Scott's 3AJ restore

[socks]

Whoopee!

Look at the size of that grin

Nice one fella.

[Mezo]

Sounds real nice Scott, you look happy to be finally back in the saddle again.

Mezo.

[xtrider]

I guess I'll have to change my color choice if I get a hold of a Tenere over here, can't have both of the only ones in the states blue and yellow. White and red it is then ! We have to get something started over here.

[xtzrick]

Well happy for you mate, does sound nice

Rick

[Mezo]

I guess I'll have to change my color choice if I get a hold of a Tenere over here, can't have both of the only ones in the states blue and yellow. White and red it is then ! We have to get something started over here.

The blue & yellow is known unoficially as the MK1 3AJ, the white & red came later (MK2) & has the longer oil cooler, the bike Scott "stole" has an interesting story, the Canadian guy who owned my bike here in Aussie wanted a 3AJ back in Canada, the guy who was selling it thought it was a prank call & couldnt belive he was flying down to buy it, in the meantime Scott went round & grabbed it.

Mezo.

[Fred333]

Hey Scott!
In the end....

;-)
Olli

[scottieh]

I guess I'll have to change my color choice if I get a hold of a Tenere over here, can't have both of the only ones in the states blue and yellow. White and red it is then ! We have to get something started over here.

The blue & yellow is known unoficially as the MK1 3AJ, the white & red came later (MK2) & has the longer oil cooler, the bike Scott "stole" has an interesting story, the Canadian guy who owned my bike here in Aussie wanted a 3AJ back in Canada, the guy who was selling it thought it was a prank call & couldnt belive he was flying down to buy it, in the meantime Scott went round & grabbed it.

Mezo.

I love this story. It's such a well connected world. The Canadian offered an extra $100 for the seller to pick him up from the airport and he was going to ride it home back to Canada (would have made it there too). In the end it was a matter of location, location, location.

[GeoffD]

Sounds great Scottie.. looking forward to some more of your fantastic ride reports.....

Don't forget your helmet though

[Mezo]

looking forward to some more of your fantastic ride reports.....

+ 1

Route 66 on a 3AJ

Think about it,,,you would be the one & only guy in the world to do it.

Mezo.

[scottieh]

The bike's been behaving erratically lately. It's been a lot of trouble to start and when it does start it blows smoke. I'm kick start only so after a good 5 minutes of struggling I find myself exhausted, which is no fun.

[youtube]nFL3gyjGqQc[/youtube]

Also It's very leaky. I noticed after I filled up the tank that I was getting oil leaks in places I never expected, like above the tool kit box and by the left side panels. After a little searching I figured out the oil was coming from the case breather tube which was routed up on top of the tool box oddly enough.


I have since moved it down to the bottom of the frame and haven't had any more strange leaks of that nature. But a lot of the case bolts still leak. I'm going through as much of the bike as I can and replacing gaskets (that should have been replaced by the last mechanic honestly) and using judicious amounts of Yamabond to seal up the more troublesome spots. One of the main oil lines from the oil tank has a bad leak. The o-ring isn't in terrible condition but I think it needs to be replaced because it's a guaranteed 6-10 drops of oil every time I stop the bike so who knows how much it's leaking while I'm actually riding. I took it to my shop but stopped at a place along the way and contemplated dropping her off for a long stay



My diagnosis of the poor running condition was carb tuning. It behaved fine at beyond 1/4 throttle so it made me believe it was an idle jet setting or a air screw adjustment that needed to be made. I had rebuilt the carb a week or so ago because one of the rubber o-rings in the bowl had begun leaking and I was running very lean, which is when the video was taken. While taking everything out I made note that my fuel screw adjustment was 2 and 3/4 turns out from bottom. I went through everything that could be unscrewed and cleared all the passages and put everything back together as I had found it. Many days later the bike wasn't starting until I had a team of people help me push the bike and I would bump start it. Sometimes while kick starting it the engine would nearly backfire and send the kick start lever back violently and it dented my pipe up quite a bit.

Finally today I had a chance to take a look at the carb. I wanted to do the screw adjustment while the carb was still on the bike but my lack of the right sized screw driver made that impossible. I checked the spark plug to make sure I wasn't burning oil and it was dry so that was good. Then I turned the fuel screw back in a quarter turn to 2 and 1/2 turns out and put everything back together. After that the bike practically started itself. First kick -no backfire, no gruff, guss, sass, spit, fire, smoke, or idiosyncrasies. Just easy starting, easy idling, and easy riding. So that was nice. The carb has a clean bill of health and now I just need to figure out how to stop all these damn oil leaks.