What did you do to your FJ-tracer-gt today?

[betoney]

12 hours ago, Clegg78 said:

After Hanford, I need to go down to Boise, that day, and then SLC after (I have a new job and limited vacation or I would take a few more days in WA.  I'll likely be back!)  So I only get one of those routes to do. 

Both routes have fantastic scenery, enjoy the ride. 👍🏻

[Wintersdark]

On 8/13/2022 at 11:25 AM, texscottyd said:

In the interest of full disclosure, it’s worth noting that the Mille is a 60 degree v-twin, and not a 90 like the VTR & Ducati.  Regardless, the sounds emitted from this are glorious… 

When you mention ‘what the VTR should have been’ I can’t help but secretly wish Honda would resurrect the VTR formula as a modern-era v-twin sport standard.  But parallel twins seem to be the Honda focus for now… nice enough, but very different.  

Man, those are some nice cans.  

[PhotoAl]

So last week I finally dug into the major maintenance on my 2020 Tracer 900 GT.  It is just shy of 19,000 miles most os which were put on it last year.  Did a valve check and found the exhaust valves way off.  I used a combination of some of the write-ups on here and the manual.  Zip tied the cams and was concerned about timing but it went back together nicely - big sigh of relief.  While in there replaced the plugs which only had 7,000 miles on them - set aside for future use.  They looked pristine.  Replaced air filter - it could have gone a bit longer but since I was treating this like the 24,000 mile service decided to change it anyway.  Installed the GIVI aux light mounting bracket I bought from a member here a number of months ago.  It worked great.  Bought a couple of small spots from Amazon to mount.  Wiring was already in so just a matter of adding matching connectors.  LOL so put airbag on and tank on and it ran so then I pulled tank off and airbag back off and synced throttle bodies.  While airbag and tank were out of the way I routed the wires for the aux lights using the main wiring harness path.  They were routed along the sides of the frame.  Mounted a set of Michelin Road 6 tires.  While the front wheel was off took scotchbrite and scrubbed the front rotors and replaced the brake pads with EBC HH's.  Had an issue with pulsating from brake so will see if it is fixed.  Checked runout on the front rotors and looks like 3 to 5 thousands - don't laugh but spun the wheel and held the dial indicator against it while holding it in place against my step stool.  Not the best for sure.  While checking valve clearances removed the radiator and drained the coolant and filled upon re-installation with fresh Yamacool - or whatever they call their coolant.  In the last stages of buttoning everything up and hope to leave Friday for a loooong trip.  Need to get some good rides in over the next couple of days to bed the brakes and shake everything down.

I've had other bikes but in general the Tracer 900 GT is not too bad to work on.  Nothing really strange or bizarre and does a good job of straddling good equipment that is relatively easy to work on.   Valve shim changes were easier than my CBR600RR.  Very little space to work in.  It does have bodywork but that is not too bad to pull off - 3 or 4 times and it becomes an easy task.  

[Clegg78]

Did a mod in prep of the WA/Hanford trip next month.  I have Givi crash bars on my Tracer but didnt like where the highway pegs I bought mounted.  So ... Went into CAD and designed up a new mount that let me move them more forward, kept the look nice and clean, and made minimal modifications to the bars. 

Only modification to the bars was a 6mm hole drilled into the bottom both bars. 
 

There is a 3mm bolt through the center of the bottom cap with a lock nut on the top of it, with washers top and bottom to act as a indexing stud into the 6mm hole.  This stops the very heavy-duty CF Nylon mount blocks from rotating on the shafts.   In the end it's a nice neutral forward position for my legs and when I don't want to use them they are easily tucked away.

There are some quirks to the design that I will need to work on at some point, but it works and will work fine for the trip coming up.   

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Clegg78

[Wintersdark]

Went on a day trip to Jasper and back - 902km/560miles.  As much fun as I have with the Tenere, it's trips like this where the Tracer really shines.  Comfortable, oodles of power for tearing down twisty mountain roads, and that beloved cruise control.  There's just something special about turning on cruise control at 160kph/100mph and relaxing.

I

I love rides with wild disparities of bike types and riders.  Gotta say, though, that little Rebel 500?  Guy has a Vance & Hines can on it, and it sounds amazing.  For such a tiny little bike, it was probably the best sounding bike there.  Not the loudest (that'd be the purple Harley) but man.  270 degree ptwins sound so good with a good exhaust.   This was taken where we stopped at a glacier.  Sadly, while I got a bunch of pictures around there, and you could see the glacier from the road, there's a ridge between the parking area and the end of the glacier proper and nobody was really into hiking up to it in motorcycle boots and gear, so no pictures of the actual Athabasca glacier.  
 

Random roadside pullouts along the Icefield Parkway are absolutely spectacular and very common. Nice little beach, too, but the water is far too cold to swim, or even just wade in. 

Athabasca Falls.  Gorgeous, incredibly loud, and leads down into a very, very deep chasm.  Stunning sight, and really refreshing as it's fed from the glacier fields just a couple miles away.  The water is just barely above freezing, and on a 32C/90F day it's something special.

[wordsmith]

Great pix, w/d!

[wordsmith]

Some intermittent bouts of annoying but not-too-serious ill-health have recently and temporarily - I hope! - stopped me from riding, but I've used the time to finish farkling the new-to-me GT.   Today I installed pair of ex E Bay mirror risers/ extenders, another of those minor improvements I automatically make to any new bike.   These are beautifully-crafted CNC parts that come nicely protected in a little acetate box, with a small instruction card - this is useful, as the rhs mirror stems on the GT are reverse-thread, as signified by the small horizontal scribe mark on the stem nuts.   Clockwise to loosen, counter-clockwise to tighten.  The left-hand side adapter is angled slightly more forward than the rhs item so that it clears the adjacent TCS rocker-switch. 

When installation is done a small circle of black plastic is stuck to the top of the two hex-head bolts to stop water from collecting there.

The adapters lift and separate the mirrors, to appreciably widen the field of view behind the rider, and in my case that's also added-to by the small diameter 'blind-spot' auxiliary mirrors, another routine addition.   Elbows and shoulders - be gone.

I'm somewhat paranoid about aligning what I see behind me so that the mirrors give me identical views from each - call me weird!   I also carry a small adjustable spanner and the appropriate hex key on the bike so that I can, if necessary, adjust the mirrors, which do have a tendency to want to 'wander' at times.

 mirrors not yet adjusted

Edited August 20, 2022 by wordsmith

[2and3cylinders]

11 hours ago, Wintersdark said:

Went on a day trip to Jasper and back - 902km/560miles.  As much fun as I have with the Tenere, it's trips like this where the Tracer really shines.  Comfortable, oodles of power for tearing down twisty mountain roads, and that beloved cruise control.  There's just something special about turning on cruise control at 160kph/100mph and relaxing.

I

I love rides with wild disparities of bike types and riders.  Gotta say, though, that little Rebel 500?  Guy has a Vance & Hines can on it, and it sounds amazing.  For such a tiny little bike, it was probably the best sounding bike there.  Not the loudest (that'd be the purple Harley) but man.  270 degree ptwins sound so good with a good exhaust.   This was taken where we stopped at a glacier.  Sadly, while I got a bunch of pictures around there, and you could see the glacier from the road, there's a ridge between the parking area and the end of the glacier proper and nobody was really into hiking up to it in motorcycle boots and gear, so no pictures of the actual Athabasca glacier.  
 

Random roadside pullouts along the Icefield Parkway are absolutely spectacular and very common. Nice little beach, too, but the water is far too cold to swim, or even just wade in. 

Athabasca Falls.  Gorgeous, incredibly loud, and leads down into a very, very deep chasm.  Stunning sight, and really refreshing as it's fed from the glacier fields just a couple miles away.  The water is just barely above freezing, and on a 32C/90F day it's something special.

Beautiful, breathtaking 

Ah the wide open spaces

Blue sky country

Mountains, alpine glacier fed rivers, lakes and waterfalls 

Desolation and freedom 

Who'd you go with?

I'm not sure I could relax doing 100 on CC...

[2and3cylinders]

Wordy

I have had similar mirror risers since day 1

Sourced from Bikemaster less the BHCS hex recess buttons

Added a 5/8" vertical vertical extension to the left because Bikemaster version is not taller.

Feel better!

 

[2and3cylinders]

15 hours ago, Clegg78 said:

Did a mod in prep of the WA/Hanford trip next month.  I have Givi crash bars on my Tracer but didnt like where the highway pegs I bought mounted.  So ... Went into CAD and designed up a new mount that let me move them more forward, kept the look nice and clean, and made minimal modifications to the bars. 

Only modification to the bars was a 6mm hole drilled into the bottom both bars. 
 

There is a 3mm bolt through the center of the bottom cap with a lock nut on the top of it, with washers top and bottom to act as a indexing stud into the 6mm hole.  This stops the very heavy-duty CF Nylon mount blocks from rotating on the shafts.   In the end it's a nice neutral forward position for my legs and when I don't want to use them they are easily tucked away.

There are some quirks to the design that I will need to work on at some point, but it works and will work fine for the trip coming up.   

 

Mine work well but I mostly rest the backstop my calves on them as leg room is tight for me

[Clegg78]

2 hours ago, 2and3cylinders said:

Mine work well but I mostly rest the backstop my calves on them as leg room is tight for me

I have a set of those as well, I couldnt get them to stop rotating on the Givi bars, so I binned them.  They are nice for the price.   In the end I like the ones I picked up a while ago, but the only work on vertical bars which... isn't great for the Givi bars.   But I made it work. 

[2and3cylinders]

As I often use for shim stock, I cut pop can for spacers and that has worked so far, knock on plastic...

[Wintersdark]

14 hours ago, 2and3cylinders said:

Beautiful, breathtaking 

Ah the wide open spaces

Blue sky country

Mountains, alpine glacier fed rivers, lakes and waterfalls 

Desolation and freedom 

Who'd you go with?

I'm not sure I could relax doing 100 on CC...

Local group of guys.  Kind of freakish luck, as we've got a fairly random group where everyone just rides their own ride and there's no drama, ever.  I'm usually really nervous about groups, but we've got it down to a science now.  Fastest guys go first, zoom through twisties, then pull over and wait for those who aren't into the zoomies to catch up.   Thus, us more squiddy types get our fun, the casual folks get their fun, and we're all mature enough to not do stupid shit that endangers each other.  It's an open group, but we're fast to tell people to get lost if they're not going to work out. People who are clearly going to be problems are spoken to immediately, and if they do not respond well (and sort their riding out) they're told to phuck off then and there.  I've found it's kind of harsh, but if you want to maintain fun group rides, you've got to be very selective about who you ride with, or inevitably it becomes a shitshow.  It's fine if someone doesn't understand all the ins and outs of safe group riding initially so long as they're willing to pay attention and learn and not get all stuffed up with their own ego.  But if you're going to ride in a group and include varied activities like very high speed twisties runs, it's crucial that everyone is on the same page.  

Kind of fascinating, though: on this ride, we've got a French born guy from the UK (who was an instructor there; ZX14), an Egyptian who's been riding dirt forever but just got his first street bike(rebel 500), and an Italian who's recently moved from sport bikes to a cruiser (Vulcan), all three recent immigrants to Canada.  Makes for some fascinating conversation about motorcycling around the world at stops.  Then a bunch of locals from across Canada.  Most of us are 40's and 50's, but a couple younger guys.  Quite a few women, too, though none on this trip.

[OldBikers]

Finally got around to installing a dual USB charger into the Aux switched power line.  Now I can charge my phone and Sena50S while on a long ride and still able to plug my Garmin 2597 into the 12V outlet.

I bought the dual USB off of Ebay from Poland, it works and that's all that matters.

[2and3cylinders]

3 hours ago, OldBikers said:

Finally got around to installing a dual USB charger into the Aux switched power line.  Now I can charge my phone and Sena50S while on a long ride and still able to plug my Garmin 2597 into the 12V outlet.

I bought the dual USB off of Ebay from Poland, it works and that's all that matters.

 Good Dave

 I had to replace for the 3rd time my USB Power for my cell on my Bar clamp ram mount

 This time I got an excellent deal for 6 bucks so I bought 3 on Amazon, for a dual port fast charger unbelievable price