Fixing a Bent Gear Shifting Foot Lever on a YZF-R125 Motorcycle

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Category: Automotive

Published on Friday, 26 June 2020 15:08

Written by Ben

Hits: 18617

Introduction

I cannot find any other reason for a gear shift lever to get bent except for a blunt force applied onto it and this is exactly what happened to my motorcycle's gear shifter.

While riding my Yummy i had a little accident and my front tire lost grip on the road and my motorcycle slipped onto its left side, dragging itself along with me a few meters forward. The left slider that was meant to protect the motorcycle's left fairings and basically the entrity of the left side of it – got broken when it came in contact with the road, leaving the gear lever to be next in line to absorb the hit and come in contact with the asphalt.

The connection between the gear shifter and the gearbox was severed and the motorcycle had to be towed to the garage to be fixed. Unfortunately the mechanic did not notice that the gear shift leg lever was bent and i have only noticed it when i was already driving it, attiributing that to me using my snickers. Eventually i had to either do it myself to go back to the mechanic.

In this article i will demonstrate how to fix a bent motorcycle gear shift foot lever.

Preparation:

I have cleaned and cleared the floor i was about to work on and positioned my motorcycle on it. Made sure it was dry and there were no items that could reduce friction of the motorcycle with the underneeth floor, like leafs for example.

Assesment:

as it can be seen, the gear lever is positioned too close to the motorcycle's body. The underlaying fairing also interferes with its operation. Due to this problematic position i had to move my foot right and up/down in a sharper angle in order to shift gears. This action alone made it very difficult riding the motorcycle, add to that the obstruction of the underlaying plastic fairing and you get a very unpleasant and dangerous riding experience.

Step 1 – Heating up the Gear Lever:

bending the lever back when it's at a room temperature prooved undoable unless i had some powerful equipment for the job. I don't have a blow torch so the only viable option left was to use a heat gun. I heated the lever for about 10 minutes before trying to bend it back again. The heat was directed to the stem of the gear lever which is the actual bend part of the lever.

Step 2 – Assuming Position:

Assume a firm position next to the motorcycle and make sure your body is not slipping away from it.

Step 3 – Bending the Lever:

Use one hand to bend the lever itself and the other to counteract it. Apply force with gradual intensity that could be initiated with a kinetic pull as much as the narrow gap between the lever and the body of the motorcyle allow.

Final Result:

It could cleary be seen that the lever's edge is positioned farther away from the motorcycle's body and there is now a vertical gap between the gear lever's edge and the underlaying plastic fairing :

Cons:

- Adds to the overall metal fatigue of the lever. 

Pros:

- Saves the hassle of going to a mechanic.

A Failed Attempt: 

This is before i realized that a metal bar is more likely to get bent if applying force at its tip:

Summary:

It was quite a surprise for me that this method actualy worked and i was able to bend the lever back. I believe the heat gun was the key for that. This is not a long term solution though since i am very much concered about metal fatigue in the future and a possible snapping of the lever in the middle of riding the motorcycle. So in the near future this lever will fore sure be replaced by a new one

Home Made Car Ramp

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Category: Automotive

Published on Thursday, 27 February 2020 03:05

Written by Ben

Hits: 5239

Introduction:

Dealing with car mechanics is inevitable for the tech savvy person and at some point he or she would resort to changing their own engine oil and filters and perform other maintenance work. However working with a car is quite different than working with a computer for example. One simple reason is that cars are, well, a bit bigger than a computer and access to their internal mechanics and electrical systems is often quite complicated, hard and definitely not user, or in this case, mechanic friendly.

For the most part, cars were not meant and not designed to be maintained professionally by the average joe and in order to do so, Joe would have to get some professional tools, accessories and gear in order to do so. My name is no Joe but in this case I am definitely an average one, since I am not a cars mechanic yet I do intend to maintain my own vesicles as much as I can on my own.

The car ramp is the ultimate basic tool for the aspiring Joes who wishe to know more about their cars and maintain them on their own. This basic concept makes handling your car easier, safer and more enjoyable. In this article i will demonstrate how to build your own home made car ramps. This project was a result of a necessity and the will to utilize materials and resources that were already present on site and would've been otherwise just thrown away. In addition to the latter, I wasn't willing to throw between 250$ to 1000$ over professionally made car ramps for home usage.

Parts:

Since I am not a welder and I didn't have metal parts lying around I had to resort to more common materials one could easily find. In this case, wood, or to be more exact, Particleboard, was the material of choice. I chose this material since I had a lot of it laying around, waiting to be thrown into the nearest bin. I wasn't going to build shelves out of it or any other piece of furniture so using it was naturally the easiest choice.

I wasn't quite sure about the strength of the material to be able to handle the weight of a car, I mean, after all, it was just a particleboard. To the very least it would serve as a temporary solution until I find more durable materials.

There important factors that had to be considered seriously before using the particleboard:

1. I had to make sure the particleboard pieces were not water soaked with water, inflated, bloated cracked and broken.
2. I made sure I had enough of the material for evenly made 4 car ramps

Planning:

Car ramps are what they are – ramps. They were not meant to lift the car all the way to an eyes level height, they were meant to lift the car high enough for the person handling the car would have an easier access to the underlying parts of a given car. There are exceptions of course, since there are car ramps that were built at height of between 1.8 and 2 meters, but they are not as common as the ones sold for home usage.

Since I had a finite amount of materials and the basic common sense to understand that the ramps need to exceed a certain height due to stability issues, I had to plan carefully. I am not an architecht or a mechanical engineer, but I do know that the higher a structure is built, the more displacement it needs, unless of course its base and the material it is made of (both the base and the structure itself) are quite durable and well built. In my case, I was using particleboard and I had so much of it.

Firstly I started with what I need – the goal itself – the ramp. I measured the width and length of my car's wheels and looked a bit online at some professionally made car ramps and cross referenced the data. I gathered what I could regarding my car's wheels displacement.

Secondly, I measured how much raw material I had to work with and based on that and the data that I had gathered beforehand, the final measurements of the ramps were decided upon with my fingers crossed :).

The minimum width of the ramp had to be at least 20cm. The length had to be at least 50cm given the fact that 20cm or so out of it would be diagonal. In this case, the diagonal part would be gradual since I lacked the tools to properly sand the “Stairs” that were made as a result of the overall diagonal shape.

Measuring, Marking and Cutting:

Measuring was the most crucial part of the overall project. My baseline was 4 individually separated measurement of 4 equally measured and marked ramps. I had to multiply that amount by 4 since each of the initial pieces of the 4 ramps would have to be joined with 3 more equally measured and cut pieces in order to increase their height. If for some reason I would've made a wrong measurement, I could've ended up with an unequal amount of pieces, leaving myself with unequal heightened ramps, making this entire project useless, or at the very least, delayed till I find more raw materials. It was better in that case to end up with 4 shorter than planned ramps than 4 unequaly heightened ramps.

After an initial measurement, I came to the conclusion that I had enough raw material to stack 4 pieces of particleboard for one ramp. After stacking 4 pieces of particleboard for each 2 ramps, I used nails to secure the pieces together

After cutting each pieces into two i was left with 4 ramps ready to be cut yet again in order to create the steps:

Creating The Steps:

the next stage was to create the diagonal part by cutting out equally measured steps. The measurement pattern was simple - The first step, which would be the top one, would be made by cutting the top board into two equally measured parts. One part would come off while the other would remain to create the step and its ledge. The next step would be made from the next underlying board by cutting its exposed part into two equally measured parts. The same goes for the third and fourth boards. 

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Since using a manual hand saw gets quite hard in time, i tried to cheat my way to the finish line of this project by checking if would the wheels of the car be able to get over a relatively big first step. I was wrong. As i was trying to lift the car over the ledge of the step the wheels jsut got shot over the ramp. It seems that the amount of engine power needed to get over the initial bigger friction caused by the thick ledgte :

I continuted the work of sawing the last step out of the bottom piece:

Prior Usage:

Make sure the space under the car is clear of any tools and obstacles

Make sure there are no people around the car that is independent to be lifted.

Make sure there are not obstacles of any kind around the car.

Make sure you would have enough space around the car, especially at the front, for the car to “drop” in case the car fails to drive over the ramp or in case the ramps themselves fail.

Clean the floor you wish to place the ramps over by using a broom. Sand and other small particles would be the ultimate friction killers so make sure their presence is minimal as possible. Make sure the ramps are steady and without any debris.

Usage:

The first attempt of testing the ramps involved using only two of them, just to make sure the wheels would actually get on the ramps:

Each one of the ramps was placed as close as possible its designated wheel. This was a mistake however, since the diagonal part is not really, well, diagonal and smooth, I had to drive the car a bit backwards for a few centimeters in order to gain momentum and climb these little stairs. Once I had noticed the car starts to tilt upwards, I hit the brakes and slowly drove forward, a few centimeters each time, till the car was completely leveled.

Cons:

• Low in height
• Heavy to carry
• Hard to carry – no handles of any sort
• Material is not durable enough and could easily get soaked with water and get cracked
• The external white later of the ramps does not have a high friction grade both with the wheels and the floor beneath the ramps
• The stairs cut out of the ramps would never be as good as a smooth diagonally cut surface.
• Long and thick screws should been used instead of the long nails which don't hold the particleboard stacks firmly enough
• Labor-some to create, especially when using a manual saw.

Pros:

• Gets the job done – lifts the car
• Cheap to make
• Utilizes existing materials and resources
• A stepping stone for the next ramp project

Summary:

Overall, the concept itself of a home made ramp is very good. The key to make this concept a success would be to use the right materials and in the right way. This project was a success since I eventually was able to lift the car and change my engine oil and filters by having an easier access to the underlying part of the car. However, the right materials were not used and the those were not used in the right way.

The ramps turned out to be very heavy to move around and handle. Though their weight contributes to the stability of the car being over them, it makes it very annoying to carry those ramps with you, especially when they don't include any handles. I had to carry 2 at a time due to their weight, making about 4 trips back and forth to my car in order to bring 4 ramps, one tools box and a bucket full of other car consumables.

On the positive side, it is a good solution for the resourceful person who wishes to utilize trash and in this case, Those ramps could've been perfected by sanding the steps to a diagonally smooth surface, gluing both the top and bottom parts of the ramps with rubber covers and covering the sides of the ramps with cover materials in order to prevent water penetration. The weight issue of the ramps could've been solved by just using a small cart or a bottom car servicing trolley or by lifting weights more often.

WaterProof Smartphone Motorcycle Case

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Category: Automotive

Published on Tuesday, 12 November 2019 08:35

Written by Ben

Hits: 8227

Introduction:

In this article i will go over an absolute nessesity for bikers who use their smartphones often while they ride their motorcycle - A water proof smartphone case. This little gadget has saved me personally many times from pulling over under a bridge in a rainy day just to get my smarhpone out of my bag\pocket for navigation purposes before hopefully memorizing the correct path and getting back to driving in the rain. 

Packaging:

The product comes in two parts: A handlebar bracket and a device cradle. Both were packaged within transparent nylon bags.

Parts:

The handlebar bracket is pretty simple and to the point. its "neck" leading to the cradle connector is not so long though, not that it needs to be any longer than it is. Though, an option to extend it would've been welcomed just in case a rider needs the device to be a bit close to his face. The unit comes with two tighteners, one for the handlebar and one for the cradle male connector's round axis.  The round axis makes it possible to adjust the cradle unit's posture.

The bracket connector comes with 4 boldged male pins which at first glance seem pretty universal, though, some cradles out there come with 3 male pins. It basically means that this handlebar bracket could potentially be used with other cradles and/or products, which is good.

The cradle part is very light, made mostly of very thin plastic and sythetic fabric.It is basically two parts of an enclosure , seperated by a zipper. The back part of the cradle is where the cradle female connector is attached, the front part is made almsot entirely out of a transparent, thick and elastic material. The entire cradle itself is very elastic, which kind of worried me when it came to how safe could it keep my mobile device in case it falls off in a middle of a ride or god forbids, due to an accidant. 

As a mattef of fact, just by looking at the cradle unit i could already see that this solution is not going to survive more than maybe 2 winters. These cheap materials, zipper and outside weather conditions could easily weatr and tear this unit given enough time. 

Quick Overview:

Openning up the cradle unit is done pretty easily by using the zipper, though, when going around the corners, moving the zipper gets a bit harder and more force is need to be applied in the right direction in order to continue unzipping the zipper. This quality of the cradle isn't positive to begin with since applying more than needed force could easily break the zipper or damage its teeth. 

Upon openning the cradle unit i noticed it contains some sort of a spungy piece of a cut material. It is likely is was used to prevent the unit from getting flattened during shipping. Though, i belive it could be used as support when using the cradle to house devices not thick enough to expand it to its fullest volume. I have noticed that when using thin or smaller than intended devices with this cradle, their screens don't stick well enough to the transparent part of the cradle, making it hard to see the screen during the day and making it impossible to use the touch feature of these screens, especially when using bulky motorcycle gloves...

The stiches and the overall built of the cradle unit don't really give out a good sense of confidence and i could already see my beloved smartphone getting wet along with me while riding in the rain. This unit is very fragile. Brute force and blunt usage would render it unusable very fast. 

The unit opens all the way to 180 degrees and even more so when the zipper is used all the way, Though, i find this to be unessecary mostly since most appropriate size devices would be able to be slided in from the top, openning the zipper only a fourth of the way. Just for appearance sake, i wanted to see how my LG-G4 device would fit if i open the zipper all the way. 

Assembly:

Since this product is pretty cheap and to the point , assembling it was very easy and it was basically split into two main parts: Assembling of the handlebar bracket and attaching the cradle part onto it. Note - the second part could be integrated into the first one by attaching the cradle unit onto the handlebar cradle prior conneting the handlebar bracket.

Prior to assembley, i played around with the possibility of having the old and the new cradles at the same time. Suffice it to say that i did not need both since, first - i didn't need both, second - both of them together made my motorcycle look really cluttered, not to mention my Odometer could almsot not be seen. 

Assembling the Handlebar Bracket:

This is part is pretty easy. Use the lower tightener to expand the round handlebar openning, that is, the actual part that holds onto the handlebar, and slide it gently through the handlebar. Make sure while doing so that the inner rubber layer doesn't slip out and stays in one line with the round openning.  After sliding it to the desired area of the handlebar - tighten the tightener.

NOTE: The handlebar bracket could be opened all the way by unscrewing its tightener's screw all the way out, in cases that slipping it onto the handlebar is not possible.

Assembling the Device Cradle:

This part is the easiest. Position the cradle's back part above the handlebar bracket's cradle connector, slide all the 4 pins in and lock it in place by applying force onto the cradle in the direction of insertion, while hodling the handlebar bracket with the other hand as support. Loose the second tightener a bit and make sure the you can move the cradle around its round axile freely without it getting ditached from the bracket.

Prior Usage:

Hop on your motorcycle, unlock the handlebar and see if the device cradle obstructs any important instrumentation like for example the Odometer or the Speedometer. 

Make sure the device cradle and the handlebar bracket at tightly secured and do not tilt freely. 

Make sure your mobile device fits the device cradle. If the device is bigger than the size of the cradle, forcing it in might not be a good idea and might strain the zipper and the stiches. 

Close the device cradle using the zipper and while its empty, pour water over it. Open it, make sure the inner part of the cradle is dry. 

Usage:

As mentioned in the previous part of this article, you don't have to open the zipper all the way through in order to insert your mobile device into the device cradle. Do not apply too much force on the zipper, use it with care, gently and always apply force in the direction of the zip line, especially when approaching the cradle's corners.

When using the device cradle in hot summer days - MAKE SURE TO OPEN THE FRONT FACING SIDE OF THE ZIPPER just a bit due to heat accumilating inside the cradle, especially when driving in urban areas with not enough head-wind to go into the cradle through the opened part of the zipper.

Cons:

-Fragile

- Needs to be used with same size device

- Cheap materials

- Gets easily broken and damaged

- Devices get overheated while driving when inserted into the cradle during hot weather

Pros:

- Cheap

- Easy to install

- Light

- Does its job - protects devices against water

- Could be used with other products and vehicles 

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Summary:

For its price - this product is good enough. It protected my mobile phone against water and rain during winter rides and the zipper has yet to get damaged. The bracket though got broken after 1.5 years or usage due to wear and tear. It is definately a good solutioin for those who look for a cheap protection against water and rain while they ride. The over-heating of the devices in hot days is a downside, but then again, this device was mainly intended to be used during the winter. 

GUB Motorcycle Handlebar Extender Riser

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Category: Automotive

Published on Tuesday, 29 October 2019 09:53

Written by Ben

Hits: 2659

 

Introduction

Apart from armor and a helmet, usually a motorcycle rider doesn't need much in order to ride their horse. Usually they know their barings, general direction, don't need to talk to anyone, don't need to listen to music or to know in real-time any other variable.

Times have changed it seems and the very same technological changes that found their way into our cars and other transport veihcles, found their way to motorcycles as well; GPS devices, smartphones, compasses, radar detectors (speed trap detectors), TPMSs (Tire pressure monitoring systems), temperature gades, gear gades and even real time "dash" camcorders and good old digital clocks.

The addition of the aformentioned is rather debatable since some riders and critcs would say that adding more instumentaion and gadjets to one's motorcycles would just cause more harm by drawing the very important attention of the rider off of the road which would eventually make them end up there, usualy seriously hurt, even dead.

The other side of this debate is usually supported by gadget and innovation enthusiasts who consider almost every product that displays information by LED technology packaged in a nice, sleek and sexy casing along with a cool name to be an absolute necessity for a professional and experiences rider.

My opinion, along with many others, is that both sides are correct and a balance must be found between necessity and safety. Humans are a very adaptable creatures but never the less are very prone for mistakes, AKA, human errors and these are cause by our very easily attention drawn brain.

The following product makes it that a rider would be able to add more gadjets and instrumentation to their motorcycle handlebar. In my case – it was absolutely necessary, in many other cases- it might wouldn't be.

 

Packaging:

The products comes in 2 parts – the handlebars holder and an additional small handlebar. The package is very nice, to the point, small which makes very little room to mistake the product for something else.
Opening it was a bit of a hassle due to the tight sealing.

The cardboard part of the packages comes printed on both sides. The back side is printed with two photos of the two types of models of this product. It also shows the diameters of the rings in centimeters and a Barcode which leads to http://www.gubbike.net.

The front side of the package is made out of mainly the two parts of the product, a big logo of the company and two very obvious reminders that the product was made using CNC MACHINING. Thanks for the reminder.

 

Parts:

As mentioned above, the products comes in 2 parts – a handlebars holder and an additional small handlebar.

The handlebars holder is made out of metal and is similar to the number 8. It is made out of two open rings which are supposed to be inserted over the handlebars. The mechanism was designed that when tightening the screws over the rings after the handlebars are in place, the motorcycle handlebar ring tightens the small handlebar's ring automatically.

Both parts are black. The small handlebar is also made out of metal, it has a rugged outer surface and both of the adjacent round surfaces are grew and smooth.

 

The product comes with two relatively long Ellen screws and two washers.

 

Quick Overview:

The overall impression the product gives at first is of a very simple and to the point kind of a product with a very minimal design in mind – one device to connect two handlebars and an additional short handlebar.

The black color is indeed very welcomed since it would blend very well with almost any motorcycle's color theme, especially considering the fact that usually most of the instrumentation and cables around the area of the handlebars are usually painted black.

The product gives a feeling of being very fragile due to its small size and narrow cut. It almost gives you the notion that this product was not meant for motorcycles at all but for bicycles, though, a lot of products for the latter would very quite adequate for a motorcycle as well, and vice versa.

 

Assembly:

Setting up the handlebar Extender main part

1. Clear enough space on your motorcycle handlebar of at least a Centimeter in length in order to prepare a gap in which to install the bigger ring that would hold on to that handlebar

 

2. clean the cleared gap as much as possible. Make it shine. This is done in order to prevent dirt and other obstacles to interfere with the grip of the ring to the handlebar's outer surface.

3. Since in my case the motorcycle's handlebar's diameter was way narrower than the device's ring, I had to use pieces of friction prevention rubbers I had saved from a previous product. I used 3 of them in order to reduce the inner diameter of the handlebar ring of the device. I went a little overkill with it and added a 3rd rubber to make the inner diameter even smaller since the rubber would contract under pressure from the metal part of the ring being tighten over it.

 

4. I had to unscrew the some of the devices already present on the motorcycle's handlebar in order to clear more room for the ring. Again, I went over kill here as well and took a bigger space than I actually needed in order to have a bigger error margin.

5. Have the motorcycle handlebar ring part completely open. If you use rubber seals like do, try to hold them as close as possible to the ring itself with having them falling over (happened to me a few times – very frustrating).

6. Make sure the rubber seals overlap each other and that there are no gaps among them.

7. Prepare the screw and its washer close by

8. After positioning the handlebar extender in the right position insert the screw and the washer to the screwing hole in the triangle part that is connected to the ring. Drive the screw till it's tighten but not all the way since tightening this screw will not only tighten the motorcycle handlebar's ring, but also the small handlebar ring as well.

9. make sure the handlebar extender is in the desired position (usually upright at a 90 degree angle). After making sure

10. Insert the small handlebar into the smaller ring.

11. continue tightening the screw of the big ring all the way till the handlebar extender doesn't seem to move so easily.

12. Insert the smaller ring screw and washer into their hole and drive the screw in.

13. At this stage, the more the smaller ring is tighten, the bigger the gap that is created between the two triangles' tips.

14. Make sure both of the screws are tighten all the way and the handlebar extender is firm at its position.

Fulfilling the purpose of the motorcycle handlebar extender – installing more gadgets!:

In this case I have installed a mobile phone cradle for motorcycles and bicycles.
The cradle of choice was as small, reliable and stable that I could find at that time, for a reasonable price of course.

1. Release the screws of the cradle so that it could be slide through the small handlebar

2. Position the cradle in the desired position

3. Tighten the screws all the way

4. Insert a suitable mobile\smartphone onto the cradle