Mission Accomplished! (Almost)

Well, today was a very productive day indeed! I first finished tearing down the front end. The front wheel was quite easy to remove. I was pleasantly surprised! My forks were absolutely mangled! That happened twenty years ago, when I hit the bumper of a car, while traveling Hwy 17 towards San Jose. Me and the bike jumped up in the air, it landed on my leg, I got bruises on my inner thighs, not pretty. Okay, back to the present- I finally finished getting that electrical harness off the frame. The coils were a small hassle, but no big deal.

I found some curious electrical stuff attached to the bike and I have no idea what it is! It's stuffed right behind the head tube and it almost feels like it's semi-permanently attached- I was afraid to force it out. I'll have to do some referencing and figure out what it's for. Hmmm....curious.

Anyway, I'm down to taking off the rear shocks, then the swingarm and its internals. I should be done by tomorrow morning. Now that I've got a better look at the frame, I can see what I don't need. When I'm ready, I'll build the bike on top of the stock frame first, kind of like a mock up. After enjoying it for a couple of days, I'll tear it down and start grinding, while the parts are out for painting, if I chose not to paint the parts myself.

Untangling the Birdnest of Madness

Work is slow right now, so I took the opportunity to go for a short ride on my SV650 today. It's so nice being in California- the temperature topped out today at 72 degrees. When I got back, I spent a little time sorting out all my parts, so they wouldn't get damaged or lost. My garage is happy.

I decided to dig into the dissassembly of the front end. I popped off the headlamp ring and pulled out the light. Dang! There's a whole mess of wires back there all wadded up! I guess I never realize how many electrical connections needed to be made so short a distance from the instruments. The tach, speedo, ignition, dummy lights, signal indicators and kill switch all run to the headlight housing like a gangbox. Since I get easily spooked with electrical stuff, I spent a good amount of time labeling all the connections, before I disconnected them. Later, I'll have to match up all the labels to the new harness. I've always assumed that the electrical is in fine working order, but I found a number of connectors that didn't have anything connected to them. Luckily I have a good schematic to check it against. Hmmm...it would be so much easier to just build a race bike, no lights or anything- there's hardly any electrical.

More Polishing

I had to take a drill to the tank to get the petcock out. I have tried everything possible to extract that stubborn screw in some kind of conventional manner, but in the end, its will was stronger than mine. All it took was a really fat drill bit, my trusty Hitachi cordless drill and a squirt of olive oil and I was good to go! In this case, might is right.

I took the petcock apart and most everything looked pretty good, with the exception of the cup o-ring that has been smashed beyond recognition (almost). There was a lot of old heavy gasoline residue stuck in the cup and in the main chamber. A good soaking in my special toxic concoction and a good scrubbing with a variety of wire brushes took most of the gunk off. After a good cleaning and polishing with Never-Dull, the exterior came out looking mighty fine.

After I finished the restoration, I realized that I won't be needing it for my bike, since I will be buying a different fuel tank, which will use a different petcock. Although these are still available for about $90 new, I think I can sell this for a few bucks on Fleabay.

Parts Are Accumulating

Recently, I've been purchasing some goodies I just couldn't resist on Ebay. Today in the mail I received a used set of RD400 head lamp ears (some people who restore these RD400's don't always use the original ears, some opt for a different RD model or even an aftermarket brand) - one is slightly bent and the other one is in pretty poor condition, but I've got the perfect complement on my bike, so with a little hammering and some paint, I believe I can restore the ears to a very presentable state.

A couple of days earlier, I got the rear brake linkage for the RD350 wire-spoke wheels I purchased earlier. The wire wheels use a drum brake system, whereas the RD400 came stock with the fluid caliper disk brake. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to set up my rearsets. I've read that the old Yamaha FZR600 rearsets match the mounting holes. More research is needed.

Last week, I received a RD400 headlight bucket to replace my dented and mangled one. It just needs a little paint.

More or less, I have an entirely "new" front end on the bike. Everything hanging off of the triple-tree will be replaced, except for the headlight itself and front brake (but that system will get rebuilt). I've got replacement parts for the headlight assembly, speedo, tach, ignition and idiot light console, forks and wheel.

Lately, work has gotten really busy, so I hope I can find some weekend time to get some stuff done on the bike!

Tear Down, Mock Up

Today I picked at the bike a little. I'm actually concerned about the condition of my garage- I've been so careless about using tools, then throwing them into different piles in the heat of the moment, while focusing on one particular area of the bike. I'm constantly having to hunt down the right screwdriver or socket, just to get something done. And piles of old, dirty parts keep multiplying on the garage floor! Oy vey! Maybe I'll start cleaning up tomorrow.

That piece-o-crap seat is always in my way, propped up, so I can get to something else, always on the verge of slamming down only to crush my hand at the most inopportune moment. I relieved him of his duties and he got dismantled. Along with the seat went the inner plastic fender, the scraped up chrome rear fender, tail light and license plate. I found that the plastic tool tray was in very good condition- even the accompanying rubber strap was supple and elastic. Hmm...might be able to sell that on Ebay.

I disassembled the front handlebar controls and removed the handlebar. I put on the new Clubman, just so I could see what it would look like. Very nice, I must say. Since I'm a pretty small guy, I was always wondering how I would fit on a TZ/TD/TR-style bike, with the long fuel tank and all. So I did a little mock-up, placing the old tank on the bike, but way further back to immitate the vintage tanks. I put something down on the dirty frame to sit on and I got on. Amazingly, the motorcycle stand didn't make me fall over! I got all stretched out over the bike and it felt glorious! I felt like I was in a total racing tuck! It wasn't too bad- I could still bend my elbows a bit, but I was really in the fairing zone. That was SO COOL!! Okay...I'm sold. The ergonomics are going to be just fine.

Eureka! I Got You, Sucka!!

What an excellent way to start the new year! It only took about fifteen minutes and the motor was on the floor. I had to do a little wiggling and shimmying to get it out (it probably would've been easier if I had taken off the exhaust flanges first), but with a little effort, it was quite willing to come right out.

I've still got the weekend ahead of me, before heading back into work. I'm thinking of just stripping the rest of the bike now, since I'm kind of ahead of schedule...

Motor's Almost Out

Today, I made huge gains in getting that motor on my bench. I was still having trouble figuring out how to detach the wires from the generator. So I decided to empty out more of the frame, pulling out the oil reservoir, battery box and lower half of the air box. That left most of the electrical harness and components exposed and easy to see.

A long time ago, I was having some weird electrical issues, so I took my bike to this shop, where the owner went by the name Grumpy Bear. He told me that he had to do some creative wiring, but that old bike fired right up and I never had electrical problems again, so he must've know what he was doing. But now that I'm in there really examining things, I noticed that he by-passed the customary plastic connectors and just hard-wired the motor to the electrical harness. Umm...okay...so it worked, but that's not really the way to do things, and it's really not cool. So after cleaning the wires, so I could actually see what colors they were, I labeled them and then cut them. I might need to know this stuff for later reference. But if I end up going with a new ignition that eliminates the battery, it will have it's own wiring. And I do happen to have a electrical harness in very good shape I just recently purchased, so the labeling might not even matter.

I was then able to remove the generator. In order to take the generator out, I had to remove the engine clutch cover, so I could stop the center bolt from spinning, during the removal process. Surprisingly, the clutch was in very good shape- all nice and clean. Matter of fact, when I drained the oil from the engine, there was still about two quarts of oil in the case! I just thought that after leaking all over my parent's garage floor, there would be no motor oil left in there. I finished the night but locating and loosening all the motor mount bolts, readying them for the next day.