superhawk996

According to the tire guy; aligning the balance dots with the stems does nothing and tires don't loose balance over time, if there's a vibration, something's wrong. When they mounted the motorhome tires I told the guy mounting them to please align the dots and he did, but he had a helper do some of them and he didn't. There was a noticeable difference in the amount of weights needed, one of the aligned tires took Zero weight, one of the misaligned nearly drove them into bankruptcy. I showed the boss, he's the "tire guy" I've been referring to, he seemed unimpressed. Whenever they mount new tires I ask them to align the dots and they typically require minimal weight despite usually being cheapo tires.

When the compressor fails, no biggie, you just loose AC. In this case the pulley bearing appears to be fucked up. When it's rattly/crunchy and shooting sparks out of it that's usually a bad sign. Luckily the engine is so rattly I can't hear the pulley from inside so all's good. And after oiling it the smell of molten metal went away.

The Ex sits for weeks/months at a time, possibly a contributing factor. The guy at the tire shop said short life is a common issue with commercial tires. These say commercial on them, but I assume it's marketing hype for cheap tires. He has said a couple other things about tires that I know are false so-?

4 new tires, I'd already replaced one. It's right on top, pretty easy. I haven't priced it yet, but guessing 100-150 from my rebuilder.

Yea, his water pump went out on the only meet I went to. I've made a bunch of AZ trips without any issues, this trip happened to pack several issues in.

Q: How long after your AC clutch/pulley starts showing signs of issues does it take a total shit? On my way to AZ Thursday the AC suddenly stopped working right after my second stop to change a trailer tire...ugghh. It was only about 105 degrees 😑 Next day it seemed to be working fine so I figured I'd overcharged it and when the temp got high enough it was kicking off the clutch. Today on my way home as the temps hit about 100-102 it stopped again so I planned on letting some refrigerant out at my fuel stop. I popped the hood with the engine running to see if the clutch was cycling and it wasn't, but it was making a fun show of noise and sparks, even with the AC off. I dribbled some oil into both ends hoping it would help get me close enough to home for my free towing coverage and motored on. The temp got to 115 according to the gauge, but it didn't actually feel as horrible as it sounds. I made two more stops along the way, one to swap a front tire that was threatening to come appart, and I dribbled a bit of oil into the pulley each time. No idea if it got to where it needed to be to help anything, but I figured it would't make things worse....other than maybe catching fire then the insurance company would have to deal with it. It made it home, really surprised the bearing didn't seize/disintegrate along the way. The other front tire started wobbling not terribly long after the first one, it also made it home. Cheap tires, not a lot of miles, but 7 years old; I guess it's time.

Yes. Coolant doesn't cool as well as water so as the ratio becomes higher in coolant you loose cooling efficiency. A somewhat surprising effect; the water pump in my SuperHawk started leaking after I accidentally mixed the coolant a bit on the rich side, as I topped it back off with water the leak slowly went away. I never got around to checking the percentage when it stopped leaking, would have been interesting to know.

Well, duh. Everyone knows that humans do best on meat based diets. I really have no clue what the truth is, or whether there even is a truth. To know if meat is the secret to their good health we'd have to know how their animals are treated compared to ours, how they're generally cooked compared to us, as well as the many factors in their average daily lives vs. ours, and whether they have natural attributes that make their bodies want meat more than ours. Too much BS, eat what works for you.

Oooh, yea. The belt sander did an ok job of scuffing away the chicken strips, the heat gun should finish off the look.

I'm guessing that every 'normally sourced' food product is full of fuckery. Farming of plants is full of fuckery, and it's part of the reason Salton Sea has become such a threat.

He calls two stroke oil "additive" so don't expect him to call the valve cover a valve cover.

Did you plan to do 8k on the oil or was it something that got forgotten about or put off? It doesn't seem to have done harm, but I'd be leery of doing it.

If you're buying a new OEM control there's no need. If you buying one of the questionable Chinese knockoffs, it might be a good idea.

Yup. And he's shown a few tests with it, but does a lot more testing with other oils from boutique stuff to generics like Supertech and the Amazon stuff. Break-in is when zinc is really important, after that the importance depends on how much spring pressure you have and the RPM you run. Zinc tends to increase friction but it reduces wear, particularly in high pressure areas. Almost all of my flat tappet engines have been run on 15-40 for the last 20-ish years.

I've never experienced or known of a cam failure on anything. The M1 15-50 used to be a fairly high zinc oil and clutch safe. It might still be clutch safe, but it's now an SP oil so not high zinc, but it 'should' be fine. I'm guessing it hasn't been high zinc for a very long time, I think it should be better now that the zinc doesn't have to fight with the other additive. If you wanna do some learning and you enjoy videos, try Lake Speed Jr. (AKA the motor oil geek) on YT. He's a tribologist and mega gear head and does shit tons of oil testing with dynos and lab equipment. He probably has a few aimed at flat tappet cams, or just search for what he's found using SP oils.

Well, since some dickhead turned this into an oil thread: Automotive gas and diesel oils have gone through many changes, some were bad. The latest gas spec is SP and some diesel oils also meet the SP spec. They removed, or greatly reduced, some important stuff and I was initially afraid of it, but it appears to actually be superior to the previous spec. The zinc has been low in oils for quite some time, but with the SP formulation the zinc is now more effective. One of the removed/reduced components tends to 'fight' with zinc, pretty sure it's a cleaner or dispersant. The anti-friction additives were also modified and appear to be better as well. This is probably the only time they've changed the formulation to be better for old and new engines. If you're concerned with cleanliness, Valvoline's "Restore and Protect" appears to be good stuff. They used to have a more aggressive formula that would clean much faster, but that lead to problems with some really dirty engines. The new one is a slow gentle cleaner.

No, you just think it's a clutch thread because of the symptom, but it's actually an oil thread because that's what caused it. Or maybe it's a parked motorcycle thread because that's what caused it? Could be an astrology thread; what's your sign and what month did you park it?

I'm pretty sure Hacienda Heights was created on a massive ant hill. They've always been a problem, but the long hot summer appears to have them desperate for food, they've been pretty relentless lately. Pretty annoying, but it's better than having scorpions drop in through the kitchen vent so I won't bitch too much.

I've been a long time fan of Diesel oil for bikes, but both of my '97 Birds were clunky with it. Castrol 10-40 motorcycle spec oil was better. My current '97 seems to be more picky than the first, maybe because of the cable actuated clutch. I put in Motul 300V 10-40, it's painfully expensive, but the clutch and shifting smoothness was night and day. I think about shifting and it's already in the next gear, and finding neutral is a no-brainer. More surprising was that the clunk from neutral to first damn near vanished.

Sadly, I was almost never quick on the draw.

I've had bikes that sat for decades and the clutches unstuck without a teardown. Something don't seem right if you had to open it up.

Smart me would have offered them rides. DOH!

I went to a bike night last night, it was about 95% Harleys. Two cute young chicks from a sport bike group were admiring the Bird, they didn't know what it was. They were highly impressed by the age, condition, and low miles, but would have been really impressed if it had 200+K on it. They brought one of they guys over, I heard "it's an 1100!", the dude's face said "damn, this old guy just dick slapped me in front of my chick."

What's the car under those clusters?

PERFECT! Now I just need a set of tires with melted edges and I'll be set.