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An older fella in a 2023 extended Silverado came across the line exiting Chick-Fil-A. All I could do was grab a bunch of brake and low slide to his front bumper.  Didn't have enough road grip to move right and by. 

I questioned leaving the stock pegs when I put on the chambers, but at least today they seem to have prevented more damage.  I got out of this with nothing more than these few scrapes on the bike and a hole in my pants. 

Trucks have gotten too big and with less cargo space.  Today's mini trucks are the size of past full size trucks.  Riding in town has gotten a lot more stressful.  LOL

IMO, the issue with cast pistons isn't so much about how they perform when everything is going great, it's how they fail.  Cast pistons tend to explode into a thousand screaming pieces while forged tend to just maul and deform.  I use them interchangeably, though.  My failures are usually bad decisions, not the style of piston I'm using.  LOL 

I learned the hard way that you really just need enough of a chamfer on the skirt to let it slide past the floor of the port when the piston swells, tab or not.

Make sure the advancer is .530" or .590".  Honda started putting the CB750 advancers in them, so you have to get a CB750 ignition for the .590" shaft. That usually covers 75-77's. In addition to Dyna, 4-into-1 now sells their own kit.  There's also the Charlie's place kit, which I just installed on a CB360.

So is the nibbi a copy of Keihin carb?

It's more a copy of the early SL10A or 660a Keihin, though NIBBI calls it a PE.  The SL10A and 660a that came on early XRs and even back on small cc SLs and CBs had the oval bore.

The ask seems pricey to need a crank and rebuild, but here it is anyway:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1623419824808194/

Thought I'd share a build I just finished. 

About 10 years ago, I searched for a few years for an FT500. I finally found one and a year later it was stolen along with a street titled 1985 XR250r from in front of my garage. That began a mission to find another FT500 when I came across a 1979 XR500 lump at Barber.  I had thought to mate an XR500 engine into an FT500 frame before, which gets you a lighter crankshaft and a kick start. The FT starter is weak and poorly designed, imo. I missed on a few FT deals over the years since I bought the lump, then finally bought a titled FT frame off Ebay. 

It's a 1984 FT500 frame, 1979 XR500 engine bored to 530cc, Mikuni VM38, DR350 front end and hub set with Warp 9 supermoto wheels.  The bike weighs in at 294lbs with a 59" wheelbase, 28 degrees of rake and 98mm of trail.

Not a two stroke, but still a blast to ride.  It won't steal seat time from my RD, but it's sure to cause the airhead to collect more dust. 





   

I'm rebuilding a "free" '87 Honda XL250R that had intake valves that looked like that.  So bad I had to sacrifice a guide.

Honda was throwing all of their money into the Civic at that time.  They put zero budget into performance on street bikes.  They didn't change much outside of mechanicals until they went full DOHC(minus the 650) in 79. The 400f is literally nothing more than an overbore 350/4, but with gorgeous styling and a great looking exhaust. Fun and enjoyable can be two completely different experiences.  A 400/4 is very enjoyable to ride. 

Have you moved the needles up and down yet?  Is it a rich or lean bog?

For years the common go-to has always been the tapered set from All Balls Racing, however there are complaints that even when properly installed there is a resulting gap because they are slightly thicker.
Economy sells caged bearing sets if you want to stick with balls. I bought some a while back but haven't installed them yet.
And lastly the OEM balls & races are still available but they're super expensive! Each ball is about $6 and there are 38 of them.

I get them at McMaster-Carr.  A pack of 100 is just under $6.  HVC sells a pack of 38 for $15.50.

I admire organization and aspire to be more so. I have lots of toolboxes and a weakness for little wooden boxes (even the occasional cigar box) that I use to organize drawers. Laura and I had a fantastic day of yardsaling yesterday, and I had asked her not to allow me to buy another toolbox, but...



I told her I wanted to dismiss my request, because this old Craftsman machinist box was just too cool. I think I have come up with a suitable use for it:



Still room for my VM slides, needles, springs and assorted parts. Pretty happy with this acquistion!

I inherited this very toolbox from my grandfather.  My mom was a machinist, and when she retired I got her Kennedy bottom box to put it on and they pair nicely together.  Did it still have the lock tray that covers the drawers and slides under the bottom drawer when the box is in use?  I assume we're just not seeing it in the pics.

With all due respect, slower curing fiberglass doesn't make it harder, but it does make it bond better.  Your strength comes from your substrate.  You don't want the epoxy harder.  It's not concrete.  As mentioned, cure time is dependent on temperature.  With polyester you can adapt cure time with hardener, but epoxy has to be mixed in the correct ratio.

The reason adding heat, like the from the sun, speeds up the cure is because the heat from the exothermic reaction has to escape to slow the cure down.  The less heat escapes, the faster it cures.  For every 18 degrees of temperature, cure time cuts in half.  This is why mixing epoxy in large quantities in tall containers is a really bad idea.  The cure gets exponentially quicker as it heats up and can ultimately produce enought heat to melt plastic. Spreading the epoxy over glass slows the cure down.  You can get faster curing epoxy meant for cooler temps to quicken cure.  The question I have it why you want it to cure quicker.  Is it because of a vertical repair?  If that is the case, then you want to use fused silica to thicken the epoxy so it can be spread vertically and not run. 

I prefer Avon Road Riders but was unable to source them anywhere in the US this year so I went with the Bridgestone BT46s. In my opinion the Avon is a better tire, stickier and more stable. That being said the Bridgestone is running a close 2nd.

I run Avon Streetrunner AV83.  Very similar to the Roadriders, but an upgrade in performance, IMO.  They're a bit lower of a profile tire.  Easily bought for under $100 each, usually in the $85 range.

Bare hands to asphalt makes me cringe every time I see it.

first bike 1979 YZ80, started riding neighborhood friends bikes @ 10

You aren't from Western PA, are you?  That's exactly how I started and exactly the same bike.  I was illegally riding a Honda CL175 as a freshman in high school until I got my license.