Friday, May 30, 2014

Chopper motorcycles - UPDATE...

So, the infamous shifting issue appeared to be due to the shift pawl being out of adjustment and/or the shift lever going into the spline shaft of the transmission was loose.  Dealer did the adjustments, put the bike back together, and all was good...for a while.

About a week or so after picking up the bike, I noticed a good sized puddle of some sort of oil under the bike.  Thought perhaps the tranny was over-filled as it was just worked on by the dealer, and it was a very hot day out.  However, the problem never went away, so after a few days the bike was back to the dealer. 

Dealer looks at it and determines it's the transmission trap door seal that's leaking.  Now, keep in mind that this is not your typical leak where it's just an annoyance of spotting the garage floor.  Oh HELL NO!!!  This is a leak that basically appears to be on the order of being able to drain the entire tranny overnight!  Hence, a REAL PROBLEM!!!!!

Was informed by the dealer that the repair would run about $430.  Yeah, that's just fuck'n peachy, but at least I don't need to rebuild or replace the fucking tranny! 
Dealer calls me the day they are working on it to inform me that once they got into the thing to repair the seal, they found pieces if the shift dogs floating around in the tranny.  Now, I'm no mechanic, but this just doesn't sound good!  They then proceed to inform me that...yep...you guessed it...the fucking tranny needs to be rebuilt!  Or replaced, as that might even be cheaper.  I'm not sure, but I think this bike is just out to get me!

Well fucking lucky me, I was able to find a brand new right side drive, 6 speed, hydraulic tranny for $660, and with the 6 hours labor from the dealer to install, I'll have the damn thing fixed for around $1200 out the door.

Let's see, bike has just over 28,000 miles on it, and within a few months it needed a seal fixed, and now this!  

UN-FUCKIN-REAL!!!!!!

At least now when I sell it, I can advertise that it has a brand new transmission!

Like I've said before, I love choppers, but I have given up owning them.  Maybe if I hit the lotto, or ever get bored enough in my life where I want to work on a project bike, I'd get another one.  But until then, no thanks!

Monday, March 17, 2014

Chopper motorcycles...

I love motorcycles in the chopper genre.  However, my view is changing.  Perhaps it's a matter of the older I get, the less problems I want to have with a bike, and the more comfortable I want
it to be.

Let's start with the problems...
My 2005 Big Dog had the following issues, some of which were just a bit annoying, others were VERY major:
- Big Dog stock exhausts were atrocious.  I went thru 5 of them before they owned up to the problem, and were replaced by Arlen Ness pipes
- The front fork seals leaked, and were fixed twice by me, then final fix was done by Arlen Ness.
- The front headlight would constantly break it's bolt, causing it to fall off.
- At around 56,000 miles, the motor needed re-boring as it was burning oil, which was not done until (see the next line)...
- At around 57,000 miles, the oil pump ceased functioning due to a piece of valve guide breaking off inside the motor, and jamming the oil pump
- At around 60,000 miles, the transmission broke a gear in half due to the counter shaft bolt inside coming loose
- The swing arm bolt on the right side broke, TWICE!!!  Even though the first fix was using the Big Dog new and improved bolt, it broke within about a year
- Clutch cable broke about 5 fucking times!!! 
- At 87,000 miles, the rear cylinder head gasket was leaking, thus in need of replacement.  Sold bike at this point.
- Electronics sucked!!! The bike got to the point where it would simply go completely dead while riding, occurring maybe once a month or so.  Replacing the crappy ECM fixed it.

There are those that would say that many times a suspected bad ECM would turn out to not be the actual ECM module, but would instead be a connector.  Thus, even though replacing suspected ECM  fixed the issue, it was really the re-seating, or replacement of a connector that fixed it.  To this I say "So fucking what?!??!".  OK, that was a bit broad of a statement, so allow me to elaborate. 

Yes, it may very well be that a connector was at fault during past times when an owner would either replace the ECM with another ECM, or do as I did, and replace it, and the shitty connectors  with a third party solution.  However, I look at the ECM thing as being more a total system, not just one individual component.  And, as a system, IT SUCKS!

Big Dog chose to use a non-Harley, non-standardized method of electronics, using 5 volt signals running to all the switches and such that in turn tells the ECM module what to do.  I suppose  the lower voltage is what instigated the use of the little tiny bullshit connectors.  Yeah, there's a great fucking idea!  Let's use little tiny fucking connectors on a machine that has a rigid mounted, unbalanced 117 cubic inch motor (ie: high vibration), that is also going to be ridden, at times, through the rain (IE: things get wet).
OK, so we have high levels of vibration, and things getting wet.  Oh yeah, gee, what could go wrong?.  OK, so maybe I don't know shit about anything, but then again, I do know a thing or two  about electronics (Bachelors degree in Electronic Engineering Technology), and over 30 years experience in the field.  To please the people who want to stick to the notion that the ECM is not at fault most of the time, then let's put it this way: "The ECM SYSTEM is at fault almost all the time!!!".

Now let's move onto my second chopper, the 300RS made by Proper Chopper:
- Bike never did start real well.  Never seemed to have the same cranking speed as what I'm used to, and numerous times it would stop cranking with a loud clunk.
- Front fork seal leak (what is it with me and fork seals anyway!)
- Motor pings like crazy under load, especially on freeway when getting on it.  Probably not jetted right.
- Voltage regulator fell off while riding due to the flimsy peice of shit sheet metal bracket cracking in half.
- Tire rubs on wire going into tail light bolt on left side due to insufficient clearance.  Had to cut a slot in the bolt for the wire to give it more room.
- Paint quality is awful!  Looks really good, but something was not done right in the paint procees as pot marks appeared on the rear fender, followed by cracks in the paint on the gas tank.
- Transmission seal leak developed after a few months of ownership
- Transmission shifting issue, with false neutrals, that have now become a fourth gear issue where it sometimes requires several attempts to get it into gear. 3rd gear sometimes has the same
problem.
- At one point the bike kept blowing a fuse, causing it to die.  This was due to wire under frame having been worn thru, shorting to frame.
- Speedometer added an extra 17,000 miles onto the odometer.  The speedo was also a peice of crap to use.  Replaced with Dakota.

So then one realizes that the builders of the bike did some things wrong, such as:
* Regulator bracket
* Wiring placed/installed in such a way that it gets worn thru within a few thousand miles
* Incorrect jetting
* Improper clearance for rear tail light wire to tire

Which then leads one to think: "So what else did they do haphazardly?". 
I mean, fuck, they got the above mentioned obvious things wrong, so what else did they fuck up?  Maybe the starting issue is due to something they did wrong, like improper alignment of  something.  Maybe the tranny seal leak was caused by something installed wrong.  Who knows?  But the above data certainly does not point to a good track record!

And now I'm trying to tackle the tranny shift issue on my own. Holy fucking Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick, what a fucking hassle!!! 

I'm looking at the thing thinking: "Oh, I'll just pop out the oil tank which is blocking access to the top of the tranny, remove the top cover, and I'll be there".  Oh, fuck yeah, after 2+ hours of pulling shit off, and kicking and screaming!" 

It begins with the fact that 2 of the bolts can't be removed for the oil tank because they sit behind an area that you can pretty much only get to by removing the rear tire and splash guard.  OK, got that done.  Now it will not squeeze out thru the side of the bike as it hits the ground wire going to the starter.  OK, got that removed.  Still a tight squeeze, but managed to finally get the fucking oil tank out.  Remove the 4 screws holding the tranny cover on, and now the fucking thing won't come at as it hits the starter.  OK, loosen starter, cuss up a storm again, and the fucking cover finally pops off.  At this point I'm thnking it's a miracle that I didn't have to pull the engine, front forks and handlebars!!!  FUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I'm staring at the key element that lead me down this hell path...the shift pawl!  Seems simple enough now, just tweak the adjuster, which is an allen bolt, until the shift pawl is centered...TO WITHIN 0.01 FUCKING INCHES!!!!!"  Meaning, you look at the gap on one side of the pawl to the one pin on the shift drum, then look at the same gap on the other side, and adjust so the difference between the gaps is within 0.01".  REALLY?!??!!?  This is 1/100 of an inch!!!  Stack 2 human hairs and that's about the fucking width!  I guess I can forget about eye balling this thing!  I know, I know...there are feeler gauges and such out there for such a task.  However, it seems that there is going to be at least 0.01" worth of slop in the mechanism as you move the thing about.  Now only that, but one is suppose to loosen the jam nut, tweak the allen screw, tighten the jam nut, and maintain the 0.01" during all that tightening of stuff?

FUCK!

Yeah, and I can just see it now.  I'm going to spend hours, cursing and sweating over this fucking thing, only to get it all re-assembled, only to have it not work!  Which means taking to a steep cliff...er...oops!...sorry...got carried away there!  I mean, take it the dealer to have them fuck with it.  And what's the first thing that they'll do?  Probably take it apart to the point where I already had it torn down to. 

I'm thinking that I will take the fucking bike to the dealer BEFORE re-assembling it.  That way I at least save on the labor of them tearing it down.  Let them pull their hair out over this  thing, then proceed to charge me an arm and a left nut as with my luck, it's something deep within the bowels of it that's fucked up!  Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic.  Maybe they'll look at it, and will say "Oh, there's your problem right there!", and proceed to fix in within minutes, and charge me about $2.99!  OK, that's being a bit overly optimistic.  Realistically though, I'm leaning towards "I'M FUCKED!".

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Windows programming frustrations...

I like programming, but...

Writing a Windows program using Windows API sometimes can be about as much fun as being covered in molasses, then buried up to your neck next to an ant hill!

Now, that said, it's not really fair for me to rant against something that, due to my ignorance of the subject, makes as much sense as quantum physics, but it's my damn site, so I'll rant at whatever the fuck I feel like!

It's probably obvious at this point that I am currently trying to write a Windows program, and am getting, to say the least, a tad frustrated!  That said, perhaps every programmer out there requires a whole day to simply get a fucking button added to their main Window, and then another two days to get the fucking button to actually do something once you fucking click on it!  I know if I understood the Windows API more, and general Windows programming, it wouldn't require me to go thru such trials and tribulations, but damn!

It seems every step of the way is more like a stumble, where I slowly grasp just enough examples and information from the web to apply to my program, and sit back and watch it fall on it's face, and the fucking thing will not even compile.  On top of that, the error messages from the compiler are about as clear as trying to see thru tar! 
One persistent error message was due to the fact that the settings of my project had to use a multi-byte character set instead of unicode.  DAMN!  How did I miss that one!   Pretty bad when you read the answer to the problem, and the answer makes less sense than the original problem!
So, here I am, after three days of coding, and I've managed to get a program running that has one button, one listbox, and clicking on the button actually does something.  Of course, it would sure be nice if I could get that fucking listbox to co-operate, with lines of text being written to it, but alas, we are at yet another stumbling block.  Nothing another day or so of researching won't fix, assuming I can hold onto my sanity that long.

So here I am, the following day, and I've pretty much given up on the listbox thing.  Sort of got it working, but not really the way I wanted it, so I figured I'd move onto an easier way to get my program to function.  Basically, dump the stupid listbox, and use the simple TextOut function to simply spit out to the main Window the text that I want to display.  Looks like I'm onto something as I don't really need to have a button on my Window.  I was going to have the user click the button that would then execute the stuff that I need to run, but I can simply have the stuff run once the program launches.  Beautiful!  No fucking buttons to deal with, and with my newfound TextOut command, no fucking Listboxes either.  I may actually be getting somewhere!

But of course this being Windows programming, it just has to get difficult, doesn't it.

And difficult it quickly became. 

One thing I want my program to do is to simply find out how many files are in a given directory.  Seems simple enough, doesn't it?  I mean, there just has to be a function I can call that's built into Windows that will provide this number to me. 

Well, after combing the web for a bit, I have come to the conclusion that this function either doesn't fucking exist, or it does, and I just cannot find the fucking thing!
How ludicrous is this!!! 

It's no wonder that there are many people out there that hate programming! 
In forging ahead, I created my own function that provides me with the count of files in a directory... hot fucking damn!  Now we're getting somewhere!  Though at this pace, that place is going to be the insane asylum!

Managed to plod along and got my program functioning, and providing the information to the user as I wanted.  However, one more stumbling block!  What else would you expect from Windows programming.

One of the things my program does is provide the number of records in a given Windows Event log.  Managed to get this all working, but I wanted to refine it a bit.  Once thing that is nice to do in any program is error checking.  This is done as one should never assume that just because, for instance, a Windows event log should exist, that is does indeed exist.  Windows might get rather upset if you call a function that has an Event log name as one of its parameters, when in reality the Event log name does not exist after all.  Can be bad news as Windows will at times just go fucking nuts, as it pokes around looking for something, then basically says "ah, fuck it!  You want a pointer to an object?  OK, here's your fucking pointer!!!!", and proceeds to point to something like, oh, I don't know, an empty spot in memory?  Can you say "blue screen of death"?  I knew you could.

So, bottom line, error checking it a good thing. 

Turns out the one function I use simply opens the supplied Windows Event log, and if it fails, it returns what they call a NULL value.  I'm thinking, "Great!  Doesn't get much simpler than this.  All I got to do after the function call is to check if the returned value is NULL.  It it's NULL, then print out an error message, and have the program exit".

But noooooo!   Of course it can't be that easy.  Wouldn't be Windows if something actually worked as expected!

What happens is that all compiles just fine, and the program runs just fine and dandy.  Then, to test out the error checking, I supply a name for an event log that does not exist.  Obviously if the function tried to access an Event log that does not exist, it HAS to come back with a NULL value... that's the way it's suppose to work.  So, what does my program do?  It moves merrily along with a returned value that is not NULL, meaning it was happy to open the Event log that does not even fucking exist!  What the fuck, is this thing on crack!

I don't know, maybe another few days of banging my head against the wall will get this resolved.  Either that, or an uzi to the fucking PC!

Chopper ride

Chopper ride
Nice wooded area heading out of Booneville towards the coast.