My First Honda: Fireblade!

I've had a pretty diverse group of R&R  (repair & recover) motorcycles to date.  My first R&R bike was the '94 Kawasaki Concours ZG1000 back in 2014.  Purchased for eight hundred bucks and cut out of long grass to get it out of the field it was in, the Concours got sorted over the winter and put back on the road where it took us to Indianapolis and went on to over twenty thousand kilometres of mileage before I sold it on for what I purchased it for this past summer.

The Concours became my regular riding bike so I sold on the Ninja.  Eventually a KLX250 off road bike came into the garage, but didn't last long as I struggled to find ways to use it in Ontario: land of no fun.  That led to a too-quick purchase of a Yamaha XS1100 from an entirely dodgy kid that led me into the headaches of sorting ownership.  That experience has made me more cautious in buying used bikes.  The belief is that all motorcyclists are salt of the earth types, but that isn't my experience; shifty would be a better description.

So far I've been able to make money on my R&R projects, Shed and Buried style, but I don't make it easy on myself.  Both the Concours and the XS1100 were big, four carburetor bikes with spaghetti loads of vacuum tubes and complex wiring.  I've taken my time looking for the next project and tried to look for something simple, air cooled and single cylinder, but bikes like that don't come up often.  As the summer fades and winter approaches, it was time to commit to a new R&R project.

This 1997 Honda CBR900RR Fireblade came up on Facebook buy and sell.  I've found the local nature of Facebook's marketplace offers up interesting opportunities that you don't find on the hardened semi-pro sellers of Kijiji and Autotrader, where you are much more likely to find shady characters who sell a lot of crap.  This twenty-two year old non-running Honda got me curious enough to contact the seller in Alliston.

It turns out the bike had gotten tangled in a divorce and was then sidelined.  It was eventually used to settle debts between the estranged couple, but now it belonged to a non-rider with no mechanical experience who just wanted it gone.  Her new partner was trying to sell it for her, but with it not running he wasn't getting any calls.  A late nineties CBR in safetied, running condition was going for about $4000, he was asking $1200 for this one as is.

We exchanged a number of emails, both of us cautious as we'd both met idiots from online sales (it turns out the internet is actually full of idiots).  As we got to know each other I asked increasingly direct questions - was is repainted to hide crash damage? (no, the former owner didn't like the stickered stock look)  - why is it in this state?  (where I got the bad karma backstory this bike was unfortunately wrapped up in).  The last problem to solve was how to get it here.

During our give and take the seller offered me the bike for $1200 instead of $1300, and then said he could trailer it down to my place for $100, so I got it at asking price with a $100 delivery charge.  The bike showed up and we had a good chat and ended up being given a milk crate full of pears from his parent's farm too.  Bonus Honda pears - good deal.  This low mileage, non-runner seemed like a steal upon first look.  The paint's a bit rough, but for a 20+ year old low mileage bike, she cleaned up a treat.

I was told the bike was a non-runner due to the carbs.  As I got into the bike mechanically I figured I'd look at the fuel system as a whole rather than only looking solely at the carb since I didn't know how long it had been sitting.  I'm glad I did.  The fuel tank had a worrying amount of rust in it.  I talked to people on the Practical Sportsbike Magazine Facebook group (one of my go-to bike magazines and a great place to talk to DIY types) and got suggestions around various acid etching and chemical routes.

I went out to Canadian Tire aiming to get some industrial grade hydrochloric acid but found Metal Rescue Rust Remover, a water based environmentally friendly solution that neutralizes rust and prevents more from forming.  It also helps the tank retain its structural integrity whereas acid eats holes in it.  My first go at a motorcycle tank cleaning (I've been lucky so far and not had to deal with it) went well.  I left the chemical in the tank for about six hours before recovering it back into the bottle (it can be reused).  With the tank sorted it was time to look at the rest.

The vacuum operated fuel pump in the bottom of the tank was clogged and a mess, but it too cleaned up nicely.  With the big end of the fuel system sorted out, I turned to the carbs.

Compared to the buried in the frame carbs on the Concours and XS1100, the Honda's are a joy to access.  Having seen the mess that was the rest of the fuel system, I figured the carbs were crammed full of guck, and they were.  The only other issues seemed to be more about mechanical cack-handedness than wear.

Once on the bench I've been able to isolate some obvious problems.  I found a spring laying under the carbs on the engine case.  If you're fixing a carb it generally helps to use all the parts.  I also found that one of the choke pins were broken, so the choke was only working on three of the four carbs, and the choke cable itself wasn't attached correctly, so the choke was only moving about 2/3rds of the distance it should.  These are all things that would prevent the bike from starting properly.

Yesterday I took the float bowls off and had a look at the bottom end of the carbs.  The ethanol in modern fuel is not a good mix with older fuel systems, like carburetors.  Not only can it eat away at the rubber and gaskets in older systems not designed for it, but it can also leave varnish, and worst of all, it's a water absorber, so it can lead to corrosion in older, gravity fed systems.  If there was ever evidence of modern ethanol based fuels making a mess of a carburetor, it was here in this old Fireblade, where every carb bowl was worse off than the one before it.

Thanks to some judicious use of carb-cleaner, they cleaned up nicely, but does ethanol ever do a job on mechanical fuel delivery systems!  Fortunately, if I stick with super unleaded from most stations in Canada, it means I'm not running any in this old bike from now on.

I run super in my bikes anyway because they're very fuel efficient anyway so it doesn't cost much and, at least on the Tiger, the power commander means I can maximize power out of it.  For the Honda or any other carb fueled bike, you should be running super just to stay away from the ethanol.

Today I'm going to pull the tops of the carbs and have a look at the state of things (I'm hoping better than below) and finish cleaning them.  I'm also going to see if I can fix that broken choke pin on carb 4 or else I'm going to have to track down the part.  Bikebandit has it for $50US, but no one else seems to have one available.

There are other bits and pieces in this poorly looked after carb that are suspect.  Rather than use boot clamps to attach the carb to the engine, the muppet who owned it before me appears to have put some kind of rubber sealant on them and attempted to 'glue' them to the block.  This is stupid in all sorts of ways.  Bits of this rubber seal would deteriorate in the gasoline rich air-fuel mix and get sucked into the engine, and there is no mechanical connection ensuring the carbs are tight and leak free to the engine.  For a system that runs on vacuum, this is a disaster.

The boots have cleaned up nicely, so I also need to source some ring clamps for them.  The Honda specific ones are hard to find, but I'm hoping I can find some aircraft grade ones that are an engineering match and easier to source.  Oetiker Clamps, ironically based in Alliston where the Honda came from, do some nice, high quality options that I should be able to fit.

So much of mechanics come back to common sense.  The guy who owned this before seems to have had a startling lack of it.  I'm hoping for $1200+$500 in parts I can get this Honda humming and ride it for a year before seeing if I can double my money on it (unless we bond).  Safetied bikes of similar vintage with twice the mileage are going for four grand.  Even with all the work done so far, the bike hasn't cost me a penny in parts and I may be within spitting distance of sorting out this abused Fireblade.

Follow up:

Tops of the carbs were fiddly - the plungers are a pain to reseat properly, but I worked through them and all the top ends have been cleaned, though they were all in good shape as befitting a low mileage bike like this.  The nastiness was all in the float bowls.

I gotta say, I'm enjoying Honda engineering.  Kawasaki has a real heavy industry feel to it by comparison, though my Kawi experience is mainly on a big sport tourer and this Honda is built for one thing only... getting down the road quickly.  But this bike has an engineering elegance to it that makes it a pleasure to work on.

With the cackhanded way this bike has been worked on, there are a number of fiddly bits missing or broken. I was sourcing ring clamps (x8), a choke plunger and other odds and ends and found the price quickly creeping up.  I reached out to local bike breaking yards and only heard back from NCK in Woodstock, ON, who seem organized and on their game.  They have a donor carb in used, rust free (stored inside) condition for $250CAD.  That's within fifty bucks of where I was with buying bits and pieces and means I'd have a lot of spares I could always sell on after.  I'm going the donor carb route this week.

Oh, and Oetiker clamps got back to me and apologized for not having what I needed because (of course) the Honda's clamps are a special size and would require special manufacturing.  My quest for carb hose clamps continues.

NOTES:

One of the tricky bits of working on old bikes is getting the documentation you need to work on them accurately.  The internet is a gold mine for this.  If you're working on a late '90s Honda CBR900RR Fireblade, you'll find this handy:

1996/7 Honda CBR900RR Owner's Manual:  https://mototribu.com/constructeur/honda/1996/1000cbr/doc/revuetechnique_900rr.pdf

It has lots of good technical graphics in addition to all the specs you need.

***

I was also able to source the Haynes Manual for this bike from Fortnine on sale for only $35.  Most other places were over $40US, so finding that on sale was a good first step in this project.

At the moment I've got emails out to The Bike Yard in Caledon and Oetiker Clamps in Alliston.  With any luck I can source the bits I need and have this Honda purring even before the snow starts to fly, then I can spend the winter sorting out the other fluids and maintenance before it hits the road in the spring.

Balancing Personal Responsibility with Sainthood

The in-law's cottage happens to be about 20 kms away from the bottom of the 507.  I like the 507.  It twists and turns through the Canadian Shield offering you bend after bend without the usual tedium of Southern Ontario roads.  I lost myself riding down it the other day.

Last week I was pondering how fear can creep in to your riding in extreme circumstances, like trying to ride through a GTA rush hour commute.  This week I'm struggling with how the Canada Moto-Guide and Cycle Canada are portraying deaths on the 507, which is evidently a magnet for sportbike riders who have confused public roads with private race tracks.

On the motorcyclists spectrum I tend toward the sportier end of things.  I've owned Ninjas, sports-tourers, adventure and off-road bikes.  The only thing that chased me away from sportbikes early in my riding career were the insane insurance rates and the fact that any modern motorcycle is already light years beyond most sports cars in terms of performance.  My old Tiger goes 0-60 in under four seconds, or about as fast as many current top-end muscle and sports cars.  To spend thousands more on insurance for a bike designed for a race-track just doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when you factor in the condition of Ontario roads.

If you missed the British MotoGP race at Silverstone last
weekend, do yourself a favour and look it up.  From start
to finish it was spectacular.

Having said that, I've been a diehard MotoGP fan for the past six years.  Watching riders develop and express their genius at the pinnacle of motorcycle racing is not only glorious to watch, but it has taught me a lot about riding dynamics, and I think it has improved my bike-craft.  I totally get speed.  Riding a bike always feels like a bit of a tight-rope walk, and being able to do it quickly and smoothly is a skill-set I highly value.

Like so many things in motorcycling, balance seems to be key.  Last week, among the idiotic commuters of the GTA, a frustrating number of whom were texting in their laps and half paying attention, I was unable to manage that danger and it led to a great deal of anxiety.  Rather than give in to that fear or throw a blanket of bravado over it, I looked right at it and found a way to overcome it.  Honesty with yourself is vital if you're actually interested in mastering your bikecraft.  I came to the conclusion that you need to approach two wheels with a touch of swagger and arrogance when that fear rises up.  This is done to moderate fear and give you back some rational control, especially when circumstances conspire against you.

The problem with swagger and arrogance... and fear for that matter, is that it's easy to go too far, and so many people seem to.  Emotionality seems to dictate so many aspects of motorcycling culture.  From the arrogance of the ding-dongs in shorts and flip flops who tend to the extremes of the motorcycling spectrum (cruisers and sportbikes), to the ex-motorcyclists and haters who can only speak from fear, it's these extremes who seem to speak for the sport.  I struggle with those emotionally driven extremes, but recently CMG seems intent on writing odes to them.

The CMG editorial news-letter this week makes much of not knowing why this rider died:

“He knew the dangers, and he admitted to going fast,” says his partner, Lisa Downer. “He knew when, where, how – it was just one of those things. A lot of people think the way the curve was, there was a car (approaching him) that was just a little too far over the line and David had to compensate. By the time that car went around the bend, they wouldn’t even have known that David went off, because the sightline’s gone. Or it could have been an animal, or a bit of gravel. You just don’t know.”


There were no skid marks on the road. Like so many of our lost, no one will ever know why.

Our lost?  Here's a video by that same rider from the year before:

"...the helmet cam shows his speedometer. “A decent pace on the 507 in central Ontario, Canada,” he wrote in the description. “Typical Ontario roads, bumpy, keeping me in check.” His average speed on the near-deserted road was above 160 km/h, more than double the speed limit, and at one point it shows an indicated 199, where the digital display tops out. At such speeds on a public road, there’s little room for error." - little room for error?

With that on the internet, one wonders how he had his license the following year.  You can come at this from 'it might have been an animal, or a car, or gravel', but I think I'm going to come at it from here:

"David was an experienced rider who’d got back into motorcycling just three years ago; he was 52, but had put bikes on hold since his 30s when he went out west..."

That'll be over 170 kms/hr on rough pavement around
blind corners next to a massive provincial park full of
large mammals...

An 'experienced rider' who had been riding for three years, after a twenty year gap?  And his first bike in twenty years was a World Super-bike winning Honda super sport?  Whatever he was riding in the mid-eighties and early nineties certainly wasn't anything like that RC51.  What his actual riding experience was is in question here, but rather than assign any responsibility to an inexperienced rider, we are speculating about animals, cars and gravel?

I generally disagree with the speed kills angle that law enforcement likes to push.  If that were the case all our astronauts would be dead.  So would everyone who has ever ridden the Isle of Man TT.  Speed doesn't kill, but how you manage it is vital.  There is a time and a place.  If you're intent on riding so beyond the realm of common sense on a public road, then I think you should take the next step and sort yourself out for track days, and then find an opportunity to race.  In Ontario you have all sorts of options from Racer5's track day training to the Vintage Road Racing  Association, where you can ride it hard and put it away wet in a place where you're not putting people's children playing in their front yard in mortal peril.  If you've actually got some talent, you could find yourself considering CSBK.  Surely there is a moral imperative involved in how and where you choose to ride?  Surely we are ultimately responsible for our riding?

Strangely, Mark's article, The Quick and the Dead, from 2017 has a much clearer idea of time and place when it comes to riding at these kinds of speeds.  In this most recent news-letter we're at "it would be easy to dismiss David Rusk as just another speed freak, killed by his own excess".  In 2017 he was quite reasonably stating: "If you’re going to speed, don’t ride faster than you can see and dress properly. And if you’re going to speed, do it on a track".  I guess the new blameless recklessness sells better?

There is a romantic fatalism implicit in how both CMG and Cycle Canada have framed these deaths that willfully ignores much of what caused this misery in the first place.  Motorcycling is a dangerous activity.  Doing it recklessly is neither brave, nor noble.  Trying to dress it up in sainthood, or imaging blame when the cause if repeatedly slapping you in the face is neither productive nor beneficial to our sport.  Up both ends of the motorcycling spectrum are riders who are all about the swagger.  For those dick swingers this kind of it's-never-your-fault writing is like going to church.  I get it.  Writing for your audience is the key to enlarging it.

Last Sunday I did a few hundred kilometres picking up bodies of water for the Water is Life GT rally, with the 507 being the final run south to the cottage.  The roads weren't exceptionally busy and I was able to fall into a rhythm on the 507 that reminded me of what a great road it is.  As it unfolds in front of you, you can't guess where it's going to go next.  Surrounded by the trees, rocks and lakes of the Shield, it's a gloriously Canadian landscape.

I'm not dawdling when I ride.  I prefer to not have traffic creeping up on me, I'm usually the one doing the passing (easy on a bike).  The big Tiger fits me and the long suspension can handle the rough pavement, but I'm never over riding the limits of the bike where gravel on the road, an animal or other drivers dictate how my ride is going to end.  The agility and size of a bike offer me opportunities that driving a car doesn't, but it doesn't mean I open the taps just because I can.  Balance is key.

There are times when a rider (or any road user) can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and no amount of skill will save you.  For the riders (and anyone) who perishes like that, I have nothing but sympathy.  They are the ones we should be reserving sainthood for.  Not doing the things that you love, like being out in the wind on a bike, because of that possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time will neuter your quality of life, there are some things you can't control.  

I'm well aware of the dangers of riding, but I'm not going to throw a blanket of arrogance over them, and I'm certainly not going to describe recklessness as a virtue while hiding in delusions of blame.  Doing a dangerous thing well has been a repeated theme on TMD, as has media's portrayal of riding.  Having our own media trying to dress up poor decision making as victimization isn't flattering to motorcycling.  If you can't be honest about your responsibilities when riding perhaps it's time to hang up your boots.  If you don't, reality might do it for you.

As Vale says, "it's dangerous, not only for you, but for all the facking idiots in cars."

Related Thoughts:

Training Ignorance & Fear Out of Your Bikecraft:
https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2014/02/training-ignorance-fear-out-of-your.html

Parent, Child or Zen Master:
https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2014/05/child-parent-or-zen-master.html

Do Bikers Ignore Reality?
https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2013/10/do-bikers-ignore-reality.html

What else are you going to do at a cabin in the woods but pen and ink?