 days. I dumped the rusty cider into a bucket and flushed the tank with water. The results were encouraging but the tank was still not shiny clean.

Normally this would be the time to pour in the box of baking soda and fill the tank with water to neutralize the acidic vinegar but Zed’s tank needs another dose of cider. Using the heat gun I dried the tank again then refilled it with a gallon of fresh vinegar and the rest with the murky cider I had dumped out of the tank. Vinegar is not cheap, you know.

While the tank was soaking I dismantled and de-rusted the gas cap. I wasn’t sure which way the new rubber gasket went on the flange. One side is 1/32” wider than the other and manufacturers do stuff like that for a reason. The old gasket was no help. It had crumbled. Figuring I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right I installed the gasket wide-side towards the gas tank.

Zed’s exhaust was held on by coat hanger wire when I got the bike. The headers seem well made but the muffler section looks a bit crude. Not terrible but nothing like from a factory. It has an internal reverse cone 12” from the end of the muffler body. There was no baffle anywhere.

The muffler end cap was secured by a stripped sheet metal screw. I drilled and tapped a piece of flat stock for a 6mm screw. This backing piece gives the screw more meat to bite into. Then I set the backing piece into place and welded it to the end cap. I can’t weld and trying to stick a thick piece to thin sheet metal is hardest of all.

Where the muffler was held on by a coat hanger I brazed a 3/8-16 nut to act as a blind nut. This wasn’t critical but it will make muffler installation much easier as there is not much space for a wrench. It also eliminates one more variable when you are fumbling around trying to line things up.

I made a baffle from perforated aluminum, rolling it over a 1-1/2” PVC pipe to form the tube. The baffle is long enough to protrude past the inner reverse cone for support and is wrapped in standard fiberglass insulation. The end of the baffle is folded in on itself and riveted. There are a lot of tiny holes in the baffle so I don’t think it will be too restrictive. I’m sure the Mansfield house insulation won’t last long but at least I tried.

After all that pipe work I splashed some BBQ black on the muffler and it doesn’t look bad. As long as you don’t get within 25 feet.

Zed was overcharging the battery to the tune of 17-volts so I bought a non-stock replacement unit from Z1E. The new unit eliminates the factory rectifier, having that function combined into the body of the regulator. Electrically, the unit is plug-n-play and the bolt holes from the old/new regulators line up but the wiring harness from the new unit was too short by about ¾”. There was no way to plug the regulator in and still have enough slack to reach the mounting holes under the battery box. I tried all sorts of finagling and considered rotating the regulator and using only one mounting bolt or drilling new holes closer to the harness socket. In the end I made a bracket to move the regulator. While I was at it I narrowed the bolt spacing between the slotted regulator mounting holes to make it easier to install.

All is mounted securely now and the unit plugs in just fine. It remains to be seen if it regulates. We will find that out in Zed 20.

Want more Zed?  Just click here!