Winter projects

Brrrr! It's been chilly, even here in the Golden State, but thankfully I have warm gear to keep me from turning into a popsicle. The GTS doesn't seem to mind too much though and is still purring right along. However, the time has come to finally get my P back on the road. It's been laid up in the garage for well over a year now, which has been far too long. As much as I love riding my GTS, I really miss riding the P. Besides, I have too many 3.50x10 tires sitting in my garage that are wasting away, waiting patiently to be put on rims and get chewed up carving the twisties in the hills! :D



The exchange rate with the Euro finally took a significant drop earlier this month, so I placed an order with SIP in Germany for some much needed parts. Although I missed the low of $1.25 because of credit card issues (somebody tried to put through some fraudulent charges on my card and my bank shut it off), I was able to put through an order at $1.27 to the Euro, which came to just over $500 total. That includes a banded Cosa clutch, a new PX fuel tank, a new Fournales front shock (since I scavenged the old one for my GTS), and a few other smaller bits I'm sure I'll need. It should be arriving soon, I can't wait! More to come...

Last of the evil Cannonball voodoo purged... I hope!

I'm nearly two weeks late in posting this, but I finally figured out why my GTS wouldn't idle properly. It turned out that a crack had developed in the rubber boot on the intake manifold, which was letting more air in past the throttle body. When the lambda sensor saw the mixture getting too lean, it compensated by enriching the flow through the fuel injector, which lowered the RPM's and sucked less air in through the crack, causing the lambda sensor to lean out the flow through fuel injector and raise the RPM's again. This condition caused the motor to continually surge up and down in RPM's when idling. I discovered the crack when I was poking around at the motor and I noticed what sounded like an air leak - a small, pulsating, high-pitched swooshing sound. When I lifted up the throttle body a little, it sealed the crack which stopped the noise and immediately the bike started running fine. This was a relief, because I was worried that I'd need to spend an inordinate amount of time replacing sensors, wires, and various doohickeys, in order to track down the source of the trouble.

Thankfully, Rolf had a good intake manifold on his spare GTS engine, so I rode down there and we swapped it out. After it was all bolted back together, it ran like a charm again, nice and smooth - woohoo! It's been getting me around reliably since then, including a jaunt up to SF last weekend. The Heidenau tires have been quite comfortable in the rain so far, although I've noticed that the disc brakes don't grab as well at first in the wet. After a half a second or so though, once the water is pushed aside, they work just fine, so it hasn't enough to make me wary. I've simply been adjusting my riding to match the conditions, so that I have some extra room and time to slow or stop, as one should in inclement weather anyway.

So, that's one thing I'm thankful for - the fact that my GTS is now back in good running shape once again and the evil voodoo it managed to pick up during the Cannonball has now been (hopefully) banished once and for all. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving... ride safe!

A very sad note

It's with a very heavy heart that I post about a tragic loss this past weekend. A local scooterist and good friend of mine, Dirk Sundman, passed away early Sunday afternoon after crashing his Vespa on Highway 9, just south of Skyline Boulevard. Apparently he lost control after taking a turn a little too wide and slipping on wet leaves. I previously posted this on ModernVespa.com, but I want post it here as well, as a personal remembrance.

I am personally deeply saddened about Dirkie's passing. I've only known him the last 3 years or so, but he was such a great guy with such a positive, humorous outlook, who always made my day a little bit better whenever I saw him. Even in the face of the health problems he had within the last year, he always remained upbeat and kept looking at the bright side. I always enjoyed the opportunity to put my feeble knowledge of Dutch to use when I talked with him. The last time I saw him, less than two weeks ago, he was telling me about the massive Vespa dealership he went to visit on his recent trip to Holland, who jokingly offered him a deal on the 6 brand new Vespa GTS 300's they had in stock, so he could bring them back with him to the US.

I remember when I first met Dirk, he told me stories about the tours he went on in Europe back in the day, which made me wish that I could have been there too. He was a very experienced rider who knew and respected the limits that came with age, but he still loved to ride all the same. I rode with him a number of times, on the VCLG monthly rides and some of the local rallies. I was always impressed when he'd make the trip over the hill from Santa Cruz to San Jose just to see us, it was a pleasant surprise and a real treat to see him show up. The last time I saw him was Tuesday a week ago, when he came up to hang out with our crew at Trials Pub in San Jose. I just wish that didn't have to be the last time I'd ever see him.

This really, really sucks... it hits very close to home to lose Dirk. He will be fondly remembered by all of the bay area scooter community who knew him and he will be very, very deeply missed. My heart goes out to everyone who knew him. Many thanks to James and Dave of the Vampires MC for doing everything they could to try to save him, their heroic efforts are greatly appreciated. Rust in vrede, Dirkie mijn vriend... ik wens je un heel goede reis naar de andere kant!

Two weeks later...

It's been two weeks since I've been able to ride my GTS. The Bajaj has been chugging along admirably and reliably, getting me wherever I need to go, in spite of burning more oil than it ought to. It needed a workout, so it's a good thing. Anyway, it turns out that the "missing" exhaust stud on my GTS was actually broken off inside the cylinder head, which is much harder to repair. It involves an unbelievable amount of work, just to swap out a $0.50 part - draining the coolant and motor oil, removing the motor from the bike, disconnecting the timing chain, removing the camshaft, removing the cylinder head, very carefully machining out the hardened steel stud without damaging the aluminum cylinder head, then finally installing the new stud. You could think of the machining part like a high stakes game of "Operation". Some people I know have swapped out an entire motor, rather than go through all that.

So, I've been without my GTS for the last two weeks, while I've been figuring out what to do. After talking it over with Rolf, he agreed to do the job for me, as long as I paid him for his time, of course. I got a brand new stud and head gasket Vespa and dropped my bike off at his place last week. He got it all apart by Friday and with the help of our friend and master machinist Gary, the old stud was successfully milled out and a the new one was installed over the weekend. Rolf got everything back together yesterday and tonight I'll finally be able to get to ride my GTS again! Hopefully he was also able to sort out the wonkiness in the rear shocks too, which was causing it to handle oddly... I'll have to ask him about it tonight when I pick it up. In any event, I can't wait to have it back... hopefully these will be the last repairs it will need for a good long time!

If it ain't one thing, it's another...

Well, the GTS is down again for another week. When I checked out the exhaust leak, I discovered that one of the exhaust studs had completely fallen out of the cylinder head! Of course, this stud is not just a run of the mill part either, it's a 7mm stud that apparently no one carries, besides Vespa. Luckily Vespa does have them in stock, so hopefully it should be here this week. However, it still remains to be seen whether the threads are still ok inside the head, or if they're stripped. If they are damaged or stripped, my best bet will probably be to epoxy the stud in there with some JB Weld, although I'm concerned that the heat might be too much for it to hold in the long run, since it's about 1/4 inch away from the exhaust port. Failing that, I'll need to either install an insert, if I can even find a 7mm one, or tap it out and install a larger stud. Hopefully it won't come to that, but we'll see. Wish me luck!

Running again!

I totally forgot to post that I got my GTS back on the road Monday night! I installed the new variator, belt and the freshly cleaned clutch, leaving out two weights from the variator, for better gearing in the hills with the oversize rear tire. I have to say that it does rev a lot higher with fewer weights, reminiscent of the Polini, and it's a little slow when first taking off. However, acceleration is quite good when I punch it, and I'm sure that the extra torque will be very useful on the trip over to Santa Cruz.

I also got a new set of Heidenau tires at Moto Amore, a K66 130/70-12 in the front and a K58 140/70-12 in the rear. They're still breaking in, but I really like the K66 on the front, it's much quieter than the K58 was, and it seems to grab fairly well. The K58 on the rear does seem to handle differently, it feels a little less sticky, but that may be due to the fact that it's not completely broken in yet. I'll give it some time and see how it goes.

One thing I noticed tonight is that it sounds like there's a small exhaust leak. John mentioned that one of the exhaust manifold nuts was loose. I'll check it to see if maybe it came loose again. Stupid scooters... it's always something! ;)

On the road to recovery

Well, I didn't get the GTS fixed this weekend, but I did get the transmission apart and found that the variator is worn out. This was a bit unexpected, as was the mess I found when I opened it up. First, the belt wasn't just shredded, it had completely disintegrated! Whereas before there were lots of rubber bits strewn about, this time I found little more than pieces of string wound around the variator and clutch, with bits of dust and fluff everywhere... wow! Once I removed the clutch and cleaned up most of the mess, I pulled the variator off to find that the weights had somehow become wedged between the pulley and the bell housing, and a few of them had even melted against the bell housing from the friction, when the belt let go! It took quite a bit of work to clean everything up and scrape the melted kevlar off the bell housing, but I managed to sort it out. However, I noticed that there was a lot of play in the brass bushing on the inside of the J Costa variator pulley - not a good sign. It looked to have close to 0.5mm of play, so I was concerned that this was too much for it to run reliably... if there's too much play, the pulley will wobble, producing excessive vibration and pressure on the sides of the belt, and before long the belt will fail. I suspect this was a contributing factor in why this belt failed, and possibly why the previous belt failed on the last day of the Cannonball.

The brass bushing in the inside of the J Costa variator is a rather special piece, which appears to have graphite inserts on the inside, in order to provide lubrication as the pulley spins on the shaft. I'm not sure whether J Costa makes a replacement bushing, but I hope so, because the rest of the variator appears to be in good shape. It would be a shame if they don't, because the rest of the variator still is in pretty good shape. Now if this variator just had a regular brass bushing in the center of the pulley, I could just have one machined and pressed in, which would be no big deal, but that's not going to cut it without some way to lubricate the surface between the pulley and the shaft. So for now, I'm just going to get a whole new variator, and see what I can do to get a new bushing and set of weights for the old one, so that I have a spare on hand in case I need it at some point.

Thankfully, Rich has a brand new J Costa variator that he's willing to give me tonight, which I'll replace with another new one as soon as I'm able to pick one up. So, hopefully I'll have the GTS back on the road and running great tonight! Then maybe tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to run down to Santa Cruz to pick up another one, a belt, and whatever other parts have arrived that I ordered. Wish me luck!