Handlebars: Take 2!

Phaedrus got some more upgrades yesterday.

When I first bought my motorcycle, a 2004 Honda Shadow VLX 600, I knew I'd be making changes. One of the first things I did was to take pics and work up what the natural angles and lines of the bike were.

Follow the pink line, that's the natural visual spine of the bike. Notice how the original bars and mirrors stick way above? Ugly!

The line from the seat, over the gas tank to the top of the speedometer (the highest natural point on the bike) looked pretty good, but the original handlebars, and especially the mirrors just stuck way up and shattered the natural lines. They had to go.

After a minor involuntary dismount, the handlebars got bend and it was a quick swap to low-profile drag bars. Then came the electronics upgrade with new control buttons, internal wiring, a Motogadget M-unit and a new custom (by me) wiring harness. All this looked a lot better.

But those mirrors. Ugly!

Not to mention cheap. At the time I wasn't ready to shell out for high quality mirrors, and didn't want to waste money on mid-range that I knew I'd be replacing. So I bought a pair of cheap ($15) mirrors. After about 3000 miles the plastic on one cracked and it wouldn't stay straight. I bought another set. Then the glass fell out of another at 60 mph.  Four thousand miles later, another cracked in the same place.

Time to get on with the upgrades.

The drag bars were cheap steel. This time I upgraded to high quality, thick walled aluminum street bars, with about a 2" rise.

To keep the natural lines of the bike, I knew the mirrors would have to under mount, so I got a pair of Oberon bar-end clamp ons.

I never liked the stock turn signals, which are big cruiser style. I always have intended to strip the bike down to a bobber style, with minimal accessories, so I really wanted to minimize the signals. Motogadget M-blaze LED bar end signals are ideal. The function as front and rear signals, plus as marker lights, and look like part of the handlebars, so all the other signals can go!

To finish it off, I needed new grips to accommodated the bar-end signals, so I got a pair of Motogadget rubber grips. They make metal ones, but I prefer the comfort of rubber, plus the insulation between my hand and the bar in winter helps a little with cold hands, and they're 1/5th the price.

Since I was doing wiring, I disconnected the power by pulling the main fuse. Its easier to get to than the battery cables.

This whole exercise also served as a test of the wiring harness I'd built and installed last year. Pulling the old bars was simple: I removed the body panels in front of the tank to expose the wire connections. Disconnected and labeled all the connectors. When I rewired the bike previously, I used nylon OEM style connectors, which made this supper easy. Then dismount the levers, and unbolt the bar from the risers. It took maybe ten minutes.

I removed the original turn signals, front and back. They'll go on Ebay to recoup some of my expenses. Bye-bye!

Then I mounted and test fitted the new bars, making sure to carefully mark everything to make sure it all went back exactly where I wanted it later. Measure twice, cut once.

Taping and marking where the bars meet the risers makes sure that every time I take the bars off, I can put them back exactly how I like them.

One mistake I made with the drag bars was positioning the buttons, they weren't exactly were my thumb naturally went. Since they depend on holes in the bars, I wanted to make sure I got them perfect this time.

With the bars mounted and positioned exactly how I wanted it, and taped and marked to ensure I could get it back there, I installed the grips and throttle assembly, making sure to allow enough space for the mirror clamps. I was careful to allow about a small gap between the throttle grip and the mirror clamp, to ensure the throttle didn't stick.

With everything in place, I put a piece of tape roughly where I thought the buttons should go and gripped the handlebars in riding position. Then with my eyes closed, I extended my thumb to touch the tape. I marked the tape at the middle of my thumb top to bottom. That would be the vertical center of the button hole, the natural position of my thumb.

Grips and mirror clamps installed, and the wiring holes marked for ideal position based on my natural thumb position.

Then I marked the left/right center by measuring to allow for the full width of the button housing and to the natural center of the pad of my thumb where I press buttons. All this ultimately put all the buttons in comfortable position.

Drilling the aluminum bars was much easier than the steel ones. I started with a 1/8" pilot hole, then stepped up with progressively larger drill bits to 5/16". I drilled both holes while the bars were mounted.

Wiring whole drilled.

I also marked the center top of the handle bars as mounted, and made a mark on the bottom end of each side to show the lowest point when mounted. Then I removed the bars.

The exit whole for the wiring needs to be in the center of the bottom of the bars. I used the marks I made while they were mounted and located the bottom center. I drilled three pilot holes, and progressed up again until 5/16" and all the wholes formed one slot. Wiggling the drill bit back and forth a bit chewed away excess metal to help make a smoother slot.

Finally, I cleaned up all the drill holes with a roto-tool to remove any burs, and smooth the sharp edges that would chew up the wires. The last thing I want to do is have wires shorting out from rubbing on the metal edges. 

Thne it was just a matter of routing my existing wiring from the other bars into the new bars. I used a left over piece of wire and tape to fish the lines through and that was done.

Then came the M-Blaze bar end signals. 

Motogadget's instructions are pretty clear. Before installing them, I used heat shrink to wrap the wires where they exited the bars as an extra layer of protection against abrasion, then installed the M-Blazes.

M-Blazes are sold individually as left or right side, and the Motogadget logo needs to face up when they're installed. If you look closely, you can see that they have two LEDs facing front, and one facing the back when installed correctly. 

Now back to the bike for another test fit. I wrapped the M-blazes in masking tape to ensure I didn't scratch them while working. 

Using the tape markings, I mounted the bars again and checked the routing of all the wiring. 

This time, I was able to find some black vinyl tubing, which gives a way more professional look to the wiring than wrapping them in electrical tape. Also, since the wires can slide easily in the tubing, they're more flexible and should have less stress on them. 

I decided to route the M-blaze wires in the tubing with one set of control wires, and the other side separately. Cut them to length, and install the nylon connectors I'd used before and they were done!

My custom wiring harness made the whole thing easy! I took a lot of time and effort to think ahead when I built it, and now I feel vindicated. I could have run wiring straight from the M-Unit, all the way to the buttons, in a continuous single piece, but I assumed I'd need or want to remove the bars, or replace broken parts eventually, so it made sense to add connectors. Glad I did. 

I rehung the clutch and brake levers, reconnected the throttle cable and reconnected the M-unit. The moment of truth: turn the key and test each button. Everything worked right off the bat.

It works!

Then came time to mount the mirrors. The go on easy enough and I thought I had them where I wanted them. It was raining out, plus I'd just installed new grips, so I decided to wait until morning to ride and see. Since I used WD-40 to help slide the grips on, I knew I need to give them at least over night to set up.

Left side - Now to figure out how to get rid of the mirror mount on the clutch lever?

Right side.

Clean look, and the under-mount mirrors make riding feel more open, nothing obstructing my view.

Nice and clean, no bulky turn signals.

Profile. The natural line from the bottom of the seat all the way up to the bars is clean. (Need a new seat, though!)

A little reprogramming of the M-unit to make the M-blazes function as marker lights, too (10% brightness) and its done. 

The whole process took me about 4 hours. The simple wiring harness and nylon OEM style connectors made a huge difference in how easy everything was. 

I'm about out of things to work on before getting serious about the body work. With the electrical and controls finished, and the lighting upgraded, plus velocity stack and pipes wrapped the next move is really removing the rear fender and replacing it with the seat to make it a bobber. That will mean cutting down the front fender to match and getting a paint job. Guess I need to start saving some cash!

Motogadget M-Unit Installation on a Honda Shadow VLX

For my first ever adventure into wiring a motorcycle I decided to install a Motogadget M-Unit into my 2004 Honda 600 VLX.  It isn’t a glamorous bike, but its mine. Over the next few months I will continue on with other more noticeable changes, but since its my only bike, and I would prefer not to have it down for weeks or months at a time, these changes will be done piecemeal.

Because of this approach, it became clear that the first thing that needed to be done was upgrading the electrical system to accommodate new lighting and controls. The M-unit offered a very elegant and simple way of doing this, which to me, a total novice, seemed well worth the $300 price.

There are some forums dedicated to the 600VLX,but  it seems very few owners are interested in doing the kind of changes I want, or at least none that post. What posts I could find about wiring were pretty simple – The most complex issue was dealing with installing LED turn signals on the harness which wasn’t designed to accommodate them. All this meant that to install the M-Unit, I was pretty much going to have to figure it out on my own.

The M-Unit is designed to simplify wiring and can, apparently, work very when building an entire harness from scratch. However, going all the way to scratch was beyond the scope of what I thought I wanted to do (In retrospect, having accomplished what I have and learned as much as I have, I will start from scratch next time.)

What I’m going to attempt here is to break down, piece by piece, how to integrate an M-Unit in the a Honda 600VLX wiring harness,  keeping all the functionality of the original system, while adding the functions of the M-unit and removing the bulky and ugly stock controls. For simplicity sake, I’m going to use the OEM wiring diagram as reference and simply work my way around it, clockwise, item by item, and explain what to do with it. After which, I will discuss the new wiring added for the M-Unit and new controls.

NOTE: When I say “Cut and Cap” I’m saying a wire is not needed, and can be removed. If you want to open up the wiring harness and removed all the excess wires, like I did, do this carefully. Several wires branch off to multiple items. When removing a particular wire from a particular item, trace it back to the main wire of the same color where you’ll find the soldered splice. Do not cut the main wire, only remove the spliced on piece you don’t need any more.

My understanding is that many Hondas of this type have very similar harnesses, so a lot of this should translate. I hope you find this helpful.  Here we go!

Mounting the M-Unit: Under the seat, there is a black metal brace, on which is mounted a black cube – The Turn Signal Relay, which isn’t needed any more, so getrid of the relay, and mounted the M-Unit to the metal bracket, by drilling two holes in it. Easy.

At the top end of the Unit, I attached a ground wire and grounded it to the frame with a self-tapping screw (I think the metal plate could have served as a ground, but I felt a wire to the frame was more certain).

The M-Unit mounted and grounded where the turn-signal relay used to be.

THE OEM HARNESS

Ignition Switch (Key): Three wires: Red leads to the M-Unit Positive power input screw on the lower right. Red/black goes to the M-unit LOCK input (I soldered this wire to a smaller gauge wire to plug into the M-unit). Cut and cap the Blue/Orange wire, you won’t need it.

REAR LIGHTS (Tail, brake, turn signals and license plate): Disconnect all these connectors. If you want to reuse the nylon OEM connectors, cut the wires a few inches on the main harness side to attach to later. If you’re going to install new connectors or simple wire directly to the existing wires, cut them on the non-harness side of the connector.

Cut the three wires leading into the tail/brake light connector (Green, Brown, and Green/Yellow), a couple inches on the main harness side of the connector. Splice them all together into a single wire, and attach it to the M-Unit BRAKE output.

When programming the M-unit, set it for a single-wire brake system (LED or light bulb, which ever you have) and the tail/brake lights are all set.

Rear Brake Switch: Both brake switches are wired together with a Green/yellow wire. From the connector there is a black wire that goes to ground, leave it. Follow the Green/Yellow wire to where it leads to the tail/brake light connector (which you probably already cut), before it reaches the tail/brake light connector, cut it and plug it into the M-Unit BRAKE input.

Basically, what you’re doing here is placing the M-unit between the brake switches and the brake lights, by cutting the Green/Yellow wire and attaching switch end to the input and the lights end to the output.

Fuse box:  Remove the box and toss it, you don’t need it anymore. Four wires lead out from the connector: The Black, Black/brown and Blue/Black wires all attach to the M-Unit AUX output (which is a solid state fuse box) by soldering them all to a single wire. The Black/Red wire is cut and capped, its not needed anymore.

Main Fuse/Starter Solenoid: Four wires. The Red wire connects to the M-Unit at the Positive Power input screw, along with the Red wire from the Key Ignition. The Yellow/Red wire plugs into the M-unit START output. The other two, (Red/White and Green/Red) stay as is, leading to the Regulator/Rectifier.

Regulator/Rectifier, Alternator, Ignition Pulse Generator, Ignition Control Module: Leave these.

Turn Signal Relay: You removed this when you installed the M-Unit. Cut and cap all three wires. DON’T wire them to each other, cap them off individually.

LEFT HANDLE BAR CONTROLS:  The plan is to lose the whole bulky button housing. The only two wires to keep are the Green/White and Green Red wires, which connect to the clutch switch.  Everything else gets cut and capped (Drk Blue, Blue/white, Green, Orange, gray, Lt Blue, Black and Black/Brown).

NOTE:  If you choose to remove the clutch wires too, all that happens is you can’t start the bike with just the clutch pulled, the gear box will have to be in neutral.

Dimmer Switch: This feeds low power to the turn signals, so they are also marker lights. I plan on switching to 2-wire LEDs anyway, so I discarded this all together.

NOTE: The M-unit does have a programmable setting to fill this feature, however, the way I choose to wire, that program did not work. In my case, the OEM turn signals function only as turn signals.

Front Turn Signals: Disconnect both. Just like with the rear, if you’re going to reuse the connectors, leave yourself a few inches of wire to connect to, then cut and cap the remaining wires.

NOTE: I think, but I’m not sure, that if you solder the solid colored wires and the color/white wires from each turn signal together, creating a single wire, the marker light feature of the M-unit will function. But I have not tested this, since I really don’t care.

Headlight: The M-unit will now handle this. Cut the Blue and White wires a few inches back from the bulb connector. Attach new wires to each and run them to the M-unit, White to the LIGHT LO, and Blue to LIGHT HI. Green is your ground, you can leave it.

Indicator lights (Turn signal, Neutral and High-beam dash lights):  The single turn signal light and High-Beam indicator light will be powered through the M-Unit, so cut those wires a few inches back from the connector on the main harness side, and cap the remaining wires. Leave the Green and Lt Green/Blue wires.

Gauge Lights (Meter light, Temp Indicator, Oil Pressure): Leave these.

RIGHT HANDLE BAR CONTROLS: Even though we’re losing the bulky Starter/Engine Stop box, we need some of these connections. The Brown wire needs to be connected to one of the Black/brown wires. Do this either by keeping the other side of the connector where a small loop of Brown/Black wire makes the connection, or by cutting and splice the two wires together. The Black and Black/white wires need to be spliced together. If both of these loops are not made, the bike won’t start.

Cut and cap the Blue/White, Black/Red, Yellow/ Red. Keep the Green/Yellow and other Black/Brown wires (these are your front brake switch wires).

Side Stand Switch, Diode, Fan Motor Switch, Temp Unit, TP Sensor: Keep. The Diode, in case you’re wondering, is actually just a connector with a black cube plugged into it and wrapped in tape inside the wiring harness, if you don’t open up the OEM harness, you won’t even see it.

Horn: There isn’t a nylon connector here, just two black wires that plug into two tabs on the horn. The M-unit will control the horn, so you’ll need to connect one of these to the HORN output (by cutting and extending it) and the other to ground. One of the black wires does connect to a green wire if you follow it, that is the ground - leave it connected. Cut and extend the other wire to plug into the HORN output of the M-unit.

Neutral switch/Oil Pressure Switch: Leave these wires.

Ok, that’s it for the OEM harness. The M-Unit should come on when the key is turned and do its little LED cycle, ending with the LOCK and AUX LEDs lit. If you attach a temporary button to the START input and to a ground, the bike should start up. You should be able to also turn the head light on and off, and switch between high and low beams, using the same button at the LIGHT input. Same for the horn and each of the turn signals (but you might need to configure some things first.)

Connect a temporary button to the CONFIG input on the M-unit, and to ground, and follow the instructions to program the M-Unit for “one wire brake lights.” Once that’s done, the brake lights should work from both the front and rear brakes individually.

If all that works for you, you’re in great shape!

Now onto installing new control switches. I opted for the 5-button setup with the M-unit. The buttons are headlight, right and left turn signals on the left, and horn and start on the right (thanks to the M-unit, a double tap on the start button will kills the engine.)

THE M-UNIT CONTROLS HARNESS

All the buttons I used with the M-Unit are “Momentary” buttons, meaning they only close the circuit while being pushed, as soon as you release them, they spring back to the open state. The M-unit can also be programmed to work with “Japanese and European” buttons setups, which is what you’d use if you kept the stock controls (but why would you? They’re so ugly!)

All buttons have two wires, one which leads to the M-Unit, and one which goes to ground. You can ground your wires however you like, and you can connect all your grounds together to reduce clutter/confusion and save space. The M-Unit uses very little power for the buttons, so you can use very thin wires (I used 22 AWG).

Start Button: Run a ground, and plug the other wire into the START input on the M-Unit.

Horn: Just like the Start Button, a ground and one wire plugged into the HORN input.

Headlights: Same as above, input into the LIGHTS input (see a pattern here?)

Turn Signals: Again, one wire to ground for each button, and one wire each to the M-Unit inputs, TURN L and TURN R.

That’s its you’re buttons are wired. Seriously, look at the OEM wiring diagram to accomplish what you just did, its insane how complex it is without the M-unit!

M- UNIT LIGHTING HARNESS

This is a bit more complicated, but if you take it step by step, its pretty easy.

Headlight and High-Beam Indicator:  Splice into the Blue Headlight Wire, and connect it where the Blue wire was at the Indicator lights harness. Where the Green wire was on that harness, should be connected to ground. Now when you turn on your high-beams, you’re indicator light will come on too.

Turn Signals: This is the complicated one, so take it one step at a time. Both left and right are identical, so just repeat the procedure.

Top: The stock headlight and turn signal controls. Bottom: New Motone Mini-Buttons, much smaller, cleaner look, plus Blitwell Kung-Fu grips. .

A wire needs to leave the M-Unit from the TURN L or TURN R output and split into three wires. One will go to the front turn signal connector, and one to the back and one will be bridged to the indicator light on the dash.

 The second single wire from each of the connectors needs to go to ground from each signal itself.

Once this is done, the turn signals should work. To make the dash indicator work, attach a 1N4001 Diode to the third wire from each of the turn signal harnesses.  Be sure the direction of flow for the diode is away from the M-Unit.

 Then connect the other end of both diodes to a single wire which will connect the either the Lt Blue or Orange wire from the Indicator Lights connector. The other unused wire should go to ground. Now the indicator light should work when the turn signals come on.

That’s it! You should now have everything on the bike working. Program which ever features you want for the M-Unit.

Fully wired M-Unit. 

If you’re leaving your bike otherwise stock, there’s probably not a lot of point in doing all this. But, if you’re planning on future mods which will impact the electrical system, everything should be pretty simple now, just plug into the existing wiring and, if necessary, change the programming of the M-Unit to accommodate the new item.

Any new accessories (hand warmers, ground effect LEDs, etc) get spliced into the AUX power lines. Changes to the lighting just plug into the connectors you already have.

I hope this was helpful!

UPDATE: One the second day after finishing, I took my bike out for a night ride and immediately noticed that all the lights were brighter. The headlight, which I had planned on upgrading, is suddenly perfectly adequate, the turn signals are brighter and the dash indicator lights are actually annoyingly bright!

I'm not sure exactly where, but its clear that somewhere this new setup is saving a lot of juice which it can now devote to the lights.

New Lungs for Phaedrus

This morning I tackled the latest modification to my motorcycle, removing the airbox and replacing it with a velocity stack.

Before and after: Left: Stock airbox.. Right: airbox removed and velocity stack.

The first task was to remove the original airbox. The process was pretty simple, Just three screws held the cover on. Behind that was the filter, and two more screws holding the box in place. Once the main box was off, the black plastic tubing that filled the space between the top of the cylinder and the frame came out easily, it was only held in place by a hose clamp and friction apparently.

Airbox with the cover and filter removed. Only the two screws top center hold it on.

With the airbox removed, no screws to hold the tube in place behind it.

With the whole airbox assembly removed, the carb is exposed. The mounting plate under the gas tank is easily removed after the tank is off. Only two bolts attach the plate to the frame.

Getting the carb off was pretty straight forward. The gas tank had to be removed, which meant taking off the seat and petcock knob, then the one bolt that holds the tank on. I'd done all that before, and its not technically difficult, just takes a few minutes.

Under the tank a lot of hoses to remove. Like a lot of motorcycles, this one has things that aren't necessary to make it run well. The white triangle is part of the crank case breather,, which is overly complicated.

Before getting to the carburetor, I removed some unnecessary hoses. TJ Brutal Customs has a great video about what can be removed safely from this bike. Mine didn't have quite as much junk parts as some, probably because it wasn't originally sold in California.

The airbox and assorted hoses which no longer reside on Phaedrus.

With all those hoses removed, you can see straight down to where the carb connects to the manifold. Those two black screws are the hose clamps that hold the carb in place. The hose, immediately above them in this photo, is a coolant line that goes to the carb, which I rerouted.

With the extra hoses removed, getting my hands and tools inside to remove the fuel lines, coolant hoses, vacuum lines and throttle cables was much easier. There was a set of wires for the throttle position sensor to disconnect, that was the only wiring to deal with. 

I disconnected everything and pulled the carb off. The biggest problem was just working some of the hoses loose. 

With carb removed and the coolant hose rerouted.

This carb had two coolant hoses attached to it. One leading out of the engine into the carb, then a second from the carb to the radiator. Apparently this is to help warm the fuel in the carb (in theory), but in reality doesn't really effect much. Both the hoses are under pressure, so simply capping the nipples would not work (Coolant spraying out of the engine is usually a bad sign.) 

One source recommends using a screw inserted in the end of the hose (cut short) and a hose clamp to hold the screw in place. I may do that eventually, but I couldn't find a small enough hose clamp. Instead I cut the longer of the two hoses and ran it straight from the radiator to the engine, simply removing the carburetor from the routing. This will keep coolant flowing through everything else.

The velocity stack itself simply slides over the open air intake of the carb, and attaches with three recessed screws. Because of the increased air flow, the carb needed to be re-jetted. Again, TJ Brutal Customs has an excellent video showing how to install the new jets, and everything went exactly as described in the video. Since he does such a good job, I won't go into details, just follow his instructions.

Once the jetting was done, I capped off a couple vacuum and coolant ports. I also added TJ's long handled adjustment screw, since accessing the pilot adjustment on this bike is a real pain in the ass, even with the airbox removed. 

Once all that was done, I put the carb back on, which was simple since several hoses didn't need to be attached anymore. 

Adjusting the throttle cables was the biggest issue for me, mainly because I'd never done it before. It took me a bit to figure out I'd switched the two cables. Once I figured out that mistake, I had too much free play, I went from having no free play in the throttle to having too much. But eventually I got it adjusted.

A few more minutes to put the tank and seat back on, then came the moment of truth... After about 20 seconds of cranking (to get fuel through the drained lines) it started right up! 

I let it warm up while I cleaned up my tools, then took it for a spin. It ran a little rough at first, but after giving it time to warm up fully, and adjusting the new long handled screw on the carb it came right into tune. It runs fine, and seems to have a bit more power. There's now lots of room under the gas tank to move electronics to when I get around to rewiring it. 

My only issue is that proper tuning has the adjustment screw all the way in (at least I think its all the way in?) Which should actually make it stall instead of increasing the RPMs. So I might need to pull the carb off and change one of the jets (the kit includes 2 main jets, and 4 pilot jets), but I'm going to ride it for a bit and see how it goes. I would like to have some play in the tuning so I can adjust for altitude in the mountains, but I'm not going that far until spring, so there's time. 

UPDATE:
I tinkered with it most of yesterday, off and on, and never quite got it running right. After some emails with TJ, I woke up today and pulled the carb back off the bike, swapped out the pilot jet for a size up and took it out.

After warming up, and a couple turns of the air/fuel mixture screw it settled in nicely. I rode it around neighborhood streets, then out onto higher speed city roads, and finally for several miles of highway. It works great in all gears, wide open acceleration, cruising, and no popping or sputtering when I close the throttle down.

Thanks again to TJ Brutal Customs for a great product, great support with both videos and email assistance!

Clutch Springs and Timing Mod

I've had my bike for several months now, and have been planning on extensive changes to it once winter comes and cold weather forces me to stop riding daily. Since this is my first bike, and I'm new to riding, the whole process has been a learning curve. I'm not inexperienced in auto mechanics, so motorcycle mechanics don't scare me, they're simpler. 

As I got more comfortable on the bike, and began riding faster, and further, I began to notice a problem with the clutch. Two things, in fact. The first was when shifting up from 1st gear to 2nd, I often get stuck in neutral. At first, I assumed it was just my inexperience as a rider, but then I began noticing that it only happened after I'd been riding for awhile and the bike was warm, it never happened when the bike was cold. 

The second and more obvious issue was that when accelerating hard on the highway and shifting up through the gear, sometimes 4th gear would slip for a second. I've driven stick shift cars for decades, I know what a slipping clutch is, but my bike only has 28,000 miles on it, so that seems pretty early to have a worn out clutch.

Some research helped me discover that this is a common problem with my particular bike, the Honda Shadow VLX600. It seems the OEM clutch springs are a bit weak for this bike, and a simple swap is all that was needed. So I had the first reason to open up the guts of the bike.

Another popular modification to this bike is to advance the ignition  timing a few degrees. Since that's inside the same housing, I figured I'd do both at the same time. I found a really good tutorial here. Its a bit old, and the photos were small, and my bike is newer so there was a minor difference, so I decided to take pics and write it all up. I followed the tutorial exactly and it was easy. 

So here we go: 

Getting In

Step 1: Drain the oil. 

Follow the basic procedure for an oil change. Drain the oil, replace the drain plug, but do not add oil back to the engine.

Step 2: Remove the exhaust

My bike has after market pipes, so I only had to remove the lower one. It would be very difficult, if not impossible to remover the engine cover with the exhaust in place. The only difficult part was reaching the lower nut where the pipe meets the cylinder. Its a 12mm nut, behind and slightly to the right of the pipe. The easiest way I found to access it was with a box wrench slid between the frame and the radiator to the right of the pipe. It was still a pain, but I managed. 

The engine cover. The exhaust has been removed and the foot peg mounting plate has been rotated down out of the way. 

I found that removing the upper mounting bolt on the foot peg plate, and rotating the plate out of the way helped when pulling the pipe out.

Step 3: Remover the engine cover.

There are fourteen 8mm bolts, one of which also anchors the clutch cable. Start by unhooking the cable. The easiest way to do this is to rotate the level forward (I used a pair of pliers to grip it) to release tension, and the end of the cable will easily pop out. 

I placed a pan under the engine to catch any extra oil that might still be in the bike. Nothing came out, but I wasn't interested in an oil stain on my driveway.

Then remove all the bolts. Once all the bolts are out, the engine cover will stick in place because of the gasket. There are two tabs on the cover (pics below) that you can slide a screwdriver behind to pry it. Once the seal is broken it comes straight off. There are two locator pins, one on each side, that help align the cover, so it must be pulled straight out from the bike. 

The lower right most bolt hole also has a tab what will make it easier to pop the seal and remove the cover.

There is another tab to help remove the cover on the left side of the cover, below the oil fill cap.

Inside the engine. The clutch is the big ring with the square plate in its center. The Timing magnet is the small plastic box in the upper right corner.

Its worth noting that I put a few ounces of Sea Foam engine additive in the oil about a week before doing this, to help clean out any accumulated gunk. I bought the bike with 24,000 miles on it, and though I think it was well maintained, I had no way of knowing. 

Clutch springs

Step 1:

The 4 springs are located behind the square plate in the middle of the clutch. Simply loosen all four bolts. Loosen each a little at a time and keep working around the circle until they all come out. You need to loosen them all together so the springs don't force the plate out unevenly and bind up some the bolts. 

The bolts are longer than the springs, so don't worry about the plate popping off. 

The springs exposed.

Step 2: Swap the springs

Once the plate is off, simply slide out the old springs and slide on the new ones. 

Put the square plate back on and tighten down the bolts a little at a time, working around the circle just like you did to remove it. 

That's it. The clutch springs are done! If that's all your doing, then you're ready to put the cover back on.

Timing Mod

The ignition timing is controlled by the sprockets on that smaller wheel rotating past the magnet in that black plastic box. Its designed not to be adjustable, so to change it, we need to get a little creative. 

My bike has one magnet. Some models have two. If yours has two, just repeat the procedure with each magnet.

Step 1: Determine the proper location of the magnet

After modifying the mounting, you'll have to put the magnet back in. To make sure you have it the right distance from the sprockets, use a feeler gauge to determine how big a gap there should be between one sprocket and the little magnet in the center of the underside of the black plastic box. 

If you need to rotate the gear, just grab the clutch firmly, and rotate it until one of the sprockets is lined up with the magnet. Then measure the gap.

Line up one of the sprockets with the magnet, it should look like this. Then measure the gap with feeler gauge so you can put it back with the same gap.

Step 2: Remove the timing magnet

Remover the two bolts holding the magnet in place. Follow the wires coming out of the magnet to where they enter the engine housing. You'll see that there are two set of grommets where the wire runs through the housing wall. Carefully slide these out, and the magnet is free of the engine. 

You probably don't need to unhook any wiring if you're using a handheld tool to grind the plates.

Cover the exposed engine housing with a large rag or something to keep contaminants, like metal filings, from getting in while you work. 

The raised extrusions on the back of the mounting plates will need to be removed. (On some bikes there are just little tabs to grind off.)

Step 3: Grind off the extrusions

This is where my bike differed from the one in the tutorial, instead of tabs, mine had extrusions around the bolt holes. Regardless, the procedure is the same, grind them off with a metal grinder. I used a Dermel. 

BE SURE the engine housing is covered to keep the metal filings out! 

After grinding off the extrusions. The black marker shows which way I want to extend the bolt holes.

Step 4: Enlarge the bolt holes

You want to move the magnet counter clockwise from its original position. So make sure you're grinding the holes in the right direction. 

This is not an exact science. I've read you can move the timing as much as 6°, but it isn't really necessary to know exactly how far you're moving it. 3° or 4° seems to be what most people assume they've moved it, and that seems to produce a improvement in performance. But no one seems to obsess about exactly how much they move it.

The mounting bolts left circular impressions on the face of the mounting plates, so I used those as my guide. I elongated the bolt holes until they reached those circles. This left me enough surface to ensure a secure mounting, and helped me keep both holes the same size. 

Both bolt holes elongated to the rings left by the mounting bolts. 

After grinding out the holes and checking the fit of the mounting bolts, thoroughly clean the filings from the magnet. Metal filings will cling to the mounting plates, collect in the corners of the piece and on the magnet on the underside, because the whole thing is magnetized. Clean it VERY thoroughly to make sure no bits of metal end up inside your engine.

Step 5: Remount the timing magnet

Loosely install the bolts, and slide the magnet as far counter clockwise as the enlarged bolt holes will allow. Then finger tighten the bolts.

Using a feeler gauge, position the magnet the same distance from the sprocket it was originally. Then snug the bolts down. 

Finally, slide the wire grommets back into their slots in the engine housing wall. Make sure they seat all the way in.

The modified magnet reinstalled. Notice how it no longer lines up with the sprocket, 

That's it. The timing has been changed. Time to close it all up!

Closing Up

Step 1: The gasket

Closing up is pretty much the reverse of opening up. My bike does not use a paper gasket, instead I used a silicone gasket maker designed for high temp engine components. I ran a bead all the way around the housing cover, encircling all the bolt holes. Its easier to work with the cover than the engine, but it doesn't technically matter which of the two surfaces you put the silicone on.

Silicone gasket maker encircling all bolt holes on the engine cover.

Next, carefully slide the cover into place. The guide pins will align everything and hold it on while you install bolts. Don't forget to attach the clutch cable mount when you're putting your bolts in.

Tight the bolts just until the silicone begins to ooze out. Then stop and let it set for an hour (or whatever your directions tell you).

After its set, finish tightening the bolts. DO NOT over tighten. I managed to break off one bolt. With 13 others and the gasket, I'm sure I won't have any leaks, but eventually, I'm going to have to extract it or re-tap the whole. But I'll leave that until the next time I need to get into the engine unless I notice it leaking.

Connect the clutch cable.

Step 2: Oil

Now you can finish your oil change. Fill it up like you normally would.

Since I was grinding metal near the open engine. I plan to change the oil again in a thousand miles, to help get out any filings that might have gotten past all my cleaning efforts. 

Testing It All Out!

The Clutch

The first ride immediately proved the new springs an improvement. I had not really noticed anything wrong with shifting besides the issues I mentioned above, but the clean, fast engagement I feel now is a definite improvement, in all gears. 

I'm not sure how much stiffer the Barnett springs I bought are over the OEMs, but the clutch is a bit stiffer to pull, but no too hard, and the slipping has stopped. 

Out on the highway, accelerating into traffic, each gear just snaps into place and the bike goes. No hesitation or slipping. It feels more confident, if that's a word I can apply to an motorcycle. Definitely worth doing. 

The Timing

The first thing I noticed is the sound of the engine. Its subtle, and no one who doesn't ride this particular bike every day would notice it, but its just a little different, a little quicker sounding.

Driving in my neighborhood, where I never get out of second gear, I immediately noticed it no longer sputtered when I cut the throttle to coast to a stop sign going down hill (before I pull in the clutch). The sputtering is something I'd noticed from the beginning, and assumed it had to do with the air/fuel mix, but I had not gotten around to adjusting it. Changing the timing seems to have fixed that. 

Out on the road, throttle response is better. When I crack it open, it ramps up quicker. Its not a huge change, again, something only noticeable to someone very familiar with this particular bike, but its very nice. 

On the highway, in traffic, where this bike lacks the power and quickness

of a sport bike, its nice to feel that when I rip the throttle, I have a little more pep in the response. This was also a mod well worth doing. 

The whole process took about 2 hours (not counting waiting for the silicone to cure) and the springs only cost $15. Add in the oil, and gasket maker, and the whole thing costs about $50. Well worth it, as the bike is now more fun to ride.