The Bird has had a Scottoiler for some time. The oiler was purchased for The Bird's predecessor, but it never worked properly on that motorcycle because Jack never found a good vacuum source. The Bird, on the other hand -- other wing? -- arrived equipped with great vacuum line to the fuel tank vapor capture system. With the Scottoiler attached to that line, the oiler works a trick.
But, seems like there is often a "but." But, Jack rigged the oil supply line so that it came down from the oiler, which is mounted to the subframe, down the front side of the swingarm, and under the swingarm back to the oiler delivery tube that drips onto the rear sprocket just above the chain. For some reason, beyond Jack's or The Bird's ability to divine, the movement of the swingarm up and down kept pulling the supply line so that it bunched up under the swingarm. Every so often Jack had to pull the loops out from under the swingarm and put the slack back above the swingarm. When doing this, he often found that one or more of the zip ties that held the line to the swingarm were broken. This was another mystery to Jack and The Bird. One day, Jack noticed there was oil on the rear tire and he wrongly thought it was there because the oiler was over oiling. In hindsight -- which is not 20/20 as so many people claim -- Jack should have known right away that since the chain did not look wet, it wasn't over oiled. Not being a great thinker, Jack reduced the flow from the Scottoiler and scrubbed the tire with various concoctions that didn't get all the oil off. He rode with some trepidation, but the tire did not slip out from under the dangerous duo. When the chain continued to dry and the tire continued to lubricate, Jack took a closer look.
"Let's see what's up with this chain oiler, Bird." Jack said as he sat down next to his favorite machine. "Ah ha!"
The oil line had looped under the swingarm again and one of the loops rubbed on the tire until the tire rubbed a hole through the line. (Could this have been an attempted suicide by a tire distraught with the pandemic and winter gloom? We won't know, but Jack thinks it was his fault and he is embarrassed by his negligence.) I am leaving something out and I've decided not to do that.
Since I've gone this far in disclosing how lame Jack can be, I'll go a little further. A couple of days before Jack found the leaking oil line, he took The Bird into the motorcycle shop for his annual state safety inspection. On that same inspection two Decembers before, the mechanic found that the rear brake pedal was not actuating the brake light because the spring that connects the pedal the the brake light switch had sprung. Jack was embarrassed that he had not caught that before the inspection, even though it is remotely possible that the spring sprang on the way to the inspection. This year, Jack checked the lights before going in for the inspection and he found that this time the front brake lever was not actuating the brake light. With some contact cleaner and WD-40 Jack got the brake light switch working. But, during the inspection, the mechanic found that the license plate light was out. Ug. This was also horribly embarrassing for Jack and he told The Bird, "I'm not acting like a very good motorcycle caregiver, am I?"
After the inspection, Jack renewed the motorcycle's tags and ordered a new switch for the front brake lever and told himself and The Bird that he would redouble his efforts to be a good caregiver.
That's about the time he found the oil all over the tire. Imagine how Jack felt. Even I felt bad for him. His only consolation is that that mechanic hadn't noticed the oil either.
This was a problem that had to be addressed. And as the old Jefferson Airplane song says, "I thunk thunk thunk a lot about ya, realized my thunk was nothin' but a lot of bunk."
Jack came up with a great idea. Run a copper tube under the swingarm. That won't loop up. So Jack got on the lathe and made two tiny little nipples and soldered them into the ends of a length of 1/4" diameter copper tubing. He attached that to the bottom of the swingarm with loops of safety wire, connected the supply tubing to both ends of the copper tubing and began to prime the system. That was going slowly so Jack shot some compressed air into the oiler to push oil down to the rear sprocket. The oiler blew up. Well, that's a $140 error in judgment. Jack order another Scottoiler. They were back ordered and he had to wait a month.
While waiting for the new Scottoiler, Jack thunk some more and decided he didn't like the copper tubing idea because it still ran around the front of the swing arm before following under the swingarm to the rear sprocket. Jack came up with another idea. Get a length of 5/16 " copper tubing and run the plastic tubing through the copper tubing and stay away from the front of the swingarm. (By this time, Jack had decided that the front of the swingarm was a bad route. He thought it had pulled the plastic tube and it would work harden and crack the copper tube.) Back in the shop, Jack bent up some clamps and on the lathe he made a stud that would replace a screw on the swingarm and fiddled and farted until he said to himself, "Wait a second."
Jack took a piece of brazing rod and bent it a little here and a little there and came up with this:
Still waiting for the new Scottoiler, Jack rode around with this setup for a couple of hundred miles and everything looked swell. When the oiler arrived, Jack plumbed it in, ran the plastic tubing next to the brazing rod, slipped some shrink fit tubing over both, and shrank the tubing with a heat gun. This is the result:
After a hundred and thirty some mile ride yesterday, Jack and The Bird think the Scottoiler system problem is solved.
Comments
Post a Comment