My STeed was going to get a new set of rear brake pads, a pair of HID’s installed as well as a Wolo “Big Bad Max” air horn. I like the lower note of the Max horn (320 Hz) as compared to the “Bad Boy” horn somewhere between 530 to 680 Hz.
As the work was getting closer my bike started to have a slipping clutch, not yet killer but disconcerting. I suspect an oil change where I put an incorrect oil in her caused the distress. I only had the wrong oil in for less than 1000 kms before I changed it back out. The reason I changed back was because the gear changing was clunky and not smooth like normal. The clutch issue appeared later but I suspect some friction modifiers messed up the plates. That was a lesson learned the hard way.
With the change back to the original oil I fitted a new K&N filter.
I started collecting the parts I would require,
Relays and wiring for the HID and the air horn project
EBC plates and stronger clutch spring kit.
I also decided to purchase new clutch slave cylinder seals just in case.
New gaskets etc.
Then I started to notice an oil leak. Oh hell no!
A tad hard to spot, with wind blow back etc. Checked the oil filter was on tight. Sure no problem in that regard.
So I stopped riding her for a while and was spending more time on Brutus my VTX1800 cruiser while I was stressing in the back of my mind as to what might be the cause of the engine oil leak.
With the high cost of rego and insurance having 2 cars and 2 bikes being a bit much, I decided I had to make a choice, ST or VTX? ST wins hands down. Love the VTX but the ST is my favourite.
So sold the VTX and now I needed to get my act together and get cracking.
So with Christmas and New Year holidays, daylight saving providing the extra daylight I might need, along with all the parts I had collected it was time to rip off the plastic and turn my Swan back into the ugly duckling. You have to admit the ST with her cloths off is the ugliest bike ever.
Job #1.Rear brake pads.
I noticed that the pitons were very stiff and not releasing properly so a simple pad change turned into a complete disassembly of the calipers. Cleaned everything and made it spotless – reassembled and a full flush of fresh brake fluid got the rear brake sorted.
Job #2 appears as an extra.
While I had the rear wheel out I noticed what looked like a bit of corrosion around the tyre rim interface. So I popped off the tyre and found that it had prevent-a-flat inside.
What a mess. I will never use that crap again. I found that the mess and in particular the corrosion that it was causing was a major problem. Off with the tyre. Scrub the tyre and rim to get rid of the gloop. I used a stiff brush to remove the spots of corrosion. Made sure that everything was as clean as a whistle and dry before re-assembly. I removed all wheel balance weights and I am going to try the Counteract Tyre Balancing Beads inside the tyre. So I inserted 3 Oz’s of beads in my darkside tyre. Everything is now spotless and re-assembled ready for work.
Checked little things like drive spline grease, “O” rings and cush rubbers etc. All OK.
Also checked the final drive oil but it was still as clean as. It had not even discoloured from the bright RED colour of the PM Lubricants diff oil used previously. Level was fine.
Job #3Oil leak.
I found that the clutch slave had leaked while it was doing nothing and the tell tale discharge from the bottom of the slave was evident. So I removed the slave cylinder and found it was a bit of a mess so a thorough clean was in order. Once again I stripped it down with a clean and polish of all parts. Fitted the new seals for the slave cylinder and everything was set as regards the clutch master & slave cylinders.
Looking further for the oil leak I drained all the oil and removed the K&N oil filter.
Bingo. The filter seal gasket was faulty. I did not notice it on installation but it definitely has a section roughly 3 mm long where it could not seal due to an indentation. Oil was slowly squeezing out through this gap under pressure. Wow what a relief. A new filter would get that sorted.
Job #4.The clutch plate and springs.
To get to the clutch, off came the RH side exhaust header. Relatively straight forward disassembly. Clean all the necessary and reassembled with the new EBC plates and 15% stronger clutch spring set.
Just a note for anyone else. Some of the clutch plate change video’s on YouTube are a bit simplistic not taking care to explain that reassembly of the cage requires that one MUST align the inner and outer parts of the cage in only one of 4 possible slide together positions. There are 2 small arrows to match up.
Likewise the reassembly of the complete cage set will require 4 small pins on the back of the cage to align with 4 holes in a gear and chain arrangement that sits behind. The ST manual shows the gear can be rotated easily enough with a screw driver as a lever, but take care otherwise it is will be a problem. Having put everything back in place with new gaskets and bolting it up, that’s the clutch all sorted.
Job #5Wiring and relays to incorporate the police RH handle bar switch set.
For me as I am a bit anal about wiring I chose not to cut in and splice to the police wiring loom rather I had previously purchased connectors and crimping tool to make small interconnects that would simply plug into the police loom in the back and then re-route the switching up to the front to drive the relays etc for the air horn and HID lights.
I know that many will not agree with this choice of switch use, but the Police 1.2.3 switch was used for the horns. In position 1 the standard Honda horn works. In position 2 both the standard horn and the air-horn do their stuff. The danger is if you don’t have the switch in either position 1 or 2 then you don’t have a horn working. In an Irish accent “That’s a potential problem to be sure, to be sure.” But one I was prepared to live with and I am going to modify my behaviour to always check my switch to make sure its set in either position 1 or 2.
I used the switch #5 push/on, push/off button to feed +12 volts to two wires up front. One on the left and one on the right for any future power requirement I might need up front.
The HID’s are controlled by switch #4.
Job #6Mounting the horn.
Where the hell is there the room to fit one of these babies?
I decided on mounting it on an aluminium bracket that I would affix to the lower triple tree. The bracket would sit on the top side of the cast lower triple tree
(I did not remove this from the bike)
I made the bracket with a cut out that allowed it to go around the steering head shaft. I then drilled 4 x 4mm holes to bolt the bracket down. I used 316 stainless M4 machine screws to secure it and then lock nutted the underside nuts with Nylock nuts just to be sure it was not going to come loose. It would be catastrophic if it came loose and jammed up ones steering.
The L bracket was bent up facing forward. The bracket is less that 90 degrees so it still leans forward a bit but clears the front stay gusset that supports the front fairing and instrument framework that attaches to the center of the steering head frame.
The horn is then bolted to the top of my fabricated L bracket and sits with the same orientation as you see the “Max” photo above.
I had to exercise some care as to bolt placement as the triple tree rotates and there is a little metal shield that could collide if one did not get the bolts in the correct arc.
It now sits nice and firm is tucked away and I did not have to cut any of the plastic.
I did however remove the plastic piece that sits under the headlight. It looks a bit like this.
This is a necessary removal otherwise we have a clearance issues. However it also means I can easily go back to stock standard by removing the horn and putting this unmodified piece of trim back into place.
Job #7.I then spied with my little eye that the radiator overflow tank hose had a crack that had developed on the hose right up close to the filler cap. If that crack went all the way through the overflow reservoir would no longer be operative if air could bleed vacuum that normally takes place on cooling down. So replaced that hose.
Job #8.Another extra. While the front wheel was off I also noticed the front brakes were showing signs that the pistons in the brake calipers were getting very tight so I thought it was better to do it now. Took both caliper sets off and gave them a complete strip down and thorough clean and polish of the pistons and then re-assembled them all. Cleaned out the front brake master cylinder and of course flushed out all old brake fluid as I bleed the calipers.
Job #9.Everything is almost now back together. I just wanted to synchronize the carby’s.
This too was a bit of a learning experience. The issue of the adjustment screws is detailed in a different post. Suffice to say I spliced in a 4mm Tee into the vacuum line that runs across to the vacuum operated petrol supply valve. This way I can sync any time I want. I simply place a rubber cap on the off-take tee when not syncing, Straightforward enough and not too badly out of sync which was good. I minor adjustment and all good to go. By the way this is much easier to complete with the air box removed. I also used the opportunity to fit a new fuel filter.
Job #10.While I removed the air-box for the above task, I found that the small foam filter element (part number 11 in the image below) was cactus. Like you touch it and it starts to disintegrate and turn to powder. So I have ordered this. Partzilla had stock so that’s on its way.
I had a K&N air filter in my parts stock and this is fitted,
Job #11.I ordered some Denso Iridium plugs IUH24 from Sparesbox. Unfortunately they were way backordered even though on-line they thought they had stock.
So changed the selection to NGK’s CR8EHIX-9’s and these are in, and firing away nicely.
All in all, it turned into a much bigger task than I had started out with.
Now all I have to do is find a nice dark night and a straight piece of road and align the HID’s. One happy Vegemite.
Took it for a short run and the clutch feels superb and the stronger clutch springs are noticeable. The brakes all feel good. The engine is purring and smooth, and it was just so nice to ride. I got back home with that hard to describe “high” that we all know so well.
