Thursday 29 April 2021

Tiger Tales: finding twists and turns in a straight line desert

I know I live in the wrong place when I ride 20 minutes out of my way to find two consecutive corners that let me lean the bike.  One day I'll escape the tedium of Southwestern Ontario and live somewhere with geography that delights rather than depresses.

In early April I rode for over an hour to get to River Road out of Horning's Mills.  That's a 60 minute ride to get 13 minutes of corners, except Ontario, in its wisdom, has decided to make the whole thing a 60km/hr zone now, so you're going so slowly you end up tipping over rather than enjoying the corners.












The other fun thing (besides the tedium of the geography) is that the roads are falling apart after another long Canadian winter. Between that, the lack of geography and ever increasing population pushing speed limits down to dribbling velocity, it's time to find some corners elsewhere on a trip, except there aren't any trips in year two of COVID.

I've still got a stupid grin on my face though because I'm back out on two wheels after nearly a hundred days of the weather trying to kill me.





45 minutes to the east are the Forks of the Credit, a 5km wiggle that follows the Credit River as it tumbles down the Niagara Escarpment.  You actually get a switchback out of it, but the proximity to Toronto means it's usually very busy, even though it wouldn't rate a second look in California or anywhere else with mountains.  I went on a mid-week day and managed a couple of clean runs in the mid-April sun.





















Last weekend I headed south to near Campbellville, another 45 minute slog to get a couple of curves.  I don't usually head that way often because it's perilously close to the GTA, so you not only get tedious roads but also a lot of tedious people.  It took me a couple of tries to get a clean run at it, but even then you're waiting forever for the odd corner.









We live west and south of the Niagara Escarpment (yep, the same cliff Niagara Falls flows over an hour and a half south west of us), which winds around us and up north into Michigan.  It's one of the few geographical features that break up the monotony, but not by much.  After having ridden the Arizona mountains and Vancouver Island's spectacular scenery, it's difficult to take the tedium when you know other people live in places that make riding a thrill.

Not all Ontario is this dull.  As you head east you get into the lake of the woods and the Canadian Shield which offers some interesting riding options, though the road conditions are still rough.

Maybe one of these days I'll get a chance to head out Peterborough/Ottawa way and enjoy the curves the Shield and the lake of the woods offer.

Tuesday 27 April 2021

Kawasaki Concours C14 Suspension Setup





https://forum.concours.org/index.php?threads/setting-the-suspension-on-the-c14.11199/

https://forum.concours.org/index.php?threads/c14-shock-conversion.48702/


From ADVrider: https://advrider.com/f/threads/setting-up-suspension-on-a-concours-14.514158/

I am 6'-3 and about 245-250 Lbs. My settings are as follow:
Forks: 10mm and 4 clicks out (rebound)
Shock: 24 (?) clicks in and 1 click out (rebound)


These settings are a bit stiff but...I like them that way for spirited riding. For 2up, I will just adjust further the shock preload.

Monday 26 April 2021

Kawasaki Concours C14/GTR1400 Extreme Engineering

I took a couple of hours to work on this incredibly complicated machine on the weekend.  My last project was a 1997 Honda CBR900RR Fireblade which was all about minimalism and lightness.  That minimalism made the Honda a delight to work on but the C14 Concours is a very different animal.  Incredibly, the Fireblade weighs 62% of what the Concours does while putting out only slightly less power.  Man, did that bike know how to dance.

As I worked through the front end on the substantial Concours I found example after example of Kawasaki's overly engineered approach to the bike which has piled on the weight, but you can't fault their work, nor the design.  While the C14 is an incredibly complicated thing, it's also a beautiful example of Kawasaki Heavy Industries industrial design.

The circular white thing in the photo on the left is the windshield motor.  The C14 has an electric windshield that raises and lowers at the push of a button.  This one isn't working but the mechanical parts of it seem ok so now I'm chasing wiring in a bike that makes a 747 look simple.








On the right is the battery holder.  Any other bike I've owned makes do with a simple plastic open ended box, but not the Connie.  It gets an interlocking two piece battery holder with built in wiring harness.  The presses that turn these things our are something special!





These are all the gubbins the owner before me had wired into the bike.  He had that massive horn hanging off the back and the GPS system was wired into the front and installed on the handlebar.

With the bike having electrical issues, I'm putting it back to stock before I start thinking about adding in the extras again.

While I was in at the battery I cleaned up all the connectors, some of which were quite rusty.  It's things like that which will trip up electric windshields.





One of the advantages of fairings is that you can hide the mechanical bits underneath, but even when the bits are never going to be seen Kawasaki went overboard with its castings and finish.

That lovely little round clutch cover at the bottom lives under the fairing and would never normally see the light of day, but even then it's a wonderfully detailed and finished piece that only a handy owner or their own technicians would ever see.



Coffin shaped brake and clutch fluid containers?  Why not.

The benefit of this engineering fixation is that the quality of materials used is excellent.  Even though this bike is just over a decade old you wouldn't know it.  Many parts of it look brand new.  Rust on fasteners is all but non-existent and everything comes apart as it was intended.

This is the newest bike I've ever purchased (it's three years newer than my first bike and the KLX, seven years newer than the trusty Tiger and thirteen years newer than the Fireblade).  It's so new that there isn't a Haynes workshop manual for it.  It's the only bike I've ever owned that is still currently in production in much the same state.  The latest Tigers are five generations passed my old 955i.

Next steps are to get the windshield sorted and change out the air filter while I've got the thing in pieces, then it all goes back together and I'll see if my local mechanic can get me in for a safety, then it's time to put some miles on it!



Sunday 25 April 2021

Kawasaki Concours C14 Pneumatic Clutch Bleeding

Following that helpful advice on the ZGGTR.org site below, I gave the clutch bleeding another go yesterday.  I should have assumed there were multiple bleed nipples on this very complex and over engineered motorbike.

That poster suggests using a powered bleeding tool instead of the handpump kind.  My handpump one has been heavily used over the past five years.  The glass on the gauge fell off and the rubber hoses have gotten brittle and don't connect well.  On top of that the pump has started locking up on me so I just happened to get an air-line vacuum bleeding tool only a few weeks ago and it's a revaluation.  If you do bleeding in your own garage and have an air compressor, this thing isn't very expensive, seems well built and holy cow does it bleed!

For about thirty bucks (CAD) this thing makes bleeding a much less fraught experience.  The rubber tubing it comes with is flexible and grippy and makes a secure connection with the bleed nipples.  The vacuum control (the red lever) produces even, strong suction that makes bleeding much easier.

Terrible pic, but I'm pointing at the lower bleed
nipple for the clutch down by the gear change.
Bleeding the complex clutch pneumatic system on the C14 is described at "quite difficult" and the hand pump made that the truth.  The air compressor powered bleeder made producing even, consistent pressure much easier, but I was still unable to get the clutch to firm up until I read that piece below and realized there is a second bleed nipple up by the reservoir on the handlebars.  The GTR1400 is a complex beast, but once you start to get your head around how they engineered it, it all starts to make Connie-sense.

Make sure you're keeping the reservoir topped up with DOT4 brake fluid and bleed the top nipple.  When you're getting consistent fluid out of that one do it all up tight and then do the bottom nipple down by the gear shift.  You have to remove fairing to get to the bottom one.  Strangely, the top nipple is 8mm and the bottom 10mm, so you'll need two wrenches to do the job.

Once you've got the bottom one producing bubble free fluid you can lock it up and the clutch comes back immediately, or at least it did for me.

With the clutch flushed and filled with new DOT4 synthetic, I'm looking for wiring diagrams for the windshield.  The mechanism seems to be in good shape but there is a relay click from somewhere near the ignition module when I press the windshield rising button, so I suspect a bad connection or something electrical is at fault, but I need a wiring diagram to hunt that down.

I was worried that the C14 would be too much of a technical handful to DIY, but it's a beautifully crafted thing engineered to within an inch of its life.  As long as you can get your head around that it's not a particularly overwhelming thing to work on, but then I haven't had to put it all back together yet (keep your fasteners for the complex body-work in order!).

Thanks to ZGGTR.org for this helpful advice:

http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=14429.0

"There are two bleeders; the first one is on the clutch master cylinder, pointing straight up.  The second one is on the slave cylinder which is on the left side of the engine. I believe on Gen. 2 C-14's you are going to have to remove the left fairing to get at that slave cylinder.

Bleed the top bleeder first and continue until the fluid is perfectly clear (no air bubbles or foam in the fluid). Then move onto the second bleeder and continue the same way.

Note that these bikes can be quite difficult to bleed at all, and also to finish bleeding (soft clutch or brakes that are nearly impossible to get the last of the air out of). I ended up buying an air- powered vacuum bleeder in 'self defense' just for this bike but they are expensive. The traditional way of pumping the system and then holding pressure on the lever while cracking the bleeder often just does not work as the system will not pump up in the first place."

https://forum.concours.org/index.php?threads/bleeding-clutch-fluid.4122/


Followup: 
When I finally took the bike out the clutch isn't disengaging drive properly and event though there is some feel at the lever it isn't enough to engage the clutch.  I've run an entire bottle of DOT4 through it and still can't get it clear.  Time for some alternative tricks:

"Ended up holding the mityvac hose right on top of the fluid hole over the piston and pumped the lever while sucking. Seem to clear the problem and got lever pressure back. must have got a particle of dirt in the mechanism."

Another option might be to gravity feed fluid into the bottom bleeder and then draw the fluid (and bubbles) up from the bottom and out of the reservoir.

Speed Bleeders for the C14:

Speed bleeder how to:  https://youtu.be/QVjPVhoPHow  

Positive pressure bleeding is an alternative.  Perth County Moto has a hand pump:  https://perthcountymoto.com/products/eze-brake-bleeder  I wonder if they have any more German police leathers...

Followup Followup:

Finally got the clutch sorted today.  I got a fluid pump with a one way valve in it and pressurized the lower bleed valve and then drew fluid (and bubbles) backwards (bubbles like to go up) out of the reservoir using the vacuum pump.  Lotsa bubble, then less and less, then none.

The initial fluid had a lot of debris in it (little black dots).  Once I got them out there was a little black tornado of very fine debris which I also vacuumed out.  I suspect this system has never been changed (the bike is 11 years old but low miles and minimally maintained).  With all the debris finally out and the fluid clear, more bubble came out (moving the steering side to side seemed to really do the trick).  When no more bubbles came out the clutch feel immediately returned.

I took the bike around the block - great clutch feel and engagement.  That clutch is a f#*@er to bleed!  Next winter the Connie gets a set of Murph's speed bleeders and I'm doing the brakes (which have also probably not been done any time recently).