Spyder Tech School part 2 "full version"
Day two of Spyder Tech School was more hands on than the first day. Once again we went through some of the things that I've always wanted to know more about because to be honest it sounded a little scary reading it in the book. There's just nothing like picking up the tools and doing it. Here's what we covered today.
- Chassis, Suspension and Driveline
- Alignment theory
- Alinement procedures
- Braking System
- VSS theory and components
- Brake system pressure check
- Bleeding procedure on BUDS
- BUDS and VSS
- Steering System
- DPS
- BUDS and DPS
- Belt tension and rear wheel alignment
- SE5 operation
- Hydraulic Control module
- SE5 troubleshooting
- Clutch pack rebuild
As you can see we packed in a lot of good stuff today and there was a lot of info I had never heard before and I thought I pretty much heard everything. Did you know when setting up a new DPS that you need to start and stop the Spyder 5 times before resetting the torque sensor? I guess what happens is the starter can setup a magnetic field that can throw the torque sensor off and starting and stopping the motor like that will make sure it is a neutral reading. The torque sensor itself is a pretty cool deal as it measures any changes in the shafts magnetic field as you turn the bars one way or the other. This info is fed back to the control module and it will tell the DPS how much voltage is needed to assist the rider in steering based on the speed of the Spyder. The torque sensor also communicates with the steering angle sensor and the YAW rate sensor to make adjustments in the steering. All these things have to be setup right to start with or they will fight each other. That's the short version of it but you get the idea.
Another thing I learned is the rear wheel (rim) of the RT is designed to take more load than the rear wheel of the RS because of the added load of the RT and trailer. You could put a RT rear wheel on a RS but you shouldn't put a RS wheel on a RT. That's just one of the reasons they don't recommend putting a RT hitch on a RS.
One of the first hands on exercise for that day was doing a wheel alinement front and rear. Once again I learned something, did you know there is an alinement procedure for alining the motor? I didn't know that and most likely you would never need to do this unless you changed out a motor but it was good stuff to know. I already knew how to aline the rear wheel and check belt tension but I had never done a front wheel alignment and to be quite honest I didn't really understand what I had read in the book. As it turns out it's really not that hard to do and we just found out today in the class that they changed to toe in specs from 0" toe to 3/32" toe in in 6'. What this means is after setting up your alinement tool you would pull a measurement from 3' in front of the center of the wheel and 3' in back of the center of the wheel and the measurement should be 3/32" shorter on the front than it is on the rear. So lets say you pull a measurement of 24" on the front, the rear should be 24 and 3/32" , in theory this will go to 0 toe when the Spyder is moving down the road because of the mass of the unit. Once again this is the short version of what we learned on that.
Tool used to help with alinement
Locks in the steering box
The other thing that's I've heard a lot of bad info about is the bleeding of the brake system. I've heard and even repeated that it could take as much as 6 hours to bleed the brakes on the Spyder. Well I'm here to tell you that once you have everything setup you should be able to bleed the brakes on BUDS in less than 15 min. It's really no different than bleeding the brakes on your car other than you do have the VSS messing with you as far as when you're trying to pump the pedal and hold pressure. You just pump and hold while your buddy cracks the bleeders. it's going to make all sorts of noises and the pedal is going to move up and down while you're doing this but you just hold your ground and when BUDS is happy it will tell you.
As part of the brake system test we did learn how to adjust the master cylinder rod so that you get the proper pressure when testing the brakes. Once again it was no big deal after doing it, if you just read the book it would freak you out a little, or at least it did when I read it.
Another cool thing we got to do is to take apart a clutch on a SE5. I've done quite a few clutches in my day and this was pretty much the same but we did learn all about the centrifugal clutch and how it differs from your standard clutch. We learned how to measure stack height and how to decide the proper shims to give you the 1mm clearance you need for proper operation. We also learned all about the valve bodies and controllers. We ran out of time for testing these on BUDS but we'll get to that first thing i suspect. As complicated as the Spyder can be it really isn't all that bad when you break it down piece by piece and the instructors do a great job of teaching you in a way that doesn't make you feel like an idiot if you don't get it right away. They're not there to see how much you know or don't know, what they are there to do is to teach you what they know and they are open to hearing from you as to things you've heard or seen so they can learn from the guys in the field dealing with this stuff every day. This class is more advance than the first class that every Spyder tech takes with the videos, I would highly recommend that all Spyder techs take the time to go though this class as it will make them a better technician and in the long run they will have happier customers and happier customers are repeat customers.
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