Category: Article

CB750F: Day 01

The bike was set up as a cruiser. That is too bad because it is a 1979 Honda CB750F which is a “supersport”. I removed the windshield and bagged the bolts.

Only 32K miles, that is nice. Supposedly the speedometer should go up to 160MPH, but only 150MPH is listed on this one.
I took the bike to school. Here is the “as is” profile:

I took the side panels off, they are black, not purple like the tank. The left side panel had the top most mount broken off and a large bolt glued in it’s place instead, which came off at some point. I wonder how I’ll fix that. I took off the license plate and bagged the bolts. It was interesting to learn that the set is bolted on, I bagged those bolts. Finally I removed the backrest, it was easy after removing the seat first, and bagged those bolts, which incidentally did not fit the rear mounts.
I removed the tail light assembly and labeled the wires first and found that there is a wire-harness. Teacher said to just replace the busted stalks.



The bike starts, runs, and stops, but Teacher checked and the 2nd cylinder is not firing (left to right looking forward sitting on bike, 1 to 4). Took the gas tank off. First turned the petcock to OFF. The fuel line was hard as a rock so teacher said just cut it, also there were heavy metal clamps on both the petcock and the distributor, so he said to be careful to protect the plastic part on the distributor, so I just cut the line in half and covered it up with a paper towel. The tank came right off, it was interesting to see how simple it was removed:

Tomorrow we’ll check the engine compression.

The New Patient: A 1979 Honda CB750F

Here is the new patient:

She is a patient because she will be patient as I learn how not to be scared to work on a bike and make all of the stupid mistakes that are to be expected.
It is a 1979 Honda CB750F.
A nice young man named Mitch sold it to me. It was the first time I had towed a trailer, that was interesting. Make sure you budget for tie downs, a hitch, and a trailer.

This is How Easy it is to Make Changes to DrRacket

DrRacket is open-source (LGPL) editor for Racket. Sometimes you want to make changes to it. For example today I wanted to enable online compilation on single-core machines. Here is how easy it is to do it:

  1. Assuming that DrRacket is already installed. This is a normal installation using the installer; you do not typically have to check out the Git repo to make changes.
  2. Asked Robby how to make the change. Robby is super everybody knows that, he explained the fix. The check for enabling the feature is in module-language.rkt. Here are the steps
  3. cd /opt/racket/5.3.1/collects/drracket/private/
sudo cp module-language.rkt module-language.rkt-ORG
# Made the change
# View it
diff module-language.rkt module-language.rkt-ORG
1329,1330c1329
<                    ;;(> (processor-count) 1))
<                    (> (processor-count) 0))
---
>                    (> (processor-count) 1))
1348,1349c1347
<                    ;;(> (processor-count) 1))
<                    (> (processor-count) 0))
---
>                    (> (processor-count) 1))
# Tell Racket to recompile that collection (aka library)
sudo raco setup -l drracket
# Restart DrRacket
  4. Now the online compilation indicator shows up and errors are automatically flagged.
  5. It works fine on a 1.6GHz Pentium with 2GB of RAM.

Hope this gave you a taste of how easily and quickly you can try new stuff out in DrRacket itself.
Here is how it looks with it turned on:

DrRacket for the Truly Impatient V02

DrRacket is a wonderful editor. It is so feature rich that the first time you begin using it, you may end up missing out on how powerful and pleasant it is to use due to the multitude of options and features. The following is my attempt to share the most useful and interesting features and get a new-user up and running and feeling really good about it as quickly as possible.
Continue reading “DrRacket for the Truly Impatient V02”

On Rules

Over the last few weeks nights and weekends I’ve played around with Jess studying up on rules engines and expert systems. The approach of focusing on the limited reality defined by the facts and rules in the universe of the engine along with letting go of control of sequencing are surprisingly freeing. Memories of event loops, OOAD, OOP, multimethods, state machines, horribly hand-written code, and event handlers all come to mind. It is fascinating to see how well some things can be simplified. It makes me wonder why we ever choose one approach over another. Supposedly we always use the best tool for the job; but in practice most of us learn one halfway decent approach (“tool”) once and end up using it forever. I suppose that is a human trait and not unique to problem solving with programming languages.

Major Concours Service Update

08/31/12 Doug

  • Installed a new petcock
  • Installed a fuel gauge resistor corrector
  • Installed stainless front brake line
  • Installed new handlebar (“650-03602 B34: Black 7/8“ Suzuki GS-E Style) and mount (“SB-025 Superbike Bar Mounts” ): Flanders and Storz
  • Installed footpeg lowering kit: Murphs
  • New engine oil and filter: Shell Rotella T
  • Front brake fluid change
  • Clutch fluid change

10/31/12 The Shop

  • New front tire: Dunlop K701F
  • Replaced fork seals and consequently replaced the fork oil
  • Replaced clutch and brake master cylinder rusty screws
  • New rear brake fluid
  • Cleaned and oiled air filter
  • Wired in Hyperlites
  • Adjusted fork height (it was about 2“ too high) and consequently installed new stainless front brake cable
  • Valve adjustment
  • General safety inspection of work done prior

The bike rides very differently, smoother and more stable. The handlebar height and lowered pegs also feel much better to me. Here are some pics:

Gerbings Heated Coat Liner and Gloves

Last year I bought a Gerbings heated coat liner and T5 gloves. They work great. I’m afraid to turn them past 50% because they get so hot and do it so quickly. This is a good thing, that is their job.
The only mistake I made was to keep the slightly-too-small liner. If you order one, take advantage of their generous exchange policy until you get the right fit.