It took us two days to get to Guanajuato because we were held up in Aguascalientes. No, not that kind of hold up. 

The kind of holdup every motorcyclist loves to run into. A fellow motorcycle enthusiast that can't get enough of your story. Duro spotted us on the 6 lane autopista (freeway) running straight into Aguascalientes. We stopped and chatted for a couple of minutes about our trip, and his interest in taking smaller motorcycle trips, and we were hoping he could point us in a good direction for some lunch. It was about three in the afternoon and we were both starving. 

He then noticed that we were burning oil on the right side exhaust pipes. I tried to explain to him that I was constantly watching the oil, and that I knew what the problem was, and that I was in the midst of resolving the issue. Which is our cam chain tensioner not holding tension and leaking a fair bit of oil past the seal. Well, instead of pointing us to a good restaurant for lunch, (we finally made it to the Birria market that I was dreaming of before we left the next day.)

The back of a lamb on the table in front of us. 

Pretty good Birria cook. 

Side note, Birria is a specialty of Northern Mexico where lamb, mutton and goats are raised. The best place to get Birria is in Aguascalientes, so stop right here.

Eat and watch your bike at the Juarez Market.

Back to the story, We got the Birria information later that night when we meet up with Duro and his wife, and got a tour of the city. But, the first place Duro took us to was the infamous motorcycle garage of the Maestro Jorge Venegas Estrada.

We discussed the issue with my motor, and he offered up a quick solution. drill out the old bolt on the cam chain tensioner so we could thread in a stud bolt. This was a good option, but I knew if we made one mistake Jen and I would be stuck in Aguascalientes for much longer than we wished to visit this uber modern city. Mind the Birria market. I chose to talk my way out of the situation, and I learned a good lesson.

Even if the mechanic you are talking to about a problem wants to do the work for free, it doesn't mean it is always the best decision. 

So to fill you in on why we decided to pass on the offer, I have found a used cam chain tensioner on eBay for seven bucks. This includes the cam chain and the guides. Not a bad deal.

So we get the tour of the town that night by Duro. Auguascalientes is one of the highlights on the Mexico bull fighting circuit. Some of the best bulls in the country are breed here and killed here. We also got to see a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, sorry no photos I forgot the camera, she was standing over a grate in a section of town that had the cars passing underground. When a car would pass underneath her, the viewers would get a little glimpse as she posed innocently for the photos.

The next day I got up early, to check the condition of the bike, oil, and cam chain tensioner. I had to add a bit of oil, but that was expected. We then took off for a visit to the National Museum of death.

Click on our pictures for more great photos from the Death Museum.

So here we are in Guanajuato. I again have the engine out, and I am getting the broken bolt on our cam chain tensioner fixed temporarily as our new tensioner gets shipped to us.

I am going to replace our original one, because I also want to replace our head gasket, the oil seal around the cam chain tensioner bolt, and put in a master link on the cam chain. Plus in the care package with these parts from the states will be a new electric starter motor for the bike. Lets hope all goes well. 

 Benjamin

In Guanajuato, Motor is OUT!

So we made it to Guanajuato in one piece. We stayed over in Aguascalientes for a night, both for Ben to check out the Museo Nacional de la Muerte (National Museum of Death), from which we have some very interesting photos of the art there, 

but also because we literally got pulled over by a fellow motorcycle enthusiast, Duro, who runs the blog En Dos Ruedas, written in Spanish.

We stopped in Aguascalientes for three hours, putting us off track for our destination in Guanajuato that night, so we got a room, saw the museum and walked around downtown a bit. 

The three hours we spent at the motorcycle shop was pretty hilarious. It involved Ben waving his hands at Harley Davidson enthusiasts, saying, part in Spanish, part in English, "Please, please, no! Don't drill into the head!" For those who don't speak motorcyclese, the head basically equals the motor and drilling into it and leaving metal shavings is a terrible idea. 

We made some quick friends in Aguascalientes, and got a little nervous about the cam chain tensioner being loose--not only are we losing a lot of oil regularly, but the cam chain tensioner is sitting in the motor, shaking around. If it gets completely detached from the outside, it will bash into something important (i.e. the valves or the pistons or something like that) and then the ride is OVER. Capital O-V-E-R. So Ben took the motor out, again. And I helped, a little. Here are the photos:

This is Judiht's courtyard, and the view from our current bedroom. There's Apolo, the collie and the engine sitting out in the courtyard.

Roadside Mechanics Series #3

That is right, what Jen said. "Hell Yeah Mexico!" 

So how did that happen. Two days ago we were fighting a broken starter, and xs500 still did not want to start right with the kick starter. Yes it was running well, when it was running, and did a great job on our test ride to Boca Chica, but it was not perfect. 

So, yesterday morning our baffling motorcycle problem of extremely hard cold starts, and a screeching noise that occured on while the engine was starting was finally exposed. 

I was recommended to perform a cold engine compression check by Vanya, an "old motorcycle" mechanic whiz on advrider.com. The procedure for the test is the same as in our earlier blog post for the Roadside Mechanics Series #1, except the test is performed while the engine is cold. The idea behind performing this check was that our hard cold starts were caused by a small air leak that can only be present when the engine is cold. Therefore, the air leak did not effect the operation of the motorcycle at normal operating temperatures because as metal heats up it expands thus closing off the air leak. 

So first thing I did at 7 am on the day we are supposed to leave for Monterrey, Mexico, was pull the gas tank, remove the plugs and setup the compression tester. Our initial results for both sides were very poor at 90psi and proved Vanya's point. We had a cold engine compression leak.

Vanya suggested that if this test resulted in poor compression, I should check that the eight head bolts were tightened to 25 ft-lbs. This is where I discovered our  problem! The head bolts were just loose enough that they did not created a good seal with the cylinders until the engine was warm. That is why the warm compression check didn't expose the problem with our compression.

Through this process I have learned that discovering the origins of a problem in a troubled engine requires following a series of steps to make sure that the three main systems of compression, spark, and fuel are opereating properly when you perform a tuneup, and that to check them in that order. First, make sure the engine has good compression. The main check should be when the engine is warm, but if your engine will not start then a cold engine compression test could expose the underlying problem of why the engine won't start. Then, and only then, should you proceed onto checking the electrical system to make sure that a healthy spark is being delivered through the spark plug, and that it is being delivered at the right time. From there you should go onto check the fuel flow. All of these ingredients combine to make up a running engine, but the first systems have to be functioning flawless make sure that you are diagnosing the true problem.

After I tightened the head bolts I got a healthy reading from both of our cylinders.

The motorcycle started right up when I put it back together, and is a breeze to start with the kick starter when warm, all of our gear is strapped on, and Jen is sitting on the back of the bike. Hurray!!!!!

Benjamin

p.s. Now I am going to go through the other systems and make sure they are functioning flawlessly with the correct compression. Just another step in maintaining a 1976 Yamaha xs500 in Jen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

The last leg, on a broken leg

We did it! We left Galveston! Some of you might have thought we would be there forever. We almost thought the same thing. In fact, we only limped out of Galveston, and forty miles from Mission, Texas, our final destination in the US, the exhaust pipes started to scream, pop, hiss, and breathe fire. However cool it may sound, we lost power due to the excitement.

While in Galveston, we had been trying to eliminate some erratic behavior in the tuning of our machine. The hard starts, the loss of mid-range power, and occasional failure to start. We came to find out, when everything was said and done, all we needed was one of Jen's hair ties--well at least to help with figuring out why we were failing to start. After our last job with Tim, on the West End of the island, we couldn't get the bike to start. I figured it was just the points acting up again. I checked for a proper spark first. None. So we followed the connection back through the plug wires, and to the coils; when I got to the kill switch and hardwired it, the bike fired up and ran. So I cleaned the contacts on the switch and reassembled it to work normally. With the bike running, we buttoned her back up and started for home. Once we got on the highway, the engine cut out. I had missed something, or had I? I looped Jen's fabric rubber band over the ignition's kill switch, helping the contacts in the switch complete the circuit and transmit the necessary twelve volts to the coils. It worked again. When we got home that night, I took the switch apart, cleaned it up real good, made sure all the parts were functioning as they should, and presto, old is the new, new. Well, almost.

The engine is still hard to start/won't start. Jet Ski Joe, mechanic extraordinaire, and friend of Tim, an Adventure Rider (Princess Jamaica), told me our hard starts have something to do with the scratching sound we hear when the engine is starting, and that it is an air leak. To find out where the air is leaking, he advised us to spray starter fluid around where the carburetors mount to the engine head. If the leak is around the intake valves, the extra fuel will cause a spike in the engines RPM. To check the exhaust valves we will have to hold a burning match up to where the exhaust pipes mount to the engine, and watch for any movement in the flame. This will tell what gaskets need to be remade or ordered to fix the problem.

During our last days in Galveston, I bought a sort of insurance policy. New coils, four in fact. I figured we had replaced almost all the other ignition parts, short of installing an electronic ignition. Two of these coils were meant to be returned. I was able to find some car coils that were a match for the coils already on the bike and needless to say, the ones on the bike are not the right ones. So, I also bought the right Hitachi type Cm 11 coils for the bike, from MikesXS and had them shipped to Mission, Texas. My logic was that we could return the one set we picked up in Galveston when the right ones arrived and no one would be the wiser. Why the hassle? The idea was that if we did break down, and we did need the new coils between Galveston and Mission, we would have them. Guess what? It was a damn good "policy" I bought. When we broke down, I found one of our old coils was leaking oil. I think this is what caused our backfiring, but alas, when I changed them out, the problem persisted. We checked our spark, it was great; reset the timing, and fiddled with the carbs a little bit. Before we called it a night, I could get the bike to start up for about ten seconds, and then it would slowly die out. It would allow me to do this every fifteen minutes or so.

So that is where we are at. Oh, and the best part. We got a ride to Mission, Texas. I wasn't sure what to say when Mike, the second person to stop and ask us if we needed help, offered to throw our bike in the back of his van. I assumed it would be too large, and too heavy, but we did it.

Again, so this is where we are at. The bike runs, but only for a few seconds. Is it the carbs, or is it the valves? The engine running says to me it is not the valves, but the carbs, and the dying off to me sounds like there is blockage in one of the jets on the carbs. I guess there is only one way to find out. Pics coming tomorrow, or whenever we are at an Internet connection that will allow us to upload our pictures.

Be well
Be welcome
Benjamin