- Location
- The Land Northward (Bountiful), Utah
Jonny's bike needed some love. He doesn't get on here much so I'm going to help him document it.
05 CRF450x
After 7 years of relentless beatings it started to show. This bike virtually defies logic: with what we estimate to be over 700 hours or 4-5K miles on the ODO, The valves have only needed to be shimmed once.
Requiring only the finest in clean-room work spaces we selected and old paint/ storage shed chock full of crappy VW parts, painting supplies, an ancient fridge and various cast offs from remodeling jobs.
I also was able to locate a Fisher-Price 1 Mega Pixel digital camera and proceeded to smear vasoline on the lens carefully before each picture below.
Real motorcycle stands are for chumps! So I located one of my mother-in-law's kitchen chairs and proceeded to carefully modify it with a hammer.
After the careful preparation; we tore the bike down to replace some stuff and upgrade it.
First the wheels were a little beat up so we pulled the tires and sanded the wheels and painted them with some really tough black industrial enamel. (We'll see how it holds up).
Second the triple tree/ headset bearings where toast. He used a press to pull the old races out of the headset, but he didn't think to press the new ones in.
So we created a tool to do it by brazing a leveling foot from a big machine to a piece of rebar. It worked perfectly (I made sure not to take a picture so that fancy motorcycle shops wouldn't steal my idea).
Header Pipe needed some love, so we yanked it in favor of a whole new exhaust system from Yoshimura (RS-2 system).
The airbox on these bikes is notoriously constrictive, in fact, they have a snorkel and a huge screen, so following this video from RMATV/MC, we modded the airbox by cutting out a huge section.
I attempted to show our un-amused female observer how restrictive these two elements are by placing them in front of my face and trying to run around. Female giggles ensued, while I feebly mentioned something to the effect of sprinting while breathing through a straw...
[video=youtube;uZ3B7NJxKog]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3B7NJxKog&src_vid=iIyl50J1rzk&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_2737876499[/video]
Airbox comes out after unbolting the rear fenders and rear subframe.
and remove the screen from the filter cage. (it's actually two screens layered)
We also capped off all the SMOG garbage.
After a new pipe and all the airbox mods we needed to rejet it to take advantage of the new bikes new ability to breath.
So knowing this he ordered a JD Jet kit.
I yanked the carb and got to work.
New needle is the JD RED needle with clip in the 4th position
Did the O-ring mod to the accelerator pump using the JD provided "FAT O-ring."
We also went from a 142 main jet to a 170 according to JD's recommendations. (We both thought it was odd that they didn't have us change the other jets.
After that, we got started reassembly on the front end (I'm glad Vaughn posted about not over tightening the triple tree clamps).
After finishing the front end, I left at 10:30pm
He picked up another friend from the airport at 10:45pm and they worked into the night and got the rear end buttoned up.
Now all that is left is: plastics, header pipe gasket and heat shield, and the Rekluse EXP 3.0
Not cheap but much cheaper than a new bike.
05 CRF450x
After 7 years of relentless beatings it started to show. This bike virtually defies logic: with what we estimate to be over 700 hours or 4-5K miles on the ODO, The valves have only needed to be shimmed once.
Requiring only the finest in clean-room work spaces we selected and old paint/ storage shed chock full of crappy VW parts, painting supplies, an ancient fridge and various cast offs from remodeling jobs.
I also was able to locate a Fisher-Price 1 Mega Pixel digital camera and proceeded to smear vasoline on the lens carefully before each picture below.
Real motorcycle stands are for chumps! So I located one of my mother-in-law's kitchen chairs and proceeded to carefully modify it with a hammer.
After the careful preparation; we tore the bike down to replace some stuff and upgrade it.
First the wheels were a little beat up so we pulled the tires and sanded the wheels and painted them with some really tough black industrial enamel. (We'll see how it holds up).
Second the triple tree/ headset bearings where toast. He used a press to pull the old races out of the headset, but he didn't think to press the new ones in.
So we created a tool to do it by brazing a leveling foot from a big machine to a piece of rebar. It worked perfectly (I made sure not to take a picture so that fancy motorcycle shops wouldn't steal my idea).
Header Pipe needed some love, so we yanked it in favor of a whole new exhaust system from Yoshimura (RS-2 system).
The airbox on these bikes is notoriously constrictive, in fact, they have a snorkel and a huge screen, so following this video from RMATV/MC, we modded the airbox by cutting out a huge section.
I attempted to show our un-amused female observer how restrictive these two elements are by placing them in front of my face and trying to run around. Female giggles ensued, while I feebly mentioned something to the effect of sprinting while breathing through a straw...
[video=youtube;uZ3B7NJxKog]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3B7NJxKog&src_vid=iIyl50J1rzk&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_2737876499[/video]
Airbox comes out after unbolting the rear fenders and rear subframe.
and remove the screen from the filter cage. (it's actually two screens layered)
We also capped off all the SMOG garbage.
After a new pipe and all the airbox mods we needed to rejet it to take advantage of the new bikes new ability to breath.
So knowing this he ordered a JD Jet kit.
I yanked the carb and got to work.
New needle is the JD RED needle with clip in the 4th position
Did the O-ring mod to the accelerator pump using the JD provided "FAT O-ring."
We also went from a 142 main jet to a 170 according to JD's recommendations. (We both thought it was odd that they didn't have us change the other jets.
After that, we got started reassembly on the front end (I'm glad Vaughn posted about not over tightening the triple tree clamps).
After finishing the front end, I left at 10:30pm
He picked up another friend from the airport at 10:45pm and they worked into the night and got the rear end buttoned up.
Now all that is left is: plastics, header pipe gasket and heat shield, and the Rekluse EXP 3.0
Not cheap but much cheaper than a new bike.
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