Ok Bill, since you asked.....
The bike was a 2004, with 35,592 miles on it, and Sir Lancelot purchased it a short while back, but didn't know much about its history...
That would soon change.
After a few conversations on the
he made the mistake of telling me that his local Honda shop quoted him $650 dollars just to change his fork seals, which I replied something to the effect of, heck bring it down here and I'll do your seals, along with your secondary master cylinder, and we'll see what else is wrong with your bike etc.
I tell him what parts to order, and gave him directions to OCD Enterprises.
Next thing I know, he pulls up in front of my house with a trailer in tow
Called my bluff
I have to say, I was really surprised that he was actually riding this thing, in the condition it was in.
We had figured out over the phone that he had brake issues, and leaking fork seals, but I had no idea at what else was lurking beneath the tupperware.....OK, I probably did, but how else was I gonna convince him to let me take his bike Hostage?
First thing I noticed was his front forks were pretty badly misaligned, and his axle was sticking out about a quarter of an inch!
Everything was so far off, that the spools on the brake rotor had CARVED a path into the SMC caliper bracket, the clips were dislodged and rattling around, and the pads were completely oil soaked by the fork seal leak.
When I started removing the front wheel to correct the alignment issues, and rebuild both the forks, I found the axle would not move at all, to which our Knight said he has to take a punch to remove it sometimes? We found that the prior owner had used what appeared to be a ball peen hammer to Install the axle, and in doing so, peened it over so much that it would not even fit into the fork lower
After about two hours of hand filing and dressing, I finally got the axle to smoothly, and correctly fit again.
Once the fork(s) were finished, we found that the front wheel bearings were toast!
Not a problem, I had bearings and dust seals in stock, and had them done pretty quickly.
The rotor spools were banged up pretty good from hitting the SMC bracket, and I dressed out all the scratch marks that I could, made sure they were all still fitting/working correctly, and cleaned them all. All the impact also loosened up the rotor fasteners, so EVERYTHING got checked/inspected/torqued etc.
I then removed the old/damaged/rusted/frozen SMC (with only 35,000 miles on it), and replaced the new one.
Installed clean pads, new pins, clips, and grommets in both front calipers, and moved on.....
The rear brake caliper had a few issues of its own, the pads had been put in incorrectly (the edge of the metal backing plate was sitting on top of the tabs, instead of next to them) and the lower right rear tab got damaged, and folded flat, thus tilting the pads crooked, and pushing the sliding dowel through the rear rubber grommet.
A tell tale sign of one of the things to look for (take notes here) is look at the stopper plug, and look for witness marks (spots wear stuff rubs or touches) You'll see it was touching right at the very tip on one side, and all the way up in the middle of the plug on the other side this is a good visible sign that SOMETHING is crooked
Another thing I personally like to do, is use antiseize on the surface of the stopper plug to keep the steel plug from digging in to the soft aluminum bracket.
By design, it will come in contact, however, the antiseize will make it a glancing blow and not do as much wear or damage etc.
I flushed over 2 quarts of brake fluid through the entire system to get all the mud/sludge out, and there was enough air in the brake system to make a SEA HUNT video episode
We also flushed the clutch system out, and replaced several damaged parts such as the lever bushing, boot, pin, and missing nut.
While the rear wheel was off, I inspected the entire area. While our new owner applied the correct moly paste (locktite LB8012), he didn't know to look beneath the flange plate to inspect the moly paste and O-ring that hides beneath. O-ring was found broken and flat, and there was NO paste in this area!
The prior owner must have even removed the factory paste, and the only thing that was found were two very small spots of Red Tacky grease.
His flange bearings were also damaged, one was completely frozen and would not turn at all, and the other was missing a couple balls
Again, no worries, opened the parts cabinet and installed new O-rings and flange bearings, move along folks, there's nothing to see here....
The next morning I did the counter balancer adjustment, and found them to be off by several graduations, and corrected that.
Our Knight said he thought his speed sensor O-ring was leaking, so I cleaned the area and put a new O-ring in the speed sensor, then noticed that it was not his O-ring that was leaking, but someone had pinched the rubber heat matt between the cylinder and the cylinder head, and oil was cascading down the back side of the engine.
Pulled the coil, removed the head, and cleaned everything up, and put everything back together, no more oil leak.
Drained and replaced his drive shaft gear oil, and filler cap O-ring.
Drained and replaced his engine oil and filter (with his Mobil 1 4T synthetic oil)...under protest
Then pointed out all the coolant leaks that he didn't know he had...
Removed the radiator, flushed out half a pound of Arkansas Red Dirt Road, removed the paint from the pipes, removed the frozen T-stat, and flat O-ring, and put new parts in, and tightened up all the clamps putting an end to all the coolant leaks, and put everything back together....
Cleaned and lubricated all his shifter linkage and side side, trimmed his cylinder head covers to prevent damage to his #4 plug cap, serviced his empty preload adjuster, and adjusted his damping setting.
The next day was a little more laid back....
Re-routed his throttle cables that were routed incorrectly by the prior owner who installed a riser plate, causing the RPM's to run wild when the bars were turned to the left.
Cleaned and lubricated all his locks, gas cap, ignition, saddlebag locks, and all his switches. Cleaned and lubricated his shield slides, adjusted his saddle bag lids and locking hardware, inspected all his ground wires, fuses, relays, and battery.
Re-routed and installed his 12v plug in the fairing pocket, removed ball and dash mounts that he didn't want on the bike, inspected his plugs, replaced just about every plastic push pin and rivet on the bike with new ones, and correctly aligned the front nose cowl that was misaligned, and repaired his broken turn signal wires that were pulled free from the connector etc.
Then the fun starts
Sadie (my blue nose pitbull) was laying next to the table lift, then suddenly jumped up and started barking at the bike...."I know girl, its been three long days so far"....but that's not was she was trying to tell me....she was trying to tell me that the Fuel Joint Tube had cracked, and 5 gallons of Fuel were cascading down the lift and all over the garage! (Sadie didn't get any on here).
I was quickly able to pull the return line off, and attach a hose to direct most of the fuel into a jerry can.
Once again, no worries, new clamps and fuel joint tube come out of the parts cabinet and the leak is fixed...
Now finally, I can get to the Starter Valves and start ridding this bike of Heat!
After running the bike for about 5 minutes the temp gun showed 140 degrees at the frame spar and tank area. We can do better....
Starter valve adjustment was off quite a bit. New Vacuum hoses, pushed a tootsie roll of crap out of the 5 way tee, and adjusted everything down to a single line.
In no longer sounded like a Huey in the garage.
After running it for about 30 minutes, the temp gauge only went as high as 112 degrees. (it was 100 degrees in the garage while I was working)
Note: during our test ride, the gauge never went past mid 90's while riding up a slow mountain road to 9,000 foot altitude.
His bike had been running VERY hot, so hot, that he had two sets of tank knee pads on the tank to keep the heat off him, as well as baker wings, etc.
I removed the wings, and made his ride it without them, to show him that they were no longer needed.
I found quite a bit of heat damage on the plastic parts.
We talked about how he had continued to ride the bike with the code 26 flashing, thinking that he would just keep it below a certain RPM and/or speed, and everything would be ok.
He ignored the fact that the damaged ECU was making the bike run hotter than it should etc.
He did comment, that he did notice the heat got pretty bad as soon as the light started flashing, even though he was trying to stop and clear the codes to reset things.
I replaced his ECU which corrected and fixed the code issue, as well as the poor running, and heat issues, etc.
After all this was done, I surprised him (my revenge for him riding this poor bike down a dirt road everyday) by degreasing, washing, waxing, detailing, and treating all the plastic(s) to look like new again.
I was sad to watch him disappear in my rear view mirror as we parted ways after our ride.
I would like to say thanks for allowing me to assist you with your journey into the world of ST1300's and OCD.
