The Dreaded Fat Bob Clunk...and suspension updates with Ricor Intimidators

 My one modern bike is a 2009 Harley FXDF Fat Bob.  I'm not your classic "Harley Guy" and never owned one prior to this bike.  I guess I just never saw one that really appealed to me.  While on vacation in VA Beach in 2008 we were stopped at a light and a guy pulled up next to us on a flat black Fat Bob, and I was hooked.  I thought about it, talked about it, procrastinated and probably would have put it off for a while, but my wife went and got me one as a birthday gift.  Some wife, huh?

 It's a great bike, fun to ride and nice to have as part of the stable.  However, I really don't like the front suspension - its way to soft and bouncy for me, and I'm not a big guy at 170 without gear.  When my bike recently developed the dreaded Dyna "clunk," I decided it was time for a few changes.

 If you poke around a bit you'll find that there are many reasons that Dyna's clunk.  You'll also see this described as a rattle, shudder, vibration, and general front end noise.  The Harley forums offer a lot of advice and possible cures.  Some older bikes actually need a stem washer upgrade, but mine isn't one of those.  Other causes can be the top stem nut not torqued correctly, the fall away set incorrectly, loose tank bolts, and too light grade oil in the forks.

I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and fix my clunking and do a little fork upgrade at the same time.  After doing a little research I ordered a set of 49mm Ricor Intimidators to help with the stock valving, got a couple quarts of Amsoil Suspension therapy 10W shock fluid, and yesterday set to work to get everything sorted out.

 Getting the forks off the bike is basically the same as any other bike. Remove the front wheel and fender, get the brake calipers out of the way and loosen the pinch bolts.  I loosened the top nuts on the forks while they were still in the clamps, as I don't have any clamps floating around to easily do it once they're off the bike.

 My 13 year old son Sean gave me a hand with the forks and the rest of the job.  Having a second set of hands around made it much easier to pop the top caps off once the forks were off the bike - I had him push down on the rag I had covering the nut while I undid them the rest of the way.  Once apart, I showed him the spacers, the springs, and explained how to drain the fork oil, cycling the forks a bunch of times to get as much as we could out.

 The stock Harley oil was not too bad looking- a bit dirty but I expected that (this bike has about 10,000 miles) and a little on the thin side.  We cut the spacers about 1/2 inch each to match the space the intimidators would be taking up in the bottom of the tubes.  Once done we measured out the new fork oil (26.4 ounces per leg) and started the reassembly.  I added about half the oil, cycled the forks a bunch of times to get the air out, then added the intimidators and the rest of the oil.  After measuring each leg to get them correct and the same, we dropped the springs back in and got the top caps back on.  Here again another set of hands is a huge help.  The first one went back together easily, but we struggled a little with the second one.  Sean came up with the idea of having him turn the fork tube while I held the nut down, and that worked like a charm.  Again, we used the triples to hold the forks so I could torque the tops down.  End to end this job took us less than 3 hours, and that was taking our time with a break or two mixed in.

 Once everything was back on the bike I checked the fall away.  The HD service manual describes their procedure, but it's a little too much for me.  I could tell right away it was way loose, so I loosened the top nut and the top pinch bolts, and found a long screwdriver to use to tighten the star nut.

 In the photo below, the silver thing at the top is the chrome fork nut cap.  You can see the edge of the star nut under the triple.  I gave this a couple of light wacks until the steering felt the way I like it, tightened things up again and checked the fall away a couple times until I had it right.

All that being done, I fired up the bike and took it around the town for a bit.  What a difference!  The dreaded clunk is now history, the bike feels tight again, and the front suspension is much improved.  I'll have to get some more miles on it this week before I get too crazy raving about it, but I am much happier with forks now.  I attribute all the noise I was hearing to the fall away adjustment being off; I'm going to keep a closer eye on that in the future.  I'm sure the neck bearings are now well settled and I doubt I'll have to do that again, but the entire procedure took about 10 minutes so it's not a big deal.

Ride smart!

Color Rite Paint on my 1984 VF750F

This is another great example of why I'm glad I don't restore bikes for a living.  I have a love hate relationship with restoration, and I'd like to keep it that way.

 I've had my 1984 Honda 750 Interceptor for about 13 years now if my memory serves.  It was in nice shape when I got it, but on the front of the gas tank (the area in front of the cap) the color coat had peeled off, exposing the metallic silver base.  This was in an area about 4 inches wide and extended from the cap to the front bottom of the tank.  Over the years it slowly got worse, and it started to get on my nerves

I had put off fixing this as one day I plan on doing a total repaint - I prefer the blue and white with the red stripe.  Since I never seem to have the time and I needed a little project, I figured I'd give it a shot.

I decided on using Color Rite motorcycle paint.  My bike is too old to be listed on the web site, and when I emailed Color Rite I got a "you need to call us as that would be a special order" reply.  I poked around a bit and found that my color, Candy Bourgogne Red, was used on many more recent bikes.  I looked up one of those on the site and sure enough, there was the paint I needed; no special order required.

I decided to get rattle cans as it was a small area, it's easier, and I'm not buying real paint until I do the whole bike.  I had to get primer, the base, the color and the clear.  They have a kit that includes adhesion promoter, sandpaper, wax remover and some compound, so I got that.  It wasn't cheap but I figured what the heck.

Here's where I go wrong on these projects.  The paint came with a couple pages of simple instructions.  I read them, but not completely.  After all, I know how to paint.  How different can this be?

I'm not going in to all the details here, but I painted the bad area from primer to clear at least 4 times. I stripped it all the way back to bare metal in between each attempt.  I made two major mistakes that I would not have made if I paid more attention to the instructions.

The first was that I decided to clear the entire red area of the tank when I was done.  This doesn't work as the clear needs to go on over the color while the color is still wet in order to bond properly, but who knew? I had cleared the entire area, put down the can, and was checking my work with a shop light.   I saw an area that I missed and picked up the can to hit that one small spot. Of course, I picked up the primer instead of the clear and sprayed a nice light coat of gray over my beautiful, wet clear coat. What a dope!

I decided to let it dry and sand it out as it was so light.  I still hadn't re read the instructions, so after carefully sanding off all the primer infested clear I roughed up all the rest and hit it with another coat of clear.  Naturally, I did this on a rainy day and my shop is in a drafty barn.  The humidity resulted in some very foggy clear.  What a mess.

While that was drying I read the FAQ on the Color Rite site.  I found out about the bonding issue, and realized I had to start all over again.  As a test I simply stuck a piece of painters tape on the dried foggy clear coat, and sure enough it came right up with the tape.  I stripped my damaged area and sanded the heck out of the other red area that I had cleared.

 Now that I was ready to do it yet again, it rained for a week.  Once it stopped and I had a day to fool with this, I started again.   I also remembered to take some pics. Here's how it went:

First, I stripped the paint yet again in the damaged area.  Here you can see the area is considerably larger than I first described - this is a result of me trying to blend in unsuccessfully with the existing paint.  I finally decided to take the new paint out to where the tank starts to turn in on each side.

 After 2 lights coats of adhesion promoter, I started with a light coat of primer.

20 minutes later, the second coat.

After 30 minutes and a very light sanding with 1500 grit paper, I did a light coat of the metallic base.

Followed 20 minutes later by another.  My previous 3-4 attempts showed me the right combination to get as close to my 29 year old paint as possible.

20 minutes later, a light coat of the Candy Red, followed in 20 minutes with a slightly heavier coat.

Since I can't blend and the line between the new and old paint is annoying, I used 3/16 red pinstripe tape over the line.  The pic below is after a light coat of clear.

And about 20 minutes later, the second wet coat.

And yet another to level it all out.

Not the best picture, but here's the tank back on the bike, after curing for 7 days and sanding and polishing the clear.  The old red paint still has some of the clear on it from my failed attempt at clearing the entire tank, I need to take a couple hours one day soon and sand / buff that out.

All in all, I am very happy with the results I got from a bunch of rattle cans.  If I can match 29 year old paint (in decent condition, but 29 years old none the less), you can match your bike as well.  Lessons learned when using Color Rite rattle cans:

-Read the instructions carefully, more than once if you're a knucklehead like me.

-Don't wait and let the paint dry much between color and clear coats.

-Don't clear something you didn't color coat.

-Don't paint when it's humid (doh!).

-Don't sand the candy before the clear (double doh!).

-And most importantly, take your time.

My next project on this bike will be the Blue / White / Red color scheme, but that's a way down the road.  For now I am back to tearing up the backroads around my home on this classic sport bike, and having the time of my life doing it.  It's my favorite bike....well, at least for today :)

Ride safe. Ride smart. Ride at your own pace. But Ride!