A great collaborative rebuild project here - excellent work Gaz and Adecarcer. I must say, I am have enjoyed reading this topic, and was lucky to stumble upon it. Looking forward to the next sequel, especially the bit when the bike gets dirty. Pity the orange cables won't be easily seen!
Last week I finished installing the muffler cans. Next step was to solve one minor issue. With the new radial master cylinder for clutch and brake i lost the posibility to bolt the choke cable lever to the clutch brake. Not a big deal. Just sanding the "legs" of the bolts on the lever housing, and bolting them to the side of the lights switch made the trick. It is just that now the choke lever in on the outside side of the hanger instead of being between the lights switch and the clutch lever. Perfect fit and does not at all interefere with hands when using the switches.
As the Monty Pithon Flying Circus used to say:.. "..and now for something totally different.." Battery Box! Original one was a dissaster. Rotten bottom one one side And lost support eyelet on the other.. (too bad to repair) So I decided to take a full radical approach and move from this: To this: It is a 2mm thick alluminium plate custom made using some freeware desingns I found on the internet (my most sincere appreciation to the guy that desingned it) I sent the plans to a laser cut specialist that cut and folded (Machine made) the whole thing for less than 50 Euros (barely 40pounds) Result is ashtoning! Measures are perfect and this is how the original rubber mat that sits at the bottom of the old one fits. Even the holes where the rubber dowels get in position, are in the exact situation. It fits perfectly But some minor adjustments had to be made. First some reinforcements on the sides to keep it all together. Is folded alluminium and some inercies from a heavy battery when braking and gear shifting could open it back, so i just bolted some 90ยบ steel reinforcements to keep the box tight. Also, being only bolted to the main battery box eyelets on the frame, it could move back and forth, so some extra attachement was needed I choosed to bolt two small "L" shaped plates that will bolt to the ground connections on the frame next to the battery eyelets. An image worth a thousand words. Now, when bolted in place all the box, it is rock solid and steady, And weights 1/5 less than the original one!! Quite proud of myself, may I say
One last pic.. Now just prime and paint (black) and beging fitting all the cabling and electronics back in place
Not too much activity over the past week, but here are some updates and progress: Battery Box finished, painted and with all the rubber additaments in place! Oil cooler Plumbing also done: "Now you see it! ... Now you don't!!" The orange zipties work perfectly keeping the frame neat and visible In fact, they are more visible in the weird mobilephone poor light pictures, than in real daylight. Talking about cosmetics: I could not resist this one And finally; First attempt to fit the new carburetors and the pod airfilters. There is a lot of free room to work around. Now I just need to figure out how to build new accelerator cables. The Tomaselli throttle has a different cable linkage setup, and I have to fabricate new calbles. I suppose they have to be exactly the same lenght, but not hundred percent sure on how much free cable has to be out of the sleeve on the carburetor side. Any advice? Cheers, Tom
Hey Tom, Nice job on the battery box, and rebuild! I did the original one with the mock-up and pdf drawing, took me a couple of weeks but it turned out great. I used 2mm stainless, welded all joints and finished mine off with satin black powder coating. I cannot see properly from your pics, I recommend you use the 2 OEM rubbber grommets and 10mm steel spacers to fit the battery box to the frame. Cheers Kurt
Thank you Kurt. You are right. I'm just waiting for the new rubber grommets to arrive. On the original box, one was lost and the other one is cracked and useless. Your box looks great!. By the way, what brand of battery are you using?
Some more work done while saving some money to afford new fairings and fit paintjob into budget. Battery finally in place and wired Having routed all cables into place, now it is time to tidy all up! Very neat! No cables in sight at all (just a few hanging ones that will be "hidden" when carbies are in place) Also added a crank case vent filter and got rid of all the plastic pipes. And, finally, after all this hard work rebuilding all the wire loom connectors:.. A test to see if everything is properly matched... IT'S ALIVE!!! Buah ha ha ha!! (insert some mad scientist laugh here...) All tested lights and horn work as expected Now the next step, Front Brakes Overhauled and painted calipers in place. (waiting for the brake lines to arrive..) Throttle cable almost done. Hopefully in one or two weeks time i could be doing some firing up tests. (fingers crossed) Cheers Tom
Tom, my only concern with that crankcase breather is oil mist getting onto back tyre. I gonna route a foam ramair one to further back.
I've seen a lot of pros and cons about this crankcase vent filter, and nothing seems to be concluyent. I will pay attention to the rear hugher to see if there is any oil stain on it and, if so, I will use the old pipe to move it further up. Thanks for the advice
Hi Phil The size of the battery box grommets is quite unique 14X8X2 I did a lot of research and found someplaces where they had them. Too expensive to order just two grommets from uk or europe suppliers, so I went to the good ol' chinese in Aliexpress and found this. Total cost was 11 euros (shipping cost included) and has a lot of different sizes includin the M8 14 (three of them) It fits perfectly in the battery box eyelets. you can find them here (warning! it takes nearly three to four weeks to get the parcel at home) http://es.aliexpress.com/item/New-125pcs-Rubber-Grommet-O-Ring-O-Ring-Assortment-Set-Wiring-Electrical-Coil-Wire-Gasket-Kit/32310284820.HTML
The other way to mount a remote reservoir for brakes and clutch - if you have tubular clip-ons, that is....... ........is to find a large wellnut which fits in the end of the clip-on where there is usually a plastic plug.......and then you can bolt a support bracket on.
I lost the little metal spacer that go in the middle of those grommets, made some up on lathe out of if you are missing them.
I bought an alluminium 8mm diameter pipe in a hardware store, and cut some slices to size. 3 euros spent and an unlimited reserve of spacers for ever (pipe is 2 meteres long )
Over the past month, I've been travelling a lot and very little advance has been done. Worst than that. Problems begin to queue at my door and I need to sort them. (desperately searching for help) First Progress.. License plate and rear blinkers in place: Second: Finished brake lines and tested. It brakes!! Now for the problems list. Electrics: Something must be wrong as when you try to start her (no fuel, just to check the starter works) the starter just makes a couple of turns very slow as if it was about to drain battery (full baterry) and dies... and ignition coils get damn hot. Possible ground contact on the ignition coils due to a non well isolated metal battery box? At the same time, the orange starter switch on the handle bar will always work, no matter if it is on the "on" or "off" position. It always works Wrong wiring? Also the printed circuit that holds the dash lights (idiot light, blinkers, etc..) has fell apart in two pieces and it seems impossible to find a replacement. Will need to work this out Carburetors: Everything was fine with the new cables and throttle handle till I placed everything together. Now it opens perfectly but gets "stuck" when returning and leaves the butterflies open one milimiter or so, and you have to push the handle back into position. At that point, return cable is a bit loose, so it looks like I have to tighten this part. But it was working like a charm with only one cable Any adivce here? Clutch cover: When fitting screws to the correct torque, I discovered one of them to be cross threaded due to possibly some previous overtightening Not a big deal. Just the anoying hassle of having to dismantle everything back, repair the thread and assemble back. I hate when things don not play under the expected rules, but I will overcome this frustration bit by bit. Main issue seems to be electrics. "Feeling misrerable" yours Tom