fastbob

I am just going to have to give it my best shot using the method that I first conjured up, taking my time, and being as careful as possible. Removal of the head with a gasket that is 35k miles and 15 years old might end up costing a lot more to fix. I need to shift the bike to fund a replacement car, with a baby on the way, now. My 2000 Diesel Pug 306 with a Kawasaki ignition, no working horn or windscreen washer, perished aux belt, and blowing blue smoke, needs to go, too! Weather isn't looking good for this weekend, so might take me a few weeks to get round to it. Have you seen the company called Sprint Manufacturing?

Well the object of the exercise is to replace some dodgy seals so ........ Meant valve seat seal not stem seal. If the valve doesn't close properly you won't be able to maintain the pressure in the cylinder to keep the valve up and it could drop into the combustion chamber. Then it's a head-off job to recover the valves. Yes of course, wasn't thinking right there

How come if you have used imgur all I'm getting is that annoying message from Photobucket?

Looking at that picture I can almost feel the fun you're going to have this summer . Excellent choice I'm glad you still think the ER5 is a brilliant machine , mine never fails to please .

Well the object of the exercise is to replace some dodgy seals so ........

Feeding rope into the combustion chambers ? Wow, that's a new one on me . Is this a tried and tested practice or an ingenious idea ? Personally I would bite the bullet and get the head off and onto a work bench . Its going to cost you a top end gasket set though . Good luck

Having seen some small people swing some big hammers, with incredible accuracy and punch its practice. I knocked the pins in cause we all knew they could come out when required. They knocked them out, I just held the punch, which was not without risk... Sorry, you've completely lost me there. We were discussing the enormous effort required to deliberately destroy a crash helmet in contrast to the very small potential for damage that might result from dropping one from a height of a few feet .

Excellent work so far , the last two pictures say it all really . Its crying out for some shiny new sprocket nuts . http://i.imgur.com/V8toqK3m.png go on treat yourself !

Must have been a bloody big hammer ! I could never break one. Strong arm? Crap helmet ?

Yes, I bought a new lid from J&S after I'd dropped my old one and I got to smash it with a hammer. Took a few swings to get it open. No relevance to this thread but it's a great stress reliever Must have been a bloody big hammer ! I could never break one.

Yes , it's an emissions control device , not entirely sure how it works . It looks like yours has been messed with , the metal part should be a lot longer with only the top part made of rubber which explains why its melting. http://i.imgur.com/edtG0Hl.png this whole system is £10 second hand.

On a slightly happier note I ordered a dvd and that never arrived either, I reckon the postmans on the rob but hows this for a response ?http://i.imgur.com/go7pgFi.png

I rather like this helmet although it might be a little impractical http://i.imgur.com/2b4O3B3.jpg or alternatively http://i.imgur.com/Hc2V5rU.jpg

Has anyone actually tried to destroy a crash helmet ? I have , many times. When I worked in a bike shop and we were bored on a rainy afternoon we would often try to smash old helmets that customers had asked us to throw away . I don't think we ever succeeded in cracking open a single shell . I seem to recall that the cheaper and nastier the helmet , the harder it was to damage. My favourite method was to swing them by the strap and whack them on the corner of a skip as hard as possible. So what you pay for is mainly the quality of the interior and the shock absorbing properties of the materials. In the light of this I personally wouldn't be too worried about dropping a helmet from a few feet. Incidentally, the only helmet I have ever seen smashed open was an Arai Doohan replica. The wearer survived a high speed track day collision with another bike, well at least their head did .

Still no response yet . Meanwhile its worth mentioning what happened when I phoned the seller. The bloke who answered was rude and irritable from the word go . First response was How can I help if I don't even know who you are ? Well he didn't ask . When I explained that I couldn't follow the procedure he came back with this gem . I'm just a mechanic mate , I'll have you know I'm in my fifties, I've owned and maintained bikes all my life and I spent ten years in the army . I thought I was going to get " young man " for good measure but when I replied that I was also in my 50s and that I had also had bikes all my life that seemed to annoy him even more. Because I said that I wouldn't be able to leave positive feedback on ebay he said I'll take it off and I'll have YOU taken off ebay as well , good day, SLAM ! So the lesson here it that it is probably not a good idea in all cases to contact a seller directly especially if they are a condescending prick without the first idea about customer service.

Sounds like a blocked jet , best cure is to strip and clean the carbs but before you do try and determine which one is the most likely culprit. This won't be easy but you could try the old spit on the finger method to see which downpipe is coldest or you could spray them liberally with WD40 and see which one starts smoking last upon start up. Having said all this, you might just try an air filter and plug change to see if there is an improvement.

I wouldn't worry about torque settings on these two items , just give a good tighten up so they don't come undone . A sprocket nut should have a lock washer of some sort and a wheel nut should have a split pin or an R clip so its not a big deal . As I learned recently on this very forum, a torque wrench on a worn or oily thread can do more harm than good. Better to develop a feel for these things . One rule, if you're tightening something and it gets tight and then easier again , STOP! Before you knacker it.

Apparently Pulse and Lexmoto are the same thing so you can get a Haynes manual http://i.imgur.com/EhgFUqe.png

Do you by any chance ride on the main route to your local waste recycling centre ? Could be that all those trailers full of broken down flat pack furniture are shedding screws onto the road. Just a theory.

Cheers, good point I did forget that Want to at least start it this weekend, plus got a box of new things to attach Oh yeah, forgot to mention how absolutely essential a pack of Tac Cloths is for removing all loose material immediately prior to spraying. Panel wipes are also a must, there's nothing worse than spraying a panel with a grease spot on it. Both available from Halfords.

Definitely just scuffed the top layer using the FINE grade pad from a pack of Tool Station Contour Sanding Pads. By the way don't forget that the clear coat on the tank needs to be fuel proof. Can't help there because my tank is a replacement, I painted the plastics to match the tank .

When I painted my parts the hardest part to get my head around is when you have done all the rubbing down , the filling , the primer, the colour and finally the clear coat and achieved a good looking finish, you then have to flat it down with wet and dry paper. It just feels so wrong ! By the way you do use 2500 grade paper and soapy water so it is almost a polishing process. After that I use G3 colour restorer and then it all makes sense as a glass like surface appears . A coat of wax and your done. Immensely satisfying. http://i.imgur.com/FFin4tG.jpg logos from Serernvinylgraffics via eBay.

If I'm fettling a bike that's been a bit neglected I tend to use WD40 to flush out all the old oil and crap and then use a light oil such as 3 in 1 . I still use the old trick of forming a little funnel out of Blu tac around the end of the cable and hanging the cable up while the oil drains through. TBH I've also used plain engine oil if I cant be arsed to get 3 in 1 .

Remember Pony Power? He's got at least one vid on painting and prep .

Well if they strip it and discover the problem and you decide not to proceed with the repair they aren't going to put it all back together again free of charge. It's quite certain to require a re bore and a new piston and they are probably going to use Yamaha genuine parts . So they have to quote you for a worst-case scenario. Like we have suggested , the cheapest option is to fit a cylinder and piston kit . Although you might believe that this is a Japanese bike , its actually a Chinese bike so Chinese replica parts are as good as any. There are more expensive kits but how do you know they aren't the same quality but with a higher price tag to make you think that they must be better ?