At what point do I stop worrying my rebuilt N15 will go ker-bang?

gpzkat

gpzkat

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Had a nice ride today, temp in 70s, what a life. My son and I rode to a local canyon town Silverado (South Orange County CA) which had a little show going on. A really neat Buick straight 8 '30's hotrod with 8 Stromberg 97s made quite a song. My friend was hanging around there with his Willys Wagon (I am an ex Willys owner). I rode through several canyons with my son on his '23 Ducati DesertX and cruised at 75 mph on the 2 lane.

In the back of my mind, I conjure up all sorts of catastrophes like the engine seizing, locking up the rear wheel, etc. But with nearly 1K miles it just purrs along beautifully. Don't worry, be happy needs to be my mantra, but I'm a worrier dammit.

Last weekend I went to a small show (link below) in Huntington Beach. I rode it about 30 minutes each way on the freeway and it did just fine in the land of 75 mph in the slow lane. I inflated the tires to rock hard to deal with the rain groove shimmies, and it really helped. The monthly show typically has Velos, Gold Stars, Commandos, BMWs and a lot of little oddball small bikes and mopeds. I talked to the winner of the show, Fabrice, his R69S was so nice. I had a 1951 R51/2 with a Steib sidecar that I imported from Greece. Talk about shimmy shake and no brakes, oh gawd. The gallery is interesting to click through, right arrow takes you through one by one nicely. That Guzzi 1000s in black/green is tasty.

https://vintagebikeoc.com/gallery/dec24/AADSC_0878

I was there early due to my freeway flying and snapped this pic

At what point do I stop worrying my rebuilt N15 will go ker-bang?


Meanwhile, my son picked up this toy for $300 and I spent an hour with him figuring out and fixing the carburetion - a fully clogged idle jet. Now it runs just great and he's ready to maim himself. He has a pal with a house in the high desert, lots of deep sand so this will be fun for him to putt around on, and it's easy to throw in his '04 Tacoma short bed.

At what point do I stop worrying my rebuilt N15 will go ker-bang?
 
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Wind your mind back to when you were 18 years old and forget everything you've ever read on the interweb and that worry stuff will go away.

I doubt your engine will break. If it is shifting good, and the kick start is behaving, I doubt the gearbox will break.

The electronics and carburetion are the usual suspects for ending up on the side of the road. That's what over 50 years with a pre-Commando tells me.

I miss motorcycle riding in California. There is some amazing scenery up here in the PNW, but the riding season for a fair weather rider like me is short.

Looks like you are having a good time on the N15.
 
That, "when is it going to blow" up never goes away if you're not a professional mechanic. One day my mechanic friend asked me,

"When are you going to stop talking shit about your Norton?? You always question whether it's going to break down, and exactly how many times has it left you on the side of the road???"

My answer was that it only happened once when I ran it out of fuel. 😏

I realize that I question my builds because I don't do it for a living. My friend rebuilds people's machines every day. His track record of success eliminates any doubts that he fucked something up. To him, a rebuild is an every day problem that he knows the full spectrum of choices and expected results.... We non-professional mechanics, don't have the daily track record to trust that everything we do is right only because we don't have those every day successes that wipe away the doubts...

*When I drove my 69 Ford van 3000 miles cross country in 5 straight days after rebuilding the top end myself, I had my doubts it would make it right up to the last big hill before the exit to my town. At the point where I exited the highway a huge weight was lifted off me... Crazy, but true...
 
As others have noted , the time to stop worrying is now . You got this . I have been married for 46 years to a woman who does the worrying for both of us . Lays in bed in the early morning rigid as a plank , eyes wide and teeth clenched wondering if the sun is going to rise …
 
Richard Tool said:
As others have noted , the time to stop worrying is now . You got this . I have been married for 46 years to a woman who does the worrying for both of us . Lays in bed in the early morning rigid as a plank , eyes wide and teeth clenched wondering if the sun is going to rise …
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I have struggled with a low-level anxiety/melancholy - but it isn't really strong enough to all it depression for as long as I can remember. I'm a worry wart and I guess I always will be. I wake up just fine. Then it's all downhill :eek:
 
Does this worry stuff carry over to the Suzuki bikes?

I never worried for a second riding Japanese motorcycles.

I did worry a little with a Ducati due to doom and gloom on the interweb related to poor plating on the rocker arms. I'm not convinced the 996S suffered from it, but I did keep the RPMs below 10,000 RPM to reduce wear.

Edit: I do remain vigilant when riding my old Norton. Actually, starts as soon as I kick it over and light the fire. The engine and gearbox have always survived, but many other odd failure episodes I won't repeat here have happened. Hard to let those misadventures go entirely. I have yet to go over 90 MPH after the last change of parts rebuild because getting off at 100 mph due to whatever would hurt a lot if I survived it. Anyway, you're not alone in thinking shit happens.

A young buck's no worry scenario with a British bike: I saved up enough money to buy a used Triumph when I was 18 years old just out of high school. Rode the heck out of that bike even 2 up and never thought it would break down. It didn't. Damn pushrod tubes leaked though. I was clueless on how to fix that at the time. Probably had the head off 4 times and still couldn't get the procedure done right. It is apparently not that hard to fix according to advice I got 55 years later ...But I digress...
 
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Schwany said:
Does this worry stuff carry over to the Suzuki bikes?

I never worried for a second riding Japanese motorcycles.

I did worry a little with a Ducati due to doom and gloom on the interweb related to poor plating on the rocker arms. I'm not convinced the 996S suffered from it, but I did keep the RPMs below 10,000 RPM to reduce wear.
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It doesn't usually carry over to Suzukis in my experience
Or any of the big 4 Japanese manufacturers
I did once blow an xs11 pretty bad, number 4 rod poked 3 holes in the crankcase before it hit my right shin
 
baz said:
It doesn't usually carry over to Suzukis in my experience
Or any of the big 4 Japanese manufacturers
I did once blow an xs11 pretty bad, number 4 rod poked 3 holes in the crankcase before it hit my right shin
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I owned all the big 4 Japanese offerings. Not perfect but sort of bullet proof. Never broke one of the Japanese bikes, but they were all new purchases and nobody else touched them. I didn't take them back for "professional service".

I was curious to know if gpzkat's worry wart thing was sort of all consuming.
 
I have owned half a dozen GS1100Es and a few other UJM 4's. The 1100E engines are bomb-proof, especially the '83 with the welded crank. '82s can twist under hard use. I had an '82 that Don Vesco's shop built, welded crank and a Mr. Turbo kit, and lots of other goodies. That was a reliable 200 BHP bike that was fine on the street but spent most of its life at Bonneville and El Mirage (not me riding, previous owner). They do toast their stators; the fix is a SH775 reg/rec and a Rick's stator. One stator wire runs through the switchgear and they are best wired directly. Oh and the coils get weak voltage for the same reason. You can gain by using a relay, I got ~1V increase. The clutch basket usually rattles and the 4 carbs are very hard to synchronize, and horrible to mount with stupid rubber intakes and zero room. Other than those niggles, not much goes wrong.
 
Schwany said:
I owned all the big 4 Japanese offerings. Not perfect but sort of bullet proof. Never broke one of the Japanese bikes, but they were all new purchases and nobody else touched them. I didn't take them back for "professional service".

I was curious to know if gpzkat's worry wart thing was sort of all consuming.
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You hit the nail on the head
The xs11 I had 6 owners before me
When I dropped the sump to see what had happened I found the the sump strainer clogged with all sorts of instant gasket engine killer
I'm not surprised the road seized on the crank and snapped
Amazingly the engine was still running on 3 so I road it home only a couple of miles
I figured I couldn't make it worse
Just had to be careful of the amount of oil going over the back tyre
 
My son can ride/drive anything, MTB, Norton, Willys Wagon. I told him never dab a foot, and if he's gonna flip it, spring forth with a certain panache, then tuck and roll. He's a big boy and can handle it. He said yeah dad, I know. And he does. I've ridden them a bit, you need to realize it's a solid axle with terrible stability. Use body English and steer with the throttle. And keep the speed down on whoops. Otherwise just have fun, like a dangerous motorcycle, car, bicycle, or trampoline.
 
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