Bags

As bad-ass as she looks naked, it's really impractical without the saddlebags.

I'm keeping the windshield off tho.

I Have GOT To Get Me One Of These!

Mityvac.

Bled the clutch in about 15 seconds.

Lifted

Got the front wheel up. Should he able to raise the back with the lift and put a 4x4 underneath to hold both wheels up.

Day Two

Day two:

• No more gas leaking from carbs. Looks like the o-rings did indeed swell up and reseal.
• Still runs rough.
• Idles at around 300 RPM
• It will die if I leave it running unchoked.

I'm sure once the Techron runs thru that will help with the rough running. Looks like I need to up the idle speed as well.

And We Have RUMBLE!

Oh  yeah.

Flowery Gasoline

That's kind of what my hands smell like right now after draining the tank and washing my hands with the soap bottle in the kitchen.

There was more gas in there than I realized. Almost two gallons.

Will shine a light in there this weekend to see how bad it is. Hopefully not too bad.

Then a couple of gallons of premium gas, along with some Techron.

Almost....

Coolant Drain

Drained the coolant tonight. Flushed with filtered fridge water. Might flush with some distilled water before adding new coolant.

That's a 10mm socket, tightened to ~7 ft-lb.

Nothing left to drain except for the gas remnants in the tank.

Horn Bracket Mod

Had Roy at work add a notch to my horn brackets. They don't quite fit with the air horn mounting holes towards the front of the bike. Also repainted them. They mount with the exhaust hanger bolts.

K&N

After around 20k miles it still looks pretty damn good. But as long as the tank is off, I'm cleaning and oiling it.

 

And of course, the K&N cleaning instructions.

Mothers Mag & Aluminium Polish

Holy shit on the Mothers.

Fixing Rusty Chrome

http://www.ehow.com/how_7689240_remove-rust-spots-off-chrome.html

Elbow grease.

Bleeding

Bled the brakes and clutch. Only fluid left in the bike is the coolant.
Had to drop the bag to bleed the rear brake. Hooray for the Rattlebars bag drop kit!
Also installed the new vacuum tubes from Redeye.

Bag removal:
   

Bleeding the front

Earl

Oil drained.

Final Gear Oil: Drained

Got the final gear oil drained. Also got the right-side manifolds off, sanded, and put back on with new o-rings.

Note the clever use of the jack stand to support the bike upright for draining. +1 for me!

Also note that my luggage rack frame nearly blocks the drain plug.

It's not Man's Work unless you shed a little blood doing it

Polished half my intakes. Before and after picture. Little difficult to see, but the insides are much smoother. The parting line from the casting is nearly gone now. Flapper wheel and injuries (from trying to get the upper seal off) below.

Before & After

Flapper wheel: 80 Grit

Looked real bad before washing off the blood

Might have hit a major piece of Good Luck

So, when I went to drain the carbs on the Valk today, nothing came out. So, it is entirely possible that at some point over the last several years, I did indeed drain the gas out of the carbs.

Gods that would save me a lot of time and trouble if I don't have to tear all 6 of those gorram things apart.

Will tear one down and see how it looks. If good, I'll hopefully be able to avoid all of that work, and can just dump in some carb cleaner for the first couple of tanks.

Helpful Manifold Tip #1

So, after removing the first two intake manifolds, I removed the two screws for the third (in my case, the third was the left side front). Turns out that if you remove all 6 of those screws, the whole carb bank pivots up, which makes removing the manifolds much easier.

Right side intake manifolds

I'm certain it will be easier to install them that way as well.

I'm also going to polish the insides as long as I have them off. Rumor Mill says that should improve mileage by about 3 mpg. Certainly can't hurt anything.

Note to self: Note the position of that little bent tab at the rear manifold. There is one of those on the left front manifold as well. Not sure what it does, but I want to make sure it goes back in the same position.

Valk Tear Down Day 1

2011-08-25:

Pulled the tank off: