The bike timeline (selling all my stuff)

"Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To" (murdersofa) 07/15/2019 at 09:15 • Filed to: None

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Because I feel like having another avenue to bitch about how much my life sucks here’s the context for my current situation.

Got into bikes 3 or 4 years ago when chronic knee and ankle pain meant I couldn’t push the clutch on my V6 manual fox body daily beater, so I sold it and used the money to buy a nice bike: a 70k mile 1980 Honda CX500 in super great shape. Rode it home, first time on a “real” bike.

CX500 has a stator failure and timing chain tensioner failure. Meet a local CX500 owner that teaches me to swap it all and we knock it out in a weekend. Bike is flawless after this, starts in cold winter weather no problem, pulls like a freight train, sounds amazing, and I make a bunch of friends riding it around town.

CX500 gets stolen from my apartment in downtown Wichita. Didn’t have full coverage insurance.

Trade my Jaguar XJ-S project when the trans goes out and I don’t have a place to swap in a new one for a barn-find 1996 Kawasaki Vulcan 500.

Spend a couple of months fixing the Vulcan, whose carbs are plugged with RTV, spark plugs are broken in the head, engine is full of gas due to leaky carb.

Ride Vulcan for the summer.

Replace engine in Vulcan after I forgot to torque down a tappet jam nut somehow and the tapped rattles loose and beats the crap out of the valve keepers and it drops a valve, destroying the cylinder.

Ride Vulcan for the rest of the summer until I buy the SportCross.

Get call from sheriff in the adjacent county that my 1980 Cx500 has been recovered.

Go pick it up at 1am. Engine blown, tank dented to hell, gauge cluster broken but showing 4000 miles more than when it was stolen, tires trashed.

Buy new engine, put it in, cafe the bike a little. Ride it around on shit tires for a few months then put it away when it starts leaking every fluid known to man.

Eventually buy new tires and put them on, suddenly the bike doesn’t want to idle on the left cylinder.

Clean carbs.

Clean carbs some more.

Fiddle with jets.

Check compression (good), leakdown (good)

Eventually the combination of not idling or running right, leaking enough fluids I arrive places in a cloud of smoke, and the brake pedal getting destroyed when wind knocked it over I decide to take a bonus from work and buy another bike.

Enter the 1981 full-touring CX500c I bought for $550 with 10,000 miles on it. It was in beautiful condition other than sitting for two years in the guys back yard. Tank was totally rust free inside, paint was good, it was perfect.

Put the carbs from my original bike on the new one to ride it around. It runs but sounds like it’s only on one cylinder. Ah, so the problem must have still been I didn’t get the carbs all the way clean. Weird.

Clean the 1981 bike’s carbs and put them on. Runs much better and I ride it around though it still feels a little down on power.

300 miles later the 1981 bike starts knocking. Great. Go to storage unit and pull the good but leaky engine out of my 1980, put it in my kitchen, and take the rear cover off to replace all of the leaky seals, gaskets, and put in a new stator.

Got that engine put in the red bike this weekend. It makes an awful tapping noise and the left cylinder STILL doesn’t run. Check valve clearances. Left side is 3x spec somehow. Must be it! That would explain a dead cylinder and a tapping noise! Adjust the tappets to spec and put it back together, fire it up ready to hear it spring to life and... same shit. Left cylinder is totally dead. Starter fluid won’t make it run, nothing.

So now the bikes are on craigslist and I’m sure I’ll have an incredibly hard time getting my $800 asking price for bikes I have a combined $2500 into with a ton of usable new parts (my tires have less than 500 miles on them). I can’t keep them around at my apartment like this for much longer and my will to work on them is completely gone. Every time I think I’m almost back to where I was 3 years ago with a bike that starts and runs and will happily take me around town on 40 cents worth of gas I get dickslapped in the face by the fucking universe. My wallet and mental health can’t take it any more and I have an IS300 that needs $500 in A/C work (and it’s supposed to be over 100 all week) and my LS400 has a fucked axle I need to take care of.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 09:45

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chin up!

after reading that, its clear you are having really bad luck.

i’m hoping things get better for you.

i’m not going to lie, i laughed hard at that, i know i shouldn’t have, but i c ouldn’t help it

E90M3 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 09:46

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What’s wrong with the AC in the Sportcross? Is it just leaking refrigerant  or is the compressor shot?

Party-vi > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 09:48

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Well, this seems accurate.

HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 10:05

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As much as I enjoy laughing at the expense of others, this does truly suck and you deserve a break for once. I honestly don't know how your stuff can break so much and so often, shit's beyond me.

nermal > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 10:11

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Use all of the cash you make from selling your crappy bikes as a down payment on a new, cheap one. You can get a 400 / 500cc Honda or Kawi for  < $6k after fees and stuff. That’s like $100 / month on a payment.

You’ve spent more than that on time & aggravation screwing around with the broken ones.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > E90M3 07/15/2019 at 10:40

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I think when my wife wrecked it something got cracked. I filled it with refrigerant and it’s back to empty after two drives. Need to find the leak, fix it, get a new dryer, and probably throw a new compressor at it while I have the system apart before mine wears out and throws trash all throughout my system.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Party-vi 07/15/2019 at 10:40

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It really does.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > nermal 07/15/2019 at 10:41

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So here’s the problems there:

I’ll be lucky to even get $800 for my crappy bikes.

A bike payment is a piss-poor financial decision, as much as I love riding.

Insurance on a new bike would be STUPID. I’m paying $50/mo right now on a 500cc 80s Honda. Imagine a new bike. Hell, I’m paying $220 for liability on two 20 year old toyotas. My insurance situation is fucked thanks to my wife. Not that I’m bitter or anything (I am, incredibly so).

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 10:42

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Aight, someone needs to keep an eye on miss mercedes.

Sh e can have ONE.

ONE.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute 07/15/2019 at 10:42

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One of my youtuber friends offered to start a kickstarter to buy me a newer bike, lol. I’m sure the result of that would be cripplingly expensive insurance or it just straight-up gets stolen.

E90M3 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 10:45

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Might want to try and clean the system out too. I helped a friend reinstate AC in his E30 and some of the hoses were nasty. Not a bad idea to replace all the seals as well. 

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > E90M3 07/15/2019 at 10:49

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I’m sure the problem is a leaky hose or seal. New hoses, seals, dryer, and compressor are the plan.

E90M3 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 10:52

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Checked the fittings on the condenser or are you going to replace that as well? 

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > E90M3 07/15/2019 at 11:20

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I’ll check them. If it’s okay I’d prefer not to replace it. Going to run some cleaner through it and the evap core though.

Pickup_man > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 12:15

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That really does suck, I hope your luck turns around.

Out of curiosity, what kind of diagnosis work have you done on the CX500's? I see you adjusted your valves which is great, but have you done a compression test? Leak down? Have you checked that you have spark on that cylinder ? Maybe I’ve just missed the write ups on those things. A dead cylinder might not be an easy fix, but it should be easy to diagnose. If you’re still getting a tapping/clicking noise after adjusting the valves I have a suspicion that you could have a loose/stretched timing chain, if it was loose enough to jump a couple teeth that would explain the non-running, and the noise.

I get loosing motivation , I let a bike sit for two years once because I was so discouraged, but taking the time to diagnose it could be the difference between knowing it’s not worth fixing or fixing it for cheap and selling it for a decent price. Passing that knowledge along to the buyer could get you a better deal as well. 

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Pickup_man 07/15/2019 at 12:23

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On the engine currently in the bike:

Compression (within 5psi)

Leakdown (identical)

Valve clearance (within spec now)

New plugs

New wires

New coils

New stator

Checked timing chain tension when the back cover was off

Pickup_man > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 12:45

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Hmmm, yeah that i s a bit of a mystery then, I’m assuming with all the new parts you verified spark, and with all the carb cleaning you’ve done it seems like it should work. Internet diagnosis was  a long shot anyway, but you’ve done everything I can think of. Maybe double check all the timing marks if they’re easy to do, but with good compression and leak down results that seems unlikely.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Pickup_man 07/15/2019 at 14:03

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Cam/crank relationship was verified when I checked the tensioner.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 15:25

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Would the insurance on a new/newer bike be expensive even if it’s only a 250 or 300cc bike?

“My insurance situation is fucked thanks to my wife. Not that I’m bitter or anything (I am, incredibly so).”

Yeah... it can be really hard not to get bitter post-divorce.... or even pre-divorce... LOL 

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 15:28

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Question... is this your main car or hers?

If it’s hers, my thoughts are to let it stay broken for a bit... unless she wants to volunteer fixing it.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 07/15/2019 at 16:04

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We both use it frequently.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 07/15/2019 at 16:05

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I’d love to answer that but the only company that will have me right now won’t let me quote shit by myself so I have no earthly idea.

MM54 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 07/15/2019 at 21:28

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Based on its off-road excursion I’d be looking closely at the condenser, it’s realistically the most likely part to have been damaged.