Really good job! Just leave my comment here to follow your journey.
Really good job! Just leave my comment here to follow your journey.
In reply to Evolut1on: Thanks!
I'm taking this wiring thing pretty seriously.
And my clear heat shrink came today too
Very cool project, I'd love to find a bike like that one for a similar price. Mind if I ask what the grayish colored car on the jack stands is?
In reply to gixxeR: My shopmate races Spec E46 with NASA. This is his new shell after an off track moment wiped out his last one.
It's an interesting space with my hillclimb RX7, Spec E46, Ducati and a Honda resto project.
Got some more things put back on the bike last night.
SWMBO wants me to take a night off from the shop tonight and she's making me dinner, so no more progress photos tomorrow haha.
After the job she did on the rear wheel she probably is owed a dinner and night out!
minimac wrote: After the job she did on the rear wheel she probably is owed a dinner and night out!
It's her bike - she gets nothing beyond the satisfaction of a job well done.
Dinner and a back rub came without strings attached.
The front wheel before
and after
Found why I wasn't getting power to the coils. The kill switch wires were chaffing where it entered the handle bar. Time to break out the soldering rig and replace things.
It would be pretty cool to turn this bike into something similar to Rusnak322's honda, with your own twist of course. Great job so far.
In reply to gixxeR: She's mostly interested in resto-mod, so some small changes/enhancements but mostly faithful to the original.
Got the new seat cover on last night. Need the vinyl to relax a bit for the final small wrinkles to come out. I ordered matching Oury grips too. It's a little darker brown in person.
Exhaust is all together for the final time
Handlebars and controls are ready to go back together as well after some soldering and wiring.
Maybe its because I am not a motorcyclist, but the front tire tread looks like the tire was mounted backwards. Everything else looks great.
In reply to RossD:
That's either a Metzler, or a Copy of one. I thought the exact same thing when I first got my RZ 30 years ago, but nope, its good.
The bike is looking great, Dave.
In reply to RossD: Yeah I thought the same thing, but that's how the tread is designed. It's a Metzler.
Today was wiring day. Gotta get rid of these antiques.
Much better. I also modified the harness so both sides of the stator will be charging at all times. Not that this bike needs much electricity. Waiting on some more supplies to come today so I can continue modifiying and cleaning up the harness and then it will get a fresh tape job.
Controls are installed again (fishing wires through the bar sucked), and the chain is on as well. Some fresh brown Oury grips should be delivered today.
Starting to look like a bike for real! Ordering new 360T decals. The old ones were haggard and had been poorly masked during a paint freshening. I stripped it all off and gave it a clean sheet.
Love these grips. Good thing I bought a black set for my Duc while I was placing the order.
Not mad at all
OK so tonight's main project was wiring. There are a couple things going on.
1: The harness has bulky conenctors that are a bear to stuff into the headlight bucket.
2: There are unnecessary wires for things this bike never had like electric start.
3: Some stuff is just crusty and needs replacement.
4: "While I'm in there"
I already got the new rectifier/voltage regulator wired in and now it was time to start planning for the electronic ignition system as well as cleaning things up further. This means draping the harness on the bike so I can make everything is as long as it needs to be and no longer.
This is how the factory did things. These wires are for the electric start that this bike never came with. They kept them in the harness and just taped over the ends.
The spaghetti monster attacks.
Clear heat shrink and a label printer are your friends.
I'll be shooting a little video on the installation of the ignition unit, but the long and short of it is that it goes from a hall effect sensor to a brain box, which needs power and ground, to the coils. Pretty simple really.
Moving back on the bike. The 70's wasn't the heyday of electrical connections, so simple things like combining wires turned into a solder and tape job even at the factory. I'm replacing these with modern connections with heat activated adhesive that take up less than half the space and leave no sticky tape residue.
The wires at the back of the bike had some corrosion issues, so they got replaced entirely. Of course I had to complicate the job by labeling everything and then adding protective sheathing that Honda never deemed necessary.
Today the ignition goes in and then the harness gets finalized before I hit it with heat shrink tape.
Nice work. I'm glad you're tire is mounted correctly!
Looks great. I'm glad you kept the stock Keihin carbs - don't fall into the trap of the ready-to-go, "bolt-on" Mikuni kits that aren't jetted anywhere near correctly. Trust me on that one. Mikunis are great carbs, but the kits out there are not well thought out. It's also smart to keep the vacuum-throttle carbs for someone who's just learning. They'll stab the throttle and the bike will still behave instead of going super-lean like a direct-link in the mikuni.
I saw someone else post about the timing chain tensioner - I think there's someone over on dotheton making new ones if you get that far. I think those 360s have some issues with upper engine failures because of small oil passages. You might want to research that in case you have issues. I think there's a fairly common head modification that can be done to increase flow.
My main goal with the bike is reliability and simplicity - hence the electronic ignition.
I don't really mind the Keihins - the bike doesn't have a lot of sporting intentions anyway.
Upgraded to the 90's last night.
Didn't like the wire routing so I redid it all last night.
Now I can sleep at night.
Bike is pretty much done until I get the new H4 headlight and stuff comes back from paint
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