1998 Steamer Restoration

[Joshorilla]

Hi Guys, I purchased a very very cheap 1998 Tiger and I plan to document my restoration progress here.

She was a non runner when I brought her, I feared the DAR or thingy clutch had gone as she was DEAD. The guy I got it off was lovely, slipped a disk so was unable to ride anymore, so I promised to give her some love and attention 

List of what was wrong:

* Clutch felt like shaking hands with the dead
* Didn't start
* Paint cracking
* Loose wires (turns out it's the clock)
* General Shabbyness

So, I hired my favorite bike shop to move her, took her home, changed the oil, checked the fluids, charged the battery, bled the clutch (after removing the copious amounts of gunk  ), got a bottle of quick start, fresh petrol and VROOM! She's golden! But not perfect...

What's Fixed:
* Clutch now feels firm and positive
* Starts on the button

Problems found after starting her:
* She revs fine up to 4k rpm then bogs and dies, I guess the main jet is clogged from sitting for ages, I shall rebuild her, stronger, better!
* Choke seems to make her rev too high, i'll see how this is after I clean the jets

What I plan to do:
* Drill the main jet out to stop her running so lean as I hear this is a good mod for the Keihin carbs.
* Check the fuel line, tank vent & petcock as this may be the problem also
* Balance the carbs using one of those mercury level jobbies
* Replace or more likely clean the air filter
* See about respraying the engine and sorting out the rust

The battery is pretty much shot I found after putting her on a very expensive battery charger for my boat at 2A, needs replacing so I got my hairdresser to jump her. 

Sorry for the long post! If anybody wants more info or would like to offer me any advise please feel free to contact me via PM!

Interesting side note, I think she's french of spanish, the asbestos warning sticker is french, the rims are spanish, it has spanish peso as washers for the bolt on screen and it's in kilometers, which means I was sold a bike that supposedly did 51k miles, but in reality that's kilometers, cashback!

[rybes]

welcome to the world of steamers  tidt lookin bike ya have there too and pesos for washers, aint heard that one before.
heres a link to my rebuild. http://www.tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/topic,7427.0.html its not the only one on here either http://www.tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/topic,10288.0.html have a search and youll find some more. 

[Joshorilla]

Thanks Rybes!

Let me start by apologizing in advance, I shall be asking you lots of questions!! 

Well.. I probably won't have to because your build log looks very informative!

[spanglish]

Very handy those old peso's, having a hole in the middle makes them perfect low denomination washers, I bet half of the bikes out here in spain are held together with them

[rybes]

no probs josh  ask away

[Joshorilla]

Ok, today was a ball-ache! My mission to clean the carbs.

I removed carbs, it was as much of a pain as everyone says it is! But being pre-warned it took away the frustration a little.

The first thing I noticed about the carbs were the slides were coated in a thin layer of slimy yellow petrol which was a running theme, after removing the top of the slides (technical term obviously  ) I noticed that they had small amounts of debris and looks a bit yucky so I blasted that out with brake cleaner as carb cleaner is impossible to find here! On the carb to the far left of the bike the spring had been bent and was all crooked from where I assume someone had tried to do something or another.

The float bowls... one of the covers had a stripped screw, the same one that had the crooked spring! Grr, I hate whichever previous owner did that now! I took the two I could apart, and they had lots of rust debris and gunk, it was pretty yuck! Flushed that all out, took out the main jets and the emulsion tubes, the majority of the holes in the emulsion tubes were blocked taking them to the sun light so I cleaned them out with the brake cleaner and copper wire then re-installed.

So, how best remove a stripped screw from the float bowl? I am thinking dremmel a groove then use my impact driver, also, where's the cheapest place for a new slide spring? They're about £9 on eBay!

Aside from what I mentioned above, I shot a load of cleaner into the various ports etc and gave it a good old blow through, lots of yellowy gunk came out, next weekend or maybe the following few days after work i'll get it all reinstalled and fire her up to see if she works better.

When using brake cleaner which is virtually acetone, it's important to remember to let it all evaporate or it may cause the rubber to degrade.



The easiest way to remove the carbs was to remove the middle section bit of the air box them pull the carbs off the engine, the jubilee clips holding it on were a right PITA to get to! But it came of alright.


Draining all that nasty old fuel, my friend gladly took it off my hands for his car.

[threepot]

Cut a nice slot so you can get a flat blade screwdriver on it. Those screws can be a pain Replace with cap-screws. Nice colour

[Joshorilla]

Yep! My plan is to cut a slot with the dremmel and get the impact driver on it, I am also going to soak it in ACF50 & I hear putting a torch to it can help unstick the corrosion.

Plan of action:
1. ACF50 soak for a few days
2. heat & quickly apply ACF50 to penetrate,
3. Cut a slot
4. Impact drive it loose.

[GavD]

Josh,

I've got a '98 with Keihins, when I got mine back up and running after 3 years in the garage, I delved into the carbs and found it had #38 pilots and #98 main jets.
After looking at Mustangs posts I ordered some #40's & #105's from allens performance. Also put a couple of brass washers under the jet needle to lift them up a bit. With the aftermarket cans I fitted it makes the bike run a lot better.

The other thing I found out was that the float heights are different from that quoted in my haynes manual. The keihins are used on some kawasaki's and all the info I could get suggested the float height should be set at 17mm, the haynes manual states 14mm. Again once I'd altered them to 17mm it ran a bit crisper and the throttle response seemed better.

Gav

[Sin_Tiger]

Not sure if you have a Machine Mart in Guernsey but they do a nice little "Easyout" tool for backing out chewed screws, don't let the Dremel slip 

[Joshorilla]

I decided to take my carbs to the shop and have then do it, peace of mind and ill have then back for the weekend hopefully! Plus it saves me having to extract that horrid screw

[threepot]

Didn't like the thought of you using an impact on the carbs. After reading a post somewhere(think it was one of Mustangs?), I fitted 42.5 pilots. Does give slightly better low-end throttle response.

[rybes]

whats next on your list of to dos ?

[Joshorilla]

Next up is to bump my riders policy up from a 250cc max to a 900cc max, that will be £500 a year as i am 25! I get the carbs back tomorrow i'll fit them on and take her for a test ride! I almost feel like i'm breaking the law taking a bike that big out given I havn't passed my test yet, but it's perfectly legal after your CBT to ride anything so long as you have L plates, i've even seen a Hayabusa with L plates!

I will be rebuilding the front brakes over the weekend and see where I go from there, I mainly want to get her safe enough to ride to see what comes out of the wood works.

In the long run it will be a respray, fork rebuild, shock rebuild if possible, smaller wind deflector, aux circuit for accessories, GPS mount and more.

I am considering lots of options on styling, but l want to get a feel for her before i take her in a direction. I would like to respray her at some point, but i'd like to source some stickers before I do so, i've always liked champagne gold on bikes or Audi silver.

The shop I brought my carbs into, I gave them the default carb settings and the recommended ones from this forum and he'll phone me up tomorrow to see what they can do and what I want, i'm looking at £100 for the rebuild.. which seems steep to me, but two hours labour and a few hours soak in an ultrasonic cleaner I guess plus parts seems to be about right.

[Sin_Tiger]

That's quite reasonable but you'll have to figure on parts as well