hawk update
 

Performed valve adjustments today. The odometer reads 3400 miles. This marks the second valve adjustment, prompted by increased noise from the engine. Additionally, I have upgraded to an x-ring chain, replacing the stock chain that performed reliably. Ever since the installation of the economical tachometer/hour meter, I've logged approximately 60.1 hours of operation. Notably, there has been no noticeable oil consumption. Some minor clutch refinements were necessary, alongside the tightening of the speedo cable which had become loose and ceased functioning.

Nonetheless, my satisfaction with the motorcycle remains high. It surpasses my previous experience with the Gy-5 model in all aspects except for vibration, where the Gy-5 had a slight edge.

doing more stuff.

i will be back when I get my mind settled and can be more constructive.

You are definitely racking up the miles pretty fast. I figure the rear tire is getting pretty thin in the skin. I still have the stock cluster on my TBR7, and a couple weeks ago, I noticed that threaded ring the holds the speedO cable to the speedO ,is off, and just along for the ride. My SpeedO is still working fine, but I need to re attach it.

first off....you're riding the heck out of that thing! good for you! I wish I had enough time on my hands to put that many miles on my KLR. My goldwing gets miles, but that's only because I get to ride it to work all the time. And now, beside the KLR, I finally have my Intruder project licensed and on the road. The goldwing may have to share some work miles with the Intruder for now. :)

Keep riding and having fun on that thing. it sounds like it's holding up just fine for you. I wonder how many miles you'll put on it!

Stop being so self deprecating for a start.

Everyone is a little bit crazy.

Nobody is perfect especially the people who believe they are perfect.

Just please try to keep all your specific bike posts to the 1 thread.

It stops the forums becoming a bloated mess of random posts and search results.

will do.

new upgrades
 

New additions to the Hawk: handguards, seat cover, Nibbi carb. It starts, idles, and runs a little better with the new carb. Also, received a fuel filter with it and other stuff I don't need, but redundancy is good, right? I feel like there is a slight increase in power, nothing to freak out about, but noticeable. I want to get an exhaust, but I like it being quiet. Oh well, I'm learning, fellas. If I wouldn't smoke before working on it, it would take me half as much time because I keep doing stupid crap. Oh well, I'm learning!!!! Thanks for all the help. Will keep this as my thread.

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approaching 4000 units.

it is my daily driver. not looking forward to winter.

the tire is holding up okay. I am going to get every mile out of it I can and then put a more dual-sport type tire on the back. The front is great, but it doesn't have my big booty on it. hehehe.

I am pretty much babying this thing so I too am curious about how many miles I will get. The transmission seems okay, it doesn't burn any oil and I gotta say I'm pretty dang impressed..

Mine (rear tire)is holding up surprising good too. I don't baby mine, but I try not to abuse the bike, mainly because of the reputation of the rims. I like both my TBR7 and Hawk, but I honestly think the Hawk was probably a better bike right off the line. I have a little more power on the 7 now, but I think that both bikes were equal in power , until I did the head, and the 4 degree key. I think I just lost a little love for the 7, because I was having to work on it lately. It never did have anything majorly wrong with it, but I drove the bike for a year, and never had the tank off, and then I had to replace the throttle cable, so I did the head, while I waited for the cable, and was tickled that I finally got around to doing it. I rode the bike a few times, and it started acting up, and off comes the tank again. It was probably the coil not being grounded properly, but I don't know if it was that, or some water in the gas, or just a wire connector. Either way I got that took care of, but thought that I would order a new coil, and CDI, and as soon as I tried the bike with the new CDI, it acted like it wasn't wanting to turn over very good with the electric start, almost like the timing was too high, so I put my old CDI back on, and it acted the same. I was able to kick start it, and it ran already, so I went for a ride, and noticed that my gas gauge was moving like a tach, and come to find out it was because of the way I rerouted my inductive tachometer wire to be neater when I had the tank off, so off comes the tank again. I don't really think the CDI was behind the cranking issue. I think it was just a coincidence that the battery died . I ordered a new battery, and it seems alright, and looking back on it, I do seem to remember the TBR7 starter would kinda almost stop briefly, and then start cranking for some time now. Everything that I have done to the Hawk has been on the cheap, and it benefited from everything I have did. I wasn't very pleased with the sound after de cating it, but I drilling four 7/16" holes in the" inner plate" of the muffler , and I got what I think is a good sound, and the deceleration kackle. I did spring for an adjustable shock for it, and it was well worth it. I think that I have it set up pretty good too, because I can make good time on back roads. . I went for a long ride on a variety of roads today on the Hawk, and even though I got kinda lost , and ended way farther away than I intended, I wasn't at all worried, because I had plenty of gas, and confidence in the bike. I may have taken the TBR7, but it didn't have as much gas, and I didn't want to go into town. I need to ride it the next time, and then I will probably start realizing that it's just as good, which I know it is. It does have around 4,500 on the odometer now, and the Hawk about half that much, or a little more, not only because I've had it longer, but I think I liked it better at first, but the Hawk has really grown on me.

Keep up with maintenance and a Hawk will last a very very long time. I didn't baby my first Hawk and I hammered out 4400 miles in about 6 months mostly running on the highways and using it to commute to work. If it wouldn't have gotten stolen I probably would have over 40k miles on it by this point. Most of my issues were wiring/electrical related. Mechanical stuff is flawless as long as you keep up with the lubrication and checking the hardware from time to time.

I do dan. I check the tightness of bolts and change the oil every month no matter the mileage and i put grease on every electrical connection i could find.

also, when I say I baby her, I mean I dont wind her out unnecessarily and I rarely take her off road. that being said, i live in WV so you can imagine the roads she deals with just going to the grocery store. potholes inside of potholes.

Boss. I have exactly that same seat cover on both my Bashan and my KLR.

i am amazed how much better the bike runs with the nibbi carb. started right up and idles even without choke (which is good cause it aint got much of one from what I can tell). Also the low end acceleration is better, paired with that nibbi filter I felt slight increase on power. like I said, nothing to write home about but definately worth the small expense. at this point, i am ready to head out to alaska to convert the hawk into a hybrid/snowmachine and stock up on bug spray. I am sick of this heat! im a sweaty mess. Take care fellas. Im not even gonna grammar chek this one.

edit. I was mistaken. choke is fine. nevermind.

this bike is sexy!
 

gas mileage
 

finally did a definitive mileage check. with new carb, 44 tooth rear and 17 tooth front and the air filter I got 83 MILES PER GALLON (yes i corrected for units vs miles) . BUT a good 30 miles of that was on backroads puttering around 4000-4500 rpms at most. I am going to do another check today and see if I was mistaken.

I just put on my 16t front to go with my 47t rear sprocket. It just doesn't have the low end I need in 5th gear with the 17t front. 4th gear is great and would get me up above 50mph, but as soon as a shift to 5th she just gives up. Of course this is going into the wind a bit, but we're only talking like 10mph to 15mph winds. Will report back soon on how she does. The next thing I need to look at is the carb. She's lean, but not too bad. I will pull the plug at 1000 miles and get a pic posted.

part of the fun is learning and tinkering.

speedometer needle broken
 

Well, after banging and banging, my speedo needle finally broke. I am hoping the digital cluster doesn't sell out before my payday. They had 9 left yesterday and I have two weeks to wait. I am sweating it.

My needle is bouncing around. Is there no fix for it? It just dies and you have to get new cluster?

did another mileage check. went 215 "units" on 2.1 gallons of gas which after my calculations = about 78 mpg from that tank. Not bad.

mine danced and danced until the needle broke off. it was banging pretty hard.

Yeah, there is a reason most of us upgraded to a digital cluster. The most impressive feat I have seen from a Hawk is a guy that has a perfectly functional stock speedo with 5000 miles on it.

Well, I've been sitting around worrying about my head gasket, even though I've got the new head gasket. Even though it doesn't appear to be leaking any worse than it did in the beginning, in the interest of reliability and the fact that the folks at powersportsmax.com hooked me up, I will install it. But in the short term, I'm about to jump on my motorcycle while it is wonderfully cool out, and the leaves are changing. I'm going to some covered bridges. Oh, and I will post the pictures here. Don't worry about me; I have full coverage, roadside assistance, and everything that a poor boy can have. So, I'm about to embark on this journey, and there's only one way I could have achieved this journey, and that's through the Hawk 250. Thanks!

is the leak impacting the oil level significantly and or causing smoke/burnoff...If not it can be 'lived with' for a while...

No harm in replacing the head gasket/oil feed o'ring as you don't have to replace the cylinder and piston.

Hopefully you already have a torque wrench for the head bolts...

Push rods make your task easier! No cam chain to deal with. Just keep it all clean, rods back in the same place and orientation. Maybe you can leave them in place during the gasket change. This is a remove and replace job. Don't sweat it.

I bought a torque wrench and learned how to use it. I rode two hours today with no issues, but like I said I have to remove the tank to do the speedometer so I might as well do it all at the same time. Anyway, I rode out to two covered bridges (I don't really like them that much but they are a great excuse to get rural). here are a few pictures.

also found a little lake.

I posted a picture of it when I first discovered it. Since then I've washed the oil off, but it's still leaking. It's a super slow leak so far, but it's going to knag at me until I fix it.

I just had to ride today, the weather was good for it and the trees are changing and my brain was being calm. So had to do it.

Ok i just looked at the leak photo...its on the pushrod drain back side not the pressurized oil feed side...

which means the valves and rockers are still getting oil.

Though the leak is somewhat significant so you're on right path to repair...

Remember to backoff the valve adjustment screws prior to removing the 3 valve rocker assembly bolts..

As far as torque setting somewhere around 25ft pounds and under 30ft pounds...I say this as my particular torque wrench is a bit vague at the lower adjustment settings.

I go around krisskross/star pattern with 20ft pounds then adjust up to the 25ft* and do another round of tightening.

Also don't forget the washers...

4 inner head stud bolts and the 5th outer bolt witch locks into the cam follower shaft.

thanks guys. I will review all of this right before tearing into it. I think I got this. its fun. i mean, say what you want..its fun to wrench on these bikes.

What a cool place for a "safety meeting". ;-)

Yes.. and Yes i did. and remember "safety is #1 priority"

Not sure if there is an interest. The current state of the hawk is this. running. occasional oil smell. almost 6000 units boys! really the only issues I've had with the bike are issues I created myself by being a newb and trying to fix stuff that wasn't broken.

Thats part of the fun. let the madness go on.

Current state of the Hawk
 

Took her out to Turkey Run Dam and took some pictures, made a video and did a perimeter search for evidence of Bigfoot. :)

Took her out to Turkey Run Dam and took some pictures, made a video and did a perimeter search for evidence of Bigfoot. :)