We interrupt the irregular schedule of updates on the old SportCam project to mark another ceremonious occasion. Since hitting the road in 2011 this Recreation Engineer feels fortunate. I enjoy a remarkable lifestyle in part thanks to my trusty sidestand steed, Half Pint. Despite an overlong hibernation in storage for several years, she's back.
"Let the good times roll."
--The Cars
Yep. Half Pint just rolled 40,000 miles. For a typical car or truck that's nothing these days. Barely broke on. However, for a 0.2L single cylinder engine, some multiplier should rightly be used for comparison to four wheeled vehicled. Think doggy versus people years. With that metaphor in mind, using 7x would multiply out to 280k miles, for example. A bit more impressive sounding. Regardless of the math, it's a lot a saddle time.
Half Pint's a 2006 Yamaha XT225 whose starting to show her age. The days of reliably scoring mid 90s MPG have dropped down to mid 70s now. Still way better than any car I know. Especially with pump prices these days. I'll take it of course. It's just that her 2.4 gallon fuel tank means noticably reduced range between fills. Then again, too much time in the saddle leads to Monkey Butt Syndrome. So breaks a bit more often isn't the worst problem to have as they go.
To celebrate she got pampered with a full body lube. Plus a good going over to check for issues. Like, recently her valve cover started leaking oil. Again! So it was new O ring time. This time I also investigated the crankcase breather and found some sludgy oil residue building up. So that got cleaned along with a new O ring as well. She did seem to run a teensy bit better afterwards. Probably not enough to recover factory fresh fuel economy but better is better so I'll take it.
Last summer in WA state I noticed at highway speeds she didn't pull the hills like she used to, so I'd have to downshift. That lead to some research that revealed their Japanese version was geared for more torque, less speed in Yamaha's home island nation. For the US market and higher speed limits on roads, longer legs was probably a design goal to shave RPMs while cruising highways. That red paint on her speedometer above 55 mph is there for a reason after all. Fine with us. Neither she nor I are afflicted with NFS (need for speed). So, since Half Pint's chain and sprockets were showing a lot of wear at that point, I took the opportunity to regear her for power. That really makes sense for me she's sometimes more mule than pony.
Oh, she also got a new starter last summer. The ole gal seems to like a little attention now and then. Don't we all.
