COG Chalkdust Details

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_UyK8y5a8OdxYLE8g0sduBOc4eIFI0kI/view?usp=sharing

COG Chalkdust DIY: https://concours.org/Tech-Pages well worth the cost of joining. You get gems like this:

Valve Adjustment Tips

I’ve adjusted the valves on several C14’s now, and on just about every one, the valves on the right side, closest to the cam chain seem tighter than the rest. On other brand motorcycles they usually tell you to loosen the cam chain tensioner before checking the valve clearances, but I haven’t found any reference to do that in the manual for the C14. I decided to go ahead and loosen the cam chain tensioner and recheck the them. When I did, it made just enough of a difference that it allowed a .006 inch feeler gauge to slip under the camshaft for the #4 intake valve, when previously it wouldn’t fit (no-go). The reason this happens is because there is some clearance between the camshafts and the camshaft bearings that is normally filled with oil when the engine is running. When the engine is off and there is no oil pressure, the tensioner pulls on the cam chain, and thus draws the ends of the camshafts down by about a thousandth of an inch so that they contact the bearing, and this makes the clearance on the end valves appear to be tight. So my advice would be next time you do a valve check, remove the cam chain tensioner before you check the intake and exhaust valves on the #4 cylinder. Just be sure to reset the tensioner and reinstall it before you hand rotate the engine to do the other valves, so that the chain doesn’t slip on the lower sprocket when you turn the engine.

The first time you remove the plastic side panels to do any maintenance on your C14, I would highly suggest taking a few digital photos that clearly show the position and routing of all the wire harnesses around the engine bay and the side fairing stays and engine braces. While there are some reference drawings in the service manual that will help, good photos will be much more useful when it comes time to put everything back together. This is especially true when doing a valve adjustment, since you have to remove the right and left side fairing stays as well as move multiple wire harnesses and the rubber engine blanket out of your way to access the valve cover. Having photos that shows how it was all arranged (from several angles) before it was taken apart will be a big help. This will help insure you don’t later have problems with harness chaffing, and everything is back together the way it came from the factory.

Valve cover leaks / Exhaust Camshaft sensor O ring

Many owners have reported oil leaks around the left side of the valve cover when the bike is left parked overnight or longer on the side stand. The oil leak is usually not enough to be seen on the ground and is only noticed after the bike is started, when the heat from the headers causes any oil that got onto the pipes to smoke. Just a few drops of oil is all it takes to cause enough smoke to be noticed on startup. Normally once the bike warms up a bit, the smoke clears and the problem doesn’t return until the bike is parked again.

The cause of this small oil leak can come from a couple of sources. The first one is obvious, and the valve cover gasket itself can be to blame. However, getting to and replacing the valve cover on this bike is more than just a small undertaking, and sometimes the gasket itself is not the real cause of the leak. Also worth noting is that the valve cover design uses shouldered bolts that butt up against bosses in the head when tightened, thus the actual amount of pressure the bolts can put on the valve cover to squeeze the gasket is a fixed amount, and over tightening the bolt will only result in pulling the soft aluminum threads out of the head. The torque spec on the valve cover bolts is only 87 in/lbs or about 7.2 ft/lbs. Owners would be wise to resist the temptation to try to fix this leak by attempting to over-tighten the bolts. Closer inspection will reveal that there is a rubber washer, (covered with a metal hat) under the head of each valve cover bolt. The purpose of this washer is to insure that the amount of pressure put on valve cover gasket is uniform when the bolts are tightened, and it also serves to add pressure to the valve cover gasket by taking up space between the bolt head and valve cover, thus causing more downward pressure to be exerted on the gasket. Over time, these rubber washers can become deformed, and this will reduce the amount of pressure put on the gasket. Some owners have suggested putting small “shim” type washers under the heads of each bolt to increase the pressure, and while this may work, if the washer thickness is not very carefully selected, it may put too much pressure on the valve cover gasket and deform it and ruin it over time. A better solution would be to simply purchase new rubber washers at a cost of under $4 each (P/N 92055-0187 ). There are a total of 6 of these washers needed so total cost to replace them all would be around $25. A new valve cover is about $40, and this could also be replaced if desired, but unless the valve cover gasket is noticeably deformed or damaged, it should be reusable without issue.

Another source of oil leaks in the left forward side of the head is the exhaust cam position sensor. This sensor is installed in the front side of the head and secured with a 10mm bolt. The sensor has a small O ring installed on it that is intended to prevent oil from leaking out of the head. The problem is when the bike is shut off, oil pools in the front left corner of the head when on the side stand, so this sensor as well as the valve cover gasket in this area is totally submerged in oil for long periods of time. If there is even the tiniest fault or gap in either the valve cover gasket or cam position sensor, oil will find a way to migrate through it. What Kawasaki should have done is provide an oil drain back hole in the front side of the head so that oil wouldn’t pool in this location when the engine is shut off. The O ring on the exhaust cam sensor also appears to be a bit undersized, and doesn’t always provide a tight enough fit to prevent oil leaks. And since  this sensor is right under the left forward side of the valve cover gasket, it can sometimes make it hard to tell if the leak is coming from the gasket or the sensor. The best way to determine where a leak is coming from is to first clean the entire area, and then see if you can observe with a bright light where the leak returns from. Another old trick is to clean up any existing oil and then spray some talcum powder around the suspect area, and then look for traces of the leak in the powder.

Folks on the COG forum have discussed the cam sensor O ring topic at length, and after some measurements of the O ring were taken, a suitable substitute for it has been located that will provide a better fit than the original. I located a place on-line that sells this size O ring for 93 cents each. If you go to http://www.theoringstore.com and search for V2.40X016.3 it should bring up a page with an O ring in the proper size. The dimensions of the O ring are 2.4mm by 16.3mm and it is made of Viton which is good to about 400 degrees F. Another source located is through McMaster-Carr (http://www.mcmaster.com) and their part number is 9263K686. The only downside to purchasing them from McMaster-Carr is you have to buy them in packs of 20 for $12, so you might want to share a few with any other owners you meet at COG rallies if you order a pack from them.

You will have to remove the right side plastic to access the bolt to remove the exhaust cam sensor, and access in this area is tight. Removing the radiator mounting bolts and pushing the radiator forward will give you better access. You might also want to tighten the exhaust header nuts while you are in there. When installing the sensor with this new

O ring on it, you will probably notice that it can be a bit difficult to get the sensor back in and this is due to compression required on the larger O ring. Be careful that you don’t cut or nick the O ring on the sharp machined surface of the head when installing it. You may need to lubricate the O ring some to get the sensor in, and a little persistence and force will probably be needed. Just be patient and persistent and you should be able to get it to fit, and once you do, it should no longer leak and you shouldn’t have to ever mess with it again for the life of the bike. It’s also worth mentioning that the intake cam position sensor uses this same O ring, but due to its top mounted position on the valve cover, it does not seem to have a problem with leaking.

The end is nigh

I originally started blogging as reflective practice for my teaching work, but when I got into riding writing about it seemed like a good way to share a new passion and maybe help a few people out if they're stuck with the same technical issues.

TMD is (by far) my most successful blog with almost two million views and posts being published in magazines both in Canada and the UK.

When I first started readership was strong (and human) and every so often someone would recognize me or the bike and ask about the blog, which always felt good. Since COVID readership has fallen, those chance meetings have all but dried up and, from what I can tell, most of the hits these days come from AI engines stealing my words.

On top of that the blogosphere has long since been handed over to corporate marketing schemes that pay 'influencers' to produce (advertising) content that is artificially pushed to the top of your  searches and feeds. Good content earning reader eyeballs is a quaint relic of a bygone internet.

Rather than continue to give away my thoughts to big tech AI engines who are more than happy to burn down countries to raise their bottom line, I'm folding up Tim's Motorcycle Diaries. I'll still be leaning into corners and working on bikes in the garage, but I'm not sharing it to the benefit of this broken internet anymore.

What pushed me into action was reading Cory Doctorow's Enshittification. I'd urge you to buy it from your local independent book shop and give it a read. If you get it from Amazon you'll regret it by chapter five. Having wrapped it up now, I know that things are bad (I knew that already), but I also know that things could improve, which is where I think I'll put my energy.

If you've been reading TMD for a while, thank you for your support. If you think today's internet has anything to do with pointing you to your interests, give your head a shake

Rather than reading the paid for content being fed to you, get out and wrench and ride in the real world. That's where I'll be.

Over 1.7 million page views since 2013... most of those pre-COVID.

Triumph 955i Stalling Issues.... Fixed!?!

 Facebook slapped me in the face with this this morning:

...so I went on a mission.

I pulled the tank (for the millionth time?) and set up the 955i Triumph Tiger so I could try many different things to test if the idle was working. Previously I'd followed the manual, but no longer!

I did the usual checks for vacuum leaks and I continue to suspect the overly complicated and no longer supported idle control system. After trying everything I'd tried before, I decided to go OFF BOOK.

If I can't fix this @*&%ing thing perhaps I can hack it! With the bike in test mode (plugged in and ready to run with all sensors attached), now is the moment to try some alternatives, so I pulled the entire idle control system and tried variations without it.

I plugged the servo back in because I figured leaving it unplugged might piss off the computer. I also removed the end of the servo so it wouldn't interfere with the airbox and then blocked off the airbox with Gorilla Tape.

I'd also done my due diligence by balancing the throttle bodies and making sure everything else was plugged in as normal. I also reflashed the computer through Tuneboy with the South African map I found a few years ago.

 So what happens when you remove the entire (problematic) idle control system in a Triumph 955i engine and simply connect the vacuum tubes out of the throttle body to each other?

Well, it seems to have fixed everything. The bike idles right where the computer sets it, the backfiring problem is gone and the motor fuels smoothly (though this is probably in large part due to that fantastic South African fuel map). Best of all, no more stalling.

That's the work around. I got some silicon tubing from Amazon along with some T connectors (maybe $30 all in?). The last round of Triumph replacement parts cost me north of $200 and when I had to start buying used parts (because Triumph has stopped supporting their own bikes) and getting them shipped over to Canada it cost even more... but this hack is thirty bucks in parts and I also have a pile of unused silicon tubing and T connectors left over. I attached the silicon hoses to the T connector and then into each of the throttle bodies, so it's a closed loop with no chance of leaks.

In the pic you can see the idle control servo (black object above the intakes on the left side). That's what it looks like with the plunger removed. It still moves up and down but has nothing to do with moderating vacuum between the airbox and the throttle bodies which is what has caused me years of headaches.

I'm so jumpy about the motor falling through idle and stalling (it's a perilous place to be when you're on the road on a bike that keeps cutting out), but this hack hasn't just solved the idle problem, it has also resolved all of the other issues. The bike idles steady right where I set it in Tuneboy, but more surprising is that the backfiring that had crept in is completely gone. The bike feels tight, full powered and like it did years ago. My only thought now is that it might hurt the gas mileage, but I'll keep an eye on that as I get some miles under me this summer.

It still starts like normal. I'm occasionally getting a high idle (3-4 thousand RPM), but as I rode it that happened less - like the computer was figuring out the new normal. I'm curious to see if not having that system in affects cold starting but that's not going to be an issue for the next four months, and I don't mind being my own choke if it means a steady idle.

Kawasaki Concours C14 1400GTR Valve Check Finished! (finally)

 It took the better part of four months over the winter thanks to lots of work travel stretching things out, but the C14 is back together again and runs like a top. The engine doesn't feel as tight, which makes sense as all the valve shims needed were to resolve the overly tight valves.

The Bay of Fundy near Saint John (latest work trip)

It still does the clatter when you first start it (it's to do with the cam chain tensioner needing oil
pressure to fully engage - it's part of the engine design). The bike has always done that but now that I've laid hands on the thing itself it's helpful in understanding how it all works. Knowing how complicated just the top of that motor is gives me a new sense of satisfaction hearing it run well.

I'm back from yet another work trip but managed to take the big Kwak for a spin last weekend and it pulls like it always has (which is to say like a nuclear missile). Today I'm going to finally do the oil change it was owed last fall and we should be on track for regular use this summer.

The question now becomes do I sell it on during the riding season or keep it having done this soul crushing maintenance job. Based on what I saw in there I'm betting I was the first to do it (at 45k kms). Considering the complexity of this job, I can understand why.

Part of that decision will come down to whether or not I've solved the Tiger's fueling issues. If I have, I might sell the big (and expsnsive to insure) Kawasaki and do the summer on a dependable Tiger, though the C14 is a much more comfortable two up appliance if anyone wants to come for a ride with me.

A confirmed fix on the Tiger's aging fuel injection system would make me consider going to one bike this summer.

Kawasaki Concours C14 1400GTR Valve Check Part 3.2: frame reassembly after a valve job

 Some pictures to help me put this complicated 3d puzzle back together again properly.

https://www.kawasaki.com/en-us/owner-center/parts/5128/2010/ZG1400CAF

https://www.kawasaki.com/en-us/owner-center/parts/5127/2010/ZG1400CAF

Kawasaki Concours C14 1400GTR Valve Check Part 3.1 - References for putting the plugs back together again on top of the valve cover

Tools for finding what goes where (it's spaghetti in there!).

The comprehensive disassembly video shared previously: https://youtu.be/5JP0_Kv7x5w?si=Ictk8g8qK3e_hB3m 

Pipe in the foreground right is the routing for the coolant line to the overflow tank.

White plug in black reed valve centre plug.

https://youtu.be/RvQjEvCSGvI?si=CCvs4HMMJBEHfooM

Big grey plug under the throttle cables

Wobbly and somewhat non-linear, but another disassembly video:: https://youtu.be/b-HDezrXSc0?si=hlvAZWdhF7Qg7hoC

Black wire from throttle bodies to cam sensor on valve cover.

Definitely white plug in black reed cover.

Kawasaki Concours C14 1400GTR Valve Check Part 3 - Putting it back together again

It's a slow process putting all this back together again. Even with a prolific number of photos and copious notes here on the blog I'm finding this a fiddly and frustrating process. My current plan is to get everything plugged in, top up the radiator and run it to make sure it's back together right before buttoning it up (there are a f(@# ton of  buttons).

The latest fun has been plugging the plethora of plugs over the valve cover back in.

I've got a couple of plugs (21) left after connecting everything else. The question now becomes: are oxygen sensor plugs not used on a 2010 Canadian market bike? 

Got the plugs in, except for those two top left of the rat's nest.

Here's a close-up. That white one has me baffled but perhaps it's the front cam sensor.

Tomorrow (assuming the late March ice storm we have in store doesn't throw us back to the stone age), I'll check for oxygen sensors on the exhaust, and if not there I'll know that one of those plugs is probably unused.

The ice storm was persistent but mainly pretty - no hydro lines down around here.

Other things to check are the front cam sensor (7-R on the diagram) which was very difficult to reinstall with a new o-ring. That plug is probably dangling down the front and needs to find a mate on top of the motor (looks like it's plumbed in under the front plastic guard). If that's my missing plug and the other one is an unused oxygen sensor then I'm about there.

After that gets settled I'll do one last look around for anything I might have missed before topping up the radiator and seeing if this thing'll run. If does I'll reroute the wires properly and should have it back to a point where I can start reinstalling all the fairings - which is a whole separate pain in the @$$, but at least one I've done before.

Then things get philosophical. Work has picked up and I don't have the patience or headspace to spend hours each weekend keeping these old bikes in motion. The temptation is to get $10k (CAD) between them and then buy something that can go when I need it to without so much TLC. 

I can save the wrench turning for when I retire. I enjoy working on them but trying to do a job this complex when I'm having to leave it for weeks on end while travelling makes a difficult job more so. Had I the time and space to do this daily when I wasn't juggling a demanding job, it'd have been an entirely different experience.

I'm loving the travel opportunities and my work is something I enjoy, but the deep bike maintenance doesn't fit with it at this point.

Haliburton was magical...

Flying out to the maritimes is never a bad thing...

...but those weeks away mean I'm coming back to an incredibly complicated job sometimes 20 days after I last touched it.

I've never made enough to be sentimental about vehicles and keep everything (I'd rather put those resources toward travel anyway). Time to simplify the bike stable to let me focus on riding when I can squeeze it in. I'll save the time suck that is older bike ownership for when I have more time to suck.