Mechanics

Mechanics
Originally uploaded by Tall Pines Lodge

Right out of the gate this morning, there's problems. I didn't figure it out for about 150 miles, but somehow this little black knob in the bottom right of this photo (just under the carbs, on the right) got played with. We could have done it last night, or even this morning.

That know? It's the idle speed adjustment knob. And it got cranked to its lowest setting. Which meant hard starting this morning, followed by a ride where every time I had it in neutral or pulled in the clutch long enough for the RPMs to fall to zero, the bike stalled out. Endlessly annoying and a real, real inconvenience and safety issue in traffic.

My in-progress work-around was dialing in the choke to fuel up the mixture and inflate the idle to 1,100 RPMs. After finding that to work reasonably well, it was just a minor mental leap to start thinking about the idle speed adjustment.

At lunch, I dialed up the idle speed, and everything been fine since.

There's also a weird oscillation in the front end, so I am going to check the fork dampening tomorrow, make sure they're at the same setting.

Ah. Last issue. I don't think this bike has an Anti-lock Braking System, but when I brake real hard on the front brakes, it sure feels like ABS. Pulsating brakes. Going to have to hit up the user group about that.