superhawk996

You need the knife to get the first box open anyway.

Why did you sell it?

"Some road rash", and no photos. "All services up to date", probably by miles meaning everything's 10+ years old.

The clunky idle is probably the clutch basket rattling, pretty normal. It should go away with the clutch squeezed, then you'll know for sure that's the cause. I think the whine is normal. Not sure if it's the gear ratio or if it has a different tooth angle that does it. I've heard it on other bikes, I don't recall coasting or decelerating in 1st on the bird.

Some streamers/ribbon might do as well or better, and they're cheap and more likely to survive winds.

I also read that decoys need to be moved every few days or they start ignoring them. Didn't read much about it and don't know if it's true, I just saw it in passing.

Carlos, I just read that you can get a permit from the feds for lethal control when they'd damaging property. Guessing you wouldn't want one, but I found it interesting.

It wasn't trying to make a hole, they're not that dumb, it was just fucking with you. They'll peck metal objects to make noise to establish a territory and attract a mate.

1/16 seems like more than enough.

Or a comfortable chair/hammock to lounge in while waiting for them to come onto the shooting range 🙂 Simple eyes should work, pulleys sound better. I assume the only failure would be the roller becoming stuck, then it's just an eye with a larger radius. We had pulleys for the spa cover that were quite old and corroded, but still worked.

I just saw that it's a turbo bike. I briefly had that thought but since there are so few of them I figured it was unlikely.

Do you happen to know what exhaust system that has? It's crazy clean. Probably shitty, but super clean.

I believe the starter switch kills high and low through a single contact, probably by interrupting power or ground to the relays, and couldn't be the problem for just one. When you say it works flawlessly, did you check for power at the ballast inputs again? If so the problem isn't the switch or relay, there's either a problem with the ground for the high beam or it has a bad ballast or lamp. My assumption is that the ground is permanent on, directly chassis grounded and not switched, and the positive is what is switched. If you have a bulb you can connect for testing it would help. You might have power and ground that looks good on a meter, but if either has high resistance it won't be enough to power a bulb, or the ballast. If you want I can check the electrical schematic in my manual to make sure my assumptions are correct; it's a '97?

Since you had no power at the ballast input it's not a ballast charging time issue that Mike spoke of.

Sounds like the switch. With the key off, spray some contact cleaner in it and flip it back & forth several times and you might get lucky. I don't think I've ever tried to take a Bird one apart to clean it right, but if that's possible it's your best bet.

They'd be a lot more fun under different circumstances (diseased FIL's toys) but at least helping the family empty the house out has some benefits. Once things get a bit settled I'll sell most of them and give them the proceeds to split amongst themselves since they have no way to do it.

After we get a Republican back in office, I'm reserving them for our own militia.

Latest auction. My winning bid of 0 resulted in the duty of re-homing these.

I'm weird, I run my pegs at max height for more comfort.

My guess is that the factory lube dried up and got hard. Or, being in an AZ garage, the summer heat had changed the metal's grain structure. I've never had that happen without signs of rust, which I assumed was the cause, but it was only light surface rust so maybe it was actually whatever happened to yours. I'll douse them with penetrating oil and work them repeatedly and see dark stuff slowly oozing out of the joint, I assumed it was rust, but it could have been dried up lube. It's funny how we'll let a tool slowly get shittier and not feel compelled to do something 'till they're really bad. It's similar to doing something with the wrong tool at hand instead of getting the right tool, I'm slowly training myself out of that.

Another option might be America's Tire/Discount Tire. A while back I bought an Altima that had dead sensors. America's sells them for around $65ea including installation and programming which is a fair price. I found a full set on Amazon for $45 and according to the ad and many reviews they're easy to DIY program, but I couldn't get them to work. I went to America's and a guy came out with a device and got them set up for free in just a few minutes. While chatting he said I got a good price, not knowing it was for all four, and said that whatever I paid after mounting was probably about the same as they charge and I wouldn't have had to hassle with them. When he found out it was $45 for four he said 'well, now I know where to get them when I need them."

Interesting procedure.

Something to consider on the flip side, ethanol can hold a fair bit of water in solution so it can be burnt off. If you exceed its water holding capability then things turn pretty ugly. It falls to the bottom as an un-burnable mess and leaves low octane gas above it. Gasoline can hold nearly no water so it can accumulate and corrode shit out. Ethanol is also a pretty good cleaner. I can think of only two vehicles where the gas tanks corroded though and neither of them had ever had E-10. Just remembered of a third, that one might have seen some E-10 before it corroded through.

I'd forgotten about that, that was pretty funny.

It was built after lunch on that guy's last day.