Tire pressure guages

When buying a new guage do you look for an ANSI certified guage?

Do you know what that really means??

Well here a link to a brief and quick read......it doesn't mean as much good as one would think! (although I still make sure all mine have this certification)

https://www.ucimfg.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Gauges-Catalog-4c.pdf



There are plenty of choices out there, and it seems every few years there is a new "test/comparison" between gauges.........which basically means which company paid the most to be rated the top dawg-- sure I am a skeptic and for good reason

2018 test/review linky

http://www.reviewlab.com/best-tire-pressure-gauges

2019 test/review linky

https://groomandstyle.com/best-tire-pressure-gauge-review/

some other interesting links

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/tire-pressure-gauges/buying-guide/index.htm

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15124483/best-tire-pressure-gauges-reviews/


How often do you check and set your tire pressures? and are you setting them to the correct pressures...
both in terms of guage consistency and accuracy
and in terms of the proper pressure and not some idiotic oem suggestion for those oem tires you wore out years ago and are no longer riding on.........

Food for thought for everyone.

A quickie........... don't pinch your wires under your seat!!!

So last story for the day......


 So some guy finds me via recommendations on some chatroom or board or facebook or somewhere via the internets....

 Some idiots (on said internets) have already given him shitty advice and ruined his bike for him in the process, since now said guy decided he and his best friend could and should replace the cam chain tensioner themselves based on the shitty advice of morons...
You know, save all that monies and do it yourself...... It was easy they said....... nevermind that you obviously have no skills or knowledge in the motorcycle mechanics world and hell obvioulsy looking at all the rounded off screws and stripped off bolt heads you don't own any decent tools and even less so know how to use tools if you did..........

 So bike arrives. It is 10 yr old R1 that has been crashed and rashed and beat to death despite its sub 10k miles. oh and he thinks it is worth 7700 (yep he has this flat grey/black repainted hunk o shit up for sale)..... I really loved his initial commentary when arriving..... " I always left turbo busa's in the dust", "ZX14's never could keep up", "it didn't matter who I raced I always beat them by a mile", "I just need my bike to not run like a ninja 250"

 So I tell him what I already know is the problem..........
 "the problem is you and buddy touched it and did shit work you had no clue how to and I bet $100 your cam timing is off atleast a tooth or more and most likely you bent valves."

he says "well it was making a little noise and had a leak around the oe cam chain tensioner and everyone told me the cam chain tensioner on these is shit and to buy a manual tensioner and they are easy to install"
 I love his homemade cork cut out gasket too..... apparently he says that APE tensioners didn't come with the correct gasket?

Days/weeks later after working tirelessly doing what they don't know how to do and missing many a riding days - he and his buddy go to start the thing and it rattles and bucks and rattles more and keeps dying and they don't know what they did wrong, they did it just like all those morons told them to...... But some of those morons on said internets told them if it is still rattling they didn't tighten the tensioner enough..morons- too damn many morons on the internets!!!
 Finally someone told them they probably did it wrong and the cam timing is likely off etc........

 Well somehow these two brainiacs figure out how to take it apart (mind you they didn't get it all back together properly and I think the tool they used the most was a 1/2 drive breaker bar and a worn out phillips screwdriver)

but he claims they got the cam timing correct now and it was about 3 teeth off, but it still sounds horrible and runs worse than a 250 ninja...... and still makes lots of rattling noises

Well I got it apart this week;
~after having to chisel loose a couple of the valve cover bolts (allen heads were completely stripped away and all of them were so tight I thought for sure my allen socket was going to twist in the ones it could bite into.....)
~after chiselling loose every JIS#2 screw that holds the airbox lid on.......... they stripped every single one of them and again- no idea how they didn't pull those brass nuts out of the plasctic airbox, they were that fricking tight......
~ after finding the left upper engine mount (case guards that interfered with removing plastics) is stuck a few turns from actually being tight, so it will only rotate about 1/2 turn tighter from how arrived (spacer still bounced around) and about 1 turn looser from how arrived before the bolt begins to twist...ie- right before the bolt breaks...... it sure looks by the angle of the head either it is cross threaded and crooked or the bolt is bent, but either way without it coming out a piece of fairing is trapped and in the way as is the bulky frame slider..... not to even get into the whole- the engine is a stressed member of the frame thing and how that not being secured properly is not good for the frame nor for the cylinder head it threads into
~ did I mention the spark plugs? yeah, the left two (like one person was working on one side of the bike and someone else on the otherside) #1 and #2 were both so tight I had to break out my 1/2" breaker bar and really reef on it to get them to come loose (yet magically the right two #3 and #4 were both little more than finger tight......... tq spec is 84 inch lbs just like the cam caps)

Well lets move on..........
 I get the valve cover off and rotate the engine over (it is super hard to turn by hand...... I loosen the manual tensioner by 3 full turns and can finally get the top of the chain between the cams to just wiggle slightly..oh oloky there, nnow the engine turns over much easier by hand) I get it to the proper cam timing check location and looky there, exhaust cam timing is still advanced 2 full teeth and what is with all the guoges and dents all over the cam sprockets? obvioulsy they used those to pry on....ugh
So I pull out the cylinder leakage tester and the feeler guages and check leakage and valve clearances fully expecting to find bent valves, maybe all of them- who they hell knows what these bafoons ruined along the way

4 valves are tight and cylinder leakage results show the best cylinder with only 5% leakage and the worst 8% leakage.............. WOW talk about these idiots dodging a bullet in the form of their own stupidity.......

So I guess it will live again without too much muss and fuss and he can go back out and slay some more of those turbo busa's and zx14's and any liter bike ever..........
or atleast that is his story- I doubt by looking at the tires he has ever leaned the bike past 15* and by the massive cupping they both have and the 45 psi of air in them......... he wasn't drag racing either

"My throttle sometimes doesn't work"


I had to laugh at her description.... and her lack of even thinking she had any other issues.....

She did not mention how her brake and clutch both squeel when you pull them or how the clutch lever travels almost to the bar before it even engages the cable, nor that she had about 14psi of air in her 8 year old tires, and that her chain shined like a fine silver and had enough kinks and free play to make horrible noises when rotated

 When you pull out your battery and re-install it in spring........... or do any type of work on your motorcycle

Make sure you get your flasher relay and other electrical connectors properly secured and tied up how they were when the bike was new

V-twin that both these were laying on the exhuast pipe and he wondered why he had no turn signals......

You are so DEPLORABLE

hence the screen name

Thank you......... It is just too bad everyone in America wasn't more deplorable!

In reply to Gregs locked thread here........... http://mn-msta.com/index.php/topic,2070.msg20257.html#new

"Hello Fellow Riders. I thought I’d drop in, say hello and broach a few topics.

On a person note, I’m going to mention this. As I discussed in this thread, http://mn-msta.com/index.php/topic,1960.0.html, I fulfilled my promise (mostly) last year with 3 open forum rides, and one large private ride. If others don’t step up and post a ride, this forum is effective dead regarding group rides. Organizing a ride takes a lot of work and it does open you up for slings and arrows thrown by those in the peanut gallery that never post rides. A few of the complaints will be deserved, most will not. 

Ray and I have organized more open forum rides, via this group and the 3 other dominant groups over the last 17 years, than any other person. Others have posted rides, some more than others, but none more than Ray and I. This isn’t boasting (lol, believe me!), just stating fact. These opinions I’m about to write about are worth what you paid to read them.  Zip, nada, the big goose egg.

The national MSTA FB group had a recent post that caught my attention. The fellow mentioned that we are a very diverse group of people, sometimes with nothing else in common other than our shared love of motorcycles / motorcycling. And even with my previous sentence, you see some of these differences. Some of us love the motorcycle more, and some love motorcycling more. (Neither is better than the other, just different).

That fact that we are a VERY diverse group of people in our personality makeup, in addition to our differences in what constitutes a “group ride”, mandates that what makes a “group ride” effective is INFORMATION. 
If a person were to post on a skiing forum, “Hey, let’s get together and go skiing”, most would show up at the resort, and then splinter off into subgroups. The black diamond skiers, the blue square and green circle (expert, average, and beginner) skiers will rarely ski together. This is an example of why I feel it’s important to lay out what exactly your posted ride is going to be.

These examples are presented only to show the vast differences of rides and I’m not applying worth to any of them over the other.
1.   Iron butt ride! Let’s get out and do a 1000 mile day!
2.   Twisties all day: Let’s get out and do 75 miles legs, few short gas stops, one hour lunch. Speeds reasonable in the straights, “do your own thing” in the corners
3.   Flying kites! Let’s get out, listen to some Peter, Paul and Mary, smell some flowers and enjoy the day.
4.   Kickstands and kicking tires: Let’s get together for lunch on our motorcycles and swap riding stories.

Just as a beginner skier doesn’t want to ski the mogul hill and the black diamond skier doesn’t want to ski bunny slopes, riders of different tastes as described above will not want to ride the other styles of rides. (AGAIN, I’m not assigning worth to these styles)
Given all of us have various commitments outside riding, the days we DO get off to ride should be as we hoped them to be. Hence: Information.

I’ve learned 2 important things from RR and RK (abbreviations to protect the guilty, but you know who these folks are) regarding group riding over the past 17 years. The importance of stressing the “ride your own ride” philosophy as well as the fact that people like to ride WITH others. BOTH can be accomplished via the methods I laid out above. "

and his comments here;

"Other than organizing the Tri-State Boogie" later this year, I'm done hosting group rides. I will reach out to friends and host closed rides. Please feel free to reach out to me as well.
Cheers!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seeings how I put up a post but it was deleted twice and then thread was locked.......... previously deleted post quoted here.....


---------------------------------------------------------------------



"5 people stated they would organize and lead atleast 1 ride this year, thus far only 2 have stepped up and actually done it. One of those people has done 4[/i]

http://mn-msta.com/index.php/topic,2024.0.html


It is early yet, so I still have some hope

As far as that whole 'ride your own ride' thing.............. I far more believe in ride the leaders ride, he dictates the pace and the rules and when to stop, where to stop, how long to stop
 They are the leader for a reason!

But you or anyone else who decides to organize and lead can set their own standard and rules for the group"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just in case the other disappears, you can see the context of my reply