From: Randy Smith (cryofan@mylinuxisp.com)
Date: Fri Oct 25 2002 - 21:09:44 MDT
My suggestion: stop riding bikes--they are dangerously unstable!
----- Original Message -----
From: "spike66" <spike66@attbi.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 5:17 AM
Subject: moto-extros
> > 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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