Category: motorcycle

 After decades working in the next town over commuting to the same job year in year and year out I found an opportunity to travel with work. My current gig has me doing cybersecurity training and emerging tech outreach across Canada. In the past couple of months I’ve been coast to coast to coast in Canada, but because it’s still fairly new to me I’m not making best use of it just yet.

A good example is a trip I have to Vancouver next week. If I were crafty I’d have the Tiger shipped out to Vancouver the week before, pick it up for the week of work across Vancouver Island and then begin the ride home starting on Sunday morning. At sub 500km days I could do an eight day trek home:

Vancouver to home in 8 days.

A quick poke around suggests it would cost just over a grand to get the bike out there. Considering I’m paying about that for the rental car for the week, I suspect I could get that cost covered.

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 The Tiger rode like it has never had any fueling problems after I hacked the idle control system last time. Idle control is a common problem on 955i Triumphs and I’ve spent years trying to get mine back into spec even as finding parts for them gets more difficult. Turns out the solution is to remove it.

Ride #2: 40 minutes locally

Second ride this week and the bike idles rock steady and is as smooth as it has ever been, and the backfiring that had been getting worse is completely gone. Today it started on the button, ran from cold with no issues and took me on a 40 minute ride without a hiccup.

We live in an overcrowded little town now thanks to Southern Ontario swelling in size post COVID, so I took the Tiger through a lot of stop-start traffic to see if I could get it to hiccup, but it wouldn’t! Makes me want to move more than ever though.

No problems on the back roads.

Pickup up from stops, no problem. Cornering roll on throttle? Smooth as butter. Idle never wavers and I’d forgotten how much fun to chuck around the Tiger is…

So if you’re having never ending headaches with your Triumph 955i idle control system, yank the damned thing! Modulating the idle through varying the vacuum between the intake manifold and the airbox (the servo moves up and down revealing the vacuum passages for the three throttle bodies) serves some purpose (perhaps emissions?), but at this point in the bike’s life at over 90k and 22 years in, removing the lot and connecting the intake vacuum lines together offers a viable fix for what may be one of the last of these bikes on the road in Canada. I’d be willing to play Top Trumps with any other 955is on mileage too.

Ride #3: Going Long

The next run was a 275 km run up to Georgian Bay to look at a blue horizon. These days it’s also a reason to get out of our increasingly overcrowded and traffic jammy town.

Flesherton to Thornbury through Beaver Valley (41kms)

Thornbury Harbour to Creemore Brewery (77 kms)

Thornbury Harbour!

Just past the scenic caves on Blue Mountain.

Creemore for a late lunch.

Steady 100km/hr sections, twisties, as big an altitude change as you can find in Southern Ontario and we never missed a beat. Left at 10am, got home just past 4pm, multiple stops, always started on the button whether cold, or or somewhere in between.Temp was mid-teens leaving and mid-twenties returning.

It’s been a while since you’ve heard this on here, but I’m a happy Tiger owner.

1) Bin 2, 3 and 4 2) Remove the top of the servo (1) and leave it plugged in but detached from the airbox. 3) Block off the hole in the bottom of the airbox left by the removed idle control stuff.. 4) Plumb the three vacuum lines out of the throttle bodies into each other through a T-junction. Bob’s your uncle! No promises, but it did the trick for me.

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 Facebook slapped me in the face with this this morning:

…so I went on a mission.

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 It took the better part of four months over the winter thanks to lots of work travel stretching things out, but the C14 is back together again and runs like a top. The engine doesn’t feel as tight, which makes sense as all the valve shims needed were to resolve the overly tight valves.

The Bay of Fundy near Saint John (latest work trip)

It still does the clatter when you first start it (it’s to do with the cam chain tensioner needing oil
pressure to fully engage – it’s part of the engine design). The bike has always done that but now that I’ve laid hands on the thing itself it’s helpful in understanding how it all works. Knowing how complicated just the top of that motor is gives me a new sense of satisfaction hearing it run well.

I’m back from yet another work trip but managed to take the big Kwak for a spin last weekend and it pulls like it always has (which is to say like a nuclear missile). Today I’m going to finally do the oil change it was owed last fall and we should be on track for regular use this summer.

The question now becomes do I sell it on during the riding season or keep it having done this soul crushing maintenance job. Based on what I saw in there I’m betting I was the first to do it (at 45k kms). Considering the complexity of this job, I can understand why.

Part of that decision will come down to whether or not I’ve solved the Tiger’s fueling issues. If I have, I might sell the big (and expsnsive to insure) Kawasaki and do the summer on a dependable Tiger, though the C14 is a much more comfortable two up appliance if anyone wants to come for a ride with me.

A confirmed fix on the Tiger’s aging fuel injection system would make me consider going to one bike this summer.

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 Some pictures to help me put this complicated 3d puzzle back together again properly.

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Tools for finding what goes where (it’s spaghetti in there!).

The comprehensive disassembly video shared previously: https://youtu.be/5JP0_Kv7x5w?si=Ictk8g8qK3e_hB3m 

Pipe in the foreground right is the routing for the coolant line to the overflow tank.

White plug in black reed valve centre plug.

https://youtu.be/RvQjEvCSGvI?si=CCvs4HMMJBEHfooM

Big grey plug under the throttle cables

Wobbly and somewhat non-linear, but another disassembly video:: https://youtu.be/b-HDezrXSc0?si=hlvAZWdhF7Qg7hoC

Black wire from throttle bodies to cam sensor on valve cover.

Definitely white plug in black reed cover.

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It’s a slow process putting all this back together again. Even with a prolific number of photos and copious notes here on the blog I’m finding this a fiddly and frustrating process. My current plan is to get everything plugged in, top up the radiator and run it to make sure it’s back together right before trying to button it up (there are a f(@# ton of  buttons).

The latest fun has been plugging the plethora of plugs over the valve cover back in.

I’ve got a couple of plugs (21) left after connecting everything else. The question now becomes, are they oxygen sensor plugs not used on a 2010 Canadian market bike? 

Got the plugs in, except for those two top left of the rat’s nest.

Here’s a close-up. That white one has me baffled but perhaps it’s the front cam sensor.

Tomorrow (assuming the late March ice storm we have in store doesn’t throw us back to the stone age), I’ll check for oxygen sensors on the exhaust, and if not there I’ll know that one of those plugs is probably unused.

Other things to check are the front cam sensor (7-R on the diagram) which was very difficult to reinstall with a new o-ring. That plug is probably dangling down the front and needs to find a mate on top of the motor. If that’s my missing plug and the other one is an unused oxygen sensor then I’m about there.

After that gets settled I’ll do one last look around for anything I might have missed before topping up the radiator and seeing if this thing’ll run. If runs like a clock I’ll reroute the wires properly and should have it back to a point where I can start reinstalling all the fairings – which is a whole separate pain in the @$$, but at least one I’ve done before.

Then things get philosophical. Work has picked up and I don’t have the patience or headspace to spend hours each weekend keeping these old bikes in motion. The temptation is to get $10k (CAD) between them and then buy something that can go when I need it to without so much TLC. 

I can save the wrench turning for when I retire. I enjoy working on them but trying to do a job this complex when I’m having to leave it for weeks on end while I’m travelling makes a difficult job more so. Had I the time and space to do this daily when I wasn’t juggling a demanding job, it’d have been an entirely different experience.

I’m loving the travel opportunities and my work is something I enjoy, but the deep bike maintenance doesn’t fit with it at this point in my life.

Haliburton was magical…

Flying out to the maritimes is never a bad thing…

…but those weeks away mean I’m coming back to an incredibly complicated job sometimes 20 days after I last touched it.

I’ve never made enough to be sentimental about vehicles and keep everything I buy (I’d rather put those resources toward travel anyway). Time to simplify the bike stable to let me focus on riding when I can squeeze that in. I’ll save the time suck that is older bike ownership for when I have more time to suck.

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 Last fall I took the fuel injection apart on the 2003 Triumph Tiger 955i. It wasn’t fueling properly and was unrideable. I barely got any mileage on it last season, so I replaced every o-ring in the system and got a new fuel pump for it. It also got new throttle and clutch cables last year. If this last hail Mary attempt to resolve the atrocious fuel injection on this old bike didn’t work, it was out the door.

The good news is it fuels nicely again for the first time in a year! I’ve still got to tune it and get the idle right, but it feels fantastic. Look back over the posts in December and earlier to see the details and where to get parts. If you’re trying to keep an old Triumph 955i on the road (Triumph doesn’t support them with parts any more), try this, it seems to work!

Battery needed a kick, but once charged up it ran like a top.

The clawed hands of winter still twist into the sky.

First chance to try out a new Shark helmet. My first and I’m not disappointed.

Still got snow on the borders.

The Grand River is swollen by the spring runoff – that’s the camp ground underwater on the other side.

That grin is involuntary. The first time you lean into a corner after a long winter on four wheels is magical.

Amy knows how it feels…

Nice to have one road worthy. The C14 valve job continues when I have time, but work has picked up and I’m travelling again, so my weekends are seldom my own.

Here is the radiator loosened so I could get to the front cam sensor to change the o-ring. The Murph’s Kit came with an oversized one. That was 40 minutes of sweat and swearing before I gave up and stepped away (again). This was a giant time suck at a time when I don’t have a lot of… time.

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 After what seems like weeks of disassembly (because it has been), the C14 valve job is finally turning the corner back towards reassembly! I’m pushing to get it around the corner because even with all of this documentation I still want to have muscle memory of how it came apart when I put it back together. Today the cams came out along with the shims and everything got measured, so it’s time for some maths!

The process of taking the cams out is pretty straightforward, but like everything else has twice as many fasteners and bits to it than you’d expect.

These oil pipes all have to come out. They’re only held in by o-rings but were a struggle to release (you can imagine the heat cycles the o-rings in there have been through). What seemed to work best was (very carefully) getting a slot screwdriver down at the base and gently freeing it.

Caps off revealing the cams. With the tensioner removed (notice the slack in the chain) you can slip the cams out from under it.

The oil pipes (top right), cam chain tensioner (bottom right), intake (bottom) and exhaust cam shafts, and then the four caps and hardware (top left in the order they came out with fasteners included).

…and finally, I’m at what this whole production has been about: the shims under the cams. The caps are suctioned in with oil, but if you give them a turn by hand the magnet picks them up easily – the shims are underneath.

What the gaps are supposed to be: SPEC: exhaust valves 0.19 – 0.24mm Intake valves 0.12mm to 0.17mm.

red = tight, white = spec, pink = on the cusp of tight: most are tight so will need slightly shorter shims to make a bigger gap, but we’re talking fractions of a milimeter here.

              Cyl 1                  Cyl 2                Cyl 3                Cyl 4

Gap   0.18   0.18         0.2    0.19       0.19    0.19       0.19   0.21

Shim  2.27  2.22          2.29  2.29       2.30    2.30        2.30    2.23

Gap  0.15   0.14         0.13    0.13     0.10   0.13         0.11   0.12

Shim 2.25  2.20          2.22  2.20       2.30    2.25        2.20    2.25

Here’s the calculator (I just threw it in a spreadsheet):

They look like they do them in 0.05mm sizes. Let’s see if I can do this in my head.

Cylinder 1 Exhaust 1 needs a 2.20 and a 2.15 (I’m going smaller because everything was tight and a smaller shim means a bigger gap). 2.20mm would mean the 0.18 gap becomes a 0.25 gap (too wide). A 2.25 shim only gets me 0.02 back and makes the 0.18 a 0.20 gap (in spec but up the tight end). C1 Exh 2 2.20 gets me 0.20 (spec but up the tight end – but maybe that’s as close as I can get).

Exhaust

C1 E1: 2.25 (0.20 gap)      C1 E2: 2.20 (0.20 gap)

C2 E1: 2.25 (0.24 gap).     C2 E2: 2.25 (0.23 gap)

C3 E1: 2.25 (0.24 gap).     C3 E2: 2.25 (0.24 gap)

C4 E1: 2.25 (0.24 gap)      C4 E2: 2.20 (0.24 gap)

Intake

C1 I1: at spec                    C1 I2: at spec

C2 I1: at spec                    C2 I2: at spec

C3 I1: 2.25 (0.15 gap)       C3 I2: at spec

C4 I1: 2.15 (0.16 gap)       C2 I2: 2.20 (0.17 gap)

Shopping Canadian is Harder Than it Should Be

The kits aren’t helpful – I’d be paying for a pile of shims I don’t need and they only come with 3 in each size, so I’m stuck there too. They also only come in 0.05mm gaps. Following the above logic I should buy 2.25 x 7, 2.20 x 3 and 2.15 x 1. Let’s go have a look at a Canadian option: https://fortnine.ca/en/pro-x-valve-shim-refill 

At $15.78 a pop I’m looking at a salty ~$170+ plus taxes, but (of course) they barely have any in stock so even if I wanted to pay through the nose it’s still a no go. Looking through other makes on there, they all look to be out of stock. So much for buying Canadian.

Let’s try another one: Parts Canada: 

0926-1391: 215mm x 1  0926-1392: 220mm x 3  0926-1393: 225mm x 9

…but Parts Canada doesn’t sell online and seems to work out of people’s garages which doesn’t fill me with confidence.

This got the thumbs up on the GTA motorcycle group:

https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/parts/pro-x-valve-shim-p?v=9115

And they’re on it – and even have half sizes! So now I can touch up my gaps better.

Here we go again:

Exhaust 

C1 E1: 2.225 (0.225 gap)   C1 E2: 2.175 (0.23 gap) 

C2 E1: 2.25   (0.24 gap)     C2 E2: 2.25 (0.23 gap) 

C3 E1: 2.25   (0.24 gap)     C3 E2: 2.25 (0.24 gap) 

C4 E1: 2.25   (0.24 gap)     C4 E2: 2.20 (0.24 gap) 

Intake 

C1 I1: at spec (.15)              C1 I2: at spec   (0.14 gap)

C2 I1: 2.20 (=0.16 gap)        C2 I2: 2.175  (=0.17 gap)

C3 I1: 2.25 (=0.15 gap)        C3 I2: 2.225  (=0.16 gap) 

C4 I1: 2.15 (=0.16 gap)        C2 I2: 2.225 (0.16 gap) 

14 out of 16 valves need shims.

2.225 x 3, 2.175 x 2, 2.25 x 6, 2.20 x 2, 2.15 x 1 (total of 14)

Under $30 US. Even with the conversion, shipping, customs (and now tarrifs), I’ll still be miles ahead. The site is a joy to use, they sell individually AND at a higher resolution than anything I could find in Canada. I’m book marking https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/ 

I’m going to calibrate the digital measurement tool I’m using by checking that the existing shims are 9.48mm diameter. It seemed close by eye but at fractions of a milimeter eyes aren’t much good. I found the number changed depending on how I hold it, so if I can figure out which is the most accurate way, I’ll use that when I do the confirmation measurements (measure twice cut once etc).

Where the cam chain tensioner is, in case the super close up in the shop manual proves unhelpful (as it did with me). 2 x 8mm bolts and it springs free. Reinstallation involves taking the tension off so you can align the chain.

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I was busy at work with conferences, but got back for a Sunday afternoon in the garage. I’m trying out a new kerosene heater that seems to have solved my cold weather issues.

Once I had it into double digits Celsius I finished multi-checking the gaps:

Confirming the first round of measurements:

SPEC: exhaust valves 0.19 – 0.24mm     Intake valves 0.12mm to 0.17mm.

red = tight, white = spec, pink = on the cusp of tight: 

              Cyl 1                          Cyl 2                          Cyl 3                         Cyl 4

    EX  0.18   0.18               0.2    0.19                   0.19    0.19                0.19   0.21

    IN   0.15   0.14               0.13    0.13                  0.10   0.13                 0.11   0.12

Things are pretty tight. CoG has good resources on shim details. Tomorrow the cams come out, I measure what shims I’ve got, do some maths and order new shims for the tight valves. This means that perhaps next weekend I can turn a corner and actually start putting this thing (which is looking like a disassembled Concorde) back together again!

Unfortunately, I’m doing this just in time for the Americans to turn on us for no reason and make everything more expensive. Putin must be loving this, but then he did pay for it… but I digress.

Hopefully I’ll have some time tomorrow to take out the cams and measure the shims in my warmer garage.

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