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Shane - Superlite (#43)

OMG, it fired up!!!! But .....

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Last time we worked on the bike it was a major downer. She fired up instantly but within a couple of runs a major death rattle appeared. We stood around, arms folded just staring at her for a good half an hour before we said "fuck it" and went and drank more beers.

Anyway, we found what we suspect the problem was - a severe case of clueless fuckwit muppets with tools. Someone had loosened off every single nut they could get a socket on with the sump off, which meant the conrod caps were loose (among other things) and the nuts were working their way off, causing the conrods to slap against the crank!!

Once we found that Brent said he'd go through and check and tighten everything he could, once the oil had finished dripping out (the engine was still in the frame with the sump off). So on Thursday night I cruised around. The wife and I rocked up with all the necessary supplies, a pile of Chinese takeaways and beer. Brent looked like he'd been run over by a truck. It'd been a very hard day at work and he was knackered, but lots of rice, beer and a good sit down saw him feeling much better. So we headed out to the shed and started putting her back together.

She went back together a lot quicker this time as we (kinda) knew what we were doing. Brent took the front half of the exhaust while I did the rest, then he sorted out all of the radiator and oil cooler hoses while I hooked up the electrics, put the throttle bodies, fuel rail and airbox back on then we both did the tank. At that stage Brent decided he needed a cuppa. So I wandered in to make a cuppa tea while he and Warren (who'd turned up while we were putting her back together) started filling the radiator with just water (we were only going to run her for 10 minutes or so when she fired and we didn't want to waste expensive coolant).

One cup of tea, one cup of hot water and a beer made things that much easier until we were all set and ready to go. I grabbed the laptop and hooked it up, checked the errors and ran the tests we could run from the laptop. Once everything looked fine we hit the starter.

Run #1 (right click, Save As ...)

We hadn't put any fresh fuel in the tank so she was running stale, 9+ month old shit, but we hadn't even thought about that yet. Once she fired up she ran for about a minute before stopping. We popped the tank filler cap and hear her take a big breath. Seems the muppets had even taped up the tank breather hose ffs.

She was nearly empty so we stood there looking around going "ummm ... where can we pinch fuel from?". In the end the XR600 was the lucky doner.

Some fresh fuel in the tank, a little bit of heat in her and she started to settle down and run nice and smoothly.

Run #2 (right click, Save As ...)

We ran her up to 10,000rpm a few times and then let her sit and burbble away for a while.

At this point my goals for the evening were nailed. Brent grabbed a bourbon, I grabbed another beer and we had a nice sit down and looked at our handy work.

After half an hour of talking shit and figuring out what was still missing we decided to pack it all up and see what the girls were doing.

A successful evenings work.

Now we just need to finish getting her up to standard so I can get her out on the track. The first trackday will be very quiet and at Taupo, a nice low speed track. I'll definitely be getting her to Hampton Downs as soon as I can but not the first couple of times.

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Comments

  1. tri boy's Avatar
    I still feel a bit bad about not checking every last nut n bolt inside that engine. But you are right about muppets who "finger tighten" internal components. I still have a slight urge to rip one testicle off whoever did that work, but by mid week it will be down to just kicking him in the knackers.
    It did sound fooking angry when it first fired up though:-)
    Dino txt me at 2.30pm on the following day. He was still in bed recovering. lol
  2. Devil's Avatar
    Sounds awesome. Cant wait to see it.
  3. Mental Trousers's Avatar
    You're right there mate, she sounded proper angry when she fired

    I'll definitely be wheeling her out at Hampton Downs sometime Devil so keep an eye out.
  4. dino3310's Avatar
    WTF aye what, Gas from a XR600
    must say she was sounding pretty sweet will be good to hear her opened up on the track. Job well done
  5. dino3310's Avatar
    oh and by the way it was sun stroke that got me not the booze