Stuff I work on, a maintenance thread

Been on the forum a few years but never posted a build thread. I think its a good way to contribute so Ill do my best to keep this updated. Since its mostly maintenance and my ramblings it probably wont be very interesting but if you care to follow along, please do. I hope its at least entertaining!

My wife and I share 2 cars and 2 bikes:

2018 Crosstrek- wifes daily/roadtrip mobile

2001 Boxster- fun/date/adventure-one-day car

2005 FZ6- my daily

1971/2 CB175- wifes bike 

All of these have been in the stable for a while so Im kinda jumping in in the middle here. 

The Crosstrek is mostly stock except a Rally Innovations lightbar and a plate mount I made. Hopefully Ill have some driving lights mounted up soon too pending the wife's approval. It is her car after all. Im going for the offroad adventure look and some genuine function as well. The stock highbeams are just adequate but on a windy road at night I dont have quite as much visibility as I would like to drive at the pace I do. The led light bar is too low and too unfocused to be helpful for that.

We try to get out in this thing and see beautiful stuff as often as we can. However, we live in LA and finding the time to bail our of here is harder than I would like. Im pushing to change that soon but life has its way of keeping us busy. Im hopeful. Last year we took it down to Anza Borrego and camped out in the back of it. Im 6'2" so that was a little tight but we made do. We had a great time and the car did wonderfully! That was my first real experience in the dirt so the fact that we didnt get stuck in the sand or up on some rock is more a testament to the car than to me. Its no rock crawler but I was impressed. Im hoping to explore the limits of what it has to offer on a trip to Utah or Colorado sometime soon.

Plans for the car are pretty simple. Once the lighting situation is figured out Im looking to do some minor upgrades to keep my interest. Falken Wildpeak Trails, a roof rack, hitch, a motorcycle carrier, and maybe a 1" lift but Im waffling on whether or not its worth it as I dont want any CV problems. 

The Boxster is my fun car and our date car of sorts. Its arrival was a little unexpected honestly. I sold a Mazdaspeed3 and started looking for a Miata because I wanted some simple fun and a car that was more of an experience in the daily grind. The speed was fun on boost and then pretty difficult the rest of the time. I never really connected with the car. I had read the praises of the Miata folk on here and went looking for a NC2 for a fun daily. I found one in budget that was a little rough but within my skillset to fix. I called up the guy and took it for a test drive. It was a low mile manual with the Bilstiens and limited slip diff. Im not sure if it was just that example or what but I walked away from it feeling cold. The engine was devoid of character and while I didnt cane it down a windy road I wasnt amazed by anything it did. Additionally, my head hit the top. Meh

So a little bewildered that I had met the auto enthusiast sweetheart and been unimpressed I went looking elsewhere. 

I discovered cheap Boxsters. Oh boy. I wasnt ready for another German car and its neediness but here we are. Hopefully it treats me better than my E36 did. I found this one nearby with 80k, sport seats and a new glass window top. The PO was looking to replace it with either a truck or an E30 ix depending on which story you believe. After buying the car and it throwing a CEL at me on the way home I realized it probably just scared him off. Threw an MAF in it and its been happy ever since.

Oh and strut bearings and I repaired the rear trailing arms.

And put in a Sony Carplay unit because music is important in a DD.

I scored some Turbo Twists very local to me for oh-E36 M3 money. Ill refinish them and then decide if the extra weight is worth the looks. Maybe. I could also pass them along for a nice profit.

The FZ6. Theres not much to say. Its my first bike, I  bought from a friend of a friend for $1000 after he liad it down and never rode again. Threw a headlight on it, then some fork seals, rear shock, tires and spark plugs and it just goes. I dont treat it well either. Its not very interesting but it serves my purposes for the time. Once I dont need to rely it on it for my commute (parking is horrible at work, but I can slot a bike in no problem) Ill probably move it along for something more interesting. Maybe a Triumph or a Ducati.

And that leaves the CB175. We bought this barely running for $900. If only I knew. This was my first experience with carburators and I am in over my head. I think I am anyway. I cannot make it run right but I think I found the reason is the tank isnt quite as clean as I thought It was. Its soaking in vinegar as I write this. Plans for this bike are to get it working so my wife can get her M1 and then we are going to make it pretty! lol

So thats my intro. Like I said Ill try to keep this updated as I go but Ill probably forget to take pictures as I do. Hopefully I can keep this interesting.

Cheers

Neighbor with cool cars and bikes! 
 

awesome . I am on Angeles crest on two wheels quite a bit. 
 

Also ex 2011 Ms3 celestial blue owner here. 
 

see you around ! 

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

Howdy neighbor!

Ive been planning to take the Boxster up there sometime soon but haven't made the time yet. I usually spend my fun time in Malibu. I think I'm quick in a car but I know I'm slow on a bike. 
 

I hear the blue ones are cursed. I always liked them though. I test drove a second gen but found a first gen with 32k miles and couldn't pass it up. 

I spend 13 years riding and driving Malibu 

got tired of the morons 

5 years ago moved to Angeles. I go when there are no one there. Freedom 

Ms3, first gen to me looks dated  to me . Thus went gen2. 

not sure about cursed. But typical mazda garbage quality.
 

(9 miatas, 1 ms3, 1 standard 3, 1 mazda5).

Have had it with subpar quality of mazdas. Never again. Done with the company. 

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

There are a lot of those. I'll give Angeles a shot soon. 
 

Interesting. I can't say I've heard that before. I sold it at 64k so I never got a chance to see how it would break. Everyone around here just goes crazy for Miatas. I assumed they were solid. Maybe I dodged a bullet! 
Although the 996/986 gen stuff is supposed to be crap too. Whatever. I like it

Always jealous of you guys out west who have cool places to adventure-drive. It's a long way to drive before I get to anything particularly amazing!

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

It's true, we have a little of everything. 
i know it's quarantine and stuff but today we went for a 3 hour drive through the canyons in Malibu just to get out.
We might not stay here forever, housing is hilarious, but it would be hard to leave. 

Well, I haven't gotten much done lately but yesterday I drained the vinegar from the tank and today I gave the bottom a quick coat of paint. There was a some minor surface rust I didn't want to get any worse. Hopefully I won't have the tank off again anytime soon! 

I found a couple of small fuel filters (Briggs and Stratton) to make sure nothing left in the tank undoes my work. I bought the smallest ones I could find so they would fit nicely behind the cylinder head. They might be too small actually, we'll see. But it is only a 175 lol

I was hoping to get the bike back together today but grocery shopping still takes forever with the lines and such. Hopefully by the end of the week. Tomorrow I'm doing a full service on a friends Forester and the FZ6 needs an oil change soon. I'm thinking of trying Rotella T6 as it's rated for motorcycles now too. Synthetic would be nice since I short cycle the crap out of the oil. It probably only gets up to temp once a month. 

I put the CB back together with a clean tank and a couple of small fuel filters I painted black in haste. 

Exciting. 
 

And that's as far as I got. Turns out I also have a bad spark plug and no one local has them. So two are on order and will be here Saturday. 
 

On a worse note I discovered that my head is right in line with the roll bar in the Boxster. 
 

Im not sure how I never noticed this before but there it is. The seat is as low as it will go and I can't bring it forward any because I'm kind of cramped as it is. Tall guys don't get a lot of love in two seat sports cars...

Im not quite sure where this leaves me. I can try to lower the seat some more with....something. Or I can wrap the bar with padding (currently the best option), or sell the car. The last one is a little extreme maybe since I really like the car but getting my skull dented in an accident would be pretty sucky. 
If anyone has advice for me on this I'm all ears. 

Foamectomy?

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Possibly but they are OEM sport seats which are worth some money if I'm not mistaken so I don't really want to cut them up. Additionally I don't think there is much to remove.
I am looking at aftermarket seat options. After writing that post I realized this might be a good chance for me to upgrade as I don't find the stock seats that comfortable to begin with. 
Im not crazy about separating the seats from the car (maybe it's all worth more that way??) but at the end of the day it wasn't a expensive car and it's not really even bringatrailer material. 

Let's see, 

We'll after grinding my brain and the internet for a while I learned that the rollbar in the Boxster is already padded and I was able to maneuver my seat slightly to minimize contact in normal circumstances so I'm going to call that done. 
And I'm glad! My only other solution was a 987 and that would require more money than would be responsible sooo crisis averted. Also I think the 987 is kinda bland styling wise next to the 986. Fight me 

I put new spark plugs in the Honda and....

same thing. So I'm officially out of solutions. The only other thing I can think of is the motor has low compression and I'm in no place for a rebuild. I have a post up on a Honda specific forum to see if I'm missing anything but it's looking like this thing might go away. We'll see  

We went and looked at a CB500 today but it's too tall for her. There's not much for sale around here right now that looks promising. That's a bummer  

So it's a mixed bag lately. Hope everyone is staying safe. 

Today I spent some time on the Yamaha. It's been fantastically reliable for me as I've mentioned before and I really like that. Unfortunately that means I rarely give it any attention, even when I should. So I did a little catching up today. It got an oil change with some Yamalube 10w-40. I chickened out on the Rotella after I found some mixed reviews. The Yamalube seems to work great for the way I ride and at $20 a gallon it's hard to beat the cost. 
While I had it out I gave it was a wash and scrubbed off some of the chain lube that has accumulated on the rear wheel and tire hugger. 
I finished with a spray wax and lubed the chain. 
 

I forgot to take pictures along the way so here's an after-the-fact glamour shot lol

Turns out washing the FZ6 was fate. I sold it to a friend of a friend looking for a bike. It was a good bike, very reliable, but soulless. I'm hunting for Ducati Monsters now. Sorta

Since we have been wrestling the 175 for the last 6 months and haven't gotten anywhere it's time to move on. We found a CB360T locally for a great price and picked it up a couple of weeks ago! It needs some minor stuff but it runs and pretty well at that. The plan is to slowly sort out its needs while riding it as often as possible. Most likely it will remain stock or very close to. The tail light is pretty ugly and the lights are weak so I'm looking for minor upgrades there. That's about it. 

The 175 will get one last swing from me before it goes up for sale. Hopefully someone smarter than me can figure it out. It's a fun little bike and a great candidate for a cafe build or something. If I can make it work I'm tempted to hold on to it and make it a little nicer but only if I can get it to run. Even then, I'm not sure. I want a real bike if I can only have one, and that's all I can have right now. 
 

Not much to report on the cars, they're working well. I just finished up the turbo twist wheels and I have decided to flip them. Profits will go into the Ducati fund. 

The CB has some problems that I need to sort out. 
 

For starters the headlight wasn't working. The wiring on this bike snakes all over the place and I found a solder break at the Hi/Low switch in the handlebar. A little soldering and it works! At least most of the time. I'm hopeful it's just dirty contact surfaces and not a bad solder but both are very possible. 
 

It's weak. I have plans to swap as many bulbs as is practical to LED so I can run a full 55w H4 conversion without killing the alternator. A relay will probably make its way in there too. I'm torn wanting to keep it original but I'm too practical to ride a bike with garbage lights. 
 

Next up is stabilizing the idle, adjusting the clutch, oil change, fork seals, chain and sprockets.... there's a list. I'll knock things off as the budget allows. 
 

And if anyone knows why the throttle likes to stick open a bit on these bikes let me know. And it's not the cables. 

Didn't know you were looking for a monster 

I sold my monster on Saturday 

my thruxton today 

and sold my 998 a week ago 

In reply to spandak :

The carb slides can stick due to dirt or wear. That's likely your sticking throttle.

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

My budget is bottom of the barrel stuff. I'm guessing based on that list you had a good one. 
Im reaching by looking at Ducati's but I'm a decent wrench and I'm hoping to find a solid but ugly bike and clean it up. I just missed a S2R in Orange County last week. 
If I had the money I would be getting a Thruxton R. Beautiful bikes! 
 

Thanks Shadeux. I'll take a look. After the 175 I'm a little nervous to mess with carbs again but I'll have to get in there at some point lol

spandak said:

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

My budget is bottom of the barrel stuff. I'm guessing based on that list you had a good one. 
Im reaching by looking at Ducati's but I'm a decent wrench and I'm hoping to find a solid but ugly bike and clean it up. I just missed a S2R in Orange County last week. 
If I had the money I would be getting a Thruxton R. Beautiful bikes! 

Ah ok. I ride 18-20K miles a year. My Thruxton was basically being garage art, and I didn't have a current need for it. My monster was meticulous, but I sold it with 73,200 miles. So might have been too high of a mile for what you are looking for. My 998 I sold with 51,000 miles. My ride today 1299-I have 18K miles on it. 

I have had Ducs since 97. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. 

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

Thank you! I appreciate that!
I respect the high mileage on those. Most people I know freak out at 40k. That never made sense to me. 

spandak said:

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

Thank you! I appreciate that!
I respect the high mileage on those. Most people I know freak out at 40k. That never made sense to me. 

I have two gsx-r here, purchased new. One at 120K , one at 97K :) 

Alright, yesterday I spent some time on the CB chasing electrical gremlins. The starter doesn't work and the neutral light is intermittent. Well the bike wiring doesn't match the diagram exactly unless I'm missing a piece so I'm kind of chasing my tail trying to sort all of this out. I believe the two problems are related and it looks like someone has been in here before and starting plugging stuff in without consulting the diagram. 

I'll get back to that soon. 
 

I also pulled the carbs on the 175 but I haven't had a chance to open them up. Tomorrow. 
 

Today was Boxster day. I replaced the trans fluid and brake fluid. It was uneventful thankfully. 
Tracking down factory transaxle fluid is not as easy as I was hoping. When I did find it I still spent $30 a quart. Oof. Apparently this old Porsche won't use just any old fluid. It only really works with genuine stuff. At least the internet says so and I don't want to take any chances. The updated fluid didn't seem to change anything so that's good and bad. 
 

Amazon sells Bosch 5.1 at a good price so I'm giving it a try. No problems here either. Bleeding brakes isn't my favorite. 

Nor is working in gravel  

That's all folks

I very much need to work on my photo skills. 

Watching. Cool how everything is so different, yet it so much alike. 

Not much today but some small progress. 
I washed both cars this morning and the car cover for the Boxster. Of course the tree we are parked under is still dropping it's nectar or whatever so I might as well have no bothered. Ugh. 

Beauty shots just for fun!

I trimmed some H9s headlight bulbs and put them in the Subaru. Hopefully that will improve them a little. 

I sold the wheels too! Local guy with some sweet 911s. Nice guy

Hopefully I'll get some time on the Honda's today but there's house work waiting too. 

Back on the bikes today

I took the 360 around the block since it hasn't moved in a week or so. I also set the turn signal relay (it's adjustable, the front turns are LED) so they blink at a normal speed. I'm so thankful this bike runs. 
 

I might actually be getting somewhere on the 175. I've been thinking about when we first bought it, I rode it home and while it ran like crap it was at least able to hold an idle. Everything else now is locked down so what did I change? 
The only thing I could think of was the needle setting in the carb. I can't remember where it was when we rebuilt the carbs but it wasn't in the middle setting where I put it. 
The plugs are black indicating a rich mixture and since the bike mostly idles, or doesn't, in the driveway it must be rich at idle. I somewhat blindly adjusted the needle one notch leaner and now it will hold an idle. A crappy bouncy idle but an idle nonetheless. So I think I'm on the scent here. It hesitated on tip in which I remember it doing before but I'm hoping I can tune that out. 
Apparently the CB200s run best in the leanest setting and a few people on forums have confirmed that. I don't quite understand how the needle affects idle, from my understanding it shouldn't, but here we are. Tomorrow I'm going to move it another notch and see what happens. 
 

In other news I got a new job and my commute which was about 10 minutes all city is going to be 25 minutes mostly freeway. I start in a couple weeks and I'm anxious to pick up a bike for the commute. Neither of these are ideal so most likely the 175 will go and fund the new bike and parts for the 360. If it runs we might even make a buck on it. That would be nice