Red: Front Brake Cable

Swapped the old brake cable (with no built-in spring!) with the new one.  Tight fit but thinking that's actually better.  Adjusted and got perfect front brake feel.

Ivy: Speedo Gear and Front Brake

With a hard stop to the garage session, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to try to do.

Started out easy by testing out the new shift pedal (stock).  It was a much better fit but quickly realized it was bent a bit out of shape.  Fiddled a bit with how to hold it down to hammer it back.  Finally settled on putting a big bolt through the center then just stepping on it to hold it in place while I whacked the end with the deadblow hammer.  Really surprised that it worked, to be honest.

With the stock pedal mounted, shifting felt pretty close to Ivy and Roxy.  At least, having that slightly lower peg bars don't seem to be a deal-breaker anymore.  Good enough for test riding at least.

With that bit of "garage luck", decided to go for it with the Ivy front wheel.

This was the first test of the jack stands under each side of the pegs.  But I also added the wood stool under the engine.  Turns out that in terms of holding up the bike, the stool by itself worked absolutely fine.  Though it was nice having the jack stands as insurance.  But now it seems as though I should focus on customizing the stool to fit perfectly under the engine with the peg bars in place then continue to use the jack stands as backup (and they'll need some shims underneath to get them a little higher).

With all that in place, the only thing fiddly about removing the front wheel is getting the fender bolts off.  After that, it was easy to remove the bottoms of the axle holders, then just pull each shock up and over to remove the wheel. 

On to the speedo gear.  As soon as I touched it, it "popped" into place and I thought that it was just misaligned. 

But more surprising was that it didn't have the EBC grooved brake I thought it did.  Not sure where I'd gotten the idea that I'd upgraded them.  Grabbed one of the two EBCs in the bin and did the swap.

With that done, I reassembled everything.  With the wheel back in, I walked the bike around to make sure the speedo arm seemed to be turning - which it definitely was.

Note: you can't run the speedo/brake cables through the fender holder because the cables are too short.

June 17 update:  Unfortunately, no joy on the fix.  Within a few blocks, it was clear neither the speedo or odo were moving at all.

Came back to the garage and removed the cable from the speedo side and taped it to the brake cable so I could walk the bike and watch it.  The cable was definitely not moving anymore.

So thinking through this:

• The cable itself is working, which is an easy test to do.  Also easy to swap out to test another cable.
• The speedo is pretty sure to be working, since again, a pretty straight-forward test and also another easy one to swap.
• This is very similar to what happened before, where the speedo gear seemed to turn but then stopped after awhile.  It must be that it starts off working and in alignment, but something happens and it stops.
• The problem could be...
• Just the speedo gear itself, which would be the best case scenario.
• The brake, which would just mean swapping over to the newly purchased spare.
• Or, very worst case, it's something to do with the hub, in which case we're talking swapping to a new wheel entirely.

Run Ivy Run: Brake Light and Horn Test

Tested the tail light and horn.

Tail light is in good shape and both running light and brake light are working.

Horn works, too, but the wires are perished.  Will basically need to cut them at the source and replace with connectors.

Roxy: Clutch Drag?

Yesterday, I had planned on testing the new brakes and instead of rolling the bike in idle through the garage, I figured I'd ride it out and test the brakes one last time.  I was shocked when the bike stalled in first gear as I let the clutch lever out.  Thought it was just a cold-engine stall, but it happened again and again.

First I thought it was carb, but since I could roll the throttle all the way through the band with no problem, that didn't seem likely.

The clutch was making weird noises, though, and it felt different shifting.  So I tried unscrewing the cable adjuster a couple turns to take out all the slack.  Suddenly the problem was gone.  Rode around the block several times and it felt ok.

Searching online, this seemed like it had all the signs of clutch drag, where the plates get stuck together.  But I'd read that this usually happens if you don't ride for months.  But the crunchy first gear and immediate stall were classic symptoms.

And today, I let the bike warm up the way I usually do, and there was no sign of the issue.  I even dialed the clutch adjust back in to where it was before.

Strange...

On the bright side, the new EBC brakes were solid and felt fantastic.  An entirely different sensation to be able to stop the front with a half squeeze on the lever.

Roxy: Roll to the Production Site

Following the discovery of how much the valve stem was cocked on Roxy's front, I knew I had to get the wheel off and tube out.  A bit nerve-wracking, despite how familiar front wheel work is to me already.  It's like rolling to prod.

Also, this was work that you can't really mess up.  Along with tube I decided to swap out the existing brakes for the new EBC grooved ones.

Decided to actually put blocks under the engine for the first time (like Clymer always says to do), and that worked a treat.

Disconnected the speedo, simple but the first time.  Was worried the bolts for the front fender would be very tight (and it's impossible to get a breaker bar/socket into that space), but it was fine.  Actually put the Craftsman ratcheting open-end wrench to good use for one of the first times.

I couldn't get the front fender out with the wheel in the way and I was a bit worried it would mean I'd then have trouble getting the wheel out.  But with the fender pushed all the way up, the wheel pretty much slid right out.

Whew.  Step one done.

Read that the brake pads should be replaced when they're less than 2mm and these were just at that point.  So I knew they had to go.  The new EBC brakes were 3.5mm.

Forgot to check the condition of the bearings.  Oops #1.  At least I verified they were Nachi 6301 sealed bearings.  Also verified the front axle is 12mm, in case I ever need to get a rod to make a DIY wheel balancer.

Marked the current position of the tire with tape to make sure I didn't mess up the balance too much.

Got the bead off the wheel pretty easily, given this was only the second time doing it.  But almost got stymied trying to remove the valve core.  The valve was so cocked that I couldn't fit the tool between the spokes to unscrew it (certainly a failing of that "4-way" tool).  Luckily I was able to unscrew it just using half turns. And with that, I deflated the tube and pulled it out.

I inflated the tube to check for leaks.  Looked good.  Though I could see the stem was slightly cocked, even once it was out of the tire.  Supposed to be that way, or due to the slippage?

Deflated it slightly and got it back in straight.  Also replaced the valve core with a new one.

Step two done.

Greased up the cam and pivot post on the brakes and installed the new EBC ones.  Put everything back together.  Actually got the wheel back on with the axle in when I realized I forgot to put the speedo gear back in.  Oops #2.

Wheel back off and speedo drive in.  Getting the axle into the wheel was a bit finicky, but it'll be easier from now on.  Realized that I would forget to pull up on the shock and it would catch on the thick part of the axle and I'd think the axle was stuck.

Step three done!  Job done!


Getting the brake cable adjusted was actually the toughest part of the day (quite unexpectedly).  First off, just getting the cable to seat into the groove on the hub was unusually difficult, and I'm not quite sure why.

With the thicker brake pads, the arm was sitting much too far out now.  I was worried it would be hard to get the arm off.  To make matters worse, the bolt was facing the wrong direction with the nut on the outside.  Once you got the nut off, there'd be no space to get the bolt out - you'd have to take the wheel off again!!

Luckily, the PO must have used an undersized bolt and it wasn't at all threaded into the brake arm.  With the nut out it fell right out.  Lucky break of the day.

Second lucky break was that the arm popped right off like it had just been installed that morning.

It took some back and forth getting the arm in the right place and the nut tightened to the right spot.  But finally ended up with a great feeling at the lever: some light slack and then it really kicks in about halfway.

I used a brand new brake arm nut and a new adjusting nut (the old one was flared out at the bottom for some reason, making it very hard to turn).  The rubber also fell off (very degraded).  Might be good to consider replacing the cable altogether.

Oops #3 is that I forgot to thread the brake and speedo cable back through their holders.  Oh well.  If that's the only thing that went wrong, I'll be in good shape.

The brakes felt great just rolling around the garage.  But will need to do some very slow and careful testing the next time out.

Odometer: 18,206