So the time has finally come to start preparing for the departure of my dear old SV650S. I've had this bike for 15 years and she has been nothing but fun and dependable! For the past year and a half, I've been riding the Harley. It's more of an "I'm getting old thing", because my lower back starts screaming at me after an hour of commuting on the SV. If I was going to continue commuting on motorcycles, I had to make a change. So the SV sat in my backyard under cover.
I did have to move her back in September, when I moved to the new house. Thank God it was only 5 miles down the road, because the bike wasn't really running well. I was able to get her to start, but I could tell that she was only running on one cylinder. On a V-twin, that is a major issue, since you only have 2 cylinders! I figured that all the sitting and the stale gas, plus the long time it took to try and start the bike again probably fouled a plug.
I ordered some new plugs off of eBay. Yesterday, I finally had a chance to get in there and change them out. It had been so long since I last really worked on that bike that I had forgotten all that it takes just to get to the spark plugs! I had to rip off both front side panels, plus drop the radiator! And for the rear, I had to pop open the gas tank! The plugs weren't difficult to replace, once I had access.
I also did a little cleaning, while I was in there. I ripped out the airbox and made everything all shiny again. Plus it was a good chance to pick off all my upgrades off of the bike, like my speedo healer, cigarette lighter accessories charger and trickle charger pigtail.
When I put her back together again, she started up without a fuss, running on BOTH cylinders now! So now I'm just tasked with trying to work that old stale gas through the system! It sucks that I filled up the tank before putting her to bed :(
Next on the list- syncing the carbs, changing all the fluids and lubing the chain. I just paid the registration on her and got some insurance going again. I had forgotten how much I love this bike! I'm thinking that I might ride her a little bit before putting her up for sale...
A collection of blurbs stemming from mostly the motorized projects that I do. Some posts mixed in have to do with my experiences in X-ray school. (Some entries are from older blogs that I killed off.) Some of my toys are a Mazdaspeed Miata that I work on and take to the track, a little Harley that I can't stop modding and an old Yamaha RD400 that I've been collecting parts for over the past 15 years. When I'm not wrenching, sometimes I mountain bike, sometimes I snowboard, sometimes I make beer.
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