Honda East in Toledo Ohio

I have to give credit to Honda East in Toledo Ohio.  I've bought a few parts from them over the years and they are always very helpful and easy to deal with and just generally on top of things.  I live around Detroit, MI and refuse to do business with any of our local dealers any more.  Our local dealers are rude, pushy, and never helpful.  And if you have to order a part or drop something off for service, like wheels or tires, good luck getting a call to tell you they are in or done.  Honda East always called me when the part got in and I'd go get it and was always met with great service.  I just ordered some carb parts off of their site.  It was the first time I've ordered from them online.  I got an email every step of the way and it was fast!  Got an email to confirm the order, got another one to say the ordered had been processed, another one to say the shipping label was printed and the last one saying the package shipped.  I did not need to call them every day to find out what was going on, it was nice.

Check them out if you need ANYTHING and that includes new and used bikes.  I've never bought a bike from them but I know a lot that have and keep going back.

http://www.hondaeasttoledo.com/

p.s. Their prices are the lowest I could find as well so that is a huge plus!

Publish Post

Front End

Got the front end of the bike back to stock height.  No more flat footing at stops but I think it'll handle better and the front and rear are what they should be now.  We'll see how it goes.  It might get lowered again. LOL

Front Axle Tool

Here is the little 19mm tool I made.  The head of the bolt goes into the axel and the two axel and a 19mm socked goes on the bolts.  Or visa versa.

I did not want to spend the time or money hunting down a 19mm hex socket or an actual axle tool so I threw this together from what i had in the garage, complete with paint to match my frame. :p

Painted the frame

Since I had the bike pretty much torn apart I decided to paint the frame.  I chose to go with Dupli-Color "Graphite".  it was close to the stock frame color but a little more silver/grey.  I'm really happy with the way it came out.  I also got a set of stock dog bones from a guy on the FZ1 forum and raised the bike back up to stock height in the rear.  This weekend I'm going to try and get the front raised back up to stock as well.

Here are pics of the frame paint:

Bike is done for the season...

I've been having a gas leak problem on the bike so I finally decided to put the bike away for winter already and start pulling it apart.  Got the carb bank off and found that ALL 4 carbs had cracked float bowls to to over tightening of the drain bolt.  The #3 bolt was in so tight I can't get it out and the #4 bowl had silicone in it to try and seal the cracks.  WTF?!  Of course the bowls are like the only part on the bike that you can no longer buy so it looks like this winter I'll be trying to find either new bowls or new carbs.

FZ1 "Project"

Not really a project but here is a list of things I've done to the FZ1 so far and some plans to come:

• Wired the rear brake light to act as tail, brake, and turn signals
• Got a set of bar end mirrors
• Added a Fiamm Highwayblaster horn
• Fixed the throttle from sticking

Things on the way

• Have a new clutch lever and perch coming, the stock one was loose
• Have a set of Driven grips on the way
• Have a set of LED front turn signals coming

This winter

• I plan to rip out the emissions junk and while I have the radiator off I'll change the plugs
• I might do a new handlebar or repaint the current one, if so I'll do it before I do the grips
• New brake lever

And I think that is it.  I want to do as little as possible on the bike because I want this to start a street fighter / naked bike and don't want a lot of junk on it and I don't want to get into modding it and dumping a bunch of cash into it.  Then hopefully come Spring ride it more. LOL 

Carbon Fiber Is For Strength And Weight Reducion

A little ranting...

I sort of thought that the carbon fiber fad was dying, until I was reading a motorcycle forum today.  One guy is using stick on vinyl carbon fiber looking decals over a bunch of parts and another guy is applying real carbon fiber over his fuel tank and other various parts.  I could see if you were actually replacing your stock parts with pure carbon fiber parts and was doing it for weight reduction.  But these posers that use it just for looks drive me nuts.  Ok, sure, it used to be cool to see carbon fiber parts years ago because they where expensive and rare.  Then you had every kid in a Dodge Neon and Honda Civic getting junky carbon fiber hoods off eBay for $300 shipped and the rest of them buying rolls of carbon fiber decals.  And I'm willing to bet less than 1% of those ever TRULY got the hoods for weight reduction.  Now it's not even "cool" to see a REAL carbon fiber parts on a car or bike so why are people still doing the fake thing?