Old motorcycle projects

[John Conroy]

I got the Buell forks and triple clamps modified for the XS650. The Buell steering stem is about 1" too short so I pressed the original steering stem out of the lower triple clamp. I ordered some retrofit steering head bearings from All Balls with 48mm OD and one with 27mm and the other 30MM ID. The 48mm OD will fit the XS frame and the ID's will fit the custom steering stem I am machining. This pic show the original stem and the custom one I made along with the 2 bearings. I machined the stem to have a .002" interference fit into the lower triple clamp but I threaded the ID to 5/8" NF to assure it can't slip off. The lower inner bearing is a .0005" interference fit to the stem and the upper is a snug finger press fit. The upper triple clamp is a .001" interference fit onto the stem.

The Buell stem was originally held to the triple with a press fit and a snap ring. I feel safer with a bolt holding it on.

The outer races fit the frame perfectly.

The upper end of the stem is threaded to 5/8" NF as was the original Buell stem.

There is some interference between the upper triple clamp and the front of the gas tank. I used some 1/4" bolts threaded into the bottom of the upper triple clamp to form steering stops and will have to move the gas tank mounts rearward 1/2".

It has about the same amount of steering lock as my Buell.

 

[John Conroy]

I got new bronze swing arm bushings from Dime City and cleaned up the old shaft and sleeve. They are in good shape so I'm going to re-use them.

I decided to make a swing arm brace from some old handle bars. The 7/8 Chrome moly tube is perfect for this job. I cut the bars up and used some of the bends to form the brace and TIG welded the parts together.

I MIG welded the brace to the swing arm and bead blasted the assembly before pressing in the new bushings.

I mocked up the engine with the trans output shaft in it to make sure my sprocket alignment was still good after welding on the swing arm. It lines up perfectly.

 

[Alexander]

The finished mount fits like a glove and looks a lot better than the original I think.

I agree it adds a tough look to the bike nice work. How long do you figure you spent working on that mount?

 

[John Conroy]

How long do you figure you spent working on that mount?

Way too much time, I probably spent nearly 3 days on it. Now that I have all the measurements I could make another one in a few hours. I considering re-doing it in 6061 aluminum.

 

[PeterT]

John, that's a mean looking ride just sitting on the stand.
When you mod your frames, do you paint them yourself, or is that something that needs to be outsourced to shop painters or powder coaters or something?

 

[John Conroy]

Peter I have a friend who works in a body shop and he sandblasts and paint my frames with a 2 part epoxy paint. I built an Big Block Chevy 454 for his 57 GMC hot rod and a Small Block 327 for his wife's 62 Acadian hot rod last summer so he owes me a couple of favors! We do work for each other on a "no money changes hands" basis and I think, over the last 20 years or so I have come out ahead. He did all the body work on my 64 Beaumont project car that I finished in 1999. As you can see from the before and after pics it was a lot of work.

I sold the car a few years ago and he still hasn't forgiven me!

 

[John Conroy]

I got the Yamaha front wheel mounted in the Buell forks last night. It was amazingly easy as the 17mm Buell axle is the right size for the Yamaha wheel bearings and the only thing I had to make was a .075" spacer between the left fork leg and the speedo drive on the wheel. I had to machine a locating tab off the speedo drive and make it flat on the side that fits against the fork leg. I struggled with measuring the distance from the wheel to each fork leg accurately until I spent a half hour making up a tool for the job. I uses a simple fixture to hold a dial indicator and very accurately measures that dimension and it now centered perfectly (within .005"). Now I have to figure out what to do about brakes.

 

[Jwest7788]

John, that's a mean looking ride just sitting on the stand.

Could we get some pics and a run down on that yellow motorcycle in the background?

That subframe and swingarm look awesome.

 

[John Conroy]

I found this Buell X1 in a bike shop where it had been abandoned by the owner who did not want to pay the cost to get it running. The word I got from the shop owner was it needed a fuel pump. The shop had stored the bike for over 4 years and had seized it to cover the storage cost. They were getting ready to remove the engine for a chopper project and the thought of that made my skin crawl. The shop owner assured me the engine was in good shape and it shows 22000 km on the odometer. I made a low ball offer just to try and save this nice old tube frame Buell from chopper hell and to my surprise he accepted saying his guys were not comfortable with the fuel injection system. Later I found that they had removed the fuel pump and it's mounting frame from the tank and apparently thrown it away. They also had started robbing some parts off it, the right handlebar switch and throttle was missing and so was the clutch actuator ramp assembly from under the clutch cover. The muffler had also been lost.

I got it home and started to evaluate what it would take to get it running thinking I could recover my money by parting it out if there was too much wrong with it.
I found and PDF copy of the service and parts manuals online and went about making sure it was electrically good enough to power the fuel pump, injectors and ignition system. Not surprisingly, even after jumping the circuits in the right handlebar switch there was no power to the ECM, fuel pump, injectors or ignition coil. After some time spent with the schematic I went to the fuse/diode block and discovered corrosion had caused the problems.

There was one un-damaged vacant diode receptacle already populated with terminals so I just cut the wires from the corroded terminals and spliced them to the ones in the undamaged diode holder. I removed all the remaining terminals and cleaned them up with a couple of wipes with 280 grit sandpaper and some contact cleaner then packed the fuse/diode block with di-electric grease and installed new fuses. Some of the terminals on the 2 relays were slightly corroded as well so I gave them the same treatment. After all that, using a test light in place of the fuel pump, I get the 2 second fuel pump pulse when the key is turned on and there is power to the injectors and coil. I then plugged my injector tester into each injector and found them to be seized. I removed them and set up my injector flusher to 50 psi with some injector cleaning solvent in it and connected it to the fuel rail overnight. In the morning when the injectors were energized by the tester they functioned and I ran the entire can of cleaner solvent through them and checked the flow rates after. They both deliver identical quantities of fuel so I'll call them good. You can see the difference in the color of the solvent at the beginning of flushing and the end. There was lots of spooge in them. I re-installed the fuel injector rail and set up the flusher with just premium fuel and the engine started right up with the remote fuel supply. Here it is running for the first time in 4 years.

You will notice there is a muffler on it in the video. That is the muffler I removed from my 2000 Buell M2 when I bought it new back in 2001. I sold that bike in 2008 and have regretted it ever since.
I cut the muffler into 3 pieces and removed the baffle plate that closed off the end of the 2 major baffles and welded it all back together. A splash of header paint and it's a pretty invisible mod and not as noisy as the Vance & Hines muffler I had on the M2.

More later.

 

[PeterT]

You make me want to get into bikes. But that's just the mid-life crisis talk'n. Besides, I'd probably shoot my eye out .

 

[Jwest7788]

You make me want to get into bikes. But that's just the mid-life crisis talk'n. Besides, I'd probably shoot my eye out .

You totally should. I love my motorcycle. Haha

 

[Alexander]

@Peter buy a goldwing your wife can ride on the back. My wife didnt like the idea of me riding a motorcycle untill we did our first trip to drumhell on a goldwing. Then she got hooked on bikes too.

 

[John Conroy]

More work on the Xs650 project. I made up some headlight ears and clamps to hold them to the fork legs so I could mount the large 7" headlight. I started with 2 pieces of 1" X 2.5" aluminum and bored a 2-1/8" hole in each. I let the pictures tell the rest.

 

[Janger]

You make me want to get into bikes. But that's just the mid-life crisis talk'n. Besides, I'd probably shoot my eye out .

Take the course! I got my license this year - my kids think I'm an old fart.

 

[Janger]

Something else I've noticed we all like motorcycles, making stuff, and our names are either John or Peter. Honestly I think there's 4 Johns and 3 Peter on this little forum.

 

[John Conroy]

Something else I've noticed we all like motorcycles, making stuff, and our names are either John or Peter. Honestly I think there's 4 Johns and 3 Peter on this little forum.

That's crazy isn't it?!!

 

[Dabbler]

That's why I chose 'Dabbler' my name is John also!!!

 

[John Conroy]

I bought a used Buell brake rotor on eBay and was going to machine an adapter to make the 5 bolt hole Buell rotor fit the 6 bolt hole Yamaha wheel. Unfortunately the Buell rotor was bent. I shot a video and sent it to the vendor and he promptly refunded my money and told me to scrap the rotor.

I decided that the bent Buell rotor might be usable if only the aluminum carrier is bent and not the stainless steel braking surface. I removed the 9 buttons attaching the 2 parts together and checked the steel part on my surface plate and it appears to be dead flat. I decided to attempt to make a hybrid rotor using a Yamaha disc and the outer part of the Buell rotor.
Here's the Buell rotor with the center removed laying over the Yamaha one. This might work!

I measured the button hole radius on the mill and laid out and spot drilled the 9 holes in the Yamaha rotor.

I then drilled them to 21/32" or .656" matching the size of the holes in the Buell rotor.

When I checked the hole layout against the Buell rotor it matched perfectly, that was a relief.

I measured the OD of the Buell rotor carrier and set up a 1/4" end mill to cut out that circle on the Yamaha rotor.

The Yamaha rotor is 2mm thicker than the Buell one so I milled a pocket at each button location so the thickness of both parts will be the same where the buttons mount.

I assembled the parts temporarily to check the fit with the old buttons and it looks good. Next I have to pick up some 303 stainless bar to make the new buttons with.

Time will tell if this is going to work out but all I have invested so far is the Yamaha rotor which I was not going to use anyway.

 

[John Conroy]

To finish the front brake set up on the XS650 my plan for rotor buttons was to make a 2 part system where the 2 parts would thread together instead of the press fit of the originals. I decided instead to use the old rotor buttons rather than make new ones. The originals are in the shape of a tube with a raised lip on the outer edge and a conical spring washer on the back side, then another thicker washer was installed over the tube and the tube was peened over to retain the washer. Not very strong but there should be no lateral forces so strong enough. When I removed them I used a disc sander and removed just enough of the tube to be flush with the outer edge of the washer then used a brass drift to punch the tubular buttons out. I thought that I should be able to just put the old buttons, conical springs and washers back on and make a tool to push the washers over the buttons until flush with the edge and then fusion weld them in place with the TIG welder. If it didn't work out I could still make new buttons. I made up a very simple tool to hold the assembled buttons together with 2 openings to allow 2 spot welds on each. I ground the TIG tungsten to a very sharp point and it turned out well.

After I got each one spot welded in 2 places I continued without the holding tool and add 1 spot weld at a time, with plenty of cooling time between welds, until a total of 10 welds were applied to each button washer. I'm confident this will be at least as strong as the originals.

Then I installed the rotor to the wheel and the wheel to the forks and checked the rotor for run out with dial indicator. Less than .001", good enough for me. I had to use a .075" thick spacer between the fork leg and the caliper to center the caliper on the rotor.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, the front brake on this project was one of the things I did not have a plan for.

 

[John Conroy]

A little more progress. I glass bead blasted the 19" wheels and drilled each spoke with 5 evenly spaced holes and powder coated them in a cast aluminum color finish. I mounted a couple of Shinko 241 tires that resemble the old Dunlop Trials Universal tires that came on Yamaha Enduros in the 70", both in 3.50" X 19" size. I'm thinking about front fender options now and leaning toward a plastic dual sport fender. I took the one off my DRZ400 (21" front wheel) and temporarily attached it with zip ties. It looks pretty good so I ordered a black UFO fender for a Honda CR85 that will fit better with the 19" wheel. This weekend I'm going to work on an exhaust system and test my TIG welding skills.

Last time Dime City had a free shipping deal I ordered a TC Bros exhaust kit from them. Nice quality mandrel bends and header flanges for the money.

I've decided to go with a left side high pipe system something like my Honda CL450 has, I'm a sucker for high pipes!
My TIG welding skills are pretty weak so I decided to MIG weld all the pipe joints and then dress the welds down with a flap wheel and polish them with a Roloc disc. I spent a few hours in the garage today and came up with this for head pipes. The mild steel is easy to work with and if it turns out OK I will probably get it ceramic coated.

I cut some 1" square tubing into a couple of C shaped bracket and TIG welded some 1/4" nuts to the inside, then TIG welded these bracket to the inside of the head pipes for support and also to serve as a front mount for a heat shield I will build later.

I'm working on an idea for a single muffler that will involve a 1' section of 4" exhaust pipe with machined aluminum end caps. I roughed out the idea like this.

To be continued.