SpeedRacerOnline

- Oh, I agree. My very point is that we are "playing the odds" every time we ride. It's not actually us vs them, but since they have a cage and we don't, it's our responsibility to ride like it IS us vs them. We hope they're as human as us and care enough to pay attention so they don't kill anyone else. However, we have to assume they won't because one slip up is no big deal for them, but it's death for us. - I'm not "petty finger pointing". I want the same thing the parents said they want; for riders who don't think this way to take this as a wake up call and be more careful. We're always "playing the odds", but if we're smart enough to leave ourselves an "out" in every situation we can, that seriously increases the odds of our survival. This rider's mistake was not leaving himself any escape from this, which sealed his death. Learn from it; leave yourself an out, and when you end up in this situation, you may not completely avoid a crash, but at least you can live through it.

- I watched it several times, too, and I respectfully disagree. The car couldn't have been doing more than 20-25 mph around that corner, if that much. That soft-suspension commuter would have been seriously body-rolling and likely tire-squealing if it were. - Besides, that's kind of a useless point. It's not about whether he could have survived the impact if he were going slower. It surely would be more likely, but still not a guarantee. The point is that if he were travelling even a respectable speed, let alone the limit, he probably could have avoided it altogether. - Like I said, it's the car driver's fault he was where he shouldn't be to cause the collision, but it's the rider's foolishness that cost him his life. - The point is: always ride assuming everyone else is trying to kill you. If you roll the dice that other drivers care more about you than being late for work, it's your own game of Russian Roulette. They may have loaded the gun, but you put it to your own head & pulled the trigger.

Collision: caused by car driver Death: caused by biker's foolishness

- We discussed this on another forum, too. My personal opinion is the death (as far as human judgement can tell) is 100% the rider's fault. The crash was at least 70% the rider's fault. - As has already been pointed out, if he hadn't been driving at an unsafe speed, it's very likely he would still be alive today. The speed limit is there because experts have determined that is the max speed the average driver can do and still have time to react to a possible but unexpected circumstance on that stretch of road. I like to go fast, too, but if I see a car waiting to turn my direction, I always at least roll off the throttle and prepare for the worst knowing it could happen. On top of that, there was just too much traffic on that little road for that speed to ever be safe, anyway. It was just complete foolishness on his part. He didn't DESERVE to die because of it, but he did cause it. - The accident was caused by the car stealing the right of way, of course. Plus, the driver admitted he didn't see him or the next car, so obviously he was likely to cause an accident. However, bikes can be hard to see sometimes, anyway. Having one headlight also makes it much harder to judge distance (think about how a car's headlights appear to spread farther apart as it gets closer). If that bike is in front of a car that has its headlights on, it can be even easier to mistake his one headlight as the car's second. How much harder is it to spot that bike when it's travelling nearly twice as fast as you're expecting? - Of course, the driver deserved the punishment since he admitted not seeing either; inexcusable to not at least see the car, let alone the bike. However, even if the driver had been paying attention, he still might not have seen the bike in time because of his speed. The driver caused the accident, but the rider created the possibility for it.

Yeah, I dunno what the shipping is like. I know the UK guys on the other forums have talked about it, but I don't know if any of them has actually ordered one yet. Bummer! Well, there's always the Pine Sol soak method.

Have you checked for spark? That seems the most basic, especially if the plugs are wet. Must have: fuel, air, & spark. You're getting fuel, I assume you have air since you rode it the day before (unless a mouse nested in your airbox over night...it's happened), you need to verify you have spark. Pull a plug, connect it to the wire, lay it on the side of the engine where it's touching for ground and you can see the electrode, hit the start button, and watch to see if it sparks. If it doesn't, check wiring, coils, & ignition box.

I don't mean to jack this thread to send you to another forum, but you can find all that info on XJRider.com. there are several other shocks that swap in, and a few that will raise the rear. Plus, there's several projects where people have rebuilt the rear subframe to make it more street-fighter height.

If you want to clean the carbs the easy way, get an ultrasonic cleaner from Harbor Freight. They just had it on sale plus a 20% coupon and you can get it for about $64. A couple guys on the XJRider forums have used it, and it works wonders. You have to detach the carbs as only 1 fits in at a time, but no real disassembly is required. Plus, it works great for cleaning lots of other things, too. Gonna get one myself here pretty soon.

You can do what you wanted with the oil, though. In the US, the 92-98 Diversion was known as the Seca II. It came with a different carb bank that did NOT run the oil through the carbs. Pretty much everyone else (including Canada) had that option, but not the US. It's meant to help the carbs warm up faster. You can just block it off. It'll make for longer warm-ups on cold mornings, but that doesn't sound like an issue for you. Here in the US, we commonly change the pilot jets to richen it a bit so it doesn't take 10 minutes to warm up because they're so lean from the factory. On the other side of the world, the Diversion came from the factory with an oil cooler installed starting in '96, I believe. There were no considerable changes made to the bike or engine design through the bikes whole life, though, so if you find one used somewhere, you can put it on any XJ600 Diversion/Seca II. It uses an adapter plate installed behind the oil filter to attach 2 hoses that run straight up the frame to a small radiator installed on the front of the frame behind the forks just below the tree. Check out XJRider.com, and you might find someone selling one there, or at least more info as I'm sure I remember someone saying they did it before.