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Motorcycles, tools, and garages! A little bit of everything mechanical and technical.

Showing posts with label TL125. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TL125. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

How to keep a 10 yr. old busy for hours...

Drag home an old pile of junk, park it in front of the garage, and wait for said boy to wander by.

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Scrounged up this bike with the intent to have my students play with it, but son-one took an interest in it- spent an hour trying to "get it started".  When I finished mowing the lawn we had a quick lesson in troubleshooting- checked spark, compression, and squirted some gas down the carb and by golly it popped.

Did a little more work and got it running half decent and had a short lesson on clutches. He only killed it once (keep in mind, its a TL and 1st gear tops out at something like 3/4ths of a mile an hour...).



He road it down the street, turned it around, and stopped and started a few times in the process. Its a little tall and plenty too heavy for him, and he said he was done after that one pass. Once we start changing gears so he can go faster, he might like it more. Next issues to address- leaking petcock, bent gear shifter, and busted brake lever.  We also discovered that the swingarm slopped around like it was connected with a rubber bolt.  Found a used one on ebay, gave it to him, and turned him loose.





He's had very minimal help from me. Helped him crack a few bolts loose that were too tight and showed him some nuts he forgot to take off, but he's figuring it out mostly by himself.  The swingarm fixed our wobble issues-

Now time to keep DAD busy for hours!!!





























Still have to do some finish work up- inside still needs a redkote. New petcock on the way. Trying to decide if this should be a Christmas present or if I should ride it...
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