Furbird
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Posts posted by Furbird
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Yes, you should be hearing some "creak" or a clamping force of the pads against the rotors. As the rotors turn, they "bump" the pads out so they're not constantly under friction against the rotor. So the pad moving back and forth on the slide pins or slots will cause a tiny bit of noise. If you're not hearing that from the rear, and the fluid has never been changed, then it's quite possible that the rear brakes boiled the fluid the first time it was braked on with sufficient force. Brake fluid is hygroscopic, meaning it will pull in moisture from the atmosphere. Moisture in brake fluid means boiling, and the more there is, the worse it is. 20 year old brake fluid with very little use means the water hasn't had many chances to boil off so you've got to start with a flush first.
Make life easy and get a vacuum bleeder from Harbor Freight. Center stand, open handlebar and rear master cylinders, start at one bleeder cracked open and start vacuuming out fluid, one by one, until you're pretty sure all the old stuff is gone. You still have to finish up with a pressure bleed as the last step, where you have to pump it up with the levers and bleed off the excess, but at least you're not doing that to get all the fluid out also.
If you're not comfortable with this, take it to a shop and have them do it. Have them do the clutch fluid too because the same thing applies to it. Nearly impossible to boil that fluid but the water can still cause issues on that system. -
12 hours ago, silverbird1100 said:
I think the fluids are original, I haven't have it for long but the fluids look good so I haven't tried that yet. Plus the front lever works so well but I'll try and flush the whole system. Anything I can do to the caliper that isn't too invasive?
@Furbird How can I investigate the rear master? Bike only had 8K on it and everything else is literally perfect.
My fluids have only been replaced once in 21 years, maybe. Bike has over 50k and probably a thousand passes at the dragstrip. And this was an 1/8th mile with a short shutdown, so you had to use a lot of brake. 8k miles on a 20 years old bike is scary to me, that's why I always say mileage should not be anywhere near the top of a list of requirements for purchase, no matter what it is, and especially not a bird. But don't be like me, change the fluid FIRST and do a full bleed to make sure it's not the easiest fix of all.
The easiest thing to check of hard parts is the caliper. Center stand, put in first gear, get the rear wheel speed up to maybe 20-30mph, clutch in and hit rear brake. Rear wheel should stop almost immediately. If not, pull the caliper and make sure the pads are easily removable. Could be the pad is just stuck on the pin(s) or is corroded and causing excess friction. It's pad on one side and slot on the other. Hell you might get lucky and it just have a rock stuck between the pad plates!
Next, collapse the pistons on the rear caliper. I have always used the old pads to do this but whatever you have that will fit in there and allow you to close them. If it moves smoothly then the caliper is probably fine. If you feel things grinding, I would suspect it's got water intrusion and has surface rust on the piston on the inside. Never taken a bird caliper apart but have seen this happen before on other bikes. Normally you would have a leak as it tears seals but it depends on how the caliper is assembled. The rear reservoir cap needs to be off to allow the fluid to easily flow back into the master cylinder during this step, in case you aren't aware.
If all that is good, I would replace the rear master cylinder. It's $100 from Ron Ayers and while they do sell rebuild kits for that, I would just buy the entire assembly if it gets to that point. I'm referring to the actual piston part, not everything. Hell, Joe probably has 15 laying around he'll sell you.-
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I'm leaning towards stuck rear caliper or a rear master cylinder issue. Highly unlikely it's anything on the front side of braking with your description.
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Don't know how long you've been riding but don't trust the notches on the chain adjustment when you go to tighten it (which you will have to do going -1 up front.) My street bird is dead on but my dragbike wasn't even in the same damn ballpark. My Victory is much MUCH worse though.
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Fronts are available from 12-18 in steel, but most rears are limited in size unless you go aluminum. Aluminum will wear faster.
All that to say another vote for -1 up front and ride on.-
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Check your grounds for corrosion or just run a new ground to the headlights to eliminate that as a potential issue. Since you've replaced the low/high switch (hopefully with a new one and not a used one that could have potential issues of it's own), the only other possible thing could be a bad connection at the fuse terminal but I'm not sure if the 97 has a dedicated fuse for the low beam alone. Maybe instead of just checking the seating you should detach the connectors and see if you have corrosion inside the connector itself. I had that on my 99 but the source on those is a terminal that is used for diagnostics on the FI bikes which yours doesn't have. If you have that, it should be just that connector and not full lengths of wiring that need replacement unless the bike suffered serious neglect.
There's not a whole lot of us that have had to go internal on these engines as they are pretty much bulletproof, so internal modification help will be few and far between. It's a snowball effect as cams mean timing changes, jetting the carbs, might as well do exhaust, go ahead and turbo, well this deep let's put a strut/slick/wheelie bars/nitrous and now you're at Kent Stotz. 🤣 -
Everything you mentioned screams alternator or battery. Instead of trying to find ground straps that are OE just add new ones with 10 gauge or 8 gauge. Battery to block, battery to body, body to block. But the gauges going batshit while the car is operating is tell-tale alternator failure. Suck it up and buy the Nissan one. I know of no aftermarket LOCAL source that makes an alternator worth a crap unless you can find someone to rebuild the OE one for you. We replaced multiple aftermarket ones with OE ones and all the problems went away.
You kill that motor you've done something. Change the oil, it will run forever. The Maxima/Altima version of that engine had some cam chain tensioner issues but never recall the Pathfinder/QX series having it when equipped with the 3.5 (4.0 completely different story.) Do NOT put a Fram filter on it. Any filter without an anti-drain back valve WILL cause valve rattle on startup. I prefer Purolator myself (BTW, the Nissan one is a Purolator) but WIX or other quality filters are fine. Check the in cabin/AC filter. Should have one, probably has never been changed if the previous owner didn't RTFM. Might be pricey OE as somewhere in those years they had a charcoal filter which is vastly superior but astronomical compared to the straight paper style.
It might need U-joints, but more than likely it's rear control arms. The bushings go bad on those and cause a knock that a lot of people believe to be U-joints, but it usually coincides with an unstable rear end/slight sway. -
Interesting how the video and the image you attached shows two completely different lengths of the wrench head distance from the tool. You would think that how far the tool is mounted down the length of the wrench would affect torque, right? Or does the 90 degree thing have something to do with it? That's the only part I don't follow.
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Special Easter Sunday Hours
In order to give our associates personal time on Easter Sunday, our stores will be open from Noon to 5 pm.
From the email I got from HF Friday. They were open. -
Bought the newer 5000 today. Found the 25% off coupon code online and ordered it through their site. With shipping it came out to $2.00 more than going to the store and getting it, but Mobile is at 20% of store capacity rules right now plus it would cost me more than $2.00 in gas to get there.
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As I stated in the other thread, I have the 2500 ATV winch and the 5000 winch. The 5000 has never failed to pull anything on the car trailer including a loaded down Nissan Armada. It is mounted in a toolbox on the tongue of the trailer to mostly protect it from the elements. I've had it 6-7 years. The newer line is supposed to be even better.
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Auction is marked "other" and "hail", you can definitely see the dents on the closeup. Clean title, and if it's not bringing that then the people that have gone and seen it must be avoiding it like the plague.
https://www.iaai.com/vehicledetails/35948148/60
Car sales are way low down here, as are all the shops. Unemployment skyrocketing, some of my dealers have closed out of caution but the state order excludes them from the mandatory stay at home the governor announced yesterday. We're number 3 on March's background check report though, so gun store owners will be buying Bugatti's. -
According to a friend of mine still installing car audio systems, these new screens don't just look for ground to display video, but for the voltage of the circuit at the other end. A truck your age probably has a literal bulb in the dash that illuminates when the parking brake is on (bulb is hot when the key is on, ground comes from the parking brake switch), so the screen is looking for the resistance that a bulb would have. You also have to realize that a DC circuit through a filament bulb actually does show voltage on the ground side and ground on the voltage side when it's illuminated (that is a solid wire connection, hence the resistance of the bulb.)
Get a small bulb on a pigtail (like a marker light socket off of a parts vehicle or whatever you have laying around that takes a 194-type push-in bulb), attach the hot side to the accessory/ignition wire that goes into your radio, ground the other side, attach the pink wire to the ground side of the bulb, cover the bulb in electrical tape and shove it behind the radio in the dash somewhere. The radio will "think" the parking brake bulb is illuminated. If your parking brake switch actually provides power to the bulb in the dash (highly unlikely) just switch the pink wire to the other side. Little trickier on the newer stuff as the LED versions will actually pulse the wire and the screens look for the pulse.
We used to do something tricky like this back in the day to protect tweeters. People would put tweeters on amps and have so much distortion that the amps would clip, causing DC to go to the tweeters, which would blow them. We soldered dome light bulbs in line with the tweeter and the bulbs would light up to literally burn off the voltage and save the tweeter. There was one company that actually made a tweeter filter/crossover that did this same exact thing. You could open the box and all it had in it was a dome light bulb. When the tweeter stopped working, you open the box, replace the bulb, and back to destroying your hearing in no time. -
If you have a plug that fits, and Carlos has an adapter with the correct voltage, just splice the two together.
Redneck me would have taken the known good connector and wired it to a car battery to see if it worked. If it did, an old computer power supply could power 100 of these. I'm running a lightbar off of a cop car with a computer power supply. -
Holy crap, that ambulance would sell for about $1500 down here rust free!
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I'd buy a fucking Harley before I'll ever ride another dirtbike. One time on a Kawasaki 500 with a 1/4 turn throttle, made it maybe 15 seconds before I felt the inevitability of certain death approaching.
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NADA retail excellent and what the actual market value is are usually two completely different animals. Fact of the matter is when it comes to birds you only have two kinds of buyers; people who know how bulletproof the bikes are, and people who say "the Busa is faster, Honda's are slow." You put a 97 for sale for 5400 and you'll never sell it. I don't care if you could eat off of it, it's not worth that, unless it has 3-4k worth of add-ons like full exhaust, wheels, suspension, Corbin seat, saddlebags, we're talking maxed out.
Like you said, the right buyer finding the right seller can skew the numbers, although they typically aren't seriously out of line. But if mint EFI bikes can't bring 3k then he's also right that something is wrong. And I sincerely hope if you're finding what you want in that price range you are checking on shipping costs because you may be waiting a long time with your specifics limited to your geographic area. -
Kinda leery on the front tire. Plug patch with the curvature of the tire would be suspect to me, plus the loss of integrity of the carcass. Lot of weight on the front, increases exponentially under braking and turning. I'd replace it.
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There's two other reasons I said what I said about mileage also. First, it's mileage exempt so you don't know for sure if it's real or not. Secondly, I don't know how it works in the rest of the good ole USA, but when I tell somebody I have 50k plus on a sportbike they want to see the odometer. These idiots around here destroy bikes in the first 5-10k miles. Granted, a bird isn't exactly a GSXR600 with a 16 year old trying to be a stunter, but 20k is the same as 200k in a lot of people's minds when it comes to sportbikes.
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99 or 00 you're going to have to do the loom regardless. If you're not a member here or the other bird site that's UK based, then 99% chance it hasn't been done. Replacing the harness will NOT fix the issue. BTW, there's a positive connector too that rarely has issues but Furbird did and I had to fix it as well. Especially if the bike was left to the elements which this one was.
Mileage shouldn't even be a consideration. You kill a bird, you've done something. They die because they get wadded up, not because of engine problems.
Buy a used shock if need be. I'm at over 50k on mine and it's fine. And that's drag racing it for well over 1,000 passes. Never blown a fork seal either even with the front strapped down to control wheelies. Which means it's at max pressure already and then landing 15-20 times a night.
About the only thing you'll do to these is the loom fix once, the cam chain tensioner once, steering head bearings once (tapered please and thank you), and depending on how hard you are on them, front wheel bearings. Outside of that it's standard maintenance (plugs, filters, brake pads, chains, tires). -
1 hour ago, XXitanium said:
"We unfortunately only have the 2 blackbirds in our lineup a candy glory red and a cb1100r edition. We can keep an eye out for a black one for you. I believe they all had analog speedos the only different was in 01 they went to fuel injection. "
OMG, if that is a direct quote as indicated, they definitely know nothing about our birds. -
I would go nationwide and see what Uship comes back with for freight. If you found an east coast bike on a deal and had to pay freight you'd still be the same money out of pocket. Also, with as many of us as there are, somebody is likely to be within an acceptable distance to go check it out. BTW, don't know if you've price a paint job lately but they ain't cheap, and Chinese plastics do not fit like OEM. I have a set and I wouldn't recommend them to anybody.
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John, it's a 99 bike so that is correct.
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Facebook Marketplace is far worse. The only person that I've talked to from Craigslist ended up buying the item he wanted. Then bought another item the very next weekend after he got paid again. Out of literally hundreds of replies from Facebook, I've had 4 people actually schedule a meetup and all 4 bought the item instantly. Marketplace is now what Craigslist used to be, except Facebook never removes the ad, so you could be asking about a product that sold a year ago that the seller never took down.
thermostat switch
in The Garage
Posted
I used a push through the fins thermostat for years on my Astro when I converted it to electric fans, never gave me any problems at all. And that thing ran for hours when we used it at a party as the stereo system (it had 8-15's.)