texscottyd

The center cylinder is off… 😉

A very sincere congratulations! I’ll be very interested in hearing your compare & contrast opinion of the new T9 GT.

I helped a friend this weekend with an MSF class, and they had a fleet of mostly TU250 Suzukis. I knew nothing about them previously, but they were actually much nicer than I would have expected… conventional bike, upright riding position, decent fit & finish, apparently very durable (MSF student bikes lead a very hard life). If I was looking for cheap transportation, that wouldn’t be a bad choice.

Same situation, and I think it’s the new permanent office arrangement moving forward; no complaints from me. Today is a weird convergence: Ride to work day, while working from home, on a public holiday where I’m not working. Guess I’ll ride to lunch instead…

National Weather Service alert for Houston today: “...HEAT INDEX VALUES REACHING 105 TO 107 DEGREES THIS AFTERNOON MAINLY ALONG AND EAST OF THE I-45 CORRIDOR...” So, to showcase my infinite wisdom, I volunteered to chase cones around an asphalt parking lot for a friend who was instructing an MSF class just off I-45. Hot doesn’t begin to describe the experience…

100% agree, and that’s a completely reasonable expectation for any modern motorcycle. I hope this one is a quick and easy fix to get the bike back in order. They seem to be great bikes when they’re running well, so I totally understand your frustration. It’s really inexcusable that a dealership service department would let it leave with those kind of ridability issues…

Outstanding! Enjoy

That may be the most intriguing thing I'll read all day.

Ha! No worries... I do stuff like that all the time. Your clutch is now cable-free regardless, as I recall. Still happy with the hydraulic conversion?

I believe you're talking about the clutch cable on the early FJs, which was prone to breaking up near the bars due to an odd shape of one of the bends of the cable... it was superseded on the parts list with an improved replacement, and many (most?) FJs have already been retrofitted with the new part. This is the throttle cables that he's discussing; the mechanical end of the ride-by-wire fuel injection system. I don't recall this one ever coming up before, but it may be that I just missed it at some point in the past.

I'm not aware of any issues with the cables on these bikes, and don't recall having seen anything about this pop up on the forum before. I honestly haven't looked at the details of the setup on mine (so not familiar with the adjustment options), but the first thought would be making sure they're adjusted properly. I remember two cables, so it must me a 'push/pull' setup, and those can start to bind up if they're too far out of adjustment... basically they'll start working against each other in light-pressure throttle controls. That said, for less than $35 to replace, it's probably not worth spending too much time trying to troubleshoot the existing parts.

Good to know… thanks for the info!

I was thinking the same thing, actually. I just put $140+ of 87 E10 in my Ram truck, at $4.98/gallon... and this is in Texas, where gas has historically been 'cheap' relative to the rest of the country.

That translates to about 12.5K miles, which is in the range of what we've seen for the factory chain. I nursed mine to about 18K miles, but it was way overdue by that time. Any good aftermarket chain will be of noticeably higher quality than the DID chain that is supplied to Yamaha as OEM for the bike, and you should get significantly more miles from your replacement.

Now you’re thinking of the opportunity costs of non-essential riding. Those economics almost never work out well, so my advice is to stop thinking rationally about our irrational passion. 😀

Is this unique for the Niken? The FJ09 has a 27 mm rear axle nut, and I thought that would be the same for the newer Tracers and Niken…

Maybe a little… I work for a big tech firm now, but I ended up here when the software firm we founded was acquired. I can legit say that I’m going to retire in a couple of years without ever having had a ‘real’ job… My sons & I do dabble in buying & selling motorcycles and cars as a little side hustle. Nothing serious, but it keeps us entertained & provides a little supplemental recreational income. CB750 to a Matchless? You are a glutton for punishment, Bret! 😀

A bit off-topic, but the second round in 1979 prompted my first venture in entrepreneurial business: 14 year old me instantly saw the opportunity to take advantage of the long lines of tired, frustrated, thirsty, and hungry drivers. It started with selling cold drinks out of a cooler pulled along in my Radio Flyer wagon, but quickly evolved into a pretty sophisticated enterprise: Way before Uber Eats, my 'team' would take orders for McDonalds, and deliver to your car for an appropriate service charge. Suddenly the Value Of Convenience became VERY apparent to me: It was about a 70% margin business, fully burdened, when it was all said and done. The real breakthrough was having a secret 'off menu' option for beer, which I pretty quickly figured out who to profile as the perfect 'Hey buddy, you want something special?' target. Probably illegal, but hey... I was a kid in Southern California. My first street bike was a nice 1976 CB400F, purchased with the money I netted (tax free, of course) from this little venture. Good times...

The humor I find in all this is the extraordinary effort that Yamaha put into explaining the design and why it registers like it does. There's a highly detailed service bulletin that details the shape of the tank, the float position and shape, sensor trigger points, etc... It perfectly explains how it works. But it doesn't explain WHY Yamaha went with the old school mechanical float arm to begin with... There have to be other (arguably even simpler & cheaper) methods of designing a fuel level sensor that is at least semi-linear. My FJ has three fuel level tranches: All Good; Not So Good; Oh No!!!

@roadwarrior - Glad that got you squared away, and especially happy to hear about the positive customer service experience at your dealership. A little goodwill goes a long way …

A few from today’s ride: Plus this evening’s post-ride beverage selection, just because…

Apparently I rode it through a black hole and was briefly teleported to a parallel universe. 6,770.5 miles in a little under 4.5 hours… there’s a glitch in The Matrix:

Good luck, and enjoy the new bike! Please do stick around for awhile and contribute. Besides, as @wordsmithhas shown us, you can always buy another one. Or six… 😉

Updated that for you…