The dreaded electronics

Most people dread the "Electronics" section of a bike project. I'm a bit odd in this regard. It's been one of my favorite sections. The reason for this is because I enjoy electronics. For christ sakes, I build an under water ROV for my senior project in college. Yes, I'm a geek. No need for you to point it out. I'm well aware ;-)

 My "work bench" at the start of wiring everything up.

 I got so into making everything that I forgot to take time to eat, let along take pictures. Here's the final result. Small capacitor bank to place of the battery. It's a total of 60mF. Black box is the super secret relay used for super secret things. If I told you what's it for I'd have to kill you. A main fuse and then all the accessory fuses. The other bit of wiring there between the relay and fuses is the 555 timer I used to build a flasher relay to work no matter if the flashers are LED or normal bulb operation. Like I said...geek.

Here's the start of the final enclosure of the electronics above. A piece of straight through 3" exhaust pipe on the right. On the left is a 3" inner diameter exhaust pipe coupler.

 Cut 1" off each end of the coupler and this is the result.

 Now take a piece of 14 gauge sheet metal and use the grinder for over an hour and you'll find there were two 3" flat disks inside that sheet. Neat trick huh?

Those metal disks will then be welded to the 1" sections cut off of the coupler. You see what I did there? I made custom end caps for under $6. More to come later. But for now I must consume pizza and beer!!!

Seat and exhaust

Quick update this morning before heading off for memorial day cookout. Got the seat and rear exhaust mounts figured.

 Overall view of the seat all upholstered and rear exhaust mounts.

 Close up of the seat. Didn't come out too bad. Have to figure some stuff out though.

 Like how to get rid of the ugliness here in the back. I don't have the benefit of how more modern bikes hide this effect of upholstery. I'll figure something out.

Close up of the hardware used to secure the mufflers on the tail end.

A few small things

Alright so here's an update on some of the small things I've done since the last post.

Removed the old resign swing arm bushings and rusted out swing arm sleeve. Didn't take a picture but installed the new brass bushings, tube, and shaft.

 Built a rear brake lever stop so that the actuating piston wont fall out while riding. Loosing brakes is bad!

Here's a picture of where it will be installed. I just need to weld it in, but it's cramped quarters with the tire and swing arm still attached. Will be welded on when I disassemble the bike again.

 Installed the chain so that I could figure a few things out such as spacing for fenders, electronics enclosures, and other assorted goodies down the road.

 Sort of hard to see but I made an axle spacer out of a 3/4" fender washer. Ground down the outer diameter so it wouldn't look so damn strange.

 I also had to make a swing arm spacer. You can see it here below the chain in the picture. It's the really thing shinny piece of metal in there.

 Here's the mock up of what I hope to be my electronics box for the bike. It will hold the capacitor that will replace the battery, fuses, flasher, and my super secret relay trick for some fun features.

 The welding is sort of ugly since I was trying like hell to not burn through the 16 guage steel so I was motoring along. It was all about fusing the metal and not about looks. It wont be easily seen anyways. But yeah, that ugly bit of metal is what is going to be welded to the frame to hold my electronics box.

And here's where the box is going to be mounted. Yeah, it's a little cramped in there. So it too will be welded into place when I disassemble the bike again.

That's it for now. Ride safe everyone.

IT'S ALIVE!!! ALIVE I TELL YOU!!! ALLIIIIIIVVVVEEE!!!!

WARNING!!! NOISE LEVEL MAY FIGHTEN SMALL CHILDREN AND TIMID ADULTS!!!

It's now two days later I'm still grining from ear to ear about this video. I'll let it speak for me.

 

The Damage is done!!!

Well, a bad day at work turned into an even worse day in the garage.

This was the top of the bench the bike was resting on. This is what happens when you're in a bad mood and wrap your knuckles around a 3lb. sledge hammer. This also happened the turn the 2x4 underneath it into splinters. Unfortunately that 2x4 was contained the hold down ring that was holding the bike up right.

The bike fell a good 2.5 feet off of the table and landed nearly upside down. Besides some minor scraps on bolts and such that can be replaced I got this beauty on the tank. Needless to say it was time to take a break afterwards.

The break turned into about 2 weeks of not working on the bike. During that time I completely revamped my my garage. Added another full sized work bench (Thanks to Mom and Dad for lending a hand), purchased an actual bike lift, and cleaned up a lot of junk that was in the way.

Here's the bike on it's new lift. A whole hell of a lot more room to work around/on the bike. In addition the bike is now movable so I can get it out of the way for other projects that spring up from time to time.

Aside from more, and yet MORE work on the carbs (love hate relationship there) I worked on the rear swing arm a bit. I noticed a while back that something just seemed "off" with the swing arm. So, with a lack of any proper alignment tools I employed some of my backyard engineering know how.

2x4 at the bottom of the picture is straight and held in place by a couple of Vise-grip Clamps (love those damn things. Best $20 ever). Then took a framers square and drew 2 parallel lines perpendicular to the 2x4. These lines were spaced as far apart as the swing arm axle plates were. Here's a close up of what I found.

Hope that's clear in the actual post. No way of previewing it. Anyways....What should be readily apparent is that while the axle plates were "close" to parallel with one another they were nearly 1/2" out of square with the pivot shaft of the swing arm!!!

Sorry I didn't take any pictures before, but I was covered in axle grease and swinging another sledge hammer, constructively this time. I did manage to get the axle plates square with the pivot shaft, but this introduced another problem....problems seem endless with these older, previous owner modified, bikes.

I caused a crack in the weld joint of the axle plate to the swing arm. Seen here at the base of the shock mount. This picture was after I took the Dremel and carved out the crack so I can re-weld it and not loose my axle down the road.

After getting the axle plates squared up I noticed this gap between the axle/wheel assembly and the axle plate. Now how did THAT happen? I did some investigation. It turns out the previous owner had some difficulty in getting the wheel, dust seals, and caliper bracket between the axle plates. Gee, I wonder why THAT was!!! So instead of figuring out WHY he was having difficulty he decided to take a file and file down the mounting hub of the caliber body to make it all fit together!!! Seriously, what is wrong with people!?!?!?! Now I need to get the front and rear sprockets lined up and find some shims of the appropriate size to take up this nearly 1/4" gap.

Well, that's it for now. Time to enjoy my morning coffee before going at it again. Ride safe everyone.

Number of updates

Okay, so it's early in the morning, I'm sipping coffee, and there are a lot of updates to get everyone up to speed and I don't feel like going into a lot of detail. I'll let the photos and their descriptions do the talking. 

Carb's were overflowing. That brass nut needs to be replaced by a nipple in order to put a clear fuel tube to diagnose certain things.

Take a standard Zirk (spelling?) fitting....

Drill out the retaining lip and take out the spring and ball. Now it's a straight through nipple.

The eyecrometers weren't working so well so I took out the calipers. O.D. of the threads are about 0.005"-.007" too boig. Chuck it up in the drill press and file to get it to fit.

Play with some zip ties, rubber fuel line, a yogurt cup, and some clear tubing and you're all set to dial in the float bowl height. Took me 2.5 hours to figure out I forgot to tighten down the float needle seat.

Prep the rear tire for fiber glassing. Layer of painters tape on the rubber and a layer of aluminum tape over that. In hindsight I should have waxed the aluminum. Took me 1.5 ours to get the glass off after it hardened.

After four layers of fiberglass matt. I hate this shit. Although it was easier to apply in 60 degree temps versus the normal 25 degree I'm used to in the past few months.

Spent about 2 hours sanding it down to a reasonably smooth finish. Need to add more layers or else I'd bring it down all the way smooth.

What it looks like unfinished on the bike. Lots more work to do.

Four more layers of glass applied. At this point I realized I might need to step out for some fresh air. Even wearing a respirator through all of this I got a little loopy. Fender isn't done, but this is about as far as I got before I need to leave for a week long work trip.

Rear brake master cylinder mounted. Not extactic about it, but will have to do.

Rear master cylinder linkage. There's supposed to be a spring from the loop of steel on the cross member to the lever arm so that the brake lever returns when not pressed. Still working on this part too.

That's it for now folks. Will be more to post after my work trip. I'm going to go finish my coffee now.

Decisions, Decisions....

Little bit of an update. I decided to start working on my electrical. Specifically where it's all going to go. This way as I start the endeavor of getting the engine up and running the temporary harness will be a close match to the final one. The first step in was to determine where to put the ignition coil. Do I put it in position one...

Or position two?

The answer is secret position number three that I happened across on a whim.

Here's a close up of the custom brackets I made by hand. Seriously, the most powerful tool I used was a drill press. The rest were just saws and files. I need to get myself some machinery if I want to make another bike.

And here's what it looks like with the tank installed.

Till next time.