Big ups and mad props...

[Wolf]

... or whateva teh fcuk is the latest phrase.

The speedo on the trusty steed shit itself. The first thought was that the cable had snapped so I took it around to Roj's place as he said he had a cable that might fit.

When we disengaged the cable it seemed intact so Roj clamped the end of the cable in his battery-powered drill and fired it up. This instantly told us four things:

1) The cable was indeed intact
2) The mechanism in the speedo itself was fine
3) Roj's electric drill is capable of 20km/hr
4) The problem must lie in the speedo dog on the front wheel.

As the matter was a trifle more than replacing a cable and we had nothing on hand comparable with the dog, I headed home.

Last night, I decided to take the front wheel off the bike (aided and abetted by my darling strayjuliet) and have a look at the dog to determine if it could be repaired.

The interface with the hub seemed nicely intact so it had to be somewhere in behind it but I had no means to remove the circlip to inspect it (got to get a decent selection of tools!).

I called "Shiny side up" who said he'd be over soon with some circlip pliers.

While I was waiting, Roj turned up and I showed him the offending component. Roj could see that when the interface plate was rotated the worm gear (barely visible amid the grease) was not moving, and then he said "what about the old TT bits in the shed, is there a speedo dog amongst them?"

Y'see, some time back Motu had an old TT225 - in pieces - that he'd been planning to do up but decided to get rid of it to clear out some space in his garage, so he gave the bits to me.

I wasn't sure if the TT parts had included anything to do with a speedo or if the bike had originally been equipped with one but we wandered out to the garage and had a fossick around in the boxes until we found the TT's front axle - on which was a nearly identical speedo dog (not quite perfectly identical - it was older, grubbier and actually worked).

Around about that time "Shiny side up" turned up brandishing circlip pliers and some beers - just in time to help us lift the front of the bike and reassemble the wheel with the new/old TT speedo dog in place.

A quick test (Roj spinning the front wheel as fast as he could by hand) confirmed the speedo was now working.

So, when it came down to it, the circlip pliers were not needed but the beers were put to good use.

So "big ups" to:
Roj, Shiny side up and strayjuliet for their help
Motu for supplying me with the needed component
and
Yamaha Motor Company Ltd for seeing fit to make the XT, TT and TTR with interchangeable parts for over 20 years.

[wysper]

gotta love the motorcycling fraternity.
It is awesome they way everyone seems to help each other out.

(of course it is ridiculous how you have to re word a comment to try and stave off the onslaught of rude innuendo... I probably still haven’t made the comment innocuous enough. Can’t use such phrases as ‘pull together’ LOL)

[Wolf]

to "Shiny side up".

Tuesday night I took the back wheel off with every intention of extracting the bearings and replacing them.

Managed to get the seal out but was unable to get the bearings out with the tools I had to hand.

I even made the obligatory sacrifice of my own blood to the goddess of motorcycle repair to facilitate the job but was still unable to get the bearings out.

So I gave Shiny side up a call and asked him how the fuck you're supposed to get wheel bearings out. After determining I had nothing long enough to reach through from the opposite side of the hub and tap them out, he said "I'll call you back" and a few minutes later turned up with a selection of tools - including a couple of long metal rods.

In a matter of minutes he'd tapped out the old bearings and installed the new ones and we put the wheel back on the bike.

Bike feels a lot smoother-riding now.

Odd thing is: he didn't sacrifice any of his blood to get the job done - bloody Christians just don't know anything about motorcycle repairs

[Warr]

Sounds like a good result all around Wolf.
Before Motu's speedo dog turned up I had good success with a bike speedo when the one on my XJ900 was giving trouble. And if you have the $'s there is a great range of purpose built electronic speedo/ rev counter dashes that are available if you go looking