| Author | Message | ||
     Jmanscotch |
A couple weeks ago I was riding over to a friends house, cruising alone a residential road at around 30 MPH and a lady pulled out off a side road directly in front of me. I panicked and grab a handful of front brake and did my first ever 'stoppie', which did bring the bike essentially to a stop and successfully helped me avoid plowing into the side of the car, but my next reaction after stopping short of her was to release the brake (while the Buell was still quite upright on the front wheel) in an attempt to stop the bike from rotating over completely and this caused the front tire to wash out right and the bike fell on it's left side. I continued over the bars, landing on my right side. As I'm getting up and checking my surroundings, I catch a glance from the dumb b@tch as she just drives away...super. Thankfully damage to myself and the bike was minimal. Some baby road rash on my ankle, knee and elbow (thankfully wearing gloves and helmet), swollen ankle and some stiffness for me and scuffed bike (left side) bent handle bars and broken shifter. The bike faired well, even the cheap ebay bar end mirrors just dragged some without snapping off. overall the bike really didn't take much force, just the jolt of falling down from the stoppie position and sliding maybe a foot. I've taken this as an excuse to put new clubman bars on, get the bike repainted by a friend and am currently reassembling the bike now. The issue I'm having now is that the throttle doesn't rotate as much as I *think* I recall it rotating prior to the wreck and subsequently installing the clubman bars. At the grip, I feel like I'm getting a 1/4 turn out of the throttle and at the carb it's rotating maybe 10 MM before the ear that holds the throttle cable end bottoms out against the pulley the cable routes around right there.   I thought I might have screwed up the slack in the cables and wasn't allowing the throttle to fully close, which is why it'd only open that last little bit, but I've adjusted the throttle and idle cables full in and full out and in no position (even with slack) does the throttle close more than in these pictures and due to hitting the pulley, it won't open anymore either. I opened up the handlebar throttle control and all is well in there (full movement, all tabs intact, no binding, etc). Can anyone offer any advice on if this is a normal amount of throttle movement and I just forgot or is the throttle butterfly valve maybe lodged/broken? It seems like someone red loctited my ram-air cleaner on, so I'm struggling to get it off to do a visual inspection of the intake. I'm open to any and all advice on what to check in relation to this seemingly new issue. Thanks all, Jake | ||
| Jmanscotch |
and some pictures...because we all love pics. Hard to see the damage, but bent bars, scrapped mirror/clutch, broken off shifter and bent peg, scuffed primary cover.  The woman driver came out of the side road on the right, taking a left across my path and cutting the corner hard, which is why my skid marks are a little before the true intersection. I believe the black mark to be my front tire skidding some (it's squirly and not straight because I was dogging potholes and not traveling straight at this moment) and the scrapes just to the left of the skid mark is the bike going down.  My first (and thankfully pathetic) road rash.  She's coming back together and looking more like what I started out wanting.  | ||
| Jim2 |
Glad your ok! I wish I could help you answer your throttle cable questions but I have no idea. Only thing I can say is you should be able to take the cables off and rotate manually at the carb and see if the manual rotation has more movement than when the cables were hooked up. The Clubman bars look nice with those dual headlights. Did you have to use risers? Do you clear the fork adjusters? | ||
| Jmanscotch |
Thanks, Jim. The bars fit nicely without risers (though I haven't ridden it yet and it's quite a low setup so I may have to go that route for comfort) and do physically clear the fork adjusters, although they are going to make getting a screw driver onto the adjusters a little touchy, but doable. I did try creating lots of slack in the cables and then physically rotating the throttle at the carb and didn't get any extra movement out of it, which makes me think there is either A) not a problem and I just haven't rode the bike enough to remember what normal throttle movement is on the bike or B) there's a physical blockage internal to the carb that's not allowing full throttle (or more likely, full off-throttle) to be reached. The fact that the ear on the throttle rotates up into the pulley, creating the stopping point makes me feel the pulley has either moved closer and is now impeding or there's suppose to be more off-throttle rotation of that ear so it can travel farther before contacting the pulley and stopping. Can anyone snap a pic or do a visual check on theirs for me? I would just start the bike up and see how the throttle acts, but I'm waiting for the paint to cure before introducing it to gas (apparently painted plastic can't be baked dry and the paint used is picky and needs a week to be sure it won't react poorly to fumes). | ||
| S1owner |
Take the tank off use a bottle and set up an iv gas line this way you can run the bike have good visibility of the line and see whats up | ||
| Jmanscotch |
Yep, set up a temporary gas supply for her and everything appears normal. Idles good and revs up fine. Guess I just never payed attention to how little the throttle turned. Thanks for helping walk me through my brain fart. (Message edited by Jmanscotch on June 16, 2016) | ||
| 89rs1200 |
Bar risers: I can recommend this solid, well engineered, bar riser kit with instructions and proper bolts, from Precision Engineering http://www.preeng.com SKU5-01 1'' Bar Riser Hmmm. Was unable to find them on their site for the $40 I paid. Try calling them; 406-752-8688 Used them on our S3 trike, with no cable extensions needed, even with the highway bars. They make many billet items for several models of Buells; http://www.preeng.com/xcart/home.php?cat=5 | ||
| Upthemaiden |
Bike is looking great. I really like the blue. Aside from that, and not that it matters because it sounds like you already resolved your issue, but I think a quarter turn is pretty much standard for motorcycles. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Makes sense. Quarter turn is 90 degrees and that's what the butterfly is supposed to do. | ||
| Littlebuggles |
Glad you're okay, love that blue paint! Those lights and wind screen look great. For future ref from a former msf instructor: Most of the time locking up the front wheel results in washing out to one side or the other. From the skid, you did well to keep it upright as long as you did. Most bike crashes (something like 75%) are caused by a driver "not seeing the bike" and turning left across your path of travel... watch those cross streets and expect them to try and kill you. | ||
| Jmanscotch |
Thanks for the riser link and the paint compliments. It's a three stage Toyota pearl. I actually revisited the throttle 'issue' and took a chance bending the bracket that holds the aforementioned pulley. I may have described the issue poorly and that's why it didn't seem like a true issue existed, but it did just feel off and low travel/twist. Now with the bracket moved so the throttle ear thing doesn't contact the pulley so quickly, a very normal feeling twist is achieved so I'm calling that good. Littlebuggles; I'd like to take credit for keeping it together somewhat...but realistically this wasn't one of those situations that people described where I felt time slowed down, and I reacted well and watched it all go down in slow motion...it happened quick, I panicked and reacted..the bike not immediately washing out was more luck than skill lol. I did take the intro MSF course a year or so ago and learned a few very useful things from the course. I guess I could argue that class did give a better chance of having a positive reaction to some situations vs where my competency level was prior. Definitely a class worth the time and money. | ||
| Littlebuggles |
Maybe take the ERC now that you've got some saddle time and miles under your tires? I really enjoy going back for that class every few years to dial in my skills on my own motorsickle. That blue would make awesome race stripes on a metallic gray/silver tank. I'm getting ideas... sister-in-law's Camry has a neat metallic black that would work nicely. My paint is needing to be refreshed. |
