X-Pect Backroad Development

[thedakotakid]

Originally Posted by China Rider 27

Trivia: What inexpensive Chinese motorcycle comes from the factory tapped with a swing arm ZERT? If you know the answer post it up!

My Shineray has a zerk on the swingarm... too bad the threads are boogered up and it never stays tight or accepts grease

[China Rider 27]

Originally Posted by thedakotakid

My Shineray has a zerk on the swingarm... too bad the threads are boogered up and it never stays tight or accepts grease

Ah a winner! But there appears to be more than one China Bike factory tapped for a zerk! The mystery continues. As far as your grease zerk goes maybe you can chase the threads or tap it to the next larger size and then there is always JB Weld.

[China Rider 27]

The valves were tight as it came from the factory, I could not get a .05 mm feeler gauge under the intake or the exhaust and could feel little movement in the train. After some attempts pushing down on the rocker, I managed to force it under the exhaust. The engine timing as it came from the factory was later determined to have been just past the compression stroke TDC. A good thing for a boat ride as the valves were closed during the trip.







A pix showing some black residue on upper head.



The manual specifies clearance as 0.03 mm for the intake and 0.05 mm for the exhaust valve. That is a very tight spec and later it was apparently revised by Lifan to .06 mm intake and exhaust per a post reference below. The team does not see the need to run tight specs on a CG motor. By comparison, I have the HAWK set to intake .07 mm and exhaust .08 mm and I notice no excessive valve train noise.

http://www.chinariders.net/showpost....38&postcount=1

Breaking in a new motor I like the valve specs on the loose side. I set both intake and exhaust to .07 mm with a slight drag and an .08 mm feeler gauge will likely also clear. They are quite a pain at times to set, and I always have to do it multiple times. Every time I rotated the motor on this one to check it the lash would tighten up. This new valve train really needs to break in to do better adjustment. A salute to start up, I dribbled some Rotella 10-40W over the moving parts.



Spark Plug genuine NGK DR8EA, no wonder Boatguy has been on a roll!





I have said this before, but for real, this is the beginning of it going back together.

[TominMO]

What brand are those feeler gauges? Looks like Chinese characters on them in the pics. Harbor Freight?

[China Rider 27]

I think got them from a guy used to live in China NZBrakelathes. He used to sell stuff over Ebay.

[Howling@themoon]

This is great hopefully a sooner than later china rider here I just want to know what it would take to raise the seat height to match the hawks. Im new here and I would also like to figure out how to post pics... I talked to a couple of overseas suppliers and had some pictures I hadn't seen of a couple styles after relaying to them that I was looking forward to "2022 lineups" lol

[disorderly1]

Thanks for posting all this info China Rider. This thread helped me make a decsion to buy the Lifan X-pect.

[China Rider 27]

Thought I should post some pictures of rebuilding improvements since mostly what I have done is take things apart. Last week I put the rear end back together, today I put on the new X ring chain. It listed as 134 links and when I counted it came to 133 so they must include the master link. I wanted it as long as possible should I want to add a bigger sprocket front or rear someday. I took four links out to make it 129 links plus the master equals 130 and it adjusts to the back of the swing arm.

It is covered in grease, good for break in, and maybe for a street machine but a dirt magnet on the back road. I took the front sprocket off in keeping with my need to verify that all is well with a critical component, I inspected it and put it back together with Loctite 243 and about 10 nm torque. Peace of mind can sometimes come with a small effort. The rear sprocket has tabs bent to secure the nuts and that as is I will trust.



The CR27 team likes “heavy duty” and in chains that would be 520 in this class of power. I did a quick look to see if there may be something out there for this bike and a limited search revealed not a clue. The sprockets on this bike are from what I could gather patterned off 125 and 150 cc bikes which is a category most likely not scaled up for a 520. The 428 will do a fine job but take a look at this comparison and you will see why a 520 is “heavy duty”. Goes left to right, 520 O ring, 428 O ring, 428 X Ring, and 428 X Ring.

[China Rider 27]

As the CR27 Team was re-assembling the bike, it seemed like somebody was missing from the team and, oh yaa, that would be you guys, those following this thread! I mean you have been here from the beginning of this bike rebuild, you saw the tear down, so it did not seem right not to show you at least part of the rebuild and it is relevant to Backroad Development. The team got the front end back together and setup to good standards. I lubed the throttle and clutch cables per recommended lubricant on the HAWKS Resource thread, took apart the levers and lubricated with grease the center pins and contact points, and adjusted the throttle and clutch.

A strong electrical system is pretty important on this EFI bike so I removed the negative grounding cable and bolt from the engine and put anti seize (with copper for conduction) on the threads, sanded the wiring connector engine mounting location to remove the paint, and put some dielectric grease under the cable wire connector, bolt head, and engine attachment point which should prevent any corrosion and make disassembly easier should it ever be necessary.



A picture of the left side seal where the lip meets the spacer. The team packed the space inside the seal and between the seal and bearing with waterproof grease. Greasing the lip and the spacer prior to assembly ensures that seal lip is lubricated for long life. One of the teams pet peeves, a dry seal! On the speedometer drive gear right side, the rotating parts of the drive were lubricated and again waterproof grease gobbed in the space around and against the bearing and drive gear. The axle is lightly coated with grease to prevent rust. Ready for more than a few stream crossings do believe.





The Team wanted to make sure the wiring contact issues at the headstock were resolved so we spent some money and time obtaining ½ inch and ¾ inch plastic wiring conduit and added it where the stock conduit ends with a good taping. We then used zip ties to construct a support system top to bottom and side to side to keep the wiring loom off the head light bracket. We also re-routed the clutch cable from outside the loom to an inside location and disconnected the front brake line to reposition it from over the loom to a place under the loom.



HEADS UP! If you take apart the front brake line, be prepared to replace the copper washers that seal the line. We took this one apart, re-routed it and then re-filled it with fresh synthetic DOT 3 brake fluid, got it working good then realized the washers leaked at the master cylinder. Copper washers are used because they compress and after I had tightened it a couple of times it would not compress and seal. Sometimes you can get away with taking it off and replacing it and it will reseal but Murphy’s law rules, what can go wrong will, and it did today, so be ready. I happen to have a pack I got off amazon I was using for another purpose so I drained it and put new washers on. The team has done so much work on these China Bikes the garage is like a parts warehouse!



TRIVIA: What is the obvious and new addition to the bike from the picture?

[david3921]

Fork boots?

[China Rider 27]

Some guys are quicker than others!

[China Rider 27]

Working steadily on the improvement, I went it alone this weekend as I gave the CR27 crew the weekend off. Last thing I said to them yesterday was “stay out of jail”, and last I heard was them chanting “CG strong, ride hard” as down the street they went. Good with motorcycles but they are as my dad used to say “bridge building crew rough.”


Today I went after the rust on that gas tank and decided to post in case someone wanted to see how I did not necessarily how you should do it. I was going to use some rust converter called “Extend” made by loctite that turns rust black and then you can paint over it. I reasoned I could get it to flow into those crevices maybe better but after some thought I decided to use naval jelly and it worked well. Took three times to get it to my liking. The extend might be a good idea if you are not going to take it apart.


I didn’t want to take the gas sending unit out, I thought, “I will just hit it with the extend,” but there really is no good way to do the job without doing so, and you have to really get a look at it all to see the nature of the damage, so I sucked it up and did what needed to be done. The mounting bolts are square headed and held by a bracket but they move around. One of them was rusted solid. The good thing was the sealing surface for the rubber gasket was not damaged. The rust looks to have taken up where there was no or little paint sprayed. You can see in the final product we are down to bare metal in places. There is also a patch of surface rust on the inside of the tank down at the bottom on one side but that is for another day and time. Tomorrow, primer goes on.

Nature of the problem




Wire brushed






Naval Jelly at work





Drying for paint




Tomorrow

[Megadan]

Originally Posted by China Rider 27

HEADS UP! If you take apart the front brake line, be prepared to replace the copper washers that seal the line. We took this one apart, re-routed it and then re-filled it with fresh synthetic DOT 3 brake fluid, got it working good then realized the washers leaked at the master cylinder. Copper washers are used because they compress and after I had tightened it a couple of times it would not compress and seal. Sometimes you can get away with taking it off and replacing it and it will reseal but Murphy’s law rules, what can go wrong will, and it did today, so be ready. I happen to have a pack I got off amazon I was using for another purpose so I drained it and put new washers on. The team has done so much work on these China Bikes the garage is like a parts warehouse!

Tips and tricks. If you want to really pinch pennies, or just get a bit more life out of those copper crush washers, grab your torch and heat them to where they just start to glow and then quench. Annealing complete, they are now soft and will seal again.

As a man who loves attention to detail, and as a fellow "take it apart and rebuild it better" enthusiast, I enjoyed this thread so far. I feel like I am back putting my Hawk together lol.

[China Rider 27]

There you go folks! A tip by a Master China Bike Builder! And creator of the Hawk 250 Resource Guide, the basic bible for working on a China bike for those of you who don’t know.! Ha Hah. Good to have a post from you on the thread! Chime in anytime! If I am doing something wrong, straighten me out! Ha Ha…… the CR27 crew stands in awe of your inspirational China bike work and they would sure like to take your HAWK for a spin around the block! If you know what I mean! CG strong, ride hard!

Your tip makes me think about how you go about rebuilding these China bikes and it costs money to buy the stuff to make it better, not always a lot but still it costs. You can fabricate and rig things and create stuff out of what you have but there is no getting around at times you need money. Part of the great value of a China Bike is they are inexpensive to buy and the parts and modifications are fairly inexpensive but not everybody has the money to buy things to rebuild the bikes or do upgrades so this always has to include how cheaply (inexpensively) you can get something done. Tips like above well illustrate the principle. Then it could be, you don’t have the time to wait for a slow boat from China and you just need to ride!

The other lesson is…if you cut corners, you roll the dice, 6 times out of 10 it will bite you!

[zero_dgz]

Re: Copper banjo fitting washers. It never hurts to lap them flat with some fine (1200-2000 grit) sandpaper on a piece of glass. They tend to accumulate wrinkles and grooves in them from the shapes of the mating surfaces and since you'll never accurately put them back in the same orientation every time this will cause them to leak when reused. I've done this many times and gotten away with reusing them for far more cycles than you probably should. I've never had to anneal one, but that's also an interesting idea.