Keeping The Rockers Rolling: Going for a Ride, Working out Bugs, & Final Thoughts

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Going for a Ride, Working out Bugs, & Final Thoughts

After the Hornet was timed and the carb idle adjusted I took it for a ride. The rear brake works great and the front brake needs to be seated in. If this does not occur on its own I will take it apart and tune it. The bike ran great up to 3000 RPM and then missed a bit. A few jetting tweaks and it is running well. I also had a small leak from the head gasket which disappeared after torquing it down again. A bit of a job but worth the effort. A small oil leak at the cylinder base was also fixed by tightening down the base nuts. I was a bit conservative on torquing these as I did not want to strip the threads. The only leak left is a small one coming from the right fork seal holder which was sealed with Teflon tape in the threads. It will come apart and I will reseal it with silicone.

The Hornet is a blast to ride. The open pipes, small tank and large front tire provide a feel which is different than my Lightning. The wheels run true and are balanced well and the bike runs straight down the road. These were areas of concern as I had not laced wheels before and had to straighten the swing arm to get it back in spec.

I am very pleased with the electrical system I put together. The bike starts easily and idles nice. The LED lights have held up well and add a higher degree of visibility. The horn is very under powered and can barely be heard over the exhaust - one electrical miss. The hidden toggle switch is nice while the horn and kill switch relays work fine. I set the Hornet up for a lithium ion battery but don’t think I need it as it starts easy "battery free" and light output of the tail light is acceptable at idle. I thought the electrical system had the greatest potential for rework but it turned out oil and gas leaks would be more problematic.

The old pipes didn't seal and leaked carbon from rich jetting.

Jetting is fixed & ports are sealed.

The tapered roller bearing steering head is smooth and I will go this route again. The aluminum tank and new push-pull taps work well and add a level of usability missing from the fiberglass tank. The 21 tooth sprocket gives a 400 - 500 RPM reduction at 50 MPH which was measured against my 20 tooth Lightning sprocket. This equates to 4 - 5 MPH increase at 3000 RPM. This puts me in at a good speed and RPM for cruising scenic back-roads. Another change worth repeating on future builds. I was also steered the right direction when I purchased cork clutch plates as they do not hang up each time it sits overnight like my Barnett plates do. Thanks go to Bob Goodpaster at Expert Motorcycle Works for that wisdom.

One last point of business is to fit mufflers to my “old” street pipes. I purchased a set of mini’s but needed to figure out how to mount and support them. The baffles did not let the pipe enter as far as I needed to cover up holes the last guy left me, or to mount soundly for that matter. I did not want to use the chrome support bar provided but will leave the mount in case I need to add it later.