| Author | Message | ||
     Geelp |
Ouch! Ouch! Easy guys! I'm not trying to trash it--not intentionally, anyway. I had thought I could run my bike for a couple of hundred miles on the new aftermarket exhaust before I justhadto rejet the bike. I am a complete newby at this, and being a poor man besides, I'd like to ride the darn thing every now and then! Right now, even a battery tender is beaucoup bucks!  So I will check the battery and go ahead and rejet the bike. If that doesn't do it---das boot, eh? By the way, I just want to say thanks again to this community! When one is as mechanically "disinclined" as I am, your tips and encouragement mean a lot! | ||
| Ezblast |
Hunt around - decent battery tenders are pretty cheap these days - old tech - Though I rarely use mine. EZ | ||
| Britchri10 |
You can get away w/o re-jetting for a while. You cannot get away with running regular gas. Period. IMHO (But, what do I know) You should change the boot first. Then re-jet & always run the bike with 93(+) octane fuel. Battery tenders run you about the cost of a pizza. Good luck! Chris C | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
Concur!You can get away without rejetting and you can get away with running regular gas, but you cant do both!! Jets are $6-$10 each. If you ride your bike regularly, a battery tender isnt necessary in your climate (unless there's a north Louisiana I havent heard of?!!). My guess is you can ride all year? | ||
| Geelp |
I now live in Tulsa, OK. While we've seen record highs here the last two years (up to 115!) we have also seen record lows (down to -15!). So a battery tender wouldn't be a bad thing to have. | ||
| Syonyk |
Shiny new heated grips installed. Shiny new heated grips controller won't let me set them above 30%. Shiny new heated grips are mostly useless.  And I had to totally destroy the stock grips to install them. | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
Why wont the controller go above 30% | ||
| Syonyk |
Because a wire connection failed in the controller & had to be resoldered. I expect it to fail again. Full design review & installation notes coming. | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
Why not just use an on/off switch? | ||
| Syonyk |
Oxford Heaterz on a Blast. Tried to post it in the knowledge vault, but couldn't find the link to create a new thread in the body/farkling section! ======================== Oxford Heaterz Design Review by Syonyk The Oxford Heaterz, as shipped, come with a few different parts. There are the actual heated grips, which plug into a Y cable, which plugs into the main power controller unit. There is then another cable (fairly thick, with a quite massive connector) going up to the actual control headset unit, which has three buttons (on/off, +, and -) and 5 LEDs (power, and 4 LEDs displaying the currently selected power). Both boxes are sealed with a rubber gasket and some sealant goop. In the power controller, this was fairly badly mangled on installation. Both boxes contain a single printed circuit board screwed to the chassis with one screw. The headset box is reasonably put together, with the thin control cables coming in flat against the circuit board, with no obvious stresses. However, it was not potted, and I'm not sure how the controller will do under long term vibration. The main power controller has two entry points, one for the large power cables, and one for the control cables. The PCB appears to be an IC controlled PWM module, with a power transistor controlling the switching. It appears to cycle things on and off on a few second cycle, though my voltmeter was somewhat confused by this and did not give me good readings. I did not bring the oscilloscope out to analyze it. At 100% power, it appears to simply pass the motorcycle voltage through direct to the grips. The control wires going to the headbox are connected through the circuit board, and are fairly short. One of mine was broken, and was repaired with some solder. I fully expect it to break again, as I did not have enough slack to run the wire fully through the circuit board. At this point, I will likely replace it with something more reliable, or fully rewire the system. In general, the build quality was poor to moderate. They appear to be hand assembled, based on the trimming of solder joints on the backside of the board. The gaskets were not well placed, and appear to be mangled during assembly, with obvious implications for waterproofness. Given the design environment of "Tons and tons of nasty vibration," I do not feel the devices are well constructed. For something like this, potting the devices with a layer epoxy would help substantially with robustness and waterproofness. I was surprised to find it not done - even if the entire case was not filled, coating the board after soldering and before assembly would appear to help significantly. They do not seem to be known for reliability on the internet, and I understand why. I can't say I'd recommend this controller. The grips themselves seem fine, but the controller is not, in my opinion, suited to the high vibration, high environmental exposure environment of a motorcycle. The known failure rate of these devices would appear to back this assessment. ============================= Installation on a Buell Blast In the quest to make our Blast as absurd as possible, it now has heated grips. In addition to hand guards, Lightning mirrors, a custom intake, a Jardine exhaust, and unneeded crap removed. The first step was to remove the existing stock grips. The one on the throttle tube easily rolled up, but I was unable to fully remove it this way. I ended up cutting it off, and it took perhaps 5-10 minutes to do, most of which was looking for a knife. I ended up with a pair of scissors. The clutch side grip, on the other hand, appeared to be bonded to the metal. Either a strong glue was used, or the rubber merged with the metal over the years. In either case, removal was non-trivial. I ended up removing part of it with a pair of scissors, but then ran into the issue of the large hunks of grip glued to the metal. I realized that I could really use something to cut through this like "A hot knife through butter" - and inspiration struck. I grabbed my butane utility torch, a standard screwdriver I don't care about, and began the process of removing the grip. Heat up screwdriver tip in the flame for a while, cut through more grip. Repeat... a lot. Eventually I got all of the grip off, but there were a lot of rubber hunks remaining attached. I ground most of them off with a pair of expanding pliers, just rotating them around the grip and ripping off the hunks of rubber. I got most of it off like this, and then proceeded to more or less give up & see if the new grip would fit. Turns out it does. I was able to twist it on over the remaining crap, and it's on there GOOD. No need for glue - it's properly solid. The throttle side went on smoothly over the throttle tube, and was loose enough to need some glue. However, before I glued it on, I did a function test. And discovered that the "+" button did not work. As noted earlier, this led to a full disassembly, and discovering that the wire was broken, a repair, and a successful function test. This took about an hour and a half. The throttle side grip was then superglued on, and confirmed secure. Now, I just had to power them. I ended up finding the position light circuit which is not used on the American bikes, and is on a circuit with enough amps to drive everything. I tapped into it at the headlight connector, and made some rear-fitting plugs out of a "U" connector by trimming one leg off. I was then able to crimp these on the power wires (after removing the ring connectors), and shove them into place, securing and insulating the whole thing with electrical tape. At this point, I mounted the head unit using the provided bracket, bolts and spacer. No problems here. The rest of the stuff got crammed up in the space between the instrument cluster and the fly shield. There's a lot of space left in there... or at least there was. I have a LOT of wire coiled up in there now. The main power unit is secured to the back of the headlight with the provided double sticky foam - it seems like one of the lower vibration places on the bike, but... time will tell. Result? Heated grips, keyed to the ignition. The controller will shut the grips off if the voltage drops too low, but I didn't trust it enough to leave it hooked to the battery directly - that's just a way to get a mostly dead battery every few weeks. They get quite toasty! And I'll see how long the repair lasts. Total install time, counting fixing the broken wires it shipped with? About 4 hours. Far longer than I was anticipating. | ||
| Syonyk |
Why not just use an on/off switch? Because 100% is /hot/  Another option might be a series/parallel wiring, for 50%/100%, but we'll see. A dial controller is on the short list at this point. | ||
| Scodill |
Hey Guys, I just picked up an '04 blast for a girlfriend who is just taking up riding. There is no owners manual and I see that the links are dead and the Harley/Buell website don't offer the .pdfs anymore. Is the only option to seek out a Buell dealer and order one or are there links anywhere...these are supposed to be free for vehicle owners...right? | ||
| Syonyk |
Most of what you'll need to know, you can find around here. Otherwise, I'd search eBay, or keep an eye on the Badweb classifieds. And awesome bike to start her on. I started my girlfriend (now fiancee) on the Blast, and we've still got it. And it's been turned into something far less sane, and far more fun. | ||
| Milt |
Forget the owners manual. There's nothing there that you couldn't figure out. Do get a shop manual and a parts list. Well worth the money. | ||
| Ezblast |
Concur! | ||
| Crackhead |
I found another benefit of ATGATT. When you have to reattach the spark plug wire mid ride, you don't burn your hand on the hot motor. | ||
| Syonyk |
Damned addictive bikes. I may be picking up another Blast with a bad motor (apparently the head & piston top are screwed up) to turn into a cafe racer with XB9 head/piston setup. I know it's been done a few times, and I see issues with the Blast engine mounts. Any decent writeups on XB9 heads floating around? It looks like I'd also want to change the cams/timing module/etc, but I'm looking to keep it reasonably cheap. | ||
| Ezblast |
http://buellridersonline.com/forum/gallery/6844-ra t-blastard-xb-build-thread-4.html#post58193 | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
What do you want to know? | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
Or you can read the above thread by "Jet-Lee". You can ask questions here or there. But let me stress: HAVE A PLAN. Because cutting corners now can cost you more later as well as spending more now can cost you even more later. XB cylinder and piston should still be available from the factory for less than $300. XB heads and cylinders can be XB9 or XB12 (all interchangeable). Pistons must be XB9 and there is no difference in front or rear pistons or cylinders. You can use any cylinder (XL, P3,XB). There are many different ways to go, but I guarantee you'll be happy with the results. Stock XB is a far better value than modified P3 and stock XB parts will be easier to find and replace than modified P3 parts (There's my sales pitch!). | ||
| Syonyk |
Note: the Super Boot is not sufficient with an aftermarket intake. Mine just cracked. Replacement will include holding the carb up wi something else too. | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
How heavy is your intake? | ||
| Syonyk |
It's one of Dan's intakes - the bent intake with cone K&N. | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
Did you contact Dan? Seems like he hung a 5lb weight off his and I'd think he'd want to know of any failures. | ||
| Ezblast |
yeah - contact him - especially bought new - if used - could have been dropped on - no luck there - EZ | ||
| Indybuell |
My Super Boot is going on 2 years old, and no issues. | ||
| Syonyk |
Yeah, I'm in contact with Dan. I bought it new from him under a year ago. Just a heads up. I'll be supporting the back end of the carb with springs after I get the replacement. ... and probably ordering a few more boots to have on hand going forward. Worth throwing one in - it's not a hard side-of-road repair. | ||
| Syonyk |
Woo spare parts. NOT going to be turning a parts Blast into an XB powered beast, though - the piston was fragged badly, and I suspect it tore up the cylinder walls, which likely got metal into places there shouldn't be metal. I did pick up a few spare parts, though. Rear wheel, the "high hard" seat, a rear shock, and a full gasket kit (!) just in case. Is it possible to pick up the metal rocker box gasket as a separate kit? It appears to share with the XBs/Sportsters, if my reading is correct. | ||
| Gearheaderiko |
Correct. Gaskets are available separately or in a variety of kits. | ||
| Swampy |
Hi guys, just stopping in for the weekend. I am up at the lake, wife an I are selling/moving all the household items and selling the house so we can move in with the mother in law who is suffering from short term memory loss. The only loss is me loosing the garage I set up for the long winters we have in Michigan. I even put in the cold weather florescent light fixtures so the lights will start quicker and floress brighter(for Gearhedericko's sake) So the reason I wrote all of this is to talk about the posts from up above. If you have a true AGM battery like the standard one that comes on your Buell it will last for 9-10 years even without a battery tender. For the dormant months just charge it, disconnect it and let it be till spring. You can charge it once during the winter if you want but it will just sit there and be happy. Don't over charge it but you can put it on a trickle charger for a day every once in a while. This only works with a true AGM battery, not the AGM technology batteries(a standard lead acid battery) like the ones they sell at Batteries Plus. So the real trick is to buy only a real AGM battery, spend the money and be happy! |
