You know how it is when you own a V-max? It doesn?t matter where you go, someone will say ?Hi? and want to talk about your ride. It?s part of the appeal of a V-max rider?s lifestyle. I have met some of the most interesting people this way.
About eight months ago I was visiting a friend when a neighbour from across the road came over and introduced himself by saying ?Come and have a cup of coffee?. He had seen my bike parked there a few times over the preceding months and had noticed it was gradually morphing into something one-off.
He told me he rides with the Vietnam Veterans Club and had a mate (Fitzy) who could no longer ride because his sense of balance was screwed up. They had thought that, ?a ride that balances itself? would be perfect solution. While visiting a Harley workshop, they mentioned to the owner that Fitzy could be interested in a Trike. It so happened, that sitting on the workshop mezzanine, unfinished and covered in histories dust was an incomplete V-max Trike. A deal was done and Fitzy became the proud owner of a very incomplete V-max Trike. He?s been working on it ever since.
Just before Christmas 2007, I was selecting my new handlebars from a bike shop 12 kms from my home suburb. I parked my bike on the sidewalk, as is a tradition at this shop. When I returned to my bike, I found two riders, a father (Triumph man) and son (beautiful Suzuki Katana), standing next to the bike discussing the mods.
Turns out they had seen my bike at my local Yamaha shop where they had met a guy who was building a V-max Trike. You guessed it ? Fitzy. Small world isn?t it?
Now and again I had wondered how Fitzy was getting on but I had lost his email address. I decided to call in to see Des who told me the cosmetics of the Trike where well advanced but Fitzy was having all sorts of drama getting the V-max to run. In fact, the bike had recently decided to die altogether and would not even crank over. A phone call was made and the next day I was over at Fitzy?s place doing what I love to do, making a V-max run sweet.
Resurrection
Fitzy admits that he is a novice when it comes to the V-max engine but he is mechanically competent .
Bringing Fitzy?s engine back from the dead was not difficult for someone with experience and the benefit of hours reading this VM Forum. It did leave a novice floundering.
Things are often not as simple as they seem. There were multiple problems preventing this bike from running and only a methodical elimination of the faults would bring the engine back to a normal life.
The kill switch was in the correct position and the trike had power to the lights from a battery that was fresh off the charger but there was no familiar whirring of the fuel pump priming the carbs or the V-boost test cycling when the ignition key was switched to on. Pressing the starter button had no response. Checking the obvious revealed the fuse for the starter circuit had blown. It was replaced and the startup sequence came to life with the familiar R2D2 sound effects. Recently installed driving lights had a broken wire, which may have shorted this system.
The motor cranked strongly and desperately wanted to run. It would come to life, stumble and bog and stall after about five seconds. The smell of unburned fuel was obvious but what was going on in the cylinders? Checking the obvious, the brand new spark plugs where removed. The front two were very black and sooty. The back left was clean as new and had not even discoloured. And the back right was about right.
Did we have spark at the plugs?
Tested by cranking the motor and grounding the plugs and leads to the cylinders. All had strong spark except our clean as new plug, which had no spark. Bad plug maybe, so it was replaced and the replacement sparked when tested.
What about the other three cylinders running rich?
Checking the obvious, the air box was removed to reveal three carb slides open half way when the throttle butterflies were shut. What?s more, they were jammed and would not return to their almost closed idle position. Carb covers were persuaded to come off after oiling the screws and using a suitable about of muscle to break the seal on the fossilized retaining screws. The engine had been ?stored? in the mezzanine of the workshop under histories dust and the carb slides had been exposed to that environment. The fine dust had worked its way along the slide tubes and wedged them open. These were removed, cleaned, inspected and re-fitted which restored them to working order. All of the carb jets were shot-gunned and pea-shot (cleaned and flushed) while we were at it. There were no obvious obstructions in the jets.
This resulted in the bike idling at a stable rate but any use of the throttle would cause the bike to stumble and run rough. Carbs out of synch? Seeing it would idle well enough to attempt to synch the carbs, that?s what we did. The carbs, were synched with the home made ?baby bottle? synch tool. Front left, back left synched with no problem. Front right and back right synched with no problem. The adjustment screw to synch the left and right carb banks gave bizarre results. From no effect to rapid sudden rises in rpm and equally sudden falls. Checking the obvious, the linkage springs were tested and found to be binding. The throttle cable was also binding due to the way it was routed. Both were cleaned and reset so that the twist grip gave a crisp snap as the carb butterfly valves returned to idle. Carbs then synched beautifully.
This resulted in instant startup with smooth idle but a distinct intermittent miss on some of the cylinders. This became more obvious as the bike heated up. Checking the obvious, we sequentially tested each cylinder by removing a plug lead from a cylinder and then starting the bike. This quickly determined that the front right and rear left cylinders were not firing properly. The left rear was the one that was originally not firing and had the plug replaced and so that suggested we needed to check the obvious.
Were the leads faulty?
I noticed that the leads and caps appeared new and asked Fitzy,
?Are these caps and leads new??
?Yes.?
?When were they fitted??
?Just recently.?
?Who trimmed the leads to this length??
?I did.?
?Did you buy standard lead sets or did you but leads and caps as separate items.?
?Bought them separate.?
?Did you screw them together??
?Yes.?
Inspection of the leads showed that the threaded screw fitting on the top outer side of the cap had not had the copper core leads screwed down all the way. Some took four or five additional turns to seat them but in the end all were firm. Checking the obvious the connection of the other end of the lead to the coil spike fitting determined them to be far from fully seated. This was corrected by firmly pressing the leads home, seating the sealing grommets properly a securely screwing on the retaining caps.
The trike started, idled smoothly and revved strongly with no hint of miss. We re-synched the carbs and Fitzy is happy.
Postmortem
I should have checked the leads when I tested the plugs. The fact that the leads had not been fitted to the caps properly was causing intermittent failures on some cylinders. Taking the lead off and testing it may have angled the lead so as to make the lead contact good and so the plug seemed to fire ok. Putting the lead back on the fitted plug may have disconnected the lead from the plug cap or the coil or wasted spark energy trying to bridge a bad connection. I could have saved a lot of time if I had systematically checked for obvious ignition faults instead of assuming I had a bad plug.
Fitzy has told me he will join the forum. He also gave me some pics of the trike to show you.
This trike has given me an idea for my next set of exhaust mods. It is fitted with stainless steel high-flow cats usually used on hot fours. It sounds awesome and the flow rate is massive.
This ride is not a thoroughbred. It is more of a Camel (horse designed buy a committee) and includes the lineage of Datsun 180b, Hyundai, Subaru, Porche,VW Yamaha, Suzuki, Harlot-Davidson and that is only what I know about.
I?ve got a feeling Fitzy will be saying ?Hi? to a lot of people when he gets his trike on the road.
About eight months ago I was visiting a friend when a neighbour from across the road came over and introduced himself by saying ?Come and have a cup of coffee?. He had seen my bike parked there a few times over the preceding months and had noticed it was gradually morphing into something one-off.
He told me he rides with the Vietnam Veterans Club and had a mate (Fitzy) who could no longer ride because his sense of balance was screwed up. They had thought that, ?a ride that balances itself? would be perfect solution. While visiting a Harley workshop, they mentioned to the owner that Fitzy could be interested in a Trike. It so happened, that sitting on the workshop mezzanine, unfinished and covered in histories dust was an incomplete V-max Trike. A deal was done and Fitzy became the proud owner of a very incomplete V-max Trike. He?s been working on it ever since.
Just before Christmas 2007, I was selecting my new handlebars from a bike shop 12 kms from my home suburb. I parked my bike on the sidewalk, as is a tradition at this shop. When I returned to my bike, I found two riders, a father (Triumph man) and son (beautiful Suzuki Katana), standing next to the bike discussing the mods.
Turns out they had seen my bike at my local Yamaha shop where they had met a guy who was building a V-max Trike. You guessed it ? Fitzy. Small world isn?t it?
Now and again I had wondered how Fitzy was getting on but I had lost his email address. I decided to call in to see Des who told me the cosmetics of the Trike where well advanced but Fitzy was having all sorts of drama getting the V-max to run. In fact, the bike had recently decided to die altogether and would not even crank over. A phone call was made and the next day I was over at Fitzy?s place doing what I love to do, making a V-max run sweet.
Resurrection
Fitzy admits that he is a novice when it comes to the V-max engine but he is mechanically competent .
Bringing Fitzy?s engine back from the dead was not difficult for someone with experience and the benefit of hours reading this VM Forum. It did leave a novice floundering.
Things are often not as simple as they seem. There were multiple problems preventing this bike from running and only a methodical elimination of the faults would bring the engine back to a normal life.
The kill switch was in the correct position and the trike had power to the lights from a battery that was fresh off the charger but there was no familiar whirring of the fuel pump priming the carbs or the V-boost test cycling when the ignition key was switched to on. Pressing the starter button had no response. Checking the obvious revealed the fuse for the starter circuit had blown. It was replaced and the startup sequence came to life with the familiar R2D2 sound effects. Recently installed driving lights had a broken wire, which may have shorted this system.
The motor cranked strongly and desperately wanted to run. It would come to life, stumble and bog and stall after about five seconds. The smell of unburned fuel was obvious but what was going on in the cylinders? Checking the obvious, the brand new spark plugs where removed. The front two were very black and sooty. The back left was clean as new and had not even discoloured. And the back right was about right.
Did we have spark at the plugs?
Tested by cranking the motor and grounding the plugs and leads to the cylinders. All had strong spark except our clean as new plug, which had no spark. Bad plug maybe, so it was replaced and the replacement sparked when tested.
What about the other three cylinders running rich?
Checking the obvious, the air box was removed to reveal three carb slides open half way when the throttle butterflies were shut. What?s more, they were jammed and would not return to their almost closed idle position. Carb covers were persuaded to come off after oiling the screws and using a suitable about of muscle to break the seal on the fossilized retaining screws. The engine had been ?stored? in the mezzanine of the workshop under histories dust and the carb slides had been exposed to that environment. The fine dust had worked its way along the slide tubes and wedged them open. These were removed, cleaned, inspected and re-fitted which restored them to working order. All of the carb jets were shot-gunned and pea-shot (cleaned and flushed) while we were at it. There were no obvious obstructions in the jets.
This resulted in the bike idling at a stable rate but any use of the throttle would cause the bike to stumble and run rough. Carbs out of synch? Seeing it would idle well enough to attempt to synch the carbs, that?s what we did. The carbs, were synched with the home made ?baby bottle? synch tool. Front left, back left synched with no problem. Front right and back right synched with no problem. The adjustment screw to synch the left and right carb banks gave bizarre results. From no effect to rapid sudden rises in rpm and equally sudden falls. Checking the obvious, the linkage springs were tested and found to be binding. The throttle cable was also binding due to the way it was routed. Both were cleaned and reset so that the twist grip gave a crisp snap as the carb butterfly valves returned to idle. Carbs then synched beautifully.
This resulted in instant startup with smooth idle but a distinct intermittent miss on some of the cylinders. This became more obvious as the bike heated up. Checking the obvious, we sequentially tested each cylinder by removing a plug lead from a cylinder and then starting the bike. This quickly determined that the front right and rear left cylinders were not firing properly. The left rear was the one that was originally not firing and had the plug replaced and so that suggested we needed to check the obvious.
Were the leads faulty?
I noticed that the leads and caps appeared new and asked Fitzy,
?Are these caps and leads new??
?Yes.?
?When were they fitted??
?Just recently.?
?Who trimmed the leads to this length??
?I did.?
?Did you buy standard lead sets or did you but leads and caps as separate items.?
?Bought them separate.?
?Did you screw them together??
?Yes.?
Inspection of the leads showed that the threaded screw fitting on the top outer side of the cap had not had the copper core leads screwed down all the way. Some took four or five additional turns to seat them but in the end all were firm. Checking the obvious the connection of the other end of the lead to the coil spike fitting determined them to be far from fully seated. This was corrected by firmly pressing the leads home, seating the sealing grommets properly a securely screwing on the retaining caps.
The trike started, idled smoothly and revved strongly with no hint of miss. We re-synched the carbs and Fitzy is happy.
Postmortem
I should have checked the leads when I tested the plugs. The fact that the leads had not been fitted to the caps properly was causing intermittent failures on some cylinders. Taking the lead off and testing it may have angled the lead so as to make the lead contact good and so the plug seemed to fire ok. Putting the lead back on the fitted plug may have disconnected the lead from the plug cap or the coil or wasted spark energy trying to bridge a bad connection. I could have saved a lot of time if I had systematically checked for obvious ignition faults instead of assuming I had a bad plug.
Fitzy has told me he will join the forum. He also gave me some pics of the trike to show you.
This trike has given me an idea for my next set of exhaust mods. It is fitted with stainless steel high-flow cats usually used on hot fours. It sounds awesome and the flow rate is massive.
This ride is not a thoroughbred. It is more of a Camel (horse designed buy a committee) and includes the lineage of Datsun 180b, Hyundai, Subaru, Porche,VW Yamaha, Suzuki, Harlot-Davidson and that is only what I know about.
I?ve got a feeling Fitzy will be saying ?Hi? to a lot of people when he gets his trike on the road.
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