The spark plug getting wet has nothing to do with the quantity of the oil in the engine unless the piston rings are fine. If the piston rings are fried, no matter how much oil the bike has, its gonna turn the spark plug black n wet due to the burning of the oil in the combustion chamber.

Filling excess oil in the engine will put excessive pressure on the oils seals n hence u will start seeing oil leaks as a result of damaged oil seals.

I had suzuki fiero for almost 10 yrs n clocked abt 1.5 lac kms on it. I remember to have never filled 1100 ml oil in it. 1100 ml is required only if the bike is overhauled otherwise there is enough oil left in the engine even after draining to make up for the remaining quantity. If the oil level in the bike drops during running, it would be advisable to top up the oil level between the regular oil change periods.

you are right about the old fiero's oil capacity my friend, but the fiero f2 HAS a 1100 ml oil tank dedicated, its even written on the oil tank, i'll click a snap and post if you don't believe me.

basically if your bike is not eating up oil than even a 900 ml can could give you satisfactory results.

in my case when i overfilled to say 1400 ml (900 ml power1 and again a 500 ml by mistakenly filled as i was just trying to bridge the gap till 1100), my bike had a lot of problems to start and when i removed the spark plug it did show oil on it at a dripping level, since you have 3 times more riding experience on a fiero i guess my piston rings were damaged then, but the oil was not black and it happened at 20 or so kms after the oil fill....

@ savajit
RHS's first thread line?
where are you counting from, the end or the centre??
if from the center then your right its due to imbalance of the forks, but if its from the end, its not the case.
the Tyre takes a lot more beating than 300-400 kms to lose out threads, specially the stock ones it must be due to earlier problem say 2-3k kms before...

coming to oil
you said there's NO discoloration ?
it should turn dark atleast by 500 to 800 kms,
which oil are you using??
the good part is that its still 3/4th of the stick.

clutch plates don't seem to be a reason,
i think your tappets need some tightening, after all this if you're getting it opened up for seals than do this think also.
that grinding sound does indicate that your piston might scratching the cylinder, i think you should check which oil you're using, after all wait for a few more hundred kms, opening it up once will solve all yor doubts

it pulls great till 70 coz your maximum torque comes at that speed mostly (at 4th gear)
and again pulls greatly till hundred coz of maximum bhp taking over....

also your bike is showing dual behavior when HOT
i really think you need to go for a better OIL.
which one are you using...?

the indication of a good oil is that it should turn dark at 500 or so kms ....

Its from the center dude. And yeah, I have seen this earlier too, but more visible now.

It turned dark buddy, I just said it doesn't feel coarse yet. And yeah, its on 1/2 of the dipstick level.

Its not pulling well these days. And touching 100 has become a Herculean task!
I guess the Geo Cruiser rear tyre is responsible for the loss in top end. If I knew it was available in 90/90/18", I would have gone for it then itself. But no use crying over something done 4 years back.
I think I will replace both when the bike touches 60K or something. At that time I will mostly revert to stock size.

I am using TVS Tru4 mineral oil. It has turned dark as I said earlier. I felt the bike was running much cooler when I used Petronas full synth oil once, but you know that has finally blown my gasket&oil seal.

Yes, last time I asked the mech about tappets, he said they are very rarely adjusted. He adjusted the cam chain, but that is also making some noise now. Those can be done in a jiffy, I'm not bothered about that.
But off late this slight grinding feel has been bugging me. It cannot be heard, but it can be felt by me when riding.
I guess I will ask him to open the head, replace the oil seal&gasket, and also check the condition of the piston rings and valves. If needed, I can get those replaced too.
I guess you are right, 50K kms.is a good time to open up&check the health of the engine!
Please let me know what all work was carried out on your bike, when&in detail so that I can prepare myself. The mech.is a good guy&will do as I say. Knowledge wise also fine enough.

@chief ashman: Please provide your inputs too!

go for elf moto 4 pro gold.
its quite cheap too (220 bucks)
and you get a 5 rupee coin in the bottle (minimum gift)
which makes it 215 bucks, and its an amazing oil for fiero f2.
of-course after you open it up,

the good part of your bike is that even after say 2000 kms your oil has reached half of the dipstick.
in my case i had to fill oil up to 400 or so ml every 700-800 kms to even touch the dipstick..
my bike used to pee oil whenever parked at side stand..

i didn't bother to open the engine just for oil seals, because i had got it done from a local mechanic (the magnet cover oil seal which seemed faulty coz it used to leak only when the bike was at side stand) but it didn't make even an inch of a difference.
my bike was say 49000 kms old then.

all i did then was fill her up as soon as possible to keep it lubricated no matter how much oil it leaked..
i always made sure that its not getting dry.

once i was riding at highway around 80 (it was 50000kms then)

and enjoying the cool breeze and zooping through cars.. suddenly i felt an engine break, quite hard.
it was no gear swap of misfiring,
i pulled over to the extreme left and as soon as i stopped the bike turned off..
i kicked 3-4 times and it didn't turn on...

i thought the engine must have overheated, waited for two minutes and then kicked again it started, but from that time onwards it made some grinding noise (the one like yours)
it use to grind sometimes, sometimes not but i kept riding it slow to prevent further damage and looking for answers here and there but was getting unsatisfactory results.

i did have an idea that its the piston that's grinding the cylinder, and was trying to source some cheaper parts as svc guys had a huge amount quoted for my damage.

my bike used to perform quite well if you ignore the noise.
but i got no cheaper option, and this mistake of delaying in the hunt for cheaper solution cost me a BOMB...

the sound kept on increasing, the oil kept on leaking and for me it was enough.
i headed to tvs and they said nothing is much wrong and giving some stupid reasons for sound (maybe they wanted me to give the bike to them as i returned home earlier listening to the cost.. )
and yes in my previous visit to tvs i didn't show the problem to them, all i asked was the cost of piston/ rings and bla bla.

my dad asked me to buy a karizma zmr instead of spending soo much on this bike which drinks oil more than petrol..
but you know how faithful fiero is right??
i wish even girls were as good as fiero

i was unsatisfied as i knew my problem was not that small as said by the tvs guys but i left my bike there and asked them to do what they like...
the said they'll return it by 4 days and i went there on the fourth day..

my bike was opened at a corner, and there was dust on it, making me feel that these monkeys haven't touched it from the day i left...
i asked the manager as when am i getting it back, he said tomorrow or day after...
that was it, i yelled, shouted, created a scene over there.
i even went to the owner's office and complained regarding the stupid response.

i asked them to do it then and there in front of my own eyes no matter if it takes days to finish.
i even threatened him that i have reach to online biking community and i can kill his business down
then they did it in front of my eyes, normally they close down at 7 but in my case i kept the workshop open till 9 and 2 mechs were working on my bike..

i inspected every part and the damage was as follows.
my piston was scratched from one side and so was cylinder.
the rings seemed to be okay, there was a lot of carbon deposited on the top of the piston, as hard as stone and thus increasing its length to say a centimeter more ...
this piston hit head, my timing chain and even camshafts were damaged
the tappets also took a beating due to this imbalance below, my camshaft was damage to such a level that it didn't even rotate half of the cycle, thus all it was doing was slipping and thus making terrible noise...
due to this tappets deformed its shape from below...

i had to get boring done and that guy said that its too late to get it done from outside, but i was sitting on his head and made him go out do it and return,
i was keep on taking the bike home tonight no matter what it took..

finally everything was in place,
new tappets
new piston (+1)
new piston rings
new camshaft
new timing chain assembly
both the cylinders boared
all the gaskets (big and small) replaced, even if the stock one's were okay...
new oil, i took a can with me of elf when i came there in the morning..
new oil filter of course
and put together everything...

air filter cleaning, cables lubricated, chain tightened and lubricated, air pressure in Tyres and so on.

it costed me arr 5.5k (still cheaper than i expected)
this was excluding the oil.. and other small stuff.

after everything was done i went for a 3 km test ride (they would be cursing me to take soo long even after knowing that its already too late)
i came back and again got minor adjustments done like clutch, carb tuning, throttle cable, tightening the springs of stands and soo on,
i got my bike washed there and came back home at 10 in the night..

the good thing was the mech was patient enough to do everything in a systematic way no matter how late it was, he never hurried to finish it off, so i tipped him 100 bucks
taking it as an investment though...

and i was told to keep a run in till 500 kms, but i planned to keep it till 1000 and so far I've completed 763 kms...
its a pain to not ride above 40 even on the highways..

so far this is the story,
sorry for keeping it so long but that's all the details....
hope this helps to teach that a stitch in time saves nine...



dude i don't think the bigger tyre makes Very Much difference.
it does but not too much.
i myself am using a dunlop monster 90/100 18" from a long time and i can easily hover the speedo needle till 105 or so,
at slopes it touched 120 on the speedo too.
i do make sure to keep the air pressure atleast a bit more than recommended, i like it that way..

yes other fiero owners should also put there inputs, this thread looks too one sided now isn't it??
and c'mon its only 30 pages long look at other bike's ownership experiences, fiero atleast deserves 100 pages...

Hmm, I understand now-better safe than sorry!
I will get it opened up asap&update you.
Wish you were here, you would easily be able to make out, since you saw your bike's open heart surgery yourself. You should have taken some pics also, it would have been very useful.
Now tell me one thing, what kind of work is done on the bore by outside lathe mechanics?
What is the difference between getting re-boring done, as opposed to getting a new bore kit?

the bore kit includes cylinder and piston with rings (everything over sized)
while getting re-bore done means boring your cylinder (minor over-sizing) and then fitting a +1 sized piston.
since you have ridden your bike for 50k kms, your cylinder naturally widens from all sides.
so all you have to do is, even it out to make a perfect circle and fit a corresponding piston.

if the bike is new and not run much then the entire bore kit is a better option.


i think doing the re-bore is an economical option,
i carefully looked at the cylinder when it was removed and i could see scratches on one side.
roughly 1 mm of deformation, so these people bore it in order to equalize all deformations, which are very very minor to be noticed just with eye..

and i was supposed to take my bike back that afternoon, so if i knew i would witness this operation, of course i would have taken my cam...

c'mon dude, nothing's complicated, you'll enjoy it,
remember inspect every part by holding it in your hand, these things look okay buy carefully inspecting it will make you understand better...
deformations are very minor, but make a lot of difference.
and yes these things have sharp edges too, i cut my hand too a bit holding the camshaft.. so be careful

i don't think your bike would have all these problems, maybe piston and rings itself will do...
hope for the best and good luck...

by the way
the extra air pipe from the fuel tank is meant for leaking of water which gets settled from the openings of the fuel tank cap.
by carefully observing it from a torch, you will notice a gutter that leads water into a hole.
that hole has and extension connecting the pipe..
when you pour water over your fuel tank cap (closed of course) you will see water coming out of that pipe...
i had to get those gutters cleaned when water entered my fuel tank in this flooding mumbai rain...
hence i know its importance....

@NANOtech...
Bro, how many gaskets do we require when the engine is opened up. Total number of gaskets and what may the cost be? will the gaskets of F2 fit my Suzuki Fiero?

yes i think every gasket of f2 might fit classic fiero too.
i don't exactly remember the cost but its not much expensive
might be around 50 to 80 bucks each

not much let me remember
total i think there are 3-4 gaskets excluding the gearbox ones and 2 rubber sealing for those huge bolts on top..

those rubber things cost 5 bucks each.

those gaskets are cheap buddy, but opening the whole thing in a neat and proper manner (for placing gaskets) without using a hammer to bang nuts and bolts which are jammed is a more expensive task.

if not done right, the cost will reach sky....

in my opinion.
if its the cylinder fins that seem to be wet with oil so just leave it as it is for a while, no need to open up the entire thing.
just keep topping up
provided you understand your bike is just leaking oil not drinking it...

if its drinking so you know what to do..

and yes i forgot to mention,
PLEASE go for oem gaskets only,
if not available than go for good ones not those stupid card-board/paper ones..
the determination of a good gasket is that it SHOULD break if folded....
they are brittle and intact..
if you see soft bended ones that can be turned and twisted, forget about even putting it up...
the serve no purpose...

apply grease on both sides of gaskets before putting it up and before tightening the bolts completely, apply some silicon gel on the sides,
you will never have to worry about oil leak from your bike ever....

Battery draining

Guys need your help here.

I have a 5amp exide battery fitted in Feb 10. Recently the battery's -ve cell ONLY dried up & rest all had the acid in it. I topped the cell with battery water & it worked for a week. Today again the same issue,horns,indicators not working. What could be the problem?

NANOtech, thanks, really appreciate the info about the gaskets and stuff.

I am facing a little trouble since the past few days... the headlight of my classic Fiero 2001 is flickering... it sometimes dims, sometimes brightens and sometimes goes off all of a sudden... Well you know I have been out watching World Cup Football 2010 and have to return home quite late so this thing has been bugging me... I wonder what could be wrong ... it has never behaved this way before.

dude
is your battery getting charged??
grab a multimeter and check the voltage of the stator output.
revv the bike
at idle it should be around 4 volts at max somewhere around 14 volts....
from the time I've converted my bike to all DC every electrical performance has improved...


check your battery..
it might need a replacement.
meanwhile just connect a multimeter to battery, if it shows below 10 volts, then fill up the electrolyte and charge it..
still if not successful then change.

Thanks mike. Will get it checked today.
Also where & how did you get your bikes electricals converted to DC. I have been hunting from years for a trusted mechanic who can do this. Can you help me out this.

Vishal

dude even i waited for mechs but no one helped
I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF
not very difficult.

yes i can help you out, but you need to find a place where your bike can be opened up..
grab an ape rr, and your done....
rest of the things need effort and place...

[QUOTE=NANOtechnology

check your battery..
it might need a replacement.
meanwhile just connect a multimeter to battery, if it shows below 10 volts, then fill up the electrolyte and charge it..
still if not successful then change.[/QUOTE]

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks NANOtech...

I will do that tonight.... Now suppose I need to change the battery, which battery is the best in the market? the make and model number if it is there.... for Classic Fiero without self-start.

Thanks for your valuable opinions pal... Really appreciate it!
Still I haven't made up my mind.. but the Fiero is definitely there in my mind....