Cool bike! I find the printed HD service manuals better for the bench... I read the PDF when needed, but having the paper manual on the bench in the shop is valuable in so many ways. I write notes in them, get grease on them (oops), etc. Also a handy place to keep my beer, so I don't need a coaster in my shop.
Enjoy the bike and I agree with others - keep us posted with news of your efforts!
Cool bike! I find the printed HD service manuals better for the bench... I read the PDF when needed, but having the paper manual on the bench in the shop is valuable in so many ways. I write notes in them, get grease on them (oops), etc. Also a handy place to keep my beer, so I don't need a coaster in my shop.
Enjoy the bike and I agree with others - keep us posted with news of your efforts!
I hear you on that - it's a PITA trying to read a manual on a tablet with greasy hands. But on the flip side, you can print out the pages you need, use them and then chuck them when you are done.
Nice find and good luck. I also recently purchased my fist shovel FXE and am awaiting the adventure. Enjoy yours....
:-) Yeah....it's going to be a fun adventure. Right now I am just reading everything I can about them to try and smooth off the learning curve a bit. This weekend I'll do a "snagging list" on the bike and then start prioritising what needs done.
Sadly, the weather is lousy in Europe right now, so I don't foresee much riding time. I really don't want this one to get caked in salt and road grime right now....
Well, I guess I may as well use this thread to document the journey with this bike....
Not much done today - it's way too cold to be in the garage. But I did do a compression test and got the following results:
Front 130 psi
Rear 126 psi
The spec in the manual says compression should be over 100 psi and a variance of less than 10 psi between the cylinders - so all seems good there.
Also went and got a new oil filter and four quarts of Spectro 20W50 oil. Should have picked up some tranny fluid at the same time, but I can do that tomorrow.
I noticed there is some mild leakage that looks like it might come from the transmission main shaft seal. This seems extremely common on these bikes, so I did a bit of searching on how to fix and ended up ordering a replacement spacer with built in o-ring from "saddlebagrail". When that arrives, we'll see if it fixes the leak. There were some very good reviews on this approach though.
I did have a "doh" moment earlier though. I took the seat off and thought I would gently take the oil filter cover off while the bike was running just to check oil was coming back into the tank via the return lines. I won't do that again as I ended up with about half a pint of oil on the garage floor in a split second. So I guess the oil flow is good at least....
TSheff asked me to post a pic of the original seat - but on closer inspection, it doesn't appear to be original after all - I can't find any part number on it, but on the underneath it does say "SEP 92 937" - which I'm guessing is a date code and serial number. Pic below in any case....
TSheff asked me to post a pic of the original seat - but on closer inspection, it doesn't appear to be original after all - I can't find any part number on it, but on the underneath it does say "SEP 92 937" - which I'm guessing is a date code and serial number. Pic below in any case....
I've been looking for a specific seat and that's not the one. I don't remember the OEM seat having buttons, however that was long ago and I'm not an expert. Yes Sep 92 an o 1980 Shovel is a good clue. Take Care and Good Luck.
01-11-2017, 07:58 PM
