Honda CG - Bike sticks and squeaks when setting off or roll

[rossibizatdi]

Hi when I roll the bike forward, even when the engine is off it squeaks like at one point when the wheel goes round.

Also when I set off in 1st gear it does the same thing,like it judders a bit when setting off.

Shall I pull the wheels off and and have a look at the brakes?

Also when I was checking the chain it seems to be tighter in different spots, not massive difference but how do I know if I need a new one?

Whist I'm on the subject can I ask another couple of questions, I came off my bike today in the terrible weather and hit the deck on the left side, snapped my clutch lever and smashed both my indicators, o rode it home, 30 odd miles n it was ok, thought maybe it was sticking a little more but wasn't sure. Btw I have just bought done decent tyres as I had some cheap Chinese ones on which must have contributed to my crash as I was hardly leaning over. Any way, what should I check? I've ordered all the replacement bits.

Think that is all lol.

[Nogin]

I would say its the brakes, are they disc or drum. As for the chain tight spots usually mean its had it. Check the links you can try to loosen them up with oil etc but as its a CG it may be easier for a new chain and sprocket set.

[robbie1]

i would say brakes only because ive never heard a squeek from the chain its more of a rumble i also had a squeek from my brakes a few months after cheap pads were fitted.

[GazW]

Take your wheels off, the top part of the brake shoe should be chamfered on the first contact surface according to the direction of rotation. As your brakes wear, they get worn down to the level of the chamfer rendering it useless. So either get some rough sand paper and take the top edge off. Or buy some new shoes

[rossibizatdi]

Thank you for the replies. I have ordered all the new bits for my broken bike (Indicators and Clutch Lever) and will fit them in due course.

I'm going to remove both the front and rear wheels this weekend, check the brakes and if necessary, buy new brake shoes.

I have noticed that I can buy a brand new chain for about £12 so might invest in one of those too as my thinking is that if it's putting unnecessary stress on the bearings of the engine then it's going to do more than £12 worth of damage. My new Michelin Sporty tyres have been dispatched today so hopefully get them on soon.

I won't be defeated lol, the train costs me £12 to get to Uni and the cost of petrol is only £3.50 so pretty good savings over a couple of years, even with insurance and servicing.

[pointblank0]

Hi mate.

Is it the front or back wheel making the noise? If it's front disk, could be a bit warped. On the front brake caliper, there will be two rubber boots that have bolts through them that allow the caliper to float a little over slightly warped disks. The pins/bolts that go into these need to be greased. Most of the time, it will be that they have seized and are no longer floating, they just need taking apart, cleaning and re greasing. So try that before you buy new disks or something.

If it's the rear, and it's drum, like someone said above, get some new brake shoes. It's an easy job and you probably wont need to replace them again. If the drum brakes get too far past there wear limit, there is a danger that they will engage, and not disengage, which is a major problem if your riding it at the time.

As with the chain, check the tension on all parts of the chain - put it on center stand, roll the rear wheel round and mid way between the sprockets, push up on the chain. At the tightest point, there should be about 2 - 3cm slack (better check the manual though as that's a rough estimate, but will be safe for you to ride without doing any bearing damage, but as you say, the chains are cheap for them, so may as well just buy a new one then you know it's done.

When you fit your new tyres, make sure you take it really easy, especially in the rain, as the surfaces will be very hard, smooth and new, and skidding is heavily more likely.

Don't worry about coming off, especially in the rain, I bet there are not many people on this site who can say that they have never come off their bike! Hondas tend to be very good at surviving bangs, so you made a good choice.

I would start with taking the brakes apart and having a look. Take your time and take photos of anything your unsure of and post them here.

Good luck

[GazW]

If you change your chain, you need to change your sprockets at the same time. It will cost more, but the £12 for a new chain is a false economy as your already worn sprockets will accelerate wear on the new chain.

[rossibizatdi]

Well today I've been "messing" with the bike for about 4 hours. Had the guard off to look at the sprocket which had so much gunk around inside the casing it was untrue, cleaned all that way with WD40! Well, quite a lot of it, then it got really boring as I'd been trying to clean it for ages!

I actually don't think the chain is too bad, I've had a good look at it and checked the tension all over and it does differ but not that much. I will change it eventually though, and do the sprockets too but the sprockets looked pretty good also. I don't want to start spending lots of money on the bike as I bought it as a cheaper alternative to the train and so far I've had new indicators, new oil, new spark plug, new clutch lever and new tyres so it's starting to chip away at my bank balance.

My new tyres have just arrived incidentally so I'm probably going to have a go at fitting them myself over the weekend.

Today I had the front wheel off the bike and looked at the brake shoes, they didn't look too bad. Don't think the front needs doing.

It must be the back that is causing the problem I have mentioned. So, whilst I'm changing the tyres I'm going to look at the brakes and see if there is any issue there.

Oh, I've also bought myself some fork gaiters, which I was going to fit today but realised that I need to take the forks out one at a time to do this, I thought I could just take the front wheel and the mud guard off and slide them over but didn't look like that was going to work to be honest. Will whack them on over the weekend too I think.

Thanks for the advice about taking it easy when I have put the new tyres on. I will probably not go out in the wet then if they are new and try to bang some dry miles on them.

Whilst I had the bike on the centre stand, and was trying to see if the squeaking was anything to do with the engine I had the bike running and in neutral and the back wheel was stationary, then whilst in gear, even with the clutch pulled right in the back wheel was turning, so I spent ages trying to adjust the clutch cable to eliminate this to no avail. Then, when I had packed everything away, come back up to my room and googled it, it's apparently normal as they oil is transferring the rotational energy from the engine plate to the driven plate! After all that! It wasn't like the bike was trying to move forward when I was sitting on it with the clutch lever pulled in at traffic lights but just that the rear wheel was spinning whilst I had the engine on and clutch pulled in. Doh!

It's all good though, learning new stuff

[pointblank0]

I have put a lot of thought into chain replacement and have done many myself. I know loads of people are going to disagree with me here, but I find it perfectly reasonable to go for the two to one rule of two chains to every sprocket change (providing they are steel sprockets. They only need changing with the chain if the chain has been allowed to wear out completely. If you have checked your sprockets and you say they are fine, then a chain replacement only would be fine.

The back wheel, if it's not creeping forward when you are on it, don't worry about it, it's just a slight bit of friction between the clutch disks and the engine oil.

I take it from your post that the bike is quite old and has drum brakes front and rear?

[mattycoops43]

Often tight spots in a chain are caused by the sprocket wearing uneven. more on one side than the other.

In other words, your sprocket is not round anymore. This will knacker a new chain in short order I would have thought?

[rossibizatdi]

Hi, ok cool I'll take what you have said into consideration with regard to only changing the chain and not the sprokets if they look in good nick.

I'm actually going to leave the chain for a bit and just try to fix the weird squeak I'm experiencing.

The bike is a 2002 CG:

http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq73/rosschambers1987/IMAG0340.jpg

My old bike, a CBR600 had disc brakes which were excellent so this was quite a shock when I got it. It's fine though and I have got used to it now, just plan ahead more etc.

I'm quite happy that the moving back wheel is completely normal when the bike is up on the centre stand and I'm running the engine. It doesn't want to move forward at all when I'm sitting on it so that's fine now, just hope I haven't stretched my clutch cable by trying to adjust it so much so that the back wheel stops spinning.

[rossibizatdi]

Well I'm officially fed up lol. I tried to take the old tyre off the front wheel. No chance. How the hell do you get a tyre off?!?! Probably knackered the inner tube by shoving a screw driver in to try and lever the tyre out. Also I unscrewed the nut a little bit on the valve to see what it did and when I tightened it back up it got to the point where the thread slipped and it just kept turning but I hadn't even put that much torque into tightening it.

Whilst I had the front wheel off the bike I also somehow knocked the bike forward and off the centre stand, the front forks smashed into the ground. Pretty pissed off at this stage.

I tried to remove the front fork so I could fit my fork Gaiters but couldnt get the fork to budge despite all the nuts being unscrewed. Arghhhh.

My new clutch lever had arrived so I removed the old snapped one, put the new one in and it's the wrong size.. just keeps getting better.

At this stage I thought sod it I'm just going to pay a garage.

Bike pit back together, front wheel back on, get the pump, plug it in to my girlfriends power socket in her seat Ibiza, engine running in the car, doors closed, car locks itself, at this stage I'm just sat on the floor thinking wtf is going on and thinking (god I hope she has a spare key) ... She did.

So anyway, do you think I'll have done any damage to the bike by dropping it onto the forks? :/ *sigh*

[pointblank0]

They will probably be ok to be honest, but get them checked when you take it into the garage.

[rossibizatdi]

After having calmed down, I want to try and change the tyres myself, I feel like it's like admitting defeat getting it done by a garage.

I called a garage near to me who said they would charge me £30 to change both the front and rear. I think if I were to spend a few £££ and buy myself some proper tools to do the job it would be better. I'm sure for less than £30 I could get what I need to do the job, instead of trying to use screwdrivers and spanners to get the tyre off the rim.

As far as I can tell, I will need some plastic rim protectors and also some decent tyre levers. Ebay here I come, might have to wait a while for them to arrive though, that's the only problem.

Might want to buy myself a new inner tube as well, in case I've knackered the inner tube before with the screw driver.

[Lumor_uk]

Aren't the tyres balanced or something at a garage? Which you can't do without spending some wonga.

[Stu]

Aren't the tyres balanced or something at a garage? Which you can't do without spending some wonga.

 

You can balance a wheel at home with a wheel balancer but they cost a little more then 30 quid you would be looking at around 200 quid for all the right gear

Then you ideally need an air compressor to pop the type bead on to the rim as it can sometimes take a lot of pressure I have seen some need 160Psi

[rossibizatdi]

You can balance the tyre yourself by just putting the axle through the wheel and balancing it on two axle stands either side of the wheel. The wheel should be able to remain stationary in lots of different positions. If the wheel turns round and settles at a position it means that it isn't balanced and a little weight needs to be added at the top. You keep doing this until it doesn't spin on its own.

[Mrbarry]

You can ballance them at home but it's a piss about! And the cost of the weights is as much as getting it done so why bother? Google it I ain't typing how you do it it's too much typing on a mobile!

I build engines and gearboxes, fabricate exhausts, manifolds, brackets.... Do my own spray work, build looms, map my own ecus..... The only thing I don't do is fit tyres because it's so much hastle!

[rossibizatdi]

You don't need to pop the bead onto the rim on the cg as it's a tubes tyre so basically the same as with a bicycle. Just the tyres are a lot harder to get off.

I have ordered two 12" tyre levers and made myself some rim protectors out of an empty coke bottle. This time I'll also make sure I'll lube it all up with soapy water so that the bead will lever over the rim easier.

[rossibizatdi]

MrBarry I'm a student and will save myself £20 by doing it myself, if it was a tubeless tyre I'd definitely get it done at a garage but because it's only a little cg I want to do things myself.

[Mrbarry]

£20? I pay £6 fit and ballance lol. I am also a car man I have only just got my first bike this week so things to learn for me here

[rossibizatdi]

You just got yourself on two wheels? Just in time for winter

I passed my test end of October 2009 lol.

[rossibizatdi]

£6! Bugger, I need to ring around don't I next time.

[rossibizatdi]

Ps what bike you got?

[Mrbarry]

CBR600-F3

Just need to pass my test now lol

I have a great workshop but it's never seen a motorbike, I'm sure many things will be rather new to me! Perhaps it's not as cheap to Ballance a bike wheel? I can't see why not tho.