Dying is something that I have to do, but I try to keep it on the bottom of my To Do list

With my "V8" radiant heater, I can work in relative comfort, little risk of dying and I don't have to pay for the energy.  (me=cheap).  I have to use the car anyway, and, since 1/2 of the gas I use in the car goes to excess heat, I feel obligated to use that heat to my advantage.

So, rather than buy a heater and pay to run it, I can schedule my work around my cage bound errands. It takes a little planning ahead, but it's worth it to just to stick it to the energy bandits!

This idea so far works with an outside temp above 26F. Today I have an errand to run. I'm going to pick up a cheap thermometer while I'm out and take some measurments.

It'll be about 22F tommorow - I'll run a "test" errand to warm the car up and measure the insde garage temp. - look for my post.

I (heart) science!

1st2know wrote on 12/31/07 at 08:30:21:

Interesting thoughts...

An aluminum plug might be doable with an o-ring...I think that someone else mentioned doing that sometime too.  Of course, then you have to deal with the effects of heat on the o-ring as well.  It's worth a shot if you have the resources.  I've often wondered about using some kind of expansion plug too.

I have a couple observations concerning the head plug/cap (which may be mentioned in the Tech section)...

- it seams that Suzuki doesn't mention using sealer on the plug/cap in the manuals, and so that when dealers are doing an initial service they don't use any either.  Along with that, I suspect that their mechanics while trying to do "timeclock" repairs, may not replace the plug or properly clean the sealing surfaces upon reassembly.  The plug may not even get seated well...this was the case after my spouse's first (and last) dealer service...

- when I do them I've had great success by doing a little better preparation and RTV sealer.  First, I thoroughly clean the hole and use a medium grit paper to rough up the inside surface.  Then using a thin film of the sealer on the plug (which has a shallow groove around it too), I reinstall the plug and wipe off any excess that squeezes out.  The roughened surface seems to allow the RTV to adhere better...

- The sealer may also compensate for an misshaped areas of the plug, but in the long run it is probably better to just buy a new one.

Project leaky head plug is done.'87 back up and running. (finally)

Oh yeah.Hurried up and put it back in the garage.

The '86 is leaking enough to make it wet,so I'm not screwing with it yet.Need to recover from the '87 nightmare.

My bike is re-assembled - I took it for a test "idle" - I let it warm up for about 1/2 hour. No more plug leak, but, drat, now it's leaking worse near the spark plug cave. I suspect this is a "noob can't seal a headcover" issue and will take the head cover off, clean, re-seal, re-assemble. Practice makes perfect.  CRAP!

Good news! I also had a petc0ckish issue - looks to be the vacuum hose. The orginal vacuum hose and springy thing appeared to have gotten repeatedly smashed by the throttle on the carb! Turns out I have more throttle than I orginally thought. The throttle would bash the vac hose, and then smash the springy thingy, and that caused the vac hose to intermetently colapse.  

I've replaced the vac hose with a rubber fuel line. This allows me to route it in a way that does not cause smashing. My only concern now is that the hot, finned alluminum head may not like it's new neighbor and singe him. I added a vac cap to my tool kit just in case I have to bypass the vac hose. With the new route, the top end of the throttle feels correct, where as before it fetl that is was being constrained by a, um, um, a springy thing.

Is there something I can pour in my gas tank that removes, reseals, re-installs  and torques my headcover?

So, today it was 18f outside, 27f inside my garage. Using my "V8 Radiant Heater" (the warmed  engine block on my '98 Caddy), I was able to push the temp up to 35f in my work area. This is barely comfortable: Yes I could work, but grabbing cold wrenches sucked  the heat right from my hands. (Quick, someone go out and invent me a heated tool chest .

So, I would call the V8 Radiant Heater an "interesting experiment", but not a practical success. I could use this method to augment an electric space heater (along with the heated tool chest).

The thing that realy keeps me warm is SuzukiSavage.com and Greg's Photo CD. Ya see, if I can sit on my warm sofa with my toasty laptop on my lap, I can view the photos of the job, or read posts from other experts & noobs in comfort prior to heading out to the bitter cold garage. I was able to do a lot of the planning work inside - "Look Before You Leap" is much more meaningfull when I have to leap in to frigid  garage. And it's much easier to scratch my head with no hat & gloves on

1st2know wrote on 01/01/08 at 17:49:06:

Removing the headcover twice isn't as uncommon as you might think.  I've done it twice.  Once for a forgotten bolt and once for a broken bolt.  Maybe that was my inspiration for the CD (and a fascination with photography), but I'm glad that the CD helps with your "Look before you leap" planning...(and having a laptop works even better than a desktop too.)

Good luck on the next session.  Whenever you can thaw out your toolbox, that is