Old motorcycle projects

[DPittman]

I'm waiting for a couple of seals for the top end of the engine so I went to work on the tank and seat. I had previously moved the front tank mounts 1/2" back so I made up a new rear mount post for it. I just drilled the hole for it half and inch back from the original. The original was welded to the frame, this one is held onto the frame with a nut.

I found a vendor on eBay that sells reproduction seats for Yamaha enduro's and after some measuring I ordered one for a DT175. I thought about narrowing and shortening the original seat and getting a custom foam and cover made but that would have cost more than this seat did. I made up 6 mounting pads for the rubber cushions of the seat and fabricated a couple of hold down straps. I had to weld those 8 pieces to the frame so I chopped off the center stand mounts from the frame while I had it stripped down for the welding. The seat is thickly padded and nice and narrow and seems to be high quality and I like how it looks on the bike.

I finally got around to removing the brake caliper mount from the left fork leg to clean up the look of the fork.

This is how is sits right now. After I get the engine together it will get a final mock-up assembly then be disassembled for paint. I haven't decided on a color yet.

Hey John,
Nice work on your bike projects. You wouldn't be interested in an old Yamaha CT for parts or a project itself would you?

Don

 

[John Conroy]

Thanks Don, I already have 9 bikes in my fleet. Bringing home another one would be hazardous to my health, my wife would kill me!

 

[DPittman]

Thanks Don, I already have 9 bikes in my fleet. Bringing home another one would be hazardous to my health, my wife would kill me!

Yes well with 9 bikes I can see that your wife might have concerns with another one! lol.

Well, I would have liked to see my old bike get some TLC or use. I had it bored out, new piston and rings with plans of improving the rest, but it never did get much further than that. Now it just sort of occupies space.
Don.

 

[Bofobo]

Thanks Don, I already have 9 bikes in my fleet. Bringing home another one would be hazardous to my health, my wife would kill me!

So looks something like dis?

 

[John Conroy]

This is how I dealt with the excessive swing arm side clearance issue. I used a 12" vernier caliper to measure the length of the pivot tube and then the overall width of the swing arm, bushing face to bushing face. The swing arm measures 7.745" and the tube measured 7.764".

The tube is .019" longer than the swing arm and goal is to reduce that difference to about .004' but using a shim that the tube can pass through and that butts against the side surface of a swing arm bushing and in my case a .015" shim would be perfect. The Yamaha part 156-22127-00 is .3 mm or .012" which would have been OK but of course I don't have one and don't want to wait to order one. I used a .015" hardened steel shim that was meant to use under the valve spring on a small block Chevrolet V8. It started out with an ID of .700 and an OD of 1.5" and I have a few of them in my spares box. I stacked 4 together (to give them enough strength not be crushed by the lathe chuck) and chucked them in the lathe and used a boring bar to open the ID to 22 mm or .860" so they will slide over the OD of the tube. This is the shims after the ID was machined. The OD is too large to fit inside the swing arm seal.

Then I made up an arbor to center the shim being held by the ID so I could turn the OD to 34 mm or 1.325 to fit against the end of the bushing inside the seal. The ID of the shim fits over the smallest hub of the arbor and is held there by the recessed washer. Then the OD is machined to the same size as the OD of the arbor hub.

This is the finished shim and it fits inside the seal. After the swing arm was mounted and the nut torqued to 45 Lb Ft The swing arm pivots nicely with just the slightest amount of drag and no perceptible side play.

John

 

[John Conroy]

I finally got my engine back together. I had the cylinders bored and fitted with .5mm OS pistons and rings from XS650 Direct and also installed a new cam chain and guides from them. I had to install a new head oil feed pipe and even though I was warned that the aftermarket ones from XS650 Direct are not very good, the one I got fits perfectly and looks just like the original. For $100 it should be!!

In my youth I lifted lots of bike engines into the frame by hand but the years have made me more cautious about preserving the health of my back. I used some steel from my scraps box and made up a lifting bracket that bolts to the head from the right side and curves around the frame above. I have an electric winch in the attic of my garage that I use to lift our kayaks to the ceiling for storage. Once the boats are at the ceiling they are supported by some metal brackets which allows me to use the winch for other purposes. It has a 400lb capacity so it's perfect for a job like this. When I was making the engine lift bracket I was guestimating where the balance point would be so it would hang level and I got it pretty much perfect. I winched the engine to about the right height then rolled my bike lift under it and used the jack on the lift for fine height adjustments. I found the best method is to swing the bottom of the engine into the frame and get the bottom engine mount bolt lugs inside the frame and then when I raised the lift the engine just about fell in the rest of the way by itself. The best part is my back feels great afterward!

 

[John Conroy]

I started work on my hydraulic clutch conversion today. My original worm gear clutch actuator is broken and I didn't want to spend a lot of money to replace it with a sub-standard aftermarket one. I picked a used clutch master and slave cylinder on eBay for $40 plus $15 for shipping. They are from a 95 Kawasaki ZX9R and very similar to the ones on my Concours 1400. They will both need new seals but all the parts from Kawasaki come to less than $100 and it will be all genuine factory parts, not aftermarket stuff.

The slave cylinder nose is just about the same size as the opening for the chrome cap that fits in the cover on stock bikes at 37mm. I bored the original hole to fit the slave with .004" clearance.

No going back to stock now!

To allow the slave to sit as flat as possible I mounted it on my rotary table and milled off the protruding flange area on one side.

The surface of the cover is not flat and the bolt hole ears of the slave were elevated from the surface so I milled a flat area large enough for the slave to fit flush and flat. It required removing .060" of material but the cover is quite thick in this area. I used a transfer punch to locate the bolt holes and drilled and tapped them to 6mm. I oriented the slave to give a good angle for the hose to run forward and up the left frame tube.

The I did some measuring to figure out the length of the pushrod. I bought a 3' length of 5/16" tool steel rod for this and I came up with 10.5" as the correct length. After I'm sure it's right length I will harden the ends to prevent wear.

Good thing I took the slave apart as the seal was split in half.

I did a little more work on the mill to make the slave look better and also removed the 2 lugs that prevent hose rotation. I mocked it up with the hose from the Buell front brake and it will work well with a straight end on that end of the hose. The hose needs to be 50" long, I'll get that and the Kawasaki parts ordered tomorrow.

 

[John Conroy]

The lever on the Kawasaki master cylinder I bought was pretty sloppy with loose pivots. It is an adjustable handle like the one on my Concours so I felt it was worthwhile repairing it. I made up 2 new brass bushings, one for the lever pivot and the other for the plunger pivot.

I'm still waiting for the new master cylinder piston, slave cylinder seal and hydraulic line before I can finish the hydraulic clutch conversion.

I needed to relocate my voltage regulator and starter solenoid as my new side covers leave no room for them on the outside of the battery box. I removed the block off plate on one end of the tools box area and made the VR115 regulator fit inside that area and moved the solenoid to the top of the battery box. I can't believe how much time I spent on this but I'm happy with the result. There is about 3/4" of clearance from the top of the solenoid to the bottom of the seat. I'm still waiting for my new rectifier but I plan to mount that in the stock location under the battery.

 

[John Conroy]

I received my rectifier last week and got it wired and mounted over the weekend. This is a 50 amp version and has 6.3mm terminals. I had some left over Metripack 630 right angle terminals from another project and they worked perfectly for this. They have a nice tight fit on the blades of the rectifier and I slathered them with dielectric grease before installing them. I mounted inside the toolbox area along with the voltage regulator. I made up a 1/2" tall standoff to raise it off the floor of the box for a better fit and to allow better air flow around it. With all the terminals soldered and covered in heat shrink I made the harness long enough to reach. I installed new terminals in the bikes harness connector also. I removed all the safety lighting stuff from the stock harness along with all the related wiring so it's now a very basic electrical system with lights and battery/points ignition. I bought an aftermarket ignition switch and mounted it under the left front gas tank area and wired in a 40 amp relay fed by a single 20 amp fuse to handle all the electrical loads so the ignition switch only has to carry the current for the control coil of the relay which is 150 milliamps. I had to slice a piece out of the tool box area to provide a clear path for the cable from the solenoid to the starter. I made up all new battery and starter cables so they would fit correctly. I spent all weekend on this and it doesn't seem like I accomplished much but I'm glad to have that part done. Here are some pics.

I also made up a block off for the tach drive as I'm not going to use a tachometer. The original broken part on the left.

I got my new horn mounted

Made a cardboard template for the ignition switch bracket and mounted it to one the reflector mount posts and another aluminum post I made up.

Rectifier ready to install.

In it's new home.

Probably not required but I mounted a 50mm 12 volt PC cooling fan also.

This is the channel the starter cable will follow.

I'm getting close to the final mockup before disassembly for paint.

John

 

[John Conroy]

I got a heat sink made up from a chunk of aluminum and got rid of the fan as it probably would have failed due to the vibration. I've been thinking about electronic ignition and found an good write up by a MrRiggs on another site using a late 70'sToyota distributor pick-up coil, a mid 70's GM HEI ignition module and a mid 90's GM DIS ignition coil. I hope it's kosher to post the link to his article here.

http://xs650temp.proboards.com/thread/7899

I collected the distributor from a 79 Celica at the local Pick N Pull yard for $20, bought a new HEI module for $30 and already had the DIS coil from another project. The weather was nice on Saturday so it was pretty painless to get the distributor from the Celica. The old girl will live on in my XS.

Pretty grungy on the outside but in nice condition inside.

The pickup coil and part of the shaft with the reluctor will be all that's used.

Goodbye points!! You won't be missed.

I fitted the pickup to the original points backing plate by drilling and tapping 2 new holes and milling a little collar off the outside of the inner hole.

I cut off the Toyota shaft just below the reluctor and. It has an 8mm hole already bored through it's center and all I had to do to make it a perfect fit on the XS shaft was run a reamer through it to clean up the hole. I milled an 1/8" slot to accept the locating pin from the XS shaft.

I mounted the reluctor on an 8mm bolt and into my indexer so I could mill off 2 of the 4 reluctor teeth.

I made up a couple of brackets to mount the coil and made some 4.5 X .8 mm right angle terminals to fit the coil with leads soldered on.

The leads will be retained by a plastic plate held on by the nut on the bracket.

.

I've got more work to do tomorrow the mount and wire up the module but I should be able to make sparks by the afternoon.

John

 

[John Conroy]

I made up a small aluminum bracket to mount the ignition module. It is open to air flow on all sides and I don't expect heat to be a problem as these are mounted inside the distributor on GM engines where they are exposed to much more heat than it will see mounted here. I drilled and tapped two 4mm holes for mounting as well as 2 holes for the little plastic locating pins on the back of the module. I have mounted the tank many times during this process checking for clearance, it's a little tight but there is room for everything under there. I had been looking around the bone yard for a module but every GM of the correct vintage had already been robbed of it's HEI distributor. I called NAPA and they had new ones, made in the USA for $30. The coil is a generic Distributorless Ignition (GM's name for this system) 2 tower unit, there are millions of them at any bone yard.

As you can see I installed the upper engine mount to make sure everything would fit and I also consolidated all the wires to the headlight into one harness covered in heat shrink tubing. Getting all the wiring cleaned up and sanitized as I go in these last steps before disassembly for paint.

Cheers,

John

 

[John Conroy]

It is a waste spark system with the 2 teeth on the reluctor and 1 pickup it will fire the coil and both plugs once per crankshaft revolution. It just uses the factory mechanical advance system. All I did there was clean everything up and install new springs and c-clips.

I got the module mounted and the pickup wired to it as well as mounting my ignition relay and signal flasher.

I rigged up a couple of spark plugs and removed the advance weights so I could spin the advance shaft with a drill.

It makes big fat sparks and when I aimed a timing light at the pickup it fires every time a reluctor tooth lines up with the center of the pickup coil. Static timing will be a piece of cake.

Sorry about the crappy video, it's hard to hold the camera and operate the drill at the same time.

 

[John Conroy]

Well it's been over a month and my frame is still not back from the painter. He's promised it will be done before next weekend. In the mean time I've been taking care of some little detail items. Today I made up an addition to my speedo bracket to house 3 indicator LED's for the neutral, high beam and signal lights. Then I converted the speedo bulb holders to LED's also. I ordered a bunch of these LED's on eBay from China. It took almost 3 months for them to get here but they are quite nice and they were cheap. They are mounted in a small metal housing with 6mm threads so I just made up a couple of pieces of aluminum rod, the same OD as the original bulb holders, with 6mm threads. They sit nicely in the original rubber bulb holders.

 

[John Conroy]

I finally got my frame back from my buddy the painter and spent some time this weekend, during our April snowstorm, getting things assembled. I saw a post on XS650.com where someone suggested to lay the engine on it's side and lower the frame over it to install the engine. Brilliant!! That made the installation of the engine so much easier and I got it done with almost no paint chips. At the end of the day yesterday I had the rear of the bike pretty much assembled with the front half of the exhaust system loosely installed. Here are some pics.

It's coming together nicely.

John

 

[Alexander]

That is looking great. What is the next step for this bike?

 

[John Conroy]

Alexander, my goal is to be riding it by June.

I put the finishing touches on the hydraulic clutch conversion today. The slave cylinder piston has a hardened ball captured in it's center and I didn't want to leave the contact area between the pushrod and that ball exposed the dirt and chain mung. I machined a thin cap from 6061 aluminum to cover that area. The OD of the cap is .010" smaller than the OD of the piston so it can retract right into the cylinder is need be. The pushrod is .315" diameter and I machined a step on it down to .265" and bored a hole through the cap to .270". The step on the rod captures the cap so it cannot move away from the slave piston and will also hold in some high temp grease. The step on the rod is .005" from touching the cap when the center of the rod touches the ball.
Before I put it back together I heat treated the ends of the rod to harden them for wear resistance.

I also decided to change the rear sprocket size to 36 teeth from 32. I bought another weld-on sprocket blank and machined it to fit my custom hub.

Center bored to size and ready for bolt holes.

I added some decorative holes also.

Fits perfectly, stainless fasteners used.

Assembly is coming along but there are so many little details to handle that it is going pretty slow. It sits like this today.