26 Feburary 2013
The Pain!
Final word on the FZR head, needs all new intake valves. Total cost is upwards of $900. Ouch. Thought about it for a couple of weeks while looking for new stainless steel valves and found no replacement sets for under $1K. Finally just decided to pull the trigger and pay for it over a couple of months via CC. This way I get back onto the bike and get to finish the rebuild without too much more pain. The oil pump is in, next is the clutch gear, hooking the primary drive to the trans and then pistons and cylinders while waiting on the head. Almost there.
Got the cylinder back from the plater and scored a sweet rear wheel for the KDX off of ebay. The rear wheel is totally straight and looks brand new. Figured at the least it would need new bearings, nope, bearings are groovy. Even has a sprocket (stock junk) and a disk on it. All the spokes are intact too! Just got to switch the rear tire over, hook up the current sprocket and finish rebuilding the motor and it is dirtbike time.
Exeecution on the biking front has been a total failure. I shall pretend Feburaray did not happen and start over in March! Yay!
31 December 2012
The Toys!
The crash FZR head is in for evaluation. The mechanic who looked it over said that it looks externally to be in good shape and at most he would do seals and guides, cost ~$200. If the seats are bad, then maybe a seat and valve regrind for the entire head, $400. Got a call about a KDX cylinder that came up, $50 for a rebuildable core. Sold! Sent it out for a resleeve and NiSil treatment with the new Wiseco piston and checked the bottom end, no H2O in it so hosed it down with some oil in preparation for the new cylinder. Total about $450 but then I can go dirt biking with a bike that has some Power to pwn the hills.
Jan is back on the bike month, goal 300 miles, 15K climbing. Got a century at the end of April, pretty mild one only 3500' climbing so it will be a good starter century. Need to work back up to 450-500mi/month but even in CA it is tough riding in Jan/Feb due to the limited light. Started riding again the last week in december and well, conditioning has fallen off pretty quickly but my baseline is way better than this time last year. I have a plan, going to freeze while executing it, but I do have a plan. Lets see what execution is like.
03 December 2012
Oh, boy!
Progress on one front! FZR motor rebuild is seeing some action. So far the crash motor crank and rods both recieved new bearings then the race motor donated the transmission bits which were all sealed up just recently. The oil pump came from the crash motor as it looked far less damaged than the race motor but the only part reused was the inside face, all other parts were new. Reminder when rebuilding, replace both housings along with the pump/compressor. Water pump was installed from the crash motor and the shifters installed with a new factory pro spring. Looks and feels like the transmission switches through all six gears smoothly and with authority. Stopped there as installing the oil pump calls for locktite and I was out of the semi-breakable stuff. And, when looking through the on hand parts, it was clear that additional items were needed. In particular, no piston circlips! Duh. Of course, since this now a total rebuild, I will be needing pistons too. Only one full set was acquired on ebay for the original motor, so another set will have to be sourced for the cracezilla motor rebuild.
In examining the crash head I am thinking of having it rebuilt, the race head is total junk. New valve seats cut, seals and guides along with a lash adjust to round out the refresh. Unfortunatly, with $200 in parts on order, another couple of hundred for the head rebuild will have to wait until some cash frees up. Nice to see the craczilla motor taking shape though. And, tons of learning about how to rebuild the real motor next time. Even ordered a replacement oil pump for the real motor. Still need shift forks for the real motor as well and the top end will need a refresh as well.
Doom! - discovered good old games (gog.com). Ordered Privateer. Life is over.
07 October 2012
Not quite a year yet, but...
After 13 years, I finally retired by full tower Antec case. Sad to see it go, it was a very useful case and filled the need for both room heater and computer stuff storage space. Reasons, well, it was noisy even with a fan bus, rheostats and LM417 fan controllers it was just noisy. It rattled and hummed all the time with a frequency that could be heard throughout the house. It was replaced with a Coolermaster 650 case; what a difference. The hard drives fit into neat caddies that could be serviced from the side, no more custom made 'hangers' for extra drives. The PSU now sits in the case bottom and draws cold air into itself then expells it out the back, nice. Lots of room for cables and a good system for tucking cables behind the motherboard tray. Fans are installed, two 200 mm, one at the front and another in the bottom along with a 120 mm blowing over the hard drive cages. Everything runs very quiet and CPU temps have been reasonable. Also replaced the cpu cooler at the same time, some coolermaster unit with 2 x 120 mm fans. It too runs quiet and keeps the heat out of the CPU much better than the stock Intel cooler.
FZR status is still dead, but some signs of life. All the motors got stripped down to nothing and one hybrid is being rebuilt from the ashes. The crash motor is donating the head, crank, H2O pump and cases while the race motor will donate the transmission and clutch. Starting from the ground up, a new oil pump innnards were sourced as were new main and rod bearings. I debated on the bearings for a long time, it was not something I really wanted to replace in a motor considered temporary, but now the new ones are in and I just feel better having them there. The PO or factory had installed one set of bearings in the wrong position, black in #4 main not in #3. The mains showed some scoring and wear on the #5 and #6 while the rod bearings on #3 and 4 were scored slightly. The clutch baskets both look ok and low mileage, so I will just take one. The original motor will need a replacement as well, so good job I now have two. With the bearings in, now onto transmission and oil pump installation and sealing the cases up. Have new pistons, wrist pins, clips, rings and cam chain. May take the head down now and have it looked at and possibly rebuilt. At this point, why not? At least then the seats will be reground and new guides and seals installed so no doubts there about fitness.
The KDX ate the powervalves in Feburary, have not been able to find a replacement cylinder for under new ($450) or on ebay where they are all thrashed to death. Otherwise the bike was working great! Only rode it twice last year, but they were very fun days. Duck is a sad sight, just sitting there, all alone. GSF had new steering head bearings installed and the GSXR 750 shock dropped in with some trouble, but looks to be a good fit. When the bike comes off the stand, it just oh so very slightly sags! Nice! Going to adjust the valves, it is only an 8 valve head with screw adapters so it should not be very difficult but to do the job is quite the production. Have to drop the radiator, pull the coils and lots of other parts just to get to the valves. Compression is good but it blows smoke, so the debate is wether to put in valve seals or not (thinking not). Dropped the KnN air filter in along with the Stage 1 rejetting and it runs much better except for a minor flat spot at 2-4K, otherwise crisp. Lowered the needle a position from 3 to 4 so lets see what that will do but I suspect that these carburetors are just worn out and the emulsion tubes are shot. With no replacements available, kinda stuck here. Going to do the valve adjust, synch the carbs, flog it around for a week then get it sold.
28 December 2011
Some items: FZR 'crash' motor rebuild is in progress. Need to button up the cases and get the top end in. Cylinders are honed but the head might need a little work to scrape off some of the grunge. It is getting a trans from the 'race' motor along with a trans indent kit from Factory Pro. The original trans was completely trashed, many gear teeth missing and bent shift fork shafts and broken shift forks. I dont want to take any chances on a bent shaft or damaged trans bearing causing this motor to disintegrate. Most of the clutch parts will come from the 'race' motor along with one or two more minor gears in the starter motor area. A new oil pump pressure section was purchased just to make sure there is plenty of oil pressure in the motor. That was relativly cheap, about $32 for the parts, the expense was in new piston wrist pins, circlips, rings and valve seals. A fresh hone was put on the cylinders and new base and head gaskets take care of the pistons (also amazingly expensive!). The head is from the 'crash' motor, it does not look too bad. It is going to get a valve adjust and some new oil seals. Now I am questioning if the original head should be used since it has hardened seats and Ti valves... The crank and rods from the 'crash' motor all look Very good, little wear on the mains and everything moves smoothly. Unlike the race motor, where all the main bearings are totally trashed. Something went through that race motor and just Ate it Up.
The KDX is up and running, got all the bits and pieces to start riding for the winter, hopefully soon. No changes there other than new springs a couple of years ago. Considering going to gold valves in the front, but think I will just save my money for now and put a new set of piston/rings in it at the end of the season. Still have a lot of problems getting the front brake bled, it is a spongy bastard even with a braided line. Might have to do the 'hang' trick to get the errent air bubble out. The GSF got gold valves and stiffer springs in the forks. The front end was terrible, it would wash out and wander all over the place. The back does the same, so it is competeing crap suspensions fighting to be the crappiest! Out the back the GSXR shock was rebuilt and is awaiting installation. Need to get back to that bike but honestly I am more excited to get the FZR back on the road!
On the computer end, added a new cheapo DVD drive and a OCZ Vertex3 90 Gb SSD to replace the Vertex from last year. Price was Very good and the perfomance much higher than the Vertex1, although that is largely moot. Still have a problem with the marvell SATA controller on the ASUS p8Z68-V board; it kicks mv91xxx.sys errors so it was disabled in BIOS and a supplementary 3-channel SATA card installed to handle the extra DVD drive. Internally the Zahlman 9600 CPU cooler does not fit into the 1155 format, so I am still stuck with the rather poor intel cooler. I do have an aftermarket unit, but it requires mounting from both sides, thus the entire motherboard has to be pulled out. Right now, not going to happen. So, after seven years, my 36 Gb 10000 RPM Raptor drive is being retired. What a workhorse!
10 September 2011
Or was it?
Sold off the EX250 a couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness. To be rideable it needed a new set of front springs and a new shock and there was just no way I was going to bust out hundreds of dollars to get a bike that I still considered unrideable (to me!). Just not enough horsepower to make it non-scary on the morning commute. My bulk is too large and the motor too small. Got a good price for it, so it worked out well
Did get the GSF400 back out of the barn and onto the road. Rebuilt the carbs a couple of months ago with a stage1 kit from KnN along with a new air filter. But, the big problem is that the emulsion tubes are trashed and the 3-6K carburation is spotty at best. I think there might be some help by refbuilding the carbs with all new o-rings to solve some errant air issues, but these carbs have a lot of miles on them and short of rebuilding the slides and having new emulsion tubes installed there might not be a fix. Although it might be easier to retrofit an EFI system in. Otherwise it runs. Bought a GSXR750 shock for it since the suspension is completely sacked out, going to have it rebuilt and dropped in. After that will be the front forks, new springs and cartridge replacements. The rebuild will be $175 for the rear and the front, $100 for the springs, $175 for the cartridge and about $100 in labor. Expensive, but not bad.
Computers are running well, nice and cool. Never did find a solution for the bad SATA controller, so it remains disabled. Updated the house internet with a Cisco E4200 as I wanted a gigabit backbone in the house. Nice!
13 June 2011
My Hand was Forced
Ah, yes. The invevitable death by BIOS update. As noted, using &BIOS to update my Gigabyte M57A-S3 board totally nuked it. After the BIOS update, it booted twice into windows then stopped responding completely. No beep on POST. No POST. CPU was not generating any heat, the HDD light was staying on. Tried the usual - removing RAM, stripping the system down to bare bones, no luck. So it was off to Fry's; ASUS P8Z68-PRO board (Way overkill) and an Intel (yes an INTEL!) i5-2500K processor for a sweet $179 ($40 off!). Already had bought 8 Gb DDR3 RAM months ago in preparation so with a new heatsink/fan combo also from Fry's I was ready to go. Installation was easy, cleaned out some dust bunnies at the same time. System fired up and was working as I moved through all the new drivers, until I installed the ASUS utilities. Something in there nuked the system and I was getting BSOD's with a mi91xx.sys error of x0000003f code. Finally managed to boot into a 'last known good configuration' mode to repair the system. Oddly, the safe mode boot did not work, just kicked the same error. Installed a different driver, uninstalled the ASUS utilities via Revo Uninstaller and was up and running late last night.
My first forray away from AMD in years, a little sad to have made the switch after holding on to hope for so long that AMD would be able to pull its head out of its neather regions. I switched primarily due to overhead costs. A 1090T at 125 W power usage vs a i5-2500K at 65W under full load coupled with idle power draw of 50% less for the Intel is compelling. Assuing a 2 year run on the CPU/MB combo, the AMD eats the $80 savings in intial cost in about 15 months due to power overhead. Since power is only going to get more expensive, this seemed like the logical long-term solution.
2 January 2011
Kill off my yearly update early!
The new Intel SandyBridge processors are just starting to come along with reviews and I must say I am intrigued. The cost is similar to the AMD 1100T x6 Tustin for both motherboard and processor and the i5-K2500 will overclock to 4.4 GHz on air. The major driver for this is not purchase cost, but running cost. The Intel platform is about 40% more efficient which would add up to almost $50/year savings in electricity ($75 vs $125) as my primary computer runs almost 24/7 while at home. Factor that over a two year replacement cycle and there is a lot I could do with that extra money. Most of the reviews are saying the Intel chip is also faster(!) than the 1100T in all applications. The last Intel processor in my main system was in about 1998 when I was overclocking a P166 to 200 MHz. Wow, time for a switch? The case is compelling.
Got a front fender for the EX on the way (eBay, baby). As soon as it is here, it goes up on Craigslist. Thinking $1900 firm, cash only, no test rides without $1900 cash and Valid M1 license, no trades, no substitutions.
30 November 2010
What is with only yearly updates?
Quick summaries - Still at the company I have been with since 2006. The company moved at the end of last year and I was responsible for the complete move to the new location which was quite successful. The commute is longer and the traffic much worse, but not that bad. I am disappointed that they did not do what they said, which was to stay in the area of the original location. If I had known they were going to move, would have not bought a house where I did.
Up to 5.75 bikes - 90 FZR disassembled all over the garage, the Ducati waiting maintenance, KDX200 that runs great, GSF400 that is an OK runner but has bad carbs and the EX250 that needs to just go. The GMC had a minor failure in July, the alternator came apart and threw some chunks into the hood. Made it look cool, but unfortunately the motor overheated and has not really been the same since. It gets me too and from work and hauls the bikes around. Bimmer blew out a head gasket in June, that was a bit pricey to fix but after the repair it sure does run much better.
Have two computers running at the house. The big system with an AMD 64X2 5000+ Black Edition in a Gigabyte M87SLI-S2 board with an OCZ Vertex2 SSD (60 Gb), 8 Gb DDR2 (4x2Gb) RAM with Windows 7. Dumped all the SCSI drives and have the 36 Gb Raptor as the 'game' drive and a wide array of SATA drive for storage: 1.5 Tb, 1.0 Tb and 2x230 Gb drives. Fortunatly, not all the storage is filled up yet. Using a Seasonic S12 Power supply that has been rock stable for the last two years and the video is handled with an ATI 3870 which I overclock about 40%. Monitors are an ASUS 24" and a Viewsonic 21" TN panel LCD screens. I really like the G9x Logitech mouse that I use at home and the Performance MX Logitech mouse at work, they both fit my hand well and have reduced the amount of pain in my wrist from working on the computer. Cooling is handled by a Zahlman 9600 cooler on the processor and my usual wide array of switched 60/80/120 mm fans. One note: Vantec Stealth fans are excellent, they move a lot of air around and are whisper quiet, highly recommended.
The HTPC is untouched from when I built it, micro ATX board with ATI 3200-HDMI output built in, AMD 4530e (45W baby!) processor, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, 2 x 640 WD Caviar Blacks (The good AA ones) in a Antec Bach case with a generic DVD burner and a Seasonic PSU. A logitech wireless mouse and keyboard handle input and it outputs to either the Omtima HD70 projector or the Samsung 50" Plasma. Not good enough to play 'serious' games on but enough to surf, run the D&D projector and handle the local webserver and act as a file repository and backup. Thinking of doing a gut upgrade on the Bigsystem - AMD Tustin x6 1090t Black Edition has caught my eye along with a Gigabyte M870 board and 8 Gb DDR3 ram. Would like to do the video card now too, but the ATI 6870's are in the 230 range and this would push the upgrade into the $600 range. I can think of better places to stuff money right now (like savings!).
Windows 7 is my most recent OS on the big system, it has some handy features that make for nice eye candy, but really, the gold standard is still XP. I hate the way win7 ‘takes over’ where you store information and that it hides files and system settings, making it very unintuitive to locate files and downloaded items. Still, it looks nice and as a 64 –bit system allows me to access more than 4 Gb RAM. The downside is that there are some programs that will just Not run and 64-bit is not well supported and not completely backwards compatible with older programs.
24 October 2009!
Wow, almost two years and not a single peep out of me for this site. Not that this is a return to posting, just a quick dump of some information that I might need access to during my Windows 7 install. So here it is:
Here's how to clean install Windows 7 using Upgrade media and a new or reformatted PC with no installed OS. First, perform a normal clean install of the OS by booting the PC with the Upgrade Setup disc and stepping through Setup. After performing the clean install, ensure that there are no Windows Updates pending that would require a system reboot. (You'll see an orange shield icon next to Shutdown in the Start Menu if this is the case). Then, open regedit.exe with Start Menu Search and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/ Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media Change MediaBootInstall from "1" to "0". Open the Start Menu again and type cmd to display a shortcut to the Command Line utility. Right-click this shortcut and choose "Run as administrator." Handle the UAC prompt. In the command line window, type: slmgr /rearm Then tap ENTER, close the command line window and reboot. When Windows 7 reboots, run the Activate Windows utility, type in your product key and activate windows. It should just work.
OK, some quickies - bikes are up to five. Three not working constantly of course. The 916 is waiting maintenence, the FZR is still gutted and all over the garage, the GSF works but needs a carb rebuild and some TLC, the EX works great but I over-drive it all the time and that is going to put me on my head and finally the KDX works great! Computers were upgraded in Jan 2008 with the big system geting a core update and an HTPC box was built too. The main system is 4 GB RAM, AMD 5000+X2Black edition and Gigabyte motherboard with Five(!) hard drives totalling about 2.1 Tb storage. The HTPC is running an excellent Asus motherboard with the AMD3200 chipset which outputs to my 1080P TV with no problems. It has a super efficient 45W AMD chip and two 'green' low power WD 650 Gb HD's in it. Makes a great file server and backup repository. Have a projector for D&D which uses RP MapTool which is a great way to display and use maps on the table. Anyway, maybe I will post more in two years....
28 January 2008
Wow, two days in a row. Well, it is technically the same day, I have not been to bed yet! No bikes at the moment, the weather has been lousy and the only thing running for the street is the EX. There was a beautiful 1990 FZR on Craigslist this past weekend. I was tempted to go look at it but did not have the time nor the cash. Although at 1800 with only 14K on the odo, it was a good deal. Looked nice too.
The KDX runs, but it is a muddy slog fest anywhere around here so that is out. The best day riding, almost ever, was in November after the rains when we skulked all over Upper Lake doing the outermost loop. We kept it under 50 miles so I actually had some reserves left over at the end of the day and was nowhere near as sore as I had been previous times out (not getting 'lost' this time is good too!). It was still a blast though; some mud, little dust, no PO. Fresh tires on the bike made a world of difference on the ride, couldn't have imagined doing it with the old ones on there. Crashed a couple of times, most embarrasingly on the first hill out of the carpark. It is long, gnarley and a manzanita bush just had to inspect my front visor. Got a new helmet the next weekend, not due to the crash of course. It was very much needed as my old Moto3 was showing its age. Helmets are Expensive! Much more so now than I remember from the past, think think one was over $350! The visor had cracked off the Moto3 and it did not fit particularly well either. I was very glad to pick up some shin guards and some elbow pads to help armor those joints up, crashing sucks, crashing and getting roadrash or hurt sucks even more.
I am beginning to hate the layout of this site, it looks so early 21st century. :)
27 January 2008
Oh, lets see. Not much going on. Bought a new hard drive a couple of weeks ago to act like a backup drive for the comptuer. I am seriously looking for a NAS system for the house, something that has a RAID array, gigabit connection and no wireless or other BS. The Buffalo systems looked good, until I read some reviews. Abmissal customer service and very little in working RAID. If you lose a drive, you lose both. Been looking at Theces boxes, cheap, open source unix basis, not the quickest but a true mirrored array that is recoverable. Problem is that nobody sells it locally.
The only other action is looking towards the next upgrade. Decided it would probably be best to wait unil the phenom's come down a bit in price and the black editions get better in price and lower in power. RAM is so cheap, might pick up 4GB just to futureproof my system. For video I will probably go with the new ATI 3570's, cheap and very fast. Of course I want a projector too for D&D and watching movies on. Could pick a cheap one up for ~$400 that would be 800x600 or a 1280x960 for $800 or so. I am very torn on what to do so I will stay the course for now and keep my money in the pocket.
30 October 2007
Good sized earthquake here. V and I are ok, lots of things on the floor. If you can get in touch with mom and dad please have them call me or email me at pmchem@gmail.com. Otherwise, we are headed over there.
26 August 2007
Where to start. The EX is up and running just fine; a final poke around in the carburetors located the non-idle problem. The pilot jet was plugged up with brass corrosion. A little tickle with a pipe cleaner and a quick run though of the entire carburetor set was all it needed to fire right up and idle nicely. That was sometime in June, late August now and it has an additional 800 miles on its wheels. Mileage is between 50-55 mpg around town. It is a hooligan machine, you can get the pegs scraping on it very easily and it makes no horsepower under 6K rpm. Rev it up and let it go! Totally scary on the freeway, not enough horsepower to get out of it's own way. At 75-80 mph, you are up in the 9000-10000 rpm range with little further power on tap. Not a freeway machine.
The Ducati runs but is still in need of a service. Rode it around the other day, soggy tires and all. The clutch is almost kaput, it just needs to be bled to be functional again (I truly hope). The FZR is a basket case, might just have to cast gentle repose on it and start the disassembly process. Too expensive to resurrect.
Computers: Installed NWN2 and played it a bit. Not very involving, you hit level 3 in about five minutes of playing. Boring. The system is still spec'd as before, no changes in the near future are planned. Although I might purchase some DDR2-800 RAM just because it is sooo very cheap right now. A processor/mb purchase is getting to be under $150, so I might go that route later in the year.
Reorganized the links to the right, dumped many that I do not visit anymore.
I managed to finally get control of the two domains that this site are seen under. No more outages waiting for domain names to expire etc. yea!
11 June 2007 - Why yes. Yes, it does.
Managed to 'ride' the EX in the parking lot today. Nobody has a battery for it so I rigged up some leads, soldered some tabs onto an old 12V gel cell and it started right up and ran around the parking lot. The low end circuit appears to be too lean as it will not idle. This could also be a problem with the valve adjustment or even worse, bad rings. Not going doom/gloom yet, but there is just too much smoke for an 800 mile motor. Carbs were all cleaned out yesterday, no errant rat doodies anywhere, new plugs, fuel filter, oil and oil filter along with other maintenace items all taken care of. Brakes work (spongy), chain is lubed, trans goes through at least the first four gears smoothly. Check the valves tomorrow night, meethinks, and do a compression check too. If worse case, pull the head and have a look at the cylinders. The motor is not terribly rattley... it sounds like an overgrown lawnmower as you would expect. The tires at total bricks, but they do burnouts! hehe.
3 June 2007
The EX lives. Got it fired on the old gas in the tank, it did not like it much, but it fired up. Some blue smoke from the left cylinder. But for a bike sitting for 2+ years, a tad bit of smoke is to be expected. Washed it, found lots of rat poop between the top of the cases and the carbs. Digging a little further found more poop on top of the airbox along with some chewed on peanuts and dry cat food. Looks like there is oxidation damage from rat or mouse pee which has eaten some of the paint from the top of the motor and oxidized a considerable amount of aluminum. Pulled the tank to make sure there was nothing eaten by the mice/rats and that there was not a nest hidden in the airbox. Fortunately, the airbox is clear but more poop was all over the top of the cylinders. It will have to be scrubbed out, otherwise we might want to call this bike Pee-wee! Changed the oil and filter, nothing surprising; some minor amounts of metal but little of any real concern. The color was good and there was no water in it. After a cleaning later in the week it should be rideable. Need to pick up fuel, pump up the tires, obtain a fuel filter as there is considerable sediment in the tank, a battery, more gas, some motorcycle specific dinosaur oil and finally hit up a salvage yard for a rear fender to hack up. Zoom Cycles provided me with a new steel braided front brake line and some pod air filters; the front brake is a total spongemiester, but I am waffling on installing the pods until I get the bike running and everything checked out. The stock rear fender is an ugly looking turd too. Other than these admittedly minor items, the bike is in new condition. There is very little dirt under the seat, the chain shows almost no wear, the tires still have nipples on them and most of the bolts are virginal. Only time will tell if this was a good deal. So far so good though. No major red flags.
Garage is still a mess, as is the house. The washer and drier work so clean clothes are not a problem. Still have not hooked up the TV; and I almost do not miss it. Have to spend a couple of nights this week working on D&D for the meeting this week. The last one went so well it would be a shame to break off the momentum.
Computers: it still works (famous last words).
30 May 2007 - Wow, twice in one Month!
We moved. It sucked. It still sucks.
The new place is nice and most of our stuff fits. And, most importantly, all the bikes fit in the garage and one of the cars too! Wooo.
A big Shout out to all the people who helped us move and donated various pieces of laundry equipment. Your assistance was invaluable. Now, if I can just con somebody to come over and help me move the TV stand inside...
The stable got a new addition today; picked up a 2000 EX250 with 852 miles on the odo. Not a steal, but a good deal. The bike is not running at the moment, but it looks like a stuck float is keeping it from running. Will pick up new plugs, fuel and oil filters and a steel braided front brake hose from zoom over the weekend. Looking at it pretty close, it likes to be in excellent condition. Some minor issues, its dirty, needs the fluids changing etc. Nothing out of the norm and I almost anticipate a quick recovery. It is on the battery charger right now, need to see if the battery needs replacing too. It was picked up to fill in as a commuter back and forth to work. Since there is no longer any freeway involved the 22 hp wonder should do just fine. Bought some pods for the intake too, should help pep it up a bit.
The new D&D group got started last week down two members. One was out permanently and the other temporarily. It was good fun; we did not get as far as I thought, but that is okay as it gives me more time to flesh out the next couple of sessions and to figure out where this game is going to go. I have some ideas, but they need to be fleshed out into a nice web of adventures. I actually had a lot of fun DM'ing, although I got very little sleep the night before worrying about it. Next week, be better prepared!
7 May 2007 - eh
OK, so I am updating again. Went dirt bike riding last weekend to upper lake (?) west of Stonyford. Kevin and I rode from Deer Creek Road to a Stonyford overlook, then back again. The total miles for the ride was about 65 miles. I was beat at the 40 mile mark but we kept at it! Crashed four times on the way out, once due to a tree that lept out in front of me, another time to a false neutral in a gully full of mud and water (sacrificed a brake lever to that), then another time while bushwhacking on an overgrown logging road (I ended up down the hill 10') and finally just outside of the main camp in an ATV rut. Sore today. No. Very sore today! It was great fun though, lots of good trails, challenging riding and beautiful scenery. One of the meadows was just a carpet of blue, white and yellow. I really wish that I had a camera with me, it was gorgeous. The poison oak was thick and everywhere! So far, no outbreaks (so far).
The bike damages were relatively minor. I need tires and a new brake lever and to raise the forks up 0.5". Some bars that are a little higher are definitely necessary; standing on the bike is very uncomfortable for any period of time. Damage to my riding gear was considerable! My right boot sole fell off, my chest protector only has one working strap left, my helmet is a little small for my noggin and the visor is now a broken up mess. Gloves, pants, socks and H2O pack are all in great shape as they are new. Everything else, including my gear bag, is a natty mess. So that will be another set of items on the summer 'top collect' list.
Bad news on the D&D front; the Age of Shadows group has lost our illustrious DM, Mark. He wanted to turn his attention to more introspective pursuits, and closed the game down last Thursday. Needless to say, everyone was very disappointed as we were just about to come to the grand finale. The big Battle. The end of the matter. So, the remainder of the group is going to plow onward with myself at the helm. I am very nervous about leading the group as I am used to playing with a bunch of young adults, where roleplaying is mostly rollplaying. Motivation is strictly for loot and glory, and there is little NPC interaction. I must say, very much my style! It is up to me to now create a believable, living, breathing Greyhawk and engage the characters in this world. A bit intimidating. Our next adventure is on the 24th, we will be short one as V will not be here to play, and she will be missed. We will probably pick up a fifth player to replace Govard, who cannot keep plowing along in the group with someone else at the helm. I am Doomed to never have a character progress past level six! All hail Govard!
22 April 2007 - Hmm.
Boy, been a while. Been skiing a bunch of times this year, sometimes is was just slushing/water skiing. Also picked up a KDX200 and have gone dirt biking at least twice too. Was a bit weird to get back on a dirt bike after so many years on the street. You get so used to good traction on the street, that it is very unusual to get in the dirt and slide around all the time. Of course my fat ass on a KDX200 means that it does not slide too much, but you can push the front end around a bit. Another unusual item is that on the street you get very used to turning in and leaning the bike over to get it around a corner. Do that on a dirt bike and you end up on you head. The way to get through a corner is to square it off and slide the back end around (see previous problem!).
The bike is in good shape, needed some work when I got it though. Mainly brakes, fluid changes, suspension adjustment and miscellaneous minor issues. The worst parts were the brakes; the front brake was a total spongefest on the first ride and the rear rotor was completely shot. I picked up a new steel braided line and a new master cylinder just in case. Didn't need the master cylinder as the problem was an issue with brake pad alignment. Got it fixed and after half a day of riding, it was actually be useful in slowing me down! The rear brake rotor was in terrible shape, almost like the previous owners did nothing but ride the rear brake. Got a new rotor, put it on and it made some difference, after the pads broke in a bit. Since riding season is just about over, the plan for the summer is to replace or rebuild the front end with stiffer springs and heavier valving. The rear shock should also be rebuilt, but that is completely optional. And that is just about it, other than a rear rim that looks like a twistie tie, it runs very well.
Nothing on computers. Oh, wait! I did manage to fix the defective hard drive! Used a program called GetBackData for NFTS (which cost me $80!) and recovered a significant majority of the data. Most importantly, recovered was the picture archive and the D&D archive too! Woo hoo! I Actually tried this program in December with little success. I realized Friday night that data recovery was tried before the new power supply was installed, thus the hard drive was probably suffering from low input power supply and giving poor results in the tests. Re-running the program got me data back after a three hour scan.
Other items are in progress.. FZR(aweful...), Ducati (bad news!), D&D items (better news) etc. Fill you in later.
10 December 2006 - Computer Disaster - IX
So, working away on the computer, no worries. Gee, this has been a long stretch without any computer problems! Wow, am I not a lucky guy!
Zzzzzzzt. Uhhhh. Where did L: go? Hmm, making odd clicking noises. Hmm, good job I backed it up a couple of weeks ago to R:! HeHe, well, it was a crap 160Gb SATA drive. Score one for the good backup guys!
Hummm, ddeeeee. Computer works great. Lovely. Nice and stable... cruising along... Just to be safe, I will backup Everything to my nice, new, stable and reliable Seagate 300 Gb SATA wonder drive! Doesn't take too long, everything is Wooonderfull.
Now. I am Invinicible! Nothing can destroy my data! Its all backed up! I am soooo goooodddd.
Uhh, were is the R: drive?
Nutz.
There goes 190 Gb of not only just data, but the Entire library of pictures from 1998-2006. Lots of program archives, backups for all the computer drives, the entire D&D archive, entire email archive, my Dissertation. Uggg, what a mess.
So, went out and grabbed a Seagate 320 Gb SATA-II drive, set it up yesterday and it promptly nuked itself. Bad sector in the first third of the drive. So back to Central Computers. But, the system was hanging at odd times too and giving fatal exception errors on boot. Just to make sure that all my bases were covered, I dragged out the old Fluke meter and had a look at the output voltages from my Enermax 431W PSU. The PSU is a couple of years old now, no SATA adapters, no 24 pin motherboard adapter et., but it has been reliable.
Bad news: 12 volt rail is 10.86-10.91 on boot and heavy load, 11.21-11.28 volts at idle. The 5 V rail is also reporting low: 4.65 volts. Time for a new one, methinks. Tom's hardware guide has load tested many psu's and made appropriate comments regarding each one. Came up with a short list, which included the Antec Phantom, Seasonic S12 and PC Power and Cooling units. Central computers looked to have a good selection and I could return the defective drive at the same time. With the Christmas season on here, Fry's was just not an option. Plus, everything at Fry's is a return and you cannot search the inventory before you fight your way into the place. Central Computer may be a bit more in price, but I knew that if they had it on the website, there was a good chance it was also on the shelf.
It took a while of persuing the options at CC to settle on the Seasonic S12 600 W unit at $139. This looked to be a good choice, THG liked it. Got the drive replaced with a working one and migrated back home. The PSU nestled nicely into the system, very clean wiring and it has the SATA power ports native along with a PCI-E port and a native 24 pin psu-mb interface. Got it in, restrung some wires around and fired it up to see if it works.
No problems so far.
Been trying to recover data from the defunct 300 Gb drive, with little success. One program called testdisk-6.5 told me the drive was reporting the wrong number of cylinders but I can find little explanation of what that actually means. The OS is not recognizing the hd, calling it foreign in the Disk Manager. At least the disk manager is actually seeing it. A nifty little program called GetDataBack for NFTS is now crunching away, trying to image the drive so that I can try to recover what I can from it. Fingers Crossed!
I am considering seriously taking this to a full-blown recovery service, the pictures that I lost were significant. The email library would be nice to have as would my dissertation. The dissertation is actually backed up in a couple of places though, and I believe all the pictures through late 2005 are also backed up independently. I am currently hunting for the backups.
Maybe it is time to go back to RAID 0+1. Mirrored and stripped, good speed, data redundancy for $100. But the other option is a NAS storage system for about $200. Choices, choices.
BTW, got pistons for the FZR for $60 and a new mastercylinder for the KDX for $30. Score on eBay!
17 Sept 2006 - Miscellany
Tore the new FZR motor apart looking for a solution to the low compression and busted head. It looks far worse, wear wise, than the original motor does. This 'new' motor looks like someone slapped it together in 10 minutes. The valves were far out of adjustment... two intakes had no, I repeat, NO gap under them. Then one of the buckets was soldered onto the top of the valve and was impossible to remove. The head was junk. Not a good sign.
Kevin came over a couple of weeks ago and he had a look at it too. Confirmed my suspicions that it was poorly assembled. Most notable was the tightness of the rods on the crank and the corresponding large amount of wear that was visible on the piston skirts and cylinders. The more and more we looked at it we realized that it might just be the POS I suspect it is.
Managed to also pull the original motor apart in an attempt to see if it might be salvageable. Checked the valve adjustment, all were very close to spec. The exhaust valves were a little on the tight side, which surprised me, ranging from 0.17-0.25. Nominal range is 0.2-0.3. On the intake side a single valve was out of spec at 0.89, all others were at 0.12-0.15. Way to go Trevor (my former mechanic, now co-owner of Santa Barbara Pro Italia)! He did a bang up job with that last rebuild. Thanks!
Going on we pulled the cylinders from the original motor and found hash marks from the last hone still on the cylinders. The pistons look like Shit but all the races and bearings look to be in good condition. They probably still have to be replaced, but I will have to haul the motor down to the Yamaha shop or Fastlane to have it all mic'ed and checked. Overall, there is little wear on the mains and the piston pins and the transmission looks like it has some mileage but nothing looks excessively worn.
I ran a spreadsheet for cost analysis on rebuilding the motor with new rings, transmission and main bearings along with a new cam chain and other things, cost about $450. With pistons, $600. This is, while not cheap, affordable especially if I do all the work on it myself, with the exception of a hone. Might swap the lower case for the later year case, as that would get me a spin-off filter instead of the cartridge-housing unit that is in there now. That's it. Ducati is running, rode it over to work yesterday and might take it in one day this week.
4 Sept 2006 - Update
Now moved. hurrah. I hate moving but with the job market the way it is, there is no other choice. Guess the one good thing is that it makes you sort through all your cra...er, stuff, and toss out what you no longer can afford to keep around. Did a bit of that, but there are still eight boxes of Sci-fi/fantasy books on the porch that need to be sorted and tossed.
The computer is starting to do funny stuff. Started crashing about 10 days ago so I popped the case open. Put my hand on the heatsink, it came off in my hand. Closer examination revealed that the tab had broken off the socket. AMD utilizes a single tab on each side of the heatsink instead of the more expensive solution using the provided three tabs. Looked around at the available options through various websites specializing in heatsink 'reviews.' What a crock of shit. They suck. Haven't changed in almost ten years.
So, with newly won knowledge I proceeded down to Fry's. Ugg, terrible selection, most of them were already open, as usual. Looked at all the expensive heat pipe coolers and settled on a $20 cheapie global win heatsink with a 3-tab retainer. Bought a couple of the stealth fans which are super quiet and move a ton of air. Installed, runs about 3 °C cooler now. Been having some difficulties with the lone IDE drive in the system, it seems to like to turn off sometimes. It relates back to what I believe is a weakened power connector that is now making poor contact. Either way, it is manageable.
28 May 2006 - Mooooving
Yea, leaving current location to a new one. Boo that I have to move again. Yea that I have a new job that I am looking forward to. Boo that I have to move again.
15 May 2006
Ho, hum. I think that this website needs a little revamping. See, over the past couple of years my interests have morphed. Three or more years ago I was heavily interested in the hardware scene, how to eek the most out of cheap computer parts. Which parts were best for XYZ, how far can you overclock using water etc etc. But over the past two years or so my enthusiasm has seriously waned. No longer to I long to just Go to Fry's. No longer do I spend hours in Fry's mooching about. In fact, I kinda don't like Fry's much anymore. Does this mean I am no longer enthused about computer hardware? Well, yes and no. I am now more interested in using the hardware to do what I want, play games, do HTML/css/php etc. As it stands, my current hardware does all that and more. There is no longer the driving force of getting above the magical 24 fps in games, my computer will do every game I have at 24 fps. And if it stutters, programs typically allow you to lower the resolution. Even Oblivion doesn't heavily tax the system at medium resolutions and details. Most games I play are now 2-3 years old and work Great on this system!
With this in mind, there are really only a couple of sites off of the hardware list I visit on a daily basis. ArsTechnica, which has itself transformed into a Science and technology site and Slashdot, cuz, well, its slashdot. I actually spend more time surfing through the D&D site and reading Order of the Stick and PVP and looking through craigslist for motorcycle parts. So the computer is just a facilitator for my other interest now, not my primary interest. And I am OK with that.
Now, don't get me wrong. I know my little AMD64 3000+ will do a 20% overlcock on air as will the graphics card. But the point is, why. It now runs for 2-3 months without crashing itself and it burns video, plays back video with nice sound, plays games when I want it too and it is not noisy and there is no worry about the waterpump failing or leaking or something. SO that is that, end rant (not that anybody reads this).
3 May 2006
Found that I can get the cylinders and pistons mic'd and honed for only $60. And found rings on the net for $32 a barrel, need to toss out the old ones and put some new ones in. Cost now ~200 for the rebuild, provided of course the head on the original motor is ok.
Not much else going on.
