Streettracker goes south

It's out of my hands now, again. I was able to put it back together last week. I wound up painting the subframe and swing-arm with Colorrite touch up spray paint. The lights went back on with no fuss, but I need to get a new flasher for the turn signals to work. It started up after just a few kicks, and I was able to get it to idle with a half turn of the idle air screw.

On Tuesday I got to deliver it down to Scott in Brooklyn. He'll do some fine tuning and ride it around a little, and eventually put it up for sale.

On the Ferry to New York.

XL/XR600 'Tracker

I'm currently recovering from an injury sustained while riding in the woods last week. I fell, hurt my arm. Now I don't have the arm strength required to ride in the woods, so this Sunday instead of riding, I wanted to make some progress on the streettracker project.

The carbs have been cleaned and await re-installation. The exhaust has been sanded and painted. The engine has been detailed a little. The frame was giving me pause. I wanted to paint it, but I really didn't want to pull the engine to do that, even though it's really only a few more nuts and bolts to deal with. It could be a lot of work and potential trouble for not much gain. I decided to put that decision off while I mount some new rubber and clean the wheels.

Having pulled the rear wheel, it was no great amount of work to also pull the swingarm, which would give me better access to the rear of the engine and frame for cleaning.

I got the old Carlisle DT tire off the rear wheel easily enough, then proceeded to pinch two tubes trying to mount the new Maxxis DT tire. I chose the Maxxis because the tread pattern is more suitable for the street than the Dunlop/Goodyear DT tire. The Dunlop/Goodyear tread pattern is symmetrical, but it has a center line void created by the tread blocks that makes it wander over paved road. The Maxxis tread pattern covers the center of the tire. The Maxxis tire is a little tougher to mount, the carcass of the tire is considerably stiffer than the Dunlop, so I was leaning on the tire irons a little more, and I pinched the tubes.

I think I've decided to paint the lower sub-frame and swingarm. I don't want to get into a full restoration, but I think that touching up the worn paint will make the bike presentable without losing some of the racing cred that this bike has.

Honda XR/XL600 Streettracker redux

Wow. It's been a long time since I've written anything, if this blog can be considered writing. I guess I've gotten a little sidetracked by facebook. I also haven't raced much, the last race was a disaster that I chose not to put in the blog. Still paying E.R. fees on that one.
Ice season is upon us here in the Northeast, but with the ice last week came a Polar Vortex, and seemingly now the son of Polar Vortex is upon us... it was -18 degrees when I woke up this morning! I'm not going to put gear on and race around in a motorcycle induced wind chill of -50.

But on to different things, as hinted by the title. I recently repurchased the '86 Honda XL600 from Seamus's dad. I had sold it to him a few years ago, he wanted something to ride on the ice, and I needed some cash to fund the up coming racing season, plus I had decided it was time to let a few bikes go. In the end, he never did get the bike on the ice, but he did spend some time taking it apart and then letting it sit in his garage. It was a little worse for the experience from when I last saw it, but I was able to determine that it was still complete, so I bought it back.

I have a few concerns, the fuel tank hadn't been drained, so there was some nasty old gas in the tank and carbs. I can clean the carbs, and I'm hoping that the fiberglass tank doesn't leak. Beyond that, I just hope the rings haven't siezed and I still have decent compression. I think I'll need to freshen it up a bit, new chain, tires, some paint etc.

The idea behind buying it back was to get it back into shape as a streettracker, with the 19" wheels, lights and license plate back on, bring it down to Brooklyn and see if Scott can get somebody to pay lot's of money to own it.
Here's what it looked like last time it was on the ice, I'm guessing about 7-8 years ago...

HONDA

This isn't exactly a first for me, but it sort of is. I've owned and ridden a few Hondas over the years, most notably the '86 XL600 streettracker that I've posted about, as well as an old CB125 "peashooter" project and some other dirt bikes, but this is my first modern Honda street bike.

Behold my new 2001 VFR800FI Interceptor

I say modern only because it was born this century, not last, but it's a fine distinction because it's a 2001 which is the last year of the 5th generation VFR that started production in 1998. After '01 Honda went with V-Tec camshaft technology, which some of the diehard Interceptor riders didn't really cotton to. But it is fuel injected, which was one of my priorities in a street bike.

Here's an old mechanical drawing that I lifted from Cycle World of the VF1000R Interceptor engine. Such a wicked cool design. Vee four engine with gear driven cams in an era when everybody else was putting the money into inline fours. The exception being Yamaha with their V-Max, but that was aimed at a different market segment.

I'm looking forward to putting lots of miles on this Interceptor...

XL600 Streettracker

Here are a couple more photos I dug up of my '86 Honda XL600 streettracker.

This is me racing it at the Bangor 1/2 mile, I think in August of 2000, against #76 Bruce Lyskawa. He was part owner of Erion Racing for awhile. I enjoyed being in front of him.

This is at the Sandbar in Milton, getting ready to go out on the ice with Rees and his buddy. I had replaced the stock steel tank with a fiberglass tank from Omar's.