Help with new 1999 Nomad

[cnc]

Did I miss something here, why do you want to pull the engine? As mas said, pull the clutch cover and if it is a steel gear, button it back up. Change the steering head bearings, service the swing arm and put it all back together and ride.

[gleam]

Originally Posted by MAS Tequila

If it has a nylon gear it's a POG, stop trying to second guess and what if this thing to death.

With all that you've removed already, what's another 30 minutes?

I'm making decisions based on the information I have and adjusting as new information comes in, which has happened twice now. I don't think there's a better way of approaching a problem when you know don't know anything about it. From what I first read, I thought you could tell if it has a POG from the model and year, but now I'm being told that you can't know for sure that way. Thank you for making that clear, you may have saved me from a bad situation down the road.

It's not about the time to do the work, it's about the time to wait for parts. I doubt this cover has ever been off so it'll probably need a new gasket, which can take weeks to get. It's not something I would just do unless I really had to, which seems to be the case now.

Tonight I'm going to be reading all the threads I can find on the swingarm, and getting into that so that I can order parts tomorrow if all goes well. I still have a few open questions that I could really use some help with. Maybe someone knows the answer. Thanks for all the help so far.

Originally Posted by cnc

Did I miss something here, why do you want to pull the engine? As mas said, pull the clutch cover and if it is a steel gear, button it back up. Change the steering head bearings, service the swing arm and put it all back together and ride.

I guess I didn't explain this part, it may have been in PM with someone local. One of my options for dealing with the steering bearing races was to take the frame to someone to have them get them out for me. It's not something I really wanted to do, I was just getting information in case I had no other choice.

Going back on the tranny needs to be in 1st so the gear box spline won't turn, and it will allow you to find the spline as you lift and turn the wheel a bit.

This is from macmac's thread on the swingarm. Right now I have the clutch (and the lever) disassembled and the transmission is in neutral. How difficult would it be to try to do this without shifting into first? I could wait until that stuff is rebuilt if I had to but it would be out of order for what I'm planning.

[gleam]

The POG is going to have to wait until the end because the bike is sitting on the frame right now and that section has to come off to get the cover off.

I got the swingarm off, and found some of it looking nice, and most of it looking dry and slightly rusty. The only thing that had moly grease on it was the joint between the final drive and the driveshaft, which was goobered up very nicely. Everything else was dry and terrible looking. I'll post more pictures once they're cleaned up but none of the gear surfaces look too badly worn. That one between the driveshaft and whatever that big gear is called on the transmission looks pretty rusty. Water must've come in around the boot and rusted it since it had no grease to protect it.

I'm still unclear on where the Moly 60 goes, and where the regular moly grease goes. I think it goes on all the spline gears, and everything else gets normal moly grease.

So far so good.

EDIT: found this reply about the new Honda 77:

Originally Posted by VulcanE

I would just use it on the splines (wheel to final drive, and drive shaft to final drive) and for everything else use a moly bearing grease.

What about the gear in my fourth picture on the transmission? Is that a spline gear, too, or is it too short to be a spline gear?

[gleam]

A little mid-point update.


Steering Head
- a friend with more experience was able to help me get the races out. With two people you can keep the end of the drift in place much easier and they just drifted out. For the top one I had started to make a little notch as suggested, and we used that. I had a local shop do the one on the stem.


Swingarm
- for the Moly 60 I found several references to a Loctite product, so that's what I got. Acklands Grainger had this LOCTITE LB 8012 MOLY PASTE but they had to order it in. The MSDS lists a moly content of 60-100% so this should be perfect. It's quite dense so it's deceptively heavy in your hand - that jar says 229g but it's only about the size of a plum.

What I got from this thread and others would be to lightly coat that stuff onto all the geared connections: transmission to driveshaft, driveshaft to final drive, and final drive to rear wheel. The needle bearings get normal chassis grease. I have some EP moly grease (5%) but I'm not sure if that's what chassis grease is just yet.

Carburetor
- still wondering about the coolant bypass for the carb from other Canadians. I usually ride into the start of December when possible, so if it's necessary I'll keep it. The Virago doesn't have that, though and it seemed fine. Input welcomed, maybe I don't understand it right.
- online parts: still haven't found much, I made another thread for carb stuff
- I went with the Dynojet kit

Other stuff
- Speedo gears will get whatever grease I decide on after learning a bit more about the different types. I did get a new seal for it.
- Got some new handlebar zipties, it'll probably be obvious how they're meant to be undone when I look at them.

[Peg]

Put a grease zerk in the steering head while you're in there... It takes quite a bit of grease to fill that void, but once you've done that, there's no room left for water, and a couple of pumps from a grease-gun every season is all you'll need for peace of mind.

[VARider07]

Welcome from sunny, humid Virginia Beach. Have you downloaded a free (yes free) service manual for your bike? Put your bikes year and model into your favorite search engine and get one, if you haven't done so yet. (Hold out for free.)

[mick56]

Originally Posted by VARider07

Welcome from sunny, humid Virginia Beach. Have you downloaded a free (yes free) service manual for your bike? Put your bikes year and model into your favorite search engine and get one, if you haven't done so yet. (Hold out for free.)

You missed this bit out mate. http://www.manualslib.com/brand/kawa...orcycle.html#V

[gleam]

Originally Posted by Peg

Put a grease zerk in the steering head while you're in there... It takes quite a bit of grease to fill that void, but once you've done that, there's no room left for water, and a couple of pumps from a grease-gun every season is all you'll need for peace of mind.

I can see the appeal of adding the fitting and thanks for the suggestion. I don't think I'll be doing it in this batch of work, though. I'm trying to get it done asap. Quite a lot has to come off to get at those bearings so I can see why people put these fittings on there.

And yeah, I definitely have all the manuals for this I could find. It was one of the first things I did when I was considering this model of bike to buy. It took some digging to get the one for the Nomad and not one of the other Vulcans, but the right filename for my bike is this one:

Originally Posted by The Internets

500VulcanNomadClassicTourer98-01Manual.pdf

There may be other scans out there, too I don't know. I also tracked down a Clymer manual paperback, which is excellent. For some reason it must've been popular because it's in its third printing, and has nice colour wiring diagrams, as well as a more normal page size. Those other Clymers are tiny and a bit annoying to keep open on the bench. The different manuals are written for different audiences so it's good to have all of them. I'm still a beginner so I appreciate the step-by step and illustrations in the Clymer, as well as the technical details in the Kawasaki service manual.

Tonight I'm working on the forks finally. Does the stock spring have a tighter-wound section at the bottom of it? As I was pulling it out I thought it looked like it might be a progressive spring. I compared the one that came out of the forks to the one in the Progressive Springs kit, and the one in the forks is much longer than the one in the kit. Is that normal? It's a good six or eight inches longer. Is the difference all taken up by the spacer? Might be obvious when I get into it but for now I'm not sure why they're so different. On the Virago the difference was much smaller.

[minst7877]

I also have a 99 G1 model nomad and have put the grease zerk in the steering head. Just be aware that the steering lock on the G1 model actually goes into a hole in a hollow tube. This tube is open to the elements on the bottom triple tree. This hole must be plugged in order for the grease to stay in the steering stem. No fun to be pumping in grease and having it come out the bottom of the triple tree onto the top of the fender. And yes my motor now has a steel oil gear put in by splitting the case. I did not do it myself. That is not a job to be taken lightly as it is a very detailed procedure. Parts alone will cost a bundle you can buy a used donor engine for less than what parts will cost. Good luck

My carb has a cobra 170 main in it after doing a open air intake. These carbs seem to be very cold blooded from my experience they don't like cold weather.

DC

[mick56]

You could have saved yourself a lot of time & money if you had done the POG change the easy way.Here is how Phil Halling did it.
"Just sorted my oil gear out, got the replacement complete with shaft, had the shaft machined off to leave an exact hole the size of the existing shaft, broke the plastic gear off - then heated up the new steel gear and slid it on and put 3 tack welds on it.costings wise, it was about £55 for the gear and a new RH gasket, then £75 to have it machined and took us 2.5 hrs to do. In my mind a better fix than Judges oil gear and a lot easier than splitting the crankcase or dropping the oil. The only testing bit was stopping the existing shaft from going back into the case a few mm, we got over that by using one of those little round magnets on a car ariel type thing - the magnet was the same diameter as the shaft, so the hot (expanded) new gear just slid down the "ariel" and popped straight onto the shaft.
Pity they dont sell just the gear with a 12mm hole in the centre".

[minst7877]

Mick mine was done after a failure of a JOG which destroyed the end of the original shaft. No options but to split the case or put in a donor motor. My personal choice was to rebuild my motor and know exactly what I had as I could check all internal components for damage due to loss of oil pressure.

DC

[gleam]

I'm finally building something instead of taking things apart - working on the forks. Does anyone happen to know offhand what size of PVC pipe I can use to drive the seals? The ones I had laying around from the Virago are a touch too small and a touch too big. Googling didn't produce any threads about people asking or telling, just links to Kawi special tools.

[Txtriathlete]

I also have a "new to me" 99 Nomad. I bought it with a known bad engine, so I started there, not with the rest of the bike. Mine had a steel oil gear, no idea if it is original or was replaced at some point over the years. You have to pretty much take apart the right side of the bike to get to it, it's under the clutch and there's a lot of stuff in the way.

Tearitupfixitrepeat.com is a good site for how to pull the engine if/when you get there.

Coming from an gl1000 old Goldwing I am surprised by the lack of info on repairing these bikes. Maybe they don't break like the old Hondas so no one is documenting how to fix them. I see lots of riders throwing down 100k miles and kms on these Kawi's so someone must be working on them...

[gleam]

Originally Posted by Txtriathlete

I also have a "new to me" 99 Nomad. I bought it with a known bad engine, so I started there, not with the rest of the bike. Mine had a steel oil gear, no idea if it is original or was replaced at some point over the years. You have to pretty much take apart the right side of the bike to get to it, it's under the clutch and there's a lot of stuff in the way.

Tearitupfixitrepeat.com is a good site for how to pull the engine if/when you get there.

Coming from an gl1000 old Goldwing I am surprised by the lack of info on repairing these bikes. Maybe they don't break like the old Hondas so no one is documenting how to fix them. I see lots of riders throwing down 100k miles and kms on these Kawi's so someone must be working on them...

Yeah I came across that site for one of the things but didn't think to browse to whole site for more. Other than the gadget site and forums, I haven't found all that much information yet either. It could be out there and I just haven't found it yet, dunno.

When you say there's a lot involved 'to get to it', does that mean to change it out, or also just to check if it's nylon or not? I was hoping/assuming I was going to be able to just take the side cover off and look. Is there more that has to come out if all I'm doing is looking at it?

[minst7877]

You can just pull the right side cover. But to do that you have to drop the right side footboard and brake pedal then remove the frame section to get the cover off. Once you get the cover off you can see the oil gear behind the front of the clutch basket.

DC


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