Derbi—The Red Power

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Oh noooooozzzz fork seal weep!!!!! I knew this was going to happen sooner or later, I was just hopping for a little later. At least I know how to deal with these forks.

I found an exhaust gasket in the stash, and installed it on the Arrow pipe. But I didn't have the spring to go with it. Measurement of the distance between the two loops is about 90mm. So I went to Treats to pick up a spring. They had this nifty Polini 78mm (unstreanched) stainless with an anti-noise rubber tube to fit over the spring. I'm hoping this works.

With the Arrow exhaust installed I had to take the bike for a bit of a spin. The bottom end suffers significantly. The bike is way more work to ride around in the city. It gets on the pipe around 7K rpm, and will pull up to around 10.5K. Feels like a little bit more power, but mostly it is way less behaved.

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Here is the spring in action on the Arrow pipe. I'll probably test it out tomorrow.

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Since it was nice out today I decided to visit Treats with the Silver bike. I also stopped by to visit with Ed so he could check out the Gila kit that we are putting on MT Mike's Derbi. Hard to believe it's winter time with these photos.

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Had to race over to Treats last minute today. Thank goodness they were still around. Thanks guys!!! :lover:

Then I played a round of "Where am I" with Greg. In SF he never loses! Seriously he knows SF better than anyone I know. :worship:

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Ati had posted about no power on his bike. I had asked him about compression. So I decided to check what the Silver bike was showing. It was surprisingly low! But maybe I'm not doing it right. I did have the throttle open, but I had to get it by pushing the bike. I put it in 2nd, and then gave it a good push. I did it a second time, and it was much lower. I was tired the second time though.

Here's the stock plug from the bike. There's about enough miles on it for the first service—even if it is 12 years old!

Next up was checking the battery again. Since the wind knocked over the bike the Shorai hasn't been holding a charge. It's also rather difficult to get it to take a charge. Even in different modes the charger complains and refuse to charge. I'm actually quite surprised by this effect.

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It's been a while since I've posted about the Red bike—which is the one that was originally the subject of this thread. I came upon a photo that reminded me of the vision I had for this bike. The idea was to set it up like the GP bike, or as close as I could make it. The did make a Replica of the GP bike that actually looks pretty close. Even with the red wheels. But this was the older style plastics, and with the 16" wheels. No one had done it with the 17" wheels, and newer plastics—which I think look a lot closer to the Factory race bike.

I'm still fighting with the insurance company to keep the title of the bike clean. I've made a little progress. It's been over 15 months already! I've also been collecting parts. The Red bike will return, and it will see its vision completed.

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That is rather disappointing about your Shorai Battery. I have had mine for over 2 years now and have never had it on a Charger. You are only the 2nd person that I know has a Shorai other than myself.

The unfortunate side of that is that now 2 of the 3 have had issues with them. My friend purchased a big boy for his HD and has had nothing but problems with it, always dead and never seems to hold a charge. I was going to look through your Posts and find the Charger you had, liked the fact that you could "balance charge" the Battery and look at individual cells. Figured that would be the only way I could diagnose if he had a bunk battery.

Perhaps a less "smart" charger would be a way to get the base cell voltage up to a "chargeable" level. I do not know a lot about all the circuitry that goes into the lithium batteries, but know that they do have internal circuits that control cell charging and discharging with the basic intent of cell longevity.

Best of luck with the Shorai, please Post any findings.

Yeah I hear you on the "dumb" charger. If I disconnect the control cable, and change the settings I can sometimes get things going. Sometimes I have to put the charge on 0.1 amps to get it started. Once there is some charge happening then it seems to be okay most of the time. Tonight however it posted a Input Volume Error. I wasn't having these problems before the bike was tossed about by the wind, so I wouldn't be so quick to blame the battery.

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Looks so much cooler with the sides on!

It always feels good when you get the bike to the level that you can put the plastics back on it. It's just sad when people keep running over your bikes breaking the plastics, bending the supports, and causing 16 months (so far) of inability to legally ride the bike. It is very depressing that I got that bike that close to my vision for it, and then Farmers took it away from me.

That is beautiful!

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Speedy, GL, and I went on a scouting mission today. Let's just say it was very fruitful.