I Will Help You Fix Your Motorcycle

Hey everybody. For the past few months I've been in the laboratory of my mind trying to figure out what to do with this channel. On the one hand I can't make a living producing videos like I had hoped to, but I also don't want this channel to go to waste. I've got a great community of over 300,000 people watching. According to YouTube, never actually shook hands with every one of you. That'd be a real shame to waste, real pity to waste. So I've been trying to figure out how to move forward and grow this channel in a way that's interesting to you and fun for me. Came up with two ideas. I'll share the best one with you today. If you have a machine that I specialize in, motorcycle, three-wheeler, four-wheeler, rotor tiller, anything with a small engine, and you like some guidance, you'd like some help with it, get in touch with me. Contact at jennysgarage.com. Depending on how close you are to where I am here in Amador County, California and what type of machine you're working with, I'd like to come see you and make a video about the diagnostic process and try to nail down what's going on with your machine. I won't make it an objective to fix the machine in one day, in one video. I tried that. You remember, I tried that and I hit a couple home runs, but it was also a pressure cooker and not sustainable. So to scale that back a little bit and not try to fix the whole machine and rather just put the owner in the right direction on fixing it himself or herself and helping the viewers as far as seeing the diagnostic and troubleshooting process, I think that would be a good format of video for everyone involved. I'm 43 years old. Probably my greatest skill is working on these old machines and at my age it's important to leverage the skills you have rather than embarking on brand new adventures that have no connection to what you've gained in your past. Old guys have some assets, some advantages, but time isn't one of them. So let me know if you've got something that you're at your wits end trying to figure out and you think I could help you. If you don't want to do a video, that's fine. If we do a video, I won't ask for any payment. However, donations are always accepted. But if you just want some expert help without the theatrics of a video, that's fine too. I'll ask for very reasonable compensation, especially since this is an experimental venture. Beta testing period. Anyhow, look forward to hearing from you. Here's what's happening in my garage. It's been a while, so there's a few new faces. This is a 1977 Yamaha IT400. Big four-stroke. Two-stroke. Call myself an expert. This one I picked from Hillbilly Heaven, the Roberts collection. It wasn't running because the carburetor was full of water. I cleaned that out, started right up, but whenever I tried to use the kill switch, got a nasty shock. That was because the hot wire going from the CDI box to the switch was connected, but there wasn't a ground from the kill switch to the frame. So when I touched this, it tried to ground out through your boy rather than the chassis. But I got that fixed. It runs good. $600 takes this one home. It's for sale. No title, mind. Best to sell this to someone either out of state or who just wants to ride on their private property. This is the worst case scenario as far as the DMV because I don't have paperwork, but it's still in the system. So the only possible way to get a title is to somehow track down the last registered owner and get paperwork filled out by them, which is not worth anyone's time on a $600 motorcycle. This is a 1982 XL500. I bought from my friend Gary up in Marysville. It's been an interesting case because the engine is completely stock except for a high performance camshaft that somebody installed. So it wants to breathe, but this factory potato cannon is restrictive. If I take this off and run it straight through the header, it runs really well. But with this installed, it chokes it down regardless of the jetting in the carburetor. I've tried all kinds of different jets. In fact, it's disassembled right now because I'm changing jets. I've also worked on opening this up, used the Dremel to open this up, and it was noisy inside when I took this off. There was a rattle, so I thought maybe there's a plug. Maybe something's plugged in there. So I cut this off and pulled this out, a little sand shovel, and welded it back together. Made a little bit of a difference, but I still haven't got this running perfectly yet. Electrical system will need some tidying up too. I also got this from Robert, ATC 125M. When I brought it home, it had a flat front tire and the transmission was stuck in gear. It wouldn't shift gears, which made this very stubborn to get into the back of the truck. But we got it, put a tube in the tire, made the transmission shift again. The problem with the transmission was the shift drum, which moves the shift forks around in the transmission, wasn't properly turning when the gear shifter was applied. There's a little star metal plate on the end of it that comes in contact with a spring-loaded roller. And as you shift gears, that shift drum turns and the roller seats in the spaces of that star indexing it to the correct gear. And when that can just roll around any which way, the transmission doesn't shift. But I got that fixed up, long story shorter. I need to be really careful here because I have a tendency to ramble on and I don't have anybody behind the camera to keep me focused. This is a 2015 CRF250L. I got a really good buy on this one. Only 5,000 miles, paid $1,500 for it. The catch was that it was stuck in high gear. The problem with it was a bent shift rod. I think you call it a shift rod. This shaft goes over to the other side of the motor here and has a couple hooks on it so that when you raise or lower the shifter over on the other side, it moves the shift drum, just like in a three-wheeler, moves that shift drum one way or the other. Well, the previous owner took a fall right onto the shift lever and that bent that hook mechanism on the other side that operates the shift drum. It might be a mechanism purposefully designed by Honda to fail in the event that somebody falls on the shift lever so it doesn't damage the transmission. It was an easy fix, $40 for a new shift rod and hook. So if you've got a machine that you'd like me to have a look at, let me know. Maybe you're right on the verge of fixing it and you just need just a little help or you don't know where to start. Sometimes we will fix the machine in one video and then I'll look like a hero. Everybody will be happy. Could just be a loose wire or tin, but that won't be the objective. The objective will be to troubleshoot, to try to get a clear head about things and not waste time or money on processes that aren't productive. Thanks for watching.