Buzz

I had the original battery for my '03 Bird give up after about 1 year. I inquired about this at a local dealer. The head of maintenance also happened to own a late model bird and was well familiar with the issue. He stated that the batteries included with later model birds were more amperage, but smaller overall. Meaning that the plates were closer together. Additionally, there were some kind of electronics added to the later model battery. All of this added up to a less reliable battery. His recommendation was to use the battery for the original birds. The only modification necessary was to remove two rubber spacers at the bottom of the battery compartment to accommodate the the oem smaller battery. The older style battery had the side benefit of being half the price. I said sold. It's been working without a hitch for the past five years and still going strong.

Never seen ape hangers on a Bird before.

Not sure if you have a Cycle Gear in your area. They are also available online. Great company. I looked at a number of tail bags before deciding on Cargo Tail bag. Ended up buying the tank and saddle bags as well. Overall, I found the Cargo tail bag to be very versatile and well constructed. I especially like the heavy duty design of the material. The sides and top unzip for additional capacity. Built in cords. Had it for several years without issue. Link

I bought my wife's Arai last winter from The Service Pavilion. They tour with the motorcycle shows/races. However, they have a store in PA. The salesman took a lot of time to make sure that it fit correctly, even changing the stock pads for a better fit. Link

There was a guy running them on a v65 Magna at Keith Code's last year. He didn't go down, and it must have been the tires 'cause 'da brutha had no skillz yo Hmm, not sure if you are knocking the squid in the class or me for recommending the tires, but it comes across as more the latter than the former.

Josh, I had the same problem when I was looking for new tires recently for an '86 Honda Interceptor 500. Finally came up with the Pirelli Sport Demons. Overall, they have been good tires so far. Bought them from SW Moto Tires. I checked your bike's sizes. Pirelli does make both, but SW only stocks the rear. http://www.us.pirellimoto.com/en_95/tires/...ome=SPORT_DEMON

I remember reading someone's guess that this is due to liability concerns on the part of manufacturers if the motorcycle is modified (i.e. gearing), thereby changing an otherwise accurate speedometer. In this litigious day and age, that would seem a likely concern, at least in part.

Eric, I used my Garmin GPS on my '03 Bird and found the speedometer to read 9.25% higher than actual speed. However, the ODOMETER read only 2% higher than actual. If a unit is installed to correct the speedometer, then trade-off is that the odometer will read about 7% lower than actual.

Not sure if this is the same problem as you are encountering. Hope this helps. http://www.cbr1100xxforums.org/forum/viewt...a+dealer+stinks

Roderash, You should hang a sign in your garage, saying, "My garage is nicer (and larger) than most people's homes". Texxas, I bought a bunch of pressboard cabinets from Home Depot that helped a lot to organize my garage. Used 5 cabinets with drawers and put a formica countertop on it to make a workbench. Then, made my own wall cabinet to put oil, filters etc and bought a pre-made cabinet wall cabinet for helmets. Also, I used pegboard to hang stuff on the wall. If you like, I will post a pic (read: I need to clean up my garage first . :oops: ).

+1

Warp, thanks for the info. I just received my notice in the mail the other day and was waiting to hear results such as yours before taking the Bird in for inspection.

I had the same thing happening with the battery on my '03 Bird. Sometimes it started, sometimes it would be too weak to start, regardless of the amount of miles I put on the day before. Also had the same thing with the clock reset when attempting to start the bike. Turned out to be the battery used on '01 - '03 bikes have had problems due to increased circuitry (according to the service manager, who also owns a Bird). I would recommend having the dealer install the battery used in the '97 - '00 models. Just need to have a couple of rubber bumpers pulled out of the bottom of the battery compartment first. It's also half the price. This was the write-up. http://www.cbr1100xx.org/forum/viewtopic.p...a+dealer+stinks

From what I've read in motorcycle magazines a while back, the only difference is that the Metzler Z6 B tire is made with a stronger carcas than the "A" version, the first tire to have two versions for different weight bikes. Last I heard the "B" version wasn't available yet.

Did you add a spacer to the rear shock or is it stock height? The spacer mod will change the amount of freeplay. So if you have 1 1/4" freeplay on the centerstand, it will be a lot less when the suspension has the motorcycle and rider weight on it, possibly causing additional driveline noise.

Peter? Helpful guy for sure, but I pulled that one off all by myself :poke: :grin: Oops, sorry. Been up working since 3:30 this morning. Getting the red-biked avatars mixed up today. :oops:

Brett, Your suggestion is overly simple. I'm used to calibrations being exhaustively complicated with expensive equipment. :razz: Seriously, that is a great suggestion, thanks. I usually eyeball it/use the marks, but this seems like a good way to cross-check the alignment. Also, thanks for the pic to Peter. I should be mowing the lawn, so this is a welcome diversion. You know that old saying: Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after that.

Been there, done that. Perhaps this will help, specifically on page 2. http://www.cbr1100xx.org/forum/viewtopic.p...ight=cycle+stop

Same. Be careful about setting the idle too low. My tach read 1100 rpm, but the dealer found out the bike was actually running at 900 rpm and drawing 3 amps from the battery. When readjusted, it was charging by 3 amps.

Worst gas mileage I've seen was 5.8 gallons after 98 miles. :shock: Turned out that a battery problem caused the tripmeter to reset with 100 miles already on it. My wife and I went riding with soft bags over a weekend recently on our '03XX and still averaged exactly 40mpg for the trip.

Demon, although the speedo runs high about 9-10%, the odometer runs only about 2-3% higher than the correct mileage.

Red, it's not the size, it's the width. :razz: I probably was hanging the toe portion of my boot off the pegs somewhat, which was the part of my boot that scraped.

X-lax, Have you tried raising the rear suspension? I did the modification recently after scraping my size 12 boots also and haven't touched them down since, even with riding two up.

Glad to help if it gets me some free coupons. :grin:

It is adjustable and the shop manual does not say how to do it. I adjusted mine as far as I could before I ran out of threads. Helped a lot. The silver nut is the lock nut. Loosen it first, then turn the brass-colored nut (just below the rubber boot) to your preference, then re-tighten the lock nut.