Idiot v. Motorbikes, Rounds 3, 4, and 5

[Zombie Master]

"(I can have my headlight on and ALL other lights off if I so choose)"

Can't imagine why you'd want that set up LOL!

[melville]

They're not $10 Wal-Mart lights!









They're $1.99 K-Mart lights! A genuine period modification. But they appear to be single filament bulbs, so I may be going to Wal-Mart with $20 to get brake/tail combos.

[melville]

I installed the stock size (2.68) needle jets and things are improved. There's also seemingly less resonance from the fairing coming up from low (under 3K) revs.

In interesting news, the turn signal flasher decided to work. The part I ordered should come in tomorrow..................

This bike still has the turn signal beeper hooked up. I'm not sure who hears it, as it barely registers with me in my helmet and earplugs.

I may take the bike on an overnighter tomorrow. I'm split on whether to take it or the fun cage. This will be a last minute decision.

[melville]

Oh, this is the other thing I did yesterday. I've become a fan of a few sorts of Mod Cons. Electronic ignition triggers are one. LED auxiliary lights are another (coming soon for this one). And also, it's nice to be able to charge the phone or camera or keep the SENA powered up on a long day. I set up USB ports on Ernst five years ago and have been very happy with it. I went to Cycle Gear (where the young guy working there was very impressed with Edgar) and bought this for $14.99:



I've wondered about the dash pad on the /7 bikes. It always seemed such a useless thing. Until I popped the plastic bit out and was able to do this:



It's in there as a proof of concept right now. I'd prefer one with two ports, actually, when this goes final.

[melville]

OK, the 1200 mile report! I took a couple days to go here this week:



A nice spot. Camped out a night:



There's a big pool inside the steel-sided building, and smaller pools outside. Clothing optional after 9 PM!



The bike ran great. Lotsa power, pretty steady on his feet. BUT the fork was all stictioned up by the time I got home. As in, it would dive on the brakes, and then only come back up under power. So I couldn't wait to rebuild the fork like I'd planned.

So while I had all that room with the fork out of the way, why not move the Dyna ignition over from Ernst and get the dual plugs going? Sure! Great idea! Now, because the flywheel had been lightened and all timing marks except F had been removed, I felt the need to check TDC and mark the flywheel at that spot. Unfortunately, the plug took the threads out of the head as I removed it:



Undaunted, I made my TDC mark and checked valve clearance (just down to .007 on one exhaust and up to .005 on one intake, just fine!), then took the carbs, exhaust, and heads off. I'll pull the pistons and cylinders later for new rings and a glaze breaking hone. Here's the right cylinder, actually the worse one:



And the current state of Edgar:



I'll be de-crusting the valve covers while the heads get repaired. Also rebuilding the forks and head bearings, installing the Dyna ignition and coils, building some new spark plug wires, and new pushrod tube seals when the cylinders go back on.

[melville]

Disassembly today. Fork out and head bearings, too. Here's the bottom race:



And top:



There's some discoloring on the lower, but nothing that can be felt with a fingernail. I'm going to clean things up and put it back together with lotsa grease.

Here's the lower triple:



I was faced with something like that on Ernst. Because I had lots of time to wait for parts (and wait for money for MORE parts) I ended up filing the forge marks off and polishing the bejeezus out of it. As Edgar has a fairing and is a 'patina' bike I'm going to leave it as is no matter how much I want to make it shiny. The struggle is real.

Today's other project was making a fixture for refinishing valve covers. Pretty simple:



Offer up the cover to mark where to drill:



And set on after drilling a couple 1/4" holes:



I may drill a couple counterbores so I can bolt the cover to the fixture. But it's mostly staying in place. Here are some of the abrasives I'm using:



I may switch to the corded drill as it spins faster.

Next steps will be reassembling the head bearings and disassembling the forks. Valve cover refinishing, too.

[melville]

OK, a little progress in the past couple weeks. Head bearings are back together and feelin' great (but there's a chance they'll be coming back apart) and fork is apart.

More surprises on the fork. First, this curious thing:



It's an alloy ring secured to the slider with the tiniest setscrews. They took a .030" Allen wrench to remove! It appears to be an aftermarket seal retainer. I managed to only drop and lose one of the setscrews.

Here it is, off:



Then there was a surprise in the fork:



That's a bottoming spring toward the right. I'll be replacing that with the stock poly rubber bumper.

Before I get to that, though, I've got to get the stanchions aligned, as per this technique:

https://w6rec.com/204-2/

They went into the lower triple just fine:



And they passed the Glass Test to perfection:





In the second pic, I'm testing the gap with a very thin feeler gauge. It was consistent top to bottom. Left hand pictured doing too much because my right hand had the camera--the actual test has the right hand holding the glass and the left hand testing. And vice versa.

Then it was time to check with the Paralellosity Gauge:



Not as successful. Here's the reading at the bottom of the stanchions:



About .010" of divergence. So the stanchions have been in this state the past couple weeks:



I'm not getting much. When I check it, the spread is now just .009". I do now have another lower triple and I may entertain using it.

[gspd]

Before I get to that, though, I've got to get the stanchions aligned, as per this technique:

I understand that you have all the time in the world, but if you want to save some....and don't want to go nuts with the glass plates and feeler gauges.........................................................................................................................................................
... just completely assemble the forks with the tubes loose in the triple trees and fender/fork brace bolts loose.

The definitive 'straightness' test, the only test that actually matters in the real world, is being able to easily rotate the axle as (and after) everything is 'tightened' up. If the axle rotates and slides in and out easily you're on the money, good to go, look no further.

[melville]

Yes, I might do that if all my other stuff is ready before I get these straight!

It's probably going to be another couple weeks on the heads. I'll be ordering rings and making arrangements for a glaze breaking hone of the cylinders tomorrow.

Also, work is busy for the next month with the last deadline push for the year. And my pillion is 3000 miles away.

[melville]

More fork fun! I finally got the Parallelosity Gauge to zero out with just the lower triple in place. So it was time to move on to the upper triple. First, though, while it was off, I wanted to use the forward set of handlebar/gauge pod mounting holes. One small difficulty was this:



The bracket was the tiniest bit wider than the space available. About 20 seconds on the grinder straightened that out. I installed the upper triple trying to drop it straight down and once the various fasteners were snugged the stanchions were only out .001" and I'm OK with that.

Next up was setting up the sliders. First, sliders only, no seals, held all the way up and the axle slid in and clamped:



Then slid up and down a few times to check for any binding:



Next was introducing the fork brace:



It was a tiny bit wider than the space available and caused some binding. But a few minutes with a wood butcher tool (no vise yet in New melvilleville) and things were just fine:



Next steps include finishing the ignition install, replacing the diode board mounts (3 out of 4 had perished!) and with that, add a supplementary ground harness as recommended by Craig Hansen. While things are open up there, I'm also replacing the turkey gobbler with the updated reed valve breather. Going forward, I'm leaving the gobbling to Cricket:



Cricket lives at my pillion's house along with his hen Sweet Pea (she's behind his fan) and a couple of their kids.