Update March 22, 2015
Jacob and I were supposed to go camping this weekend, but the weather had other ideas. Since he took the weekend off from his part time job, I told him to come over for a shop day. Now that his bike is mechanically sound and proven reliable (Like a Honda UJM would be anything BUT reliable), Jacob saved his nickels and bought some parts to address some of the cosmetic issues.
The stock mirrors on the Hornet are garbage. A friend of mine from the UJM forum gave Jacob a set of Nighthawk mirrors with some black extenders. These work real well.
Jacob is having fun playing with his toy.
We installed a pair of frame sliders. Now that we are making the bike pretty, we might as well try to protect it. The upper radiator hose has a small tear in it. It wasn’t leaking, but Jacob wanted to change it and I can’t argue with that.
Jacob replaced the rashed thermostat cover.
He picked up a exhaust tip silencer from 2-brothers. This makes a HUGE difference. The pipe is still louder than stock, but it’s not obnoxious. Jacob likes it and so do I.
The timing chain cover was also rashed, so Jacob replaced it. I took an opportunity to show Jacob what the cam chain does, how the chain tensioner works (same as the FJR), etc. Jacob recognized the hall effect sensor used for the crankshaft position sensor (I think they call this the”pulser”) – he recently learned about this in one of his engineering classes at University.
Looks pretty good.
Jacob’s been on the search for a used fuel tank, but they are unavailable and a new one must be lined with Platnum ($900 bucks! Yikes!), so he picked up a bottle of touch up paint. The dent has some surface rust on it and if we don’t do something, he will be forced to replace it soon. So I gave him my dremel tool and he cleaned up the surface rust.
Then he gently applied the touch up paint.
I think it looks Okay and he is still at about $2,000 on his whole investment.
The idle speed was a little low, so we started playing with that. Not as easy as it sounds. The adjustment wheel is very hard to get to, and you risk burning your hands every time you touch it. We had a little excitement as one of the vacuum tees came completely un-done and we had to do some real creative fishing to get it out from underneath the starter. Then more creativity as we used several sets of needle nosed pliers to re-attach all hoses. But she purring at about 1400 rpm now and runs like a top.
We still have the rashed stator cover to replace, but it was getting late and Pants wanted to watch some hoops so I called it. Weather today is shaping up – we may go take a ride this afternoon.
On a side note, Jacob was texting quite a bit yesterday afternoon. I finally inquired and it would seem that a certain member of the female persuasion is the source of the exchange. A while back, this young lady saw him at school, was impressed with the bike, and asked if he’d take her for a ride. They started talking and now they are seeing each other casually. Jacob insisted that she wear a F/F helmet, riding jacket, gloves, and boots. He took her to Cycle Gear and she bought some stuff. Jacob says that she hold on tight, enjoys the ride, and he likes to ride with her. He showed me a picture of her – nice looking kid.
It would appear that the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.