Head shake

To be determined.

Define "old". I never had a tire last more than three years on that bike.

-Scott

 

You really *really* don't know this country.

 

Oh FOR ****'s SAKE! Again with this cure-all?

Make the steering quicker on a bike that's already giving him grief?

You know, you're a worthy successor to the late great Hoyt sometimes.

 

He didn't use an upper case P, so he may or not be referring to the firm
by that name. There are other manufacturers.

This assumes that the aftermarket spring doesn't have more widely spaced
coils elsewhere

On old CB900s and the like, you just used to pour in the recommended
quantity and not measure air gaps etc. Not that I'm denying that it's
the right way of doing things, mind.

Yes. Never seen it happen. You'd have to seriously overfill the leg to
get it that bad.

Look, for years, if not decades, I've known people who've used
aftermarket fork springs and read articles, ranging from small postings
to large technical treatises, recommending them.

I've used them, and thery made a big difference. Massive improvement.
Considering how cheap they were, it was one of the best value mods I've
ever done.

And you're telling the world it's wrong and you're right? That's a wee
bit arrogant.

You're posting a lot of informed and accurate tech stuff and you are
also drawing a lot of wrong conclusions and also omitting as much stuff
as you post.....

 

I'd take any of that over the parking lot at Home Depot.

Went there the other day, was idling out of the lot getting ready to
take a right turn, going about a mile and hour, put just a slight bit of
front braking on and without warning the bike went down.

Stood up to get the bike up and nearly went down myself. Looked down
and the pavement was slick with oil. We aren't talking drips from cars
here, we are talking 2-3 quarts of 10W-40 poured out onto the lot amounts
of oil. Fucking bastards and their shit cars why don't they get the damn
things
repaired!

Unfortunately it had been raining earlier so there were puddles all over
the lot, that's why I missed this one.

I agree, I go over lots of really cruddy city roads as well as steel grate
bridges, and when I hit pavement that's badly grooved the steering
head always wobbles a bit.

If you look at that video of the guy riding over the 8 foot deep pond
that was posted in the rec.motorcycles group last week, the front
steering wobble is -extremely- evident.

Ted

 

It sounds like you've never actually pulled the forks up through the
triple trees to get more front tire grip. Try it, you might learn
something.

Although the machine will turn in quicker, the steering feel is heavier
because there's more traction. The front end doesn't begin to shake so
easily, and speed weaves begin at higher speeds.

How would you like to make a small wager on that, perhaps $10K USD?
;-)

 

I have, I have. I'm still far from certain I'd want to do it on a 1970s
era 900.

Well, indeed.

 

That method is a lot more reversible than cutting the frame and
re-positioning the steering head.

 

Sigh.

Or you could do what Honda did and just bolt a bloody great lump of cast
iron (10lbs plus) onto the front forks.

 

Here in the USA, Progressive Suspension has hijacked the generic term
for a spring that is wound progressively.

Back in the 1970's, Japan Inc. was springing motorcycles so they could
carry about 500 pounds of rider and passenger. Even the little commuter
bikes were sprung ridiculously stiff.

My GT-750 Water Buffalo had 44 pound/inch straight wound springs, as I
recall and it seemed to be perfectly sprung in the front. I had a lot
of confidence in the handling of that machine.

But then Suzuki, in its incrutable wisdom, installed 24 lb/in rate
springs in the front end of my GS-1100.

OK, so the GS-1100 had about 25% more fork travel. Logic would imply
that you could use a 33 pound/inch straight wound spring in a machine
that weighed about as much as the Water Buffalo.

Riders have a hard time predicted the necessary steering input when a
fork is stroking through long travel. That's why the enduance racers
wanted anti-dive suspension and that's what they got with the GS-1100
with its compression blow off valves.

But the forks still moved up and down too much for the taste of a lot
of riders. That's why they installed stiffer progressively wound
Progressive Suspension springs.

As the closely wound coils collapse and bind on each other, it's like
having a variable length preload spacer to work on the remaining coils.

No, I'm saying that Progressive Suspension makes the same spring to fit
multiple models and that they haven't tested every possible
installation.

 

This is utter, utter nonsense. The small commuter bikes of the day were,
in the main, sprung too softly. My Honda CD175 could be bottomed out
with ease. Ditto just about every Jap bike of 250cc or under, especially
Hondas.

Grim memories of CB250G5s, CJ250s, and the like.

Of course, "little commuter bikes" may mean 400cc+ in the US, but for
the rest of the world, it means 250cc and under and in that bracket, you
really are talking crap.

 

But you weighed *twice* the designed solo rider weight.

Hondas are light duty, disposa-cycles.

When you talk to a Californian about a "commuter bike" he may living 50
miles from work and be thinking about the possibility of braving the
freeway traffic jam on nice days in order to "save" money on gasoline.

But to Euros, a "commuter bike" might be a 49cc moped capable of
zipping through lines of traffic so he can ride 6 kilometers home for a
two hour lunch.

 

For ****'s sake. You do yourself no favours, you know that?

Let's start with weight - who says I weighed twice the design weight?
You mean I'm twice as heavy as a Jap (or was)? At the time, that was
unlikely and secondly....

...well, I remember overhearing some arsehole at a bike show
knowledgeably explaining to his mate that the trouble with Jap bikes was
that they were designed for Japs and therefore didn't fit westerners.

The Japanese design for export markets, you know.

In fact, for a hell of a long time, big bikes were not intended for the
home market at all because of the Jap licence limits and their odd bike
test requirements which stated that you had to be able to pick the bike
up from lying-on-its-side. And not many could pick up (say) a Z1.

Secondly, your Honda comments. So derisory I'll leave them.

Thirdly, your idea of European riding.....

It's true that a helluva lot of Nifty Fifties are sold over here. That's
because they're ideal town transport - no jams, free parking, and we're
allowed to lane-split. Economical, too - remember our juice is highly
taxed and so costs about US$8.50 per (imperial) gallon. Oh, and you're
allowed to ride them at 14 in some countries (though not the UK).

But this appears to be the recurring theme in your discourses: sweeping
generalisations that, if qualified, might have some truth in them, but
which otherwise come out as a kind of Usenet long drawn-out fart. "Brits
don't know about sports bikes because they don't have the roads for
them" sort of thing.

I mean, I know a lot of people who say the Yanks can't ride for toffee
because all their roads are straight - and that's rubbish too.

"Jap commuter bikes were too stiffly sprung" - I mean, that's just
*crap*. I wouldn't argue that their suspension was often woefully
under-damped, but that isn't the same thing.

Take a good long hard look at what you're posting, and pull your neck in
a bit, because while you hit the nail on the head sometimes, a lot of
what you post is opinionated drivel.

Knock, knock....

Hello, Hoyt???

 

The infamous Honda "solid-state" steering damper?



Were the ribs used to radiate heat or to improve the structural rigidity of the device?

 

of the device?

Heh. Who knows? Bloody lawnmower/Flintstones engineering, if you ask me.

"It's wobbling, Soichiro."

'Hm. Have we any depleted uranium?'

"Too expensive. Cast iron is cheap, though."

'OK, bolt this lump to the front forks. It'll damp something out.'

Utterly unbelievable.....

 

I think you and Hoyt will probably spend ten thousand years together in
Purgatory, and then you'll decide to marry and live happily ever after.

In the meantime, Progressive Suspension springs suck, and Dynojet kits
are a rip off.

And beware of your Frankenstein centrifugal starter clutch.

 

Eh? If this is a reference to my Morini's Mephistophelian starter motor
system, you're on the money.

If it's a reference to Triumph's starter clutch problem, you're years
out of date. They fixed it ages ago.

In fact - and not for the first time - I can't think wtf you're on
about.

 

I'm "on" about my pret peeves. But you are just generally peevish.

 

Sheesh, man, make your mind up! One minute you want them to repair
their cars, next minute you won't even let them change their oil in the
carpark!

-----sharks

 

You have no idea how much that made me laugh.