How things have changed - old wisdom versus new problems

[Robby]

Consider this thread good reading for mechanical novices.

The idea came to me just now reading about someone's problem with clutch slip, and it has been forming in the back of my mind with lots of recent threads about clicking solenoids, which are pepperred with innaccurate, unhelpful, and plain out-of-date advice. This advise is usually written by bikenut or that crippled bloke that also can't punctuate.

In the old days, the following was true:
1. Everything wore out, and could be expected to fail.
2. Things wore out gradually, giving some warning.
3. Electrics - particulaly black boxes - weren't trusted.

These days, the following is true:
1. A lot of things just don't wear out, at least not inside the typical 50,000 mile life of a bike.
2. Things that use to wear out, now just abruptly fail.
3. Electrics - particularly black boxes - are extremely reliable, with the odd well-document exception (Honda reg/recs).


Now for the bit that will be useful to mechanical noobs, and cause argument among some of the more experienced members:
Apart from routine servicing, the most likely component to fail these days is your battery. If you have a problem that seems to be either electrical or fuelling based, and you haven't been undertaking any zero-experience tuning, get a new battery. Get a good one, like a Motobatt. While you're at it, get a smart charger like an Optimate with a quick-release charging lead.

To expand a little on things just not wearing out so much these days, and the important of routine servicing (that's servicing, which is more than just changing the oil):
- Clutch problems are often down to cable adjustment. Modern clutch linings last a very long time, even when abused. Cables still stretch as they always have.
- Brake lines don't really wear out. Those that describe a marked improvement after fitting new lines fail to mention replacing 10 year old fluid as part of the job, or servicing their calipers.
- Electrical black boxes very rarely fail. Batteries fail without warning, or earth points get corroded - particularly on steel frames.
- Carbs do not get dirty on a vehicle that gets used, petrol keeps them clean. Fuel only turns to varnish after standing for years.
- Start motors hardly ever fail. Solenoids hardly ever fail. Batteries fail.


So next time you're about to go on a wild goose chase and change all of the expensive components, do the simple things first. Work out if you broke it last time you tried some spannering, test your battery properly or replace it if suspect, and read all of the replies in the thread before pulling your bike apart.

[jjdugen]

Hmmm........
Not a bad summation. However. Your advice applies pretty succinctly to post year 2000 machines, rather, post 2003 machines.
!990's (well maintained) machinery will be suffering from general aging, mostly to the wiring loom, but also to frame bearings and definitely to rubber components (like brake lines). They were also built with inherent fail items, alternator stator windings, reg/recs and switchgear in the main, cooling systems and worn carburetor components. Most of these machines are well past 25 -3000 miles, have had numerous owners and may well be suffering from neglect that is not obvious. Treat them as having potential high cost faults, especially second gear on most sport models.
Anything 1980's will be in need of serious repair, unless already undertaken. That will only have been done on Laverda's, treat everything else as a potential grenade.

Motorcycles pack a lot of punch into a very small space, just the action of cooking it on a regular basis from high engine heat will naturally create problems, exposure to the elements, general neglect, especially as these are expensive things to keep right, all adds to problems that you will be faced with.
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[orac]

seen a fair amount of problems with motobat batteries, put a yuassa gel battery in the b4, no issues since, and it doesnt seem to matter how cold it is, the thing just starts now (it is the same battery as a busa would be using though).

ironically i am also using an early 90s CB250 reg/rec, it charges a good un, even at idle i get 15v with no more than 15.5 at anything above idle
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"with nothing left to lose, there is everything to gain. It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog"

[Robby]

It applies back into 90s machines too. Too look at some of the things jjdugen highlighted. This isn't to pick on you, but it's a nice list of the things that get posted in a thread following a fairly vague description, advising the owner to undertake drastic and unnecessary work, often breaking their machine in the process.

wiring loom - Only if it has been hacked up and messed with. Earth points corrode, the copper behaves for decades. I have yet to come across a bike with a wiring loom that has died due to natural causes, all the problems I've seen have been hamfisted alterations, or overheating in connectors down to rusted earths.

frame bearings - I count any bearings under routine servicing.
rubber components (like brake lines) - I'm glad you said brake lines. Rubber brake lines only have a rubber coating on the outside, the inner is a plastic tube just the same as on a braided steel line. Seals and bushes will degrade over time, but rubber bushes are fairly rare on bikes and seals come under routine servicing. Also generally more of a problem on bikes that have been standing.

alternator stator windings - The epoxy eventually breaks off, but again this is 30-40 years, not 10-20. Stators don't routinely fail these days, but people suspect them and change them when the problem is the battery.

reg/recs - On 90s Hondas, yes, well documented problem. Not all that prevalent on other machinery. People often change them along with a fucked battery, so it's hard to be sure which bit was faulty. Thankfully, they're one of the few scary black boxes with a simple and well-defined test.

switchgear - Again, going back a bit before the 90s here, or even the 80s. Japanese switchgear is generally reliable for decades, really unreliable stuff means looking back to 70s Guzzis and the like.

cooling systems - Routine maintenance again, if the coolant is changed at the correct intervals the cooling system keeps on going for as long as the rest of the engine.

worn carburetor components - Rare. The moving parts in a carb don't experience much wear, being mostly brass-on-brass contact with a film of petrol over it. Carb problems usually come down to someone messing with it, or standing for a decade.

second gear on most sorts models - The R6 had a second gear problem for a few years, this is well documented. I haven't come across serious second gear trouble on other models, and if someone had a bike popping out of gear I would be checking clutch cable adjustment and gear linkage operation before splitting the cases.

[Efes123]

I'd tend to agree with you for bikes up to 5 or 6 years old, and/or a bike that hasn't been messed with. The problem is that almost every bike older than that, and some newer bikes, have had some work done on them. I totally agree for bikes, old and new, that have only had professional servicing done on them. By professional, I mean work done by someone who knows what they're doing, not necessarily a garage.

For instance, how many bikes do you know that are 10 years or older that haven't had their carbs out, or wiring changed for an alarm or switch change. If these haven't been done professionally, and sometimes even if they have, then there's a chance that someone has bodged something.

Even saying the above, there seems to have been a fair few threads recently that start with "It was very wet yesterday..." A fair few bikes, especially 125s, seem to have a weakness for whether designed into them at the moment. That causes a bad connection, that causes someone to start messing around with the loom, that can cause problems further down the road for the next owner.

Must admit, my experience is generally on 80s bikes, so I expect to see a lot more failure of significant parts than the average rider. Even so, most of the problems I've come across are due to some sort of bodge by a previous owner, but I've seen some that weren't such as a shattered starter motor

And, I won't even start to comment on Chinese bikes, that simply fall apart the moment they've left the shop
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[Shinigami]

you seem to be ruling out that bikes can last more than 50k miles, there's many bikes about with way higher mileage than that, mines at 82k at the moment
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[Skudd]

If you only ride bikes that are less than 5 years old and have less than 30k on the clocks then a battery will or should only be the only problem that you will ever get. When a bike gets older or higher mileage, that's when issues start to show up.
My bike is a 54 plate (had it from new) it is only over the last 2-3 years that I have started to have issues with it, most I have been able to sort myself, but again each time I sort something I'm doing it for the first time and so may not be sorted in the best way possible and so adds other issues to be sorted. But that is one of the joys/woes of biking.
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[Efes123]

The first bike I played with was an 84 GS125, and the wiring had been screwed around with so much I decided to wire in a completely new loom. Job's a goodun' you'd think, everything works as it should. The only problem is that I'm colour blind, and I can guarantee that the colours I used didn't match the wiring diagram. Probably it was a good job it was stolen, as I'd have pitied the next person to have to work on it
____________________
Honda Goldwing GL 1000 Current love
Honda VT500 ED - SOLD
Projects Suzuki GS125 Done, then stolen - Kawasaki GPX750R SOLD - Honda VF750S SOLD

[bikenut]

thanks robby read up on mr young..........wiring loom wires fatique just like aircraft..........does modern stuff last any longer??

[chris-red]

Well said robby,

Some of the advice on here is shit, mainly from people who don't know what they are talking about.

Someone asks about why their bike wont start and you get alsorts suggesting everything from the reg rec to the starter motor before someone suggests try charging the battery.
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[bikenut]

as a matter of interest have you ever replaced a rubber brake line and cut it open to see whats inside??

rubber bushes.......look at your suspension......rear rather than front.....not to mention any heat insulator tween carb ( injector these days ) and head........etc...

do head races not become indented these days........some bikes state NO WHEELIES.........

genny windings still live in a hot environment........

a cdi is a modern take on a magneto.........

needs a good battery to whizz the eng over fast enough for a hot spark etc.......

( voltage drop test with a cheapo dmm will show battery state at cranking and voltage regulation when eng is running ( not to mention the low tech charging system check of lights growing brighter from idle when eng revved to say 4k....the regulator not allowing over volts and blowing ( black ) bulbs.....

i suppose in your world thermostates dont stick and rads dont get blocked and fans aways work and water pumps never leak??

jets dont wear??

gear "dogs" dont wear so its gotta be the clutch cable when bikes jump out of gear.........done any woodwork since leaving school mr pidgeon??

i like to promote cmsnl as it clearly shows ( most of the time ) exploded views which are fairly easy to understand........a good starting point for a novice ( very little words needed as a pic is worth a thousand words...... ).

[bikenut]

remember dudes ignorance is bliss.........

and not relevant in the eyes of the law.....

vitriol rules ok!!

and theres me thinkin it was mamon that rules...

or is it just bikers that rule........

[chris-red]

[jjdugen]

Bikenut took most of the words out of my mouth, although I would have been a little kinder........

Second gear problems were rife on Yamahas, Kawasakis, even the odd Honda suffered. Cam chain tensioners are another Achilles heel. As to the old rubber covered brake lines, I have a collection of them that actually bulge under braking forces.
I am NOT decrying your advice, it is a very sound starting point, check the basics first every time. But older machines will need some in depth knowlege to tackle their intrinsic faults, let alone those added by previous owners.
____________________
The CBR900RR has been sold. Aprilia Falco worms its way into my heart.
Try Soi 23 on Amazon for a good read.... Self promotion? Moi?

[STONEY!]

All pretty sound advice apart from the bit about MotoBatt's, they are no better than any of the other budget batteries, if you want something decent get a sealed yuasa or other respected brand.

[Thorn]

[STONEY!]

Believe what you want, I deal with 300-400 bikes a year and have found motobatt's to be pretty poor.

Maybe its just bad luck but it seems too common to be coincidence.

[bikenut]

:karma: since you mentioned my name on here robby, care to comment on my replies......? :karma:

[bikenut]

hi chris red....have an other look at your rear suspension.....i'm sure we'll all hear the clang when the penny drops......... :D :karma:

[Robby]

Bikenut, seeing as you wrote more utter bollocks and then asked nicely, I'll comment. Bearing in mind that the point of this thread is highlight that major failures are quite rare and the problem is usually something simple, you have come up with some fantastic ones.

do head races not become indented these days - Nothing like they used to. Decent suspension coupled with tapered cone headstock bearings means that they last a lot longer. Rather outside the point anyway, seeing as notched headstock bearings can be very easily tested without pulling the bike apart.

genny windings still live in a hot environment - Like they were designed for.

a cdi is a modern take on a magneto - Now you're just trolling. A CDI is a modern take on points ignition, with the bits that wear out removed. It's maintenance free, yet people replace their CDI unit because they don't know how to test it. CDI failure is extremely rare.

i suppose in your world thermostates dont stick and rads dont get blocked and fans aways work and water pumps never leak - Not on a system that has been maintained and the coolant changed at the correct intervals. Occasionally a gasket will go - in this case it's more likely that the water pump gasket has gone and allowed oil and water to mix, so people instantly jump to head gasket failure.

jets dont wear- Not to the point of making a difference in the typical life of a bike. It takes a very long time for a jet to get worn enough to cause a problem.

gear "dogs" dont wear so its gotta be the clutch cable when bikes jump out of gear - Again, unlikely to wear enough to make a difference. Gearbox problems are more likely to manifest after a cack-handed rebuild chasing another problem that wasn't there.


Also for Shinigami - I said a typical 50k mile life of a bike. Some bikes last longer than this, but the majority don't. They get crashed, stolen, or killed somehow long before 50k miles. The majority of questions asked in the workshop are about bikes with well under 50k miles.

[Teflon-Mike]

Over half of the posts in Workshop concern learner legals. Most of them over seven years old.

Of the questions about 'big' bikes, again, most are concerning bikes over seven years old.

A significant proportion are concerning mods and accessory's not mechanical 'problems'.

Quite a few questions, aren't about bikes at all, or are generic things like what paint to use.

An alarming number of 'problems' would be unnecessary; if people bothered to obtain a Workshop manual for the machine they are dicking with, before picking up the spanners!

A lot more, 'unnecessary', if people were prepared to actually PAY the £15 or so for one, after spending however many £hundred on the bike, and hoping to save however many more £Hundred not paying a mechanic..... rather than asking "Any one know where I can down load a pdf?"

Lots of posts go round in circles; people investigating things that they HOPE might be the problem, rather than the things LIKELY to be the problem... because they dont have basic tools to get at or look at the bits where probalems are likely to be... like a £7 multi-meter.

You want useful generic advice?

1/ Buy a fucking workshop manual
2/ READ THE FUCKING THING!
Haynes book of lies may be tortuous, and some-times misguided; but it USUALLY tells you everything you need to know if you read it properly. Even has very handy 'Fault finding' trees in the back of each section that if you followed, could save an awful lot of hassle and stupid questions.
3/ Buy the basic tools you need to do the jobs.
- Multi-meter.
- Metric Spanners.
- Impact Driver
- Breaker-Bar
You want to save money doing your own mechanics? INVEST in the kit to do it. An old set of cycle-spanners and some chinky sockets off e-bay will ONLY make matters worse, and usually result in a pile of bits with rounded fasteners you cant put back together.
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[bikenut]

thanks for your reply robby,

i think we all stand corrected on here.........

water pump gasket......drian hole....o ring, water seal ( not thompsons ) gone and fills up sump with coolant.......drain hole?

notchy steering so head races indented....dont think i've said much about them, maybe you could pull up that thread to remind me......mot test?

is not a cdi system self contained and non battery dependant ( just like a magneto, flywheel or other wise ), but dependant on the magnets in the flywheel ( rate of change etc ) etc.........

points ign,, when points open the mag field in the coil collapses and induced voltage in transformer ( coil ) rather than a pulse sent thru coil ( transformer ) stored in the capacitor in the cdi ( unlike the capacitor in the points ign system , beat down etc. ) .......

what relevance does a pigeon have with a gear dog......not a mortice and tennon surely.........

as to bikes not lasting....cause of the owners ignorance......thats why were here aint it..........

[stevo as b4]

Can we say that a lot of problems with bikes of 10years or younger is that buying and usage habbits have changed massively?

In the 70's and 80's bikes were a means of A-B but a fun one, and people did ride the things into the ground.

In the late 90's> you've got your summer only bikers, the dry day with the sun out bikers, and those that are away on business a lot etc and get to have say a dozen rides a year on their bike/toy. Then they don't have the time or the know how or inclination to prep and store them away correctly for long periods and carry out the ideal laying up and re-commissioning procedures.

Some of these people have more money and less time or don't have the interest or skill to do anything beyond riding their shiney new bike and washing it along with the car every few weeks etc. The same kinds of problems with poorly laid up bikes also apply to everything from lawn tractors to powerboats and anything that these folk buy, and don't have the time, know how, or care to look after them properly.

If you compare faults and issue's to bikes of the 70's or 80's, I expect that anything modern that clocks up regular miles, and is maintained to the minimum shop manual standard, fare's much better than older bikes generally. I think this is partly Robby's point, but also your seeing so many problems these days due to changes in attitudes to maintenance and sporadic useage habbits.

[Islander]

Eh? A CDI system needs a power supply - it's an electronic circuit containing amplifiers and switches. It uses transistors to amplify a signal from a pick up coil and switch the stored power in the capacitor into the coil primary. They're used because they eliminate the need for points maintenance and replacement and provide an accurate constant energy pulse to the coil primary.

[bikenut]

:D hi robby,

hope you are refreshed after a good night sleep, walked the "dog" and your "in gear"............

so, a mortice and tennon or something else perhaps...........

as a matter of interest robby, what in your opinion actually holds the gear in gear??

is it the "selector fork" and it "pin" which sits in the selector "cam" and the "escapement" mechanism as well as the "detent arm" and roller......or summut else like your foot or the gear lever "auto return to mid position" spring .....perhaps a "mouseman". :D

if you have a "quality" bit of furniture in your home rather than the modern chip board and mdf crap, you may discover summut.

if you have an oak chest of draws for example, have a good look and report back with some pics, as they would help.

but what has all this to do with bike gears i hear you ask ( those in the know please keep quite; and try to hold in the humour; for a bit at least! ).......

over to you, robby......... 8o) :karma: