Lessons Learned... Work over a proper work surface

Don't do stupid things, like me. I was hooking up electrics and decided to clean and check wiring. I took the coils off. There was some wear and roughness on the wiring that connected up to the coil. I cleaned the wiring and wrapped it with the color tape of the wires. I next went on to check, clean and wipe the coils. I was working on a chair 8" off the floor and I dropped the rear coil. At first I thought just a little piece of plastic had broken off. When I checked the post to the negative lead it had broken off just below the plastic.

A new coil as listed on the BMW of Chattanooga website is $239. Actually, I thought it would be alot more given the price of some other items.

The post is laying in from of the hole which it vacated

For the fix, the only thing I can think of is to drill just a little bit into the bottom of the post. I don't want to go too deeply. Although I'm not sure I think that this is probably like a distributor cap it needs to be air tight. Or, it could contain some cancer causing PCB stuff inside. after drilling as little as possible, I'm going to try and tap the hole. I may then try to tap the post that broke off. This would let me use the two holes to create a stud like arrangement.

Reassemblng the Phoenix K2B.... Task outline

I had wanted to do some cleaning, polishing and brightening while the bike was partially apart. The one problem I'm having is that with all the aluminum on the bike I don't know what is dirt, stain, or pitting. I have no experience with this kind of aluminum. I looked at some engine degreasers, they are spray on applications and then wash down. With the bike apart and unsealed I felt this would be a bad thing to do. I'm just going to go ahead and put the bike back together and tear it back down for a good cleaning.

I'm doing this as an outline because I find that if I make a list things will come to mind that I might otherwise forget. Also, by spending time between entries I'm able to add things I've missed. With any luck, some folks may read this and add information I might have forgotten.

Re-assembly Task Outline

1. Choke cable installation
1. Use messenger line to run from top to bottom (pointy end flows better)
2. Attach lower connection to throttle body
3. Attach upper connection to chock lever at handlebar
4. Test prior to attaching cap
1. Grease if needed
2. WHAT GREASE?
5. Attach cap
2. Throttle cable installation
1. Use messenger line to run from top to bottom
1. Attach lower connection to throttle body
2. Attach upper connection to handlebar
1. Test
2. Adjust with adjuster if neccesary
3. Attach cap
3. Re-Attach Brake Resevoir
4. Adjust and tighten handlebar
1. Adjust to sharpie marks on handlebar
5. Attach fuel pressure regulator
1. Attach and clamp aft section of new hose
2. Attach and clamp fwd section of new hose
3. Attach and clamp new vacuum hose to bottom of regulator
6. Attach newly painted fuel rail
1. Flush painted rail with alcohol
2. Check injector cups for paint
1. Sand or brush as needed
2. Blow out cups and rail
3. Install new O rings on injectors
1. Test for fit in cups
4. Install electrical connectors to injectors
1. Check bike side connectors for insulator
2. Wire tie electrical leads to rail
3. Bolt rail to bike
4. Connect and clamp new Fuel hoses forward and aft
7. Connect and clamp new crankcase breather tube
8. Connect and clamp forward vacuum tube from fuel pressure regulator
9. Connect and clamp aft vacuum tube from fuel pressure regulator
10. Connect under tank electrical connections
1. Check schematic against the electrical connections
2. Count schematic
3. Count under tank connections
11. Check and confirm all undertank electrical connections
1. Watch videos of electrical disconnects
12. Check and confirm all uner tank electrical connections again
13. Install Relay box cover
1. Check for loose conections
2. Check for tools and towels
14. CONNECT BRAIN
15. Install charged battery
1. Confirm Positive and negative leads
2. Ensure negative lead detached from bike body
3. Attach positive lead to battery
4. Attach negative lead to battery
5. Check all electricals again
6. ATTACH NEGATIVE LEAD TO BATTERY
16. Install Fuel Tank
1. Install and zip tie under tank overflow cup
2. Attach and clamp fuel delivery hose
3. Attach and clamp fuel overflow/return line
4. Connect electrical connection to tank
1. Confirm electrical connection to tank
5. ?

Blog Work... Even I didn't like looking at the blog!

I had been looking at other blogs and site pages, in comparison, mine wasn't very attractive. I had not spent alot of time looking at blogger and what could be done. But, I'd noticed that I've had some page views which I didn't expect. So I decided to find out what I could do.

The first thing was the background. I'm using an image I took of the sunrise in Juno Beach FL. I'm fairly sure I took the photo with my little S100 which isn't too large a file. However, Blogger wanted a photo only 300k. I had to slim it down by saving it as a really lousy jpeg with high compression and a low level; the file came out to 264k. I don't like the way the page tiles but without the tiling half the page is blank.

My header was a lackluster. I really didn't have a good picture of my bike (My bike can't take a good picture) so I looked around the net and found a couple fairly decent photos. I think one is a BMW stock photo. The black beemer will probably be what my bike looks like. I had to join and retouch the photos in Photoshop. My bike photo occupies the location at the top right, this is a "Before" shot.

I next put a couple of slide show boxes to the right. Sadly, Blogger doesn't search on a master folder so it's only looking at one folder at a time. I'll get around to moving all the shots into one folder, but I've already spent a day on this project, that's enough.

I may add a video box so that I can upload all my video but it won't take a lot of time for the blog to load. That's a project for another day.

I'm going to put the bike back together and go for a start and run

A word about my Photos and Videos...Sorry

I own and use some of the best semi pro equipment you can buy. Although, some may argue that point for my cameras, my lenses are arguably the best you can buy for their purpose including the Canon 100mm Macro f2.8 L IS lens. This would be the absolute best lens to shoot these pictures. They would be sharp contrasty and the color would be second to none.

However, that lens mounted on either the Canon 50D or T2i would create huge files. I would then have to run them through Photoshop to shrink them down to web acceptable size which un-does all the good things that the lens and camera bring to the show. It's senseless.

Instead I've settled on my iPhone for photos. I can take the picture send it to myself in an email with the subject line containing the caption. I then pick it up in email on the computer and save it as a download. I then pick it up in blogger and post the post. It's fairly simple and straight forward

For video I've decided to use a Flip Video HD (They don't make these anymore. Cisco bought flip and added something to them to make them more suitable to what Cisco wanted to do. Apparently, the board found out that some of the proprietary software/hardware was out in the public being sold for $100 a pop and put an end to it). It's a decent little camera. The video doesn't take up much space, It's easy to download the video and it uploads decently to blogger.

Blogger...It's owned by google. It has some eccentricities. They don't seem to be documented or perhaps they were in a "tour" that I didn't watch.

It seems that there is a 24 hour limit on the amount of video you can upload. I spent hours trying to  get some video up on another blog. I finally put it to rest and went to bed. I tried again in the morning and it went up with no problem. I uploaded a second video but the third wouldn't go until the next day.

Still pictures have to be uploaded most of the time. I have had some luck just cutting and pasting into the blogs. This doesn't work all the time.

So I'm sorry the photos and videos aren't better. I already spend a fair amount of time on the blog. I don't think using better equipment would greatly improve the functionality.

July 3, 2012 A Trip to Mecca... Bob's BMW Choke and Throttle Cable Purchased $60 total $361

I've been over to Bob's only a few times. I'm in Annapolis and Bob's isn't close to where I usually ever go. I think I may have stopped in about 5 years ago when I sold my truck to CarMax. Then I stopped in a couple of years ago and saw an old friend Maddigan M. Maddigan and I met through sailing and he was a regular fixture at my weekly Thursday Night RUM parties onboard my boat. His family lived on the water and he would bring his inflatable or jet ski down and hang out with the rest of the sailing ne'er-do-wells I hung out with. I had the parties on Thursday evening because it was the only night we didn't race. I only had RUM drinks because I like rum (I rarely drink beer except when Pilsner Urquell is available). I'm pleased to say that most have moved on to become responsible members of society, some not.

As I mentioned earlier, my first stop was to my local Kawasaki store, Pete's. They didn't have any cables, as I suspected. So It was Bob's or nothing.

Maddigan was free, with a few quick keystrokes he said yup we got them. Although, he was showing two part numbers for the throttle cable. I went out to the car to get the cables and he went into the back to get his. The cables looked very similar but his throttle cables were missing the adjuster that my cable had. Maddigan needed to help another customer so I started playing with and comparing the cables. Lo and behold, the adjuster popped of my cable and fit nicely over the new one.

Suffice it to say, be carefull when removing parts; it always seem that there is a small part that's willing to jump out of the mix and lose itself. this happened to me when I was removing the electrical caps from the fuel injectors. There is a small square insulator inside the cap that I thought was attached, until one jumped out. I taped the ends to ensure that they all stayed put.

I think I forgot to put my Battery purchase in $90 Total $301

I think I bought it on July 19 from Battery warehouse. I took measurements and decided that the Deka AGM ETX 30L would fit, and it does. What I forgot about is that there is a bracket/band that came with my bike but was never installed, that will not fit. I think I'm just going to have to strap it in

June 29, 2012 Another trip to Napa for fuel and Vaccum Hose $12 Total $211

Sorry for the date difference in the postings. Somehow I only saved this as a draft and so it got posted in July.


When I got into the right side of the bike with the air box out I was able to see where the fuel return line goes. It goes into a little bell shaped thing with a vacuum hose attached, I believe it's the fuel pressure regulator. I removed the Fuel Line from both sides and the vacuum tube from the bottom. I also removed the crankcase breather tube.

I went to my local Napa store and got replacement hoses. The outside diameter of these hoses is different from the BMW parts. However, I paid $12 for the two hoses and was given a piece of hose to use as a breather tube. The BMW parts would have been $22 dollars for each hose and $15 for the crankcase breather hose. That's $59 bucks!