Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

Couple of days ago the blinkers stopped working on my XT600, turned out one of the connectors on the circuit breaker broke off. Lights still worked (although dimmed and both lights would light up when braking, instead of only the rear one), bike still started (kickstart). Called around to find out that the part is no longer being manufactured, but one store still had it somewhere, which they send to me for a lower price than i could find 2nd hand, which was nice. Hope this fixes it and i haven't fried the blinkers or anything as i suck with electrical stuff. Also still having some problems when riding above 4000rpm on constant gas, seems to skip a little bit or something, thinking about dirty carbs but haven't changed the sparkplug yet and don't know if it has ever been changed in 30+ years so will start doing that this week. Other than that, so much fun riding around a (basically) huge dirtbike. Also nice to have instant torque, as compared to the BMW F650 i used to ride before, which didn't really do anything under 3k rpm.

Next to that, how do you guys clean your bikes? I want to get everything cleaned up because that hasn't happened in a long time either, but don't really know where to start, as there is dirt/grease/mud/whatever caked on everywhere. Just spray a shitload of WD40 on everything greasy, toothbrush for all the small cracks and places and a rag for everything else? Probably best to not use high pressure waterjet to blast it all off right?

Go to screwfix and by 5L of no nonsense de greaser.
spray on, leave for 10 min and then wash, repeat a few times to get wost off, then agitate it.

Really good choice - came close myself - will be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

That guy/gal...I like them already. Buy it now.

@TM Nah..got my heart set on a triple. Not sure I can quite shake it, but will wait for something decent to pop up.

Birds are super competent mile-munchers. Pretty nifty on the fast flowing stuff for a big bird too. Typical, super classy Honda. Nice.

This....
On repainted bodywork maybe dilute 1:1, certainly don't leave it neat on anything fancy for a long time.
Will take off all but the worst chain crust.
Rinses off very easy unlike a lot of other stuff.

Anyone have issues with wheel bearings. Replaced both on my 1997 funduro /f650 with the right 6203 2rs jobs. Used Skf deep groove jobs costing avout £4.50 each. (think BMW/aprilia originally species kyoto branded bearings).
Done 3k miles in about 6-8 weeks, no load on it, no pillion, yet fronts are bust already. One feels slight notch, the other is disintegrated allowing about 15mm of movement at the edge of tyre
Installed using a nice bearing press and no heat. Poss just a bad batch of them or more likely Glasgows roads have just been harsh on them. Or I've got the wrong "loading" of bearing, I..E instead of deep groove I should have got full compliment?
Also I think 6203 is a small size for the weight of bike (185kg wet), anyone else speculate?

Might be just the one bearing? I rode mine for 10k km's, never had a bearing problem.

Quite possibly you've got the wrong preloading, how do you set it up on that bike. I've done the job twice on my R80, first time they went pretty fast as I basically didn't bother reading up on the job. Second time involved all kinds of tweaking with scales and string.

Anybody ever tried to make a new wiring harness for a bike? I pulled the headlight on the XT and found out the (or one of the) previous owners fucked up all the wiring, duct taped together, cut off wires etc. and i have no idea where to start. Buy a crimp tool, lots of wire and just start over? I have the workshop manual so i have the diagrams and everything for the wiring, but no idea where to start.. I've found some 2nd hand complete wiring harnesses, but they look old and fucked up, so i think my best bet is to just start over again.

Next to that, how do you guys clean your bikes?

This was my suggestion for a very dirty bike:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13627416/

Note you may want to vary the time you leave degreaser depending on strength

Maybe not the first job I would take on if I had no idea where to start. You need so many different strands of wire with different colour markings and different ratings that buying a reasonable quantity would be your biggest challenge. Are there no specialists in this field who would make you a new one and send it to you?

There are, but it would costs 300 euro's to do, so doing it myself is probably cheaper and (in the end) more fun. I've found some 2nd hand ones for 50 euro's, but i don't know how 30 year old electrics are gonna hold up.. It's an old bike without any electronics, just lights, blinkers and run/off, so it shouldn't be too difficult, just a little bit intimidating :p

i would get the old one, then check, clean and replace any bits that look dodgy.

Or replace it bit by bit, unless you have more of a clue than you're letting on. 300 euros would have seemed better value a while ago, a UK firm would probably have a more competitive price these days.

I've made a basic loom. It's not hard but it's seriously time consuming and depending on what sort of connectors you want to fit you could probably spend half that on wire and tools.
That said, patching an existing look is almost always a nightmare, the more you strip, the more problems and botched wiring you tend to find.

Serviced ktm, took it round the block to check it was good.

Omfg I forgot how hard it pulls. 😁

I do have some clue, but it's still rather intimidating looking at all the wires. The bike still works, but small things like run/off doesn't work, neutral light etc. But i don't think i'm able to fix it like this, because of the shitty job the last owner did. I don't have money to get somebody to make me one, neither do i think the problem is worth that much money either :p I'll see what i do, maybe find a nice 2nd hand one or just slowly build a new one myself.

Like Jung, I think you'll spend a lot of money on the components/tools, which you need at the start of the job. I've never used heat shrink in the kind of quantities you'd need but my fairly long time experience of wiring tells me you'll have plenty of frustrations along the way. I'd just ride it and fix whatever you have to as/if the problems show up.

Yea i'm not gonna build one from scratch i think, i've fixed it for now, but i'll look around on the internet to see if i can find a cheap 2nd hand wiring loom..

Definitely the second hand complete loom is the best option - building your own loom will age you prematurely and you will need medication.

Group buy on the medication? I could certainly get through a fair bit.

Word, I was helping my mate sort some botched wiring on his DRZ last night. Frightful mess, the only way really is to start again but we kept patching anyway. Trauma surgery at its most ham-fisted.

I still have the wiring diagrams for bikes I no longer own! Complete with oily fingerprints. I used to spend winter nights poring over them thinking I've got it sorted, get out to the bike to fix the problem and suddenly none of it makes sense so you just end up poking around with a multimeter and cursing.

I stopped by my cousin to check if he had a crimping tool, turned out he was also swapping the old loom from his ninja with a better 2nd hand one. The old loom had just the one connector i needed, so i cut it off, soldered it to the wire on my bike, connected it and it ran just like it used to. I've found a 2nd hand loom for not too much money, depending on the state of it i might just buy it and swap it over.