(Warning: if you are not a "gear head" or remotely interested in mechanics, I would recommend skipping this post :) I promise more non-mechanical posts will be coming soon...)
As Chris put it “the way opened” for us to return to his shop in Hamilton and begin the process of figuring out what was wrong with my bike.
As Chris put it “the way opened” for us to return to his shop in Hamilton and begin the process of figuring out what was wrong with my bike.
We
started by taking everything off of my bike that we needed to in order to have
a good look at the cylinders… for those of you unfamiliar with bikes… that
would be: right and left pannier, right and left side faring, right and left
front faring, the seat, the gas tank, the air box, the rear wheel, the air
filter box and the carburetor. Whew.
After
discussing the problems my bike was having with a few others, we had begun to
hear a chorus of people saying it was probably the valve seals that needed to
be replaced. OK. So we ordered 6 of them, in case this turned out to be the
issue. Not terribly expensive, but 6 altogether totaled $30, and necessitated a
trip over the border to pick them up, whereupon my return, a lady at Canadian
Customs and Border Protection thoroughly questioned me like a criminal before
turning me over to one of her colleagues to inspect the contents of my
panniers, saddle bags and top box. Contrary to her wishes, he just said “cool
bike” and sent me on my way.
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| Grease Monkey Extraordinaire |
Well,
when we opened the cylinders the valve seals were perfect. PERFECT! I’m
talking, 24yo pieces of rubber looking BRAND NEW! So, back to the drawing
board….
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| Working on the lathe to create a part for the compression test |
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| Chris running the compression test on my bike |
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| 1-of-a-kind valve adjuster tool by Procter Precision |
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| Paul creating a special wrench to adjust my valves |
We
got a lot of helpful suggestions and moral support, but no absolute answers
(it’s pretty hard to diagnose problems without having the bike in question in
front of you).
So
back we went the next day and had another look with fresh eyes.
Although
we had laid out the parts in a pretty organized manner, one of us managed to
kick the airbox over. When Roel later went to put it back on the bike, he
noticed that there was a good amount of oil that had splattered all over the
interior, thanks to it being kicked. This was very alarming but might be the
answer to where all of my oil has been disappearing to… After several minutes
of examining the tubes leading to and from the air box, and pouring over our
two repair manuals for the umpteenth time, we discovered that a small cap,
which seals the drain hose of the air filter air box, was missing. Well,
without this cap, air was being sucked into the air filter air box freely, and
creating a sort of vacuum effect, causing oil to be sucked into the air box, as
well.
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| Possibly the solution to all of our problems |
This
may not be the answer to all of our problems, but the main reason we pulled the
bike apart was the alarmingly high oil consumption. In fact, the reason for
this high oil consumption was likely sitting right in plain sight… 4” off the
ground.
A
little piece of wisdom that Russ, the guy who sold me my bike, appropriately
reminded me about:
Keep.
It. Simple. Stupid.
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| Carb cleaning/reassembly |
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| One of the tiny splits in the vacuum piston |
Update:
Upon taking apart the carburetor, we also found that there were two small tears in one of the piston vacuums – which is likely the cause of the hiccupping. One of the guys on the ADV Rider forum happened to have one for sale and it will be waiting for us in Michigan J
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