Cm 400 to cafe

[Hortons Heroes]

There was a church group that was meeting at the Thristy Moose you make sure you never park near there on a sunday morning! Ha hahahaa

[Hortons Heroes]

I was going to start a thread in the electrical section but figured I may as well keep this going.

I have had a few problems that I can't figure out,

Firstly know this
I swapped the stock headlight for a dual headlights that a friend gave me. This means I had to remount my signals as well. Went from a plastic body headlight bucket to metal body dual headlight. Since then I have been having some of these issues.
-firstly idiot lights (two turn signals and high beam-all grounded with a green wire) have a low constant glow to them. Sometimes brighter and sometimes dimmer. The other two  (neurtal and oil) don't have this glow but they are grounded differently (to a black wire). Being a fool with electrical I am thinking I have a grounding issue somewhere that is putting a low live current into my ground...is this even a thing?
-I have been blowing fuses for my headlights but not regularly enough to blame the new dual headlights. Sometimes right after it starts.
-whilst driving at night I realized my lights seemed dim, when I pulled in the clutch to shift the lights brightened up.
-tonight while digging around and trying to fix the dim glow on idiot lights I noticed that the glow would go away when I wiggled the clutch cable...then noticed I was getting some noticable sparks on the inside of the cable housing when the cable would move around
-when the low glow gets brighter the front signal lights get really dim.

Any words of wisdom?
I was thinking that the front signals might not be getting a good enough ground (they have 2 wires and grounded off the post that holds that light previously) so I added a line from the post of the signal to a ground wire and the dim is lower, I need to test ride to work tomorrow and see if I keep blowing my headlight or if the glow goes away.


I figured this one out but I took me a bit.
Took off my brake master and resevior unit and when I put them back on my braided brake line was getting hot....really hot. I was losing my mind blowing fuses and only turning the bike on momentarily to try and find the problem and not let the line heat up. Turns out when I put the unit back on I pinched the wiring for the rear brake light controls and made a live touch the bolt...thus heating up my brake line...so weird.

[stevecrout]

Wayne's chic story reminds me of walking from the restaurant to my hotel in Bali while on a layover and a gal came putting up to me on her scooter and said "Mister, Oh Mister, can you help me please?"

Being the gentleman, I of course answered "what do you need help with young lady"


To which she replied "I'm so horny and I need you to fix it"

I laughed so hard I almost fell off the sidewalk onto the street.  Best pickup line I've heard in a long time.

[Hortons Heroes]

Well I am now on a full week with working headlights and my other electrical gremlins gone. Here is what I figure happened.

The ground for the headlight was going to what I thought was a the ground for the headlight but it was actually the ground for the clutch lever switch. This meant that the headlight was trying to ground off of the clutch cable itself. Once I figured this out and regrounded it to the proper spot I started to burn through fuses even fast which confused me more.

What I figure was happening was that the bike wasn't getting a great ground and my headlights weren't drawing much and running dim. When the ground was good they were brightening up then blowing the fuse. So it was actually when the lights had ground that they blew. I swapped the 7amp fuse for a 9 and it's hotter on the fuse but the wiring all still seems cool. After a week of having nice bright headlights I think my gremlins are all worked out. No burned our fuses and no idiot lights dimly running for no reason.

Woot!

[Hortons Heroes]

While trying to address a clicking in the engine I think I may have done things in the wrong order. I did the valve clearances and did get more power but the click was still there. I then did the cam chain adjustment. (a little unnerving on a cm400 where you just loosen it off while it is idling and then tighten it back up....it makes a lot of noise in the engine before you get it tight.) and it got rid of more of the noise. The next thing to try was replacing the gasket on the exhaust at the engine block. I have been having backfire issues on the left exhaust (where the noise is coming from).

Should I go back and redo the valves now that I have done the cam chain adjustment after them?

[Hans]

Retensioning the cam chain "should" have no effect on the valve clearances. 

[Dennis]

Retensioning the cam chain "should" have no effect on the valve clearances.

ibid The proper cam chain tension and making sure you rotate the crank the correct direction to top dead centre, will ensure the valves are at their most open when adjusting them.   The cam chain tensioner is on the "slack" side when the crank is turned in the correct direction, so it should not make a difference.   If you went past top dead centre and were trying to go backwards, then it would be a factor but nobody does that right? Never.  Not even me.  If you go past top dead centre, just keep going until you get there again.

Peace & Grease, Dennis

[Hortons Heroes]

excellent, thanks guys.

[Hortons Heroes]

I have not insured the cafe this year. When I parked it there was a considerable oil leak. I had really hoped to do this during the winter but a lot of unexpected things came up. Decided to start tonight...
started at 6:30 and by 7:30 had everything off and the engine out.


By the time I parked the bike after last year the oil leak and the fact I ride 2-3km on dirt meant there was some seriously caked on sand...that invited all it's friends to the party. So much sand. Pressure washer and some soap cleaned it up a bit but still not really pretty.


Got the engine all apart and there is really only one seal to clean off before I can start putting things back together. I might add that this is a milestone event for me. I have never had the guts to take out and take down an engine without someone holding my hand. I had some help but it felt great not to be freaking out at every step.

Here is what oil and filter changes look like at every 2000...clean...
well at least it looks clean to me. Everything in there looked pretty shiny, I was impressed.


I need to clean the carb, swap the rings then put a seal kit into it
I should repaint the exhaust while it's off
welding some proper mounts onto the frame for side panel mounting may be a good idea as well
I'll see if I can get this all done before the next 2-3 weeks passes and I end up burried in work at camp.

Now the bad news.
turns out the oil leak was coming from the shifter shaft. Dang it...I could have replaced that by just removing the exhaust....dang it
either way there was a leak coming from the top end which I can clean up now.

[Hortons Heroes]

Finally (after years) got around to mounting the side panels with something more permanent then just tie wire. Bought 5/16 ready rod and used 2 of the existing holes from the old mounting system. Flattened the ends a bit and drilled a hole for a retainer pin. Surprised how centered the the holes are.


Here is the rod mounted in the old holes


Mounted. I don't love the look of the wing nuts. The right pannel has higher mounting points so it's quite a bit more centered. The left side the bolts are quite low. THere is a bit of play in the top but I will see if it needs a third.


And in another great moment of mediocre bike building I finally found a blue light that matches the size of the others (red, green and orange from Princess Auto and blue from Chieftan). I am really turned off from buying random little bits like this from ebay ever again. Anything like signals, idiot lights and tail lights have all broken and had to be replaced with something more common and easy to find. The different headlights I have bought have all worked well and had more replaceable parts.