tank

quick teaser pics. bad pics sorry. just the first cuts and shaping shown. I just got steel for the new side panels.


Final machining to fork brace:
Now just need to anodize.

And the Dyna Coils DC3-1. Ugh.

Fork brace quickie

just machined this guy yesterday. finishing touches will be made today.

New machine

Here's photos of my latest purchase, a 1973 Yamaha RT 360 2-stroke enduro.



Front end was removed for transport and I put it back together for the photos. Fender being held up by the GF as it's unbolted right now. Brand new Mudder front MX fender, still in packaging.Sweet back from local dealer, 20+ years out of date.
Came with service manual. Sweet.

Front wheel spacer - in lieu of speedo

I've removed my speedo drive and cable from the front wheel since I'm using a new digital gauge with it's own speed sensor.

I had to make my own wheel spacer / hub cover to deal with the new gap in the front. I took a lathe class and put my skills to work.
I started with 1 1/4" round stainless 304 stock. I measured up the old speedo steel spacer (embedded in the speedo gear assembly) to use as a starting point and took a 16 gauge sheet of stainless and made the hub cover out of it. I matched the OD of the spacer to that of the wheel bearing's inner race but then enlarged the OD in addition to creating a lip to hold down my hub cover plate. The OD of the spacer on the fork is end is 4mm larger than where it rests on the bearing. I drilled out the center then had to use a boring bar to turn the ID down to just larger than the front axle. For such a simple part, it took quite a bit of thinking and helped me regain my confidence on the lathe.
The shop I'm using the lathe at doesn't have the best selection of tool bits so my next step is to buy a selection of my own tools before I turn any more parts.

Here's the photo show, probably more than you ever wanted to see for a wheel spacer:

Turning the OD at wheel bearing and creating lip for cover plate:

Final part before getting correct ID:
Final part on bench:

Cover plate fitment:

You can see a slight gap between the lip and the cover plate. The poor selection of tool bits and my novice lathe skills are to blame. I couldn't get a perfect 90 degree angle at this critical point:
Fitment on wheel:
on the VX:
Super clean front end!

This weekend will find me milling my new front fork brace and hopefully finishing bashing out my aluminum front fender.

Shai's VX800 turns 100,000 miles

My buddy Shai just sent me these pics on 1/10/2009 of his VX800 rolling over to 100,000 miles:

The VX is a damn stalwart machine. Shai rides to work daily, rain or shine, from Alameda / Oakland, CA. I'm impressed.

Working on the wiring harness

I just finished Season 3 of Prison Break on DVD. Wasn't getting much done while heavily involved in this. I don't own a TV so I wait a few years then frantically watch a hundred episodes of something like LOST, or Prison Break until I can't take it anymore. This happens when I run out of books to read or can't stand to re-read a book I already own. I've read most of my books at least twice and many more than 7 times.

So, Prison Break out the way for the time being, onto full blown evenings poring over my harness! Got myself into a little more than I bargained for on this one. The only way I've been able to even start this work is to dive in head-first and do NOTHING else. I usually have multiple projects going at the same time, e.g. right now I'm working on my gas tank, gauge bracket, control cables, and undertail. Whoa, no wonder one thing never gets finished. It was time for electrical so it's all electrical now until the harness goes onto the bike.

Removing the side-stand switch and neutral switch took some thinking. I'm not just cutting them out and splicing the old wires together; I'm making it as if they were never there. I'm also adapting new left and right handlebar controls, adding a SPDT relay for headlight power, adding a new ignition module, new gauges, new LED turnsignals, new dash indicator lights etc.

Here's my headlight relay setup (standard SPDT relay wiring diagram):

Here's the sequence and explanation:
Pin 30 gets power directly from the headlight fuse. When the ignition is turned on, Pin 30 is hot and voltage goes to my low beam via Pin 87a, all the time. I've got voltage going to my left-hand controls via the "signal" fused circuit, when I flip the high-beam switch or pass switch, this voltage passes to Pin 85, energizing the coil and switching the headlight voltage from normally closed position (NC) to pin 87, which is the high beam, cutting power to the low beam. Pin 86 goes to common ground.

There's two things I'm a bit uncertain about:
(1) having the relay control voltage sitting at the handlebar switch with nowhere to go until I flip the high beam switch. Is this a problem?
(2) I've read that I should put a diode across the coil so that when the coil field collapses, I don't send a pulse back through to the handlebar controls, or back down the ground wire...

Here's my latest revision of the wiring diagram:

-S

Latest pic

Trying to mockup my exhaust in Photoshop. Here's my latest progress pic:
Think I'm going to take the routing as seen on Shai Kahana's motorcycle:

His drops down much sharper than my stock routing. This will allow me to mount the muffler on the right side which is more pleasing aesthetically to me.

-S

Progress Post

I pretty much stopped photographing the step by painstaking step process as it is very time consuming and who even looks at it besides me? Well, the whole blog thing started off as a way for me to photo document my project for myself anyway...

I don't think I ever posted my first engine paint job, well now I'm almost done with my second engine paint job. Wow, that set me back a couple of months. From researching and testing clearcoats over raw metal, to sanding down the entire engine block and cases, taking everything back apart, taking the engine back out of the bike and restripping it. Yuck. I have to keep my perfectionist streak in check or the project will never get finished.

The only thing left over from the first paint job that I DON'T like is the damn valve covers, but they are just way too complicated to perform my latest process on.

Here's a little view inside my new three car garage/shop:
Bike progress:
New engine paint job:
I ran out of ideas and went all black block and jugs. I stripped all the cases and augmented the stock brushed aluminum look by painstaking hours using scotchbrite on the end of a drill, then clearcoated the raw aluminum. Still having problems with the clearcoat cracking. Weird.
I did the stuff in the photo above using a product called Everbrite, which I'm kinda less than happy with. Maybe I did too many layers? Or my heat curing then the cold weather caused shrinkage that made a bunch of little cracks all over the paint... The clutch cover and beauty cover on this side are getting the Permalac treatment instead of the Everbrite.

My tank has reached satisfactory levels and got the acid etch coats in the last 2 days:
It sat for a couple of months after my electrolysis rust removal treatment. I washed using a metal wash product that was supposed to prevent rusting. I even left the residue on the metal to dry, but a couple of months in semi-damp and cold conditions made a slight rust haze and little rust spots all over the exterior. So of course, being a perfectionist, I spent 3 hours sanding out the stainless steel tank, every dang mm of it, before I super cleaned it with PPG DX320 and did my etch coats. I need to re-up on high build primer tomorrow morning, then I'll do 4 coats of the high build tomorrow afternoon.

I decided to go semi-pro and created my own positive pressure downdraft paint booth with all the space in my new garage! I framed in a old box fan, taped up a .69 cent air filter, and wow it works so amazing. Looks like crap, but I used a lot of recycled materials to make the booth:


-S

FOR SALE - VX800 front brake master cylinder

Fully rebuilt front brake master cylinder from a '93 VX800. New adjustable lever, new piston cup set and springs, new res-cap screws, repainted gloss black, lettering on reservoir cap sanded out.
It's seen 30k miles. Complete with front brake light switch.

$100.00 + shipping

VX ignition system - photos

For the Ignitech guys and all interested in a programmable ignition for the VX800.

crank position sensor

Stock VX800 ignition unit:

Stock VX coil:

Signal generator?
These bumps on the outside of the rotor appear to be the signal generator. They pass very close to the crank position sensor.


This is no device like the one seen in the manual, BUT, there are 3 short protrusions, and 1 long protrusion as seen above, and this corresponds perfectly with what is seen in the manual below:
I was expecting something more like this: