From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 22:17:41 MDT
> Michael M. Butler replied:
>>And they haven't seen us all on *MOTORCYCLES*!
Since you may hear this story eventually thru some
other channel, I will spill it here first.
Seventeen years ago I bought a Suzuki Cavalcade, a
full up touring bike which you never heard of, for
reasons you will soon learn if you keep reading.
This site shows some photos. Mine is on the top right.
http://www.shermanpool.com/Cade/which%20cade/whichcade.html
This model never did sell much. Only about 9000 of
them were ever built, about 7000 of which ended up
in the states. Suzuki Motor Company discontinued
this series after only 3 years, at a huge loss.
I really like mine, and would consider it the
favorite of the 4 bikes I currently own.
About two years ago, I noticed a strange noise coming
from just behind the engine. I struggled to ignore
it, but it wouldn't quit, so I pulled the back end off.
Nothing appeared to be wrong with it, so I took off the
secondary gear case and discovered that it had no oil.
The secondary gear case on this bike is unusual in that
it has its own lubrication, as opposed to others that
are lubricated by engine oil.
I then discovered that there was a rubber coated metal
oil plug that had evidently fallen out of its seat, into
the secondary gear case. I replaced the plug, and noticed
it was not a good tight fit, so I gooped on a bunch of
Loctite and glued the thing in place and put it all back
together. On a shakedown run the next day, it occurred
to me that had I kept riding the bike much longer, the
drive shaft bearing would have failed for lack of
lubrication.
About a year went by with this piece of info rattling
around in my brain. I discovered a web based owners
group for this bike. I read a few posts and noticed
occasionally someone would mention the same kind of
failure I experience on my bike. I started posting
there and soon people started thinking of me as one
of the leaders. Im always cutting up on that list,
worse than I do on extropians.
December 2001, I suggested riders send me their vehicle
identification numbers (VIN) and a list of mechanical
problems they had experienced with their bikes.
Eventually nearly 300 riders did so. I put the
information into a spreadsheet, then cross correlated
the dates of manufacture to the VIN. Then I sorted by
date of manufacture and found that there is a definite
cluster of these types of failures early in the series.
Furthermore, there were a *lot* of this kind of
failure, 35 that we know of. This oil plug turned out
to be the most failure prone part on the bike.
Upon further investigation, I learned that my speculations
were correct: that if the bevel plug fails and one does
not fix the problem, the shaft bearing can indeed fail.
What I learned next was quite unsettling. If that
shaft bearing fails, it does so catastrophically: the
rear wheel suddenly locks.
For those who do not ride, I will explain that if a
rear wheel suddenly locks, the result is most likely
a crash. Unless it happens on a straight level road,
there is almost no chance of saving it. I commed
offlist with a rider who had experienced a rear wheel
lockup on a cavalcade, but he managed to slow down
a lot before he fell off.
Many emails later, I and several of the other owners
agreed to meet in some central location to discuss
strategies. My main goal was to warn other owners
of this bike that there was a significant risk
associated with this secondary gearbox failure.
Fifty of us met in Branson Missouri last month, which
is why the extrolist was regaled with stories of
finding a second cousin in a brain-drained little
town out in the Ozarks, and throwed rolls, etc.
At that meeting, I presented a lecture on the problem.
There were various strategies suggested. I found
myself urging more radical measures to find and
warn owners, such as contacting the NHTSA or all the
state DMVs to try to track all the registered owners.
Some of those present urged we not get to enthusiastic
about this, for the insurance companies might hear and
react by Naderizing the bike: declaring it unsafe at
any speed, and refusing to write policies, effectively
banning the bike from the roads.
We debated, ended up drafting a letter which was in
the polishing stages on 14 October, a week ago Monday
night, when I got an email from an investigator from
Britain. A 23 year old girl had been riding on the
back of a Cavalcade when the rear wheel suddenly locked.
She died in the resulting crash.
Now, of course I was disheartened. He asked what I
knew, and I gave him everything. I held nothing back.
That exchange took place a week ago this evening. I
expect this whole thing to break loose any time now.
I don't know what is going to happen. Im sitting here
on this database that clearly shows there are riders
all over this country and many in Europe and Australia
that are astride a rolling time bomb.
This is why I haven't been posting as much to
Extropians the last couple months.
Suggestions welcome.
spike
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