Scott,
Your bike is in good hands, you have (got) the right attitude towards it. The biggest advantage is that the bike is in your head now. Once there, it all makes sense, and is doesn't have any deep secrets for you anymore (this seems a little philosophical, and it is).
cknight,
You are so right about a volt / ohm meter. In the wide range of volt/ohm meters that are available, look for one which can measure small resistances, around 1 ohm, with a fault range of 10% or less. The price of a volt meter (and the quality) is determined by the accuracy of the low resistance measurement. When connections are faulty, it is most of the time in the low ohm range.
That doesn't seems to be important, but when you have 12 volts to work with, and three amps (as example the head light), the loses due to 0.2 ohm resistance in a connector is 0.6 V voltage drop and the dissipation in heat is 1.8 Watt. If both connectors of the head light are having 0.2 ohm resistance, it's 3.6 Watt. The power "delivered " to the connectors, is in this case 3.6 watt.
Jensen
1962 Superhawk Restoration: Here I goMy approach to restoring a bike. First thing I do is a complete teardown, inpection, and rebuild of engine, carbs, and electrical. It all goes back in the bike, and the bike gets running as well as possible, no oil leaks, carbs tuned , lights working etc. Then it all comes back apart, and the rest of the bike gets paint, plating, polishing, etc etc etc. When it all goes back together, problems are minimal, and it already is a known good runner without any issues that require disassembly. and scratching up the nicely painted parts. As much as Ilove riding these old bikes, truthfully I spend more time wrenching on them. I guess that's what I really enjoy the most!
davomoto
64 CB77 63-7 CB77 Cafe' 67 CL77 64 CL72 66 CL77 big bore flat tracker Many others!
Hi Dave,
That's the only way to do it, and I try to get it running before I tear it apart the first time. When I hear it running I know for which parts I have to look. I enjoy restoring bikes, and have another bike to ride, but I understand that not everybody has that kind of luxury. Having multiple bikes In the Netherlands is not so expensive, I pay 20 to 40 Euro insurance per bike a year, and there are no extra costs (no taxes for example). Jensen assembly of Japanese motorcycles requires great peace of mind (Pirsig)
Scott
I enjoy reading your posts very much and I believe that this forum is a great place to get ideas from many different heads working on a problem. It doesn't mater that "it's been done like this for the last 40 years, so it must be right", there are ALWAYS new approaches to things. Like Davomoto, I find that I am most happy working on the bikes and solving problems. For me, the summer is all about painting and the winter is for engine builds. In my 30 year engineering career (mostly with hi-tech engine monitoring systems) we coined the phrase " you cannot manage what you cannot measure". Measurement, whether it is electrical, optical or mechanical is the starting point - know what you have. We built systems for 12 cylinder locomotive engines and it's surprising how measuring things 'in the field' surprised even the builders of those engines. We discovered things about these engines that just never came up on the dyno originally. To echo what Jensen and Davo said earlier you need to make the measurements AND know what they mean. As for your case flatness issues, I have used a quite simple method to take high spots on large cases (they usually accompany nearby low spots unless caused by real damage) on cases. Attach a piece of 'wet-or-dry' paper to a nice smooth flat bar ( I use aluminum ) which is long enough to span the largest dimension of the case. Rest the bar on a good part of the case and swing the abrasive end over the suspect part of the case. You will feel the high spots (often around screw holes from over tightening) and can remove them with gentle application of the guided abrasive. If you can fit the whole case onto a sheet of plate glass / abrasive paper, I always use a 'figure of 8' rubbing motion to even out the material removal. I enjoy making my own 'tools' when I have the time. A basic knowledge of engineering / physics really helps. I made my own water-based, averaging, manometer (U-tube) for balancing the carbs on my Honda 400-four when I was an impoverished engineering student. It cost nothing but 30-feet of garden hose, a plank of wood and some soldered-up manifold adaptors. It was an order of magnitude more accurate than those fancy vacuum gauges you could buy in the shops and could be used to water the law if necessary! :-) When the expensive Honda rectifier failed on the 400 we replaced it with a Lucas car rectifier at 1/3 the price. It's still on the bike now 30 years later. Experience is the thing you get just after you needed it most! G '60 C77 '60 C72 '62 C72 Dream '63 CL72
'61 CB72 '64 CB77 '65 CB160 '66 Matchless 350 '67 CL77 '67 S90 '77 CB400F Ain't that the truth!
Current restoration: 1962 CB77
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1962_cb77_restore/
Ha! Just been down that street myself. Last year I bought a NOS chainguard, still in primer. So, over the past couple of months I've been prepping it and got it lustrous with several coats of Deep Black from an arsehole. I went to fit it yesterday only to find that the indentation around the shock's bottom clevis wasn't deep enough to clear. Bollocks! So I reworked the scalloping-out, across the jaws of a vice, with a pair of dressing hammers, gently stretching the metal until, upon the final offering up, it cleared the clevis. I then found that the inner-forward screw eye didn't line up! Double bollocks!! That bit has now been Dremelled to elongate the eye. Then the fore-end arc where it intrudes into the r/h casings fouled and scratched the paint there. Treble bol..... you get the picture. More dressing. it now fits and clears everywhere (at last) and needs painting again. But lesson learned. 20/20 hindsight!
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