# Old motorcycle projects



## John Conroy (Oct 17, 2015)

I have been doing a project bike every winter for the last few years, this year it will be a Yamaha XS650SE. I bought it locally and it is a bit of a turd right now with the frame painted yellow. It took a bit of work to get it running, both carbs were in rough shape, the valves and cam-chain were badly mis-adjusted and of course the points and timing were also all wrong. A day of work and it now runs not bad with qualifies it to become a project. If the engine was toast I would have just parted it out.
My first project from quite a few years ago was a Honda CL450 which I wound up spending more money on than I should have, familiar story.  Here is the finished bike.








Next year it was a DT250. Here are before and after pics.



















Then came the money pit Kawasaki H1D. This bike is complete but waiting for paint.



















Then my favorite, a Kawaski A7 350. It is complete except for the seat.



















Here is the XS














These projects are one of the reasons I got into machine work, so I can make my own parts when required.
 Cheers,

John


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## John Conroy (Oct 17, 2015)

I have decided to do the Yamaha XS650 up in street tracker style.
I bought a used front wheel from a 80 XS110 to use as the rear for my project. I am going to build my own sprocket and brake rotor mounts. I have started with the sprocket side, I machined a sprocket starting with a 530 sprocket blank purchased from Princess Auto. I used 12mm dowel pins between the teeth to mount it in the lathe and milling chucks. I bored the center to 2.516" to be the same size and the brake rotor mount on the wheel. Then added the bolt holes using an 80mm center hole circle and 6 decorative holes to resemble the original sprocket. Then I coated the exposed bare metal areas with a black oxide finish. I machined a sprocket spacer from a 4.5" round of aluminum I bought as a scrap end at Metal Supermarket.





































Here are the plans I drew to plan the machning of the spacers.














John


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## John Conroy (Oct 17, 2015)

Over the last few days I have finished machining all the parts for my 19" rear wheel conversion. It will use three 6204 bearings, the 2 in the original locations in the wheel and a third in the sprocket side spacer to help deal with the extra load on that side of the wheel. Here is a pic of the sprocket and rotor spacers and the one I machined to go between to 2 wheel bearings.







  I warmed up the spacer with my heat gun to 175 deg F and the bearing just dropped right in.







I machined another spacer to go between the left wheel bearing and the sprocket spacer bearing.













Here is the wheel assembly assembled to mock up in the frame.













I clamped a straight lenght of 1/2" square aluminum to the front sprocket in order to space the wheel correctly for chain alignment then measured and machined the 2 outer spacers from stainless steel.



















I mounted the front wheel to check alignment front to rear with 2 straight lengths of lumber and it turned out spot on.



















Now that the machine work is done I can pull the engine and get at the rest of the project.

John


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## John Conroy (Oct 17, 2015)

The used 19 inch wheel I bought came with 2 slotted 300mm front brake  rotors. The original single front 300mm rotor and the rear 270mm rotor are not slotted. I plan to use dual front brake rotors and they will be the slotted ones so I decided to match the slot pattern from the front rotors on the rear one. I mocked up the first slot and spot drilled the center and both ends of the slot to get locations on the DRO. With the rotor mounted in an extra hub I made and in my Vertex super spacer I copied the location at 60 degree spacing around the rotor and drilled all the holes to 8mm the slotted them with a 1/4" end mill. The stainless rotors are pretty hard so it was slow going but turned out well. After the slotting I mounted it in the lathe and use 320 grit sand paper to polish it up a bit.





































John


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## John Conroy (Oct 17, 2015)

I had a few broken bolts to deal with on the engine. One of the starter motor mount bolts was broken flush with the case. I mounted the lower crankcase on an angle plate and set it level in the vise and used a 1/4" end mill to remove all of the bolt except what was in the case threads. The ran a tap into the hole to remove the remainder. It worked out nice with the threads still in good shape. I had to do the same on the cam cover for one of the point housing bolts.


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## Alexander (Oct 18, 2015)

awesome build up so far. Love the creativity like using a front wheel for a back wheel. I'm on the hunt for parts for my winter project. It is a 1985 yamaha  XT550 that I have been riding for a month now and want to fix up. Keep posting your progress that thing looks great.


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## EricB (Oct 21, 2015)

Nice work, John! Can't wait to see what you do with the XS. The 650's are awesome motors and there is a ton of support for them. Lots of guys build "bobbers", cafe's, or trackers out of them. You can even buy ready-built race motors for them. My project once the garage is ready will be an old Jawa 350.

Sent from my B15 using Tapatalk


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## ruzter (Oct 22, 2015)

very nice. I'm in to motorcycles too.my main project right now is a café racer 81 Gold wing. We machined fork extensions to mount the clip on handlebars to. turned out very very nice. That's what made me buy my own lathe.  I bought a couple exit DW 650s but then realized I didn't need five project bikes so bailed on them but nice to see someone with one.


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## Craig (Nov 2, 2015)

AWESOME! 

Great write up and pics.

What do you do to finish the motor cases off.....chemical cleaning then powder coating then reassembly?


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## John Conroy (Nov 2, 2015)

Thanks guys, all the engine parts get soda blasted or glass beaded then painted with Duplicolor engine enamel and baked at 250 degrees for 2 hours. It's a very durable finish.


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## Craig (Nov 11, 2015)

John Conroy said:


> Thanks guys, all the engine parts get soda blasted or glass beaded then painted with Duplicolor engine enamel and baked at 250 degrees for 2 hours. It's a very durable finish.



Thx John.

So the Duplicolor doesn't chip or flake off? Durable - similar properties to powder coating??


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## John Conroy (Nov 11, 2015)

Not as durable as powder coating but way better than regular paint.


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## Craig (Nov 11, 2015)

John Conroy said:


> Not a durable a powder coating but way better than regular paint.



Good to know. Thx John.

Are you in Calgary?


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## John Conroy (Nov 11, 2015)

I'm in St. Albert, just north of Edmonton.


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## John Conroy (Jul 31, 2016)

I recently picked up a couple of Buell project bikes, a 99 X1 which I am now riding daily and a 98 S3 which had no engine. The S3 has a nice set of 54mm WP upside-down forks that I could sell but I thought they would work on my Yamaha XS650 project bike. I mocked up the triple clamps from the Buell onto the Yamaha and liked what I saw so I decided to go ahead and try to make the swap work. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the 19" Yamaha wheels or the 17" Buell wheels, that will depend on what I come up with for the rear suspension. Here is the XS650 frame mocked up with the Buell triple clamps, forks and front wheel.







The Buell fork legs are 2" shorter than the XS forks so they will need to be extended, also the 17" wheel would put the bike 1" closer to the ground than the 19" ones.













I decided to make up a pair of 3" extensions like these ones from Extreme Creations.

http://www.extremecreations.com.au/post/2013/05/01/Hayabusa-fork-extensions.aspx







I decided to use some thick wall high strength steel tubing instead of the aluminum ones from EC, just because it was what I had on hand. The fork OD is 2.125" and the ID is 2.00" and the steel tube I have is 2.5'OD and 2.0" ID. The thread required is 49mm X 1.5mm pitch. I made up 2 three inch long outer tube extensions with a male thread on one end and female on the other.



















The internal dampers in the fork will have to be moved up 3" as well so I made up a couple of 3" damper assembly extensions from some 1" 6061 aluminum I had on hand.



















Before I install them on the forks I'm going to color them with gun blue but they thread on very nicely and the O-rings on the original caps fit perfectly into the top of the extensions.













The triple clamps will need work to be retrofitted so that's the next thing on the list.

John


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## PeterT (Jul 31, 2016)

John, I don't know anything about bikes, but sure enjoy your build pics.
What are your tooling weapons of choice for external & internal threading jobs like these tubular parts?
Are these metric threads to match (Japan?) based bikes?


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## John Conroy (Aug 1, 2016)

Thanks Peter. Most of the threading I do is external and I use a carbide insert tool that covers most of the sae or metric thread sizes for my projects. Carbide insert tools are nice but they don't like turning at low speed and I do all my threading at 70 rpm so I have to take very light cuts and it can be time consuming. Not a big deal for me, these are fun projects. I have gotten the best results when using "Tap Magic" tapping fluid for lube on this low speed thread turning, it makes a much better finish that the other cutting fluids I have used. For the internal threading on this job I used a cheap cemented carbide tool and again very light cuts at 70 rpm. The same 60 degree tool I have used for most of the internal threading I have done. I alway use a tap for internal threading if I have the right size but this 49mm thread was very unusual. I looked up the thread dimensions in my Machinery Handbook for 1.5mm thread pitch and the difference between major and minor diameters is .082" for all the small metric fasteners that use that pitch. That seemed to match the dimensions I measured on the internal and external threads I measured on this set of forks so I went with a .041" depth with the cutting tools and it matches the existing threads perfectly. I had to switch the transposing gears on my lathe for metric threading and could not use the threading dial. I had to keep the feed screw engaged through the the entire process of each thread and stop the lathe at the end of each pass and back it up by backing the tool out with the cross slide and reversing the motor to back up for the next pass. Tedious but it worked.


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## Alexander (Aug 1, 2016)

This is really cool. I am impressed that you were patient enough to pull this off on an imperial lathe. It would have been tricky. The end result is cool stuff


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## John Conroy (Sep 4, 2016)

I wanted to replace the ugly old rusty chrome front engine mount on the XS650 project bike. I stole this design from another member of the XS650 Forum. The only welded part will be the large washers attached to each plate at the engine. This is an image provided by Ristis on the XS650 forum.









I’m going to use metal I have on hand, not stainless like Ristis did. I started with the old mount and clamped it to the mill table with the bolt holes vertical. The holes are 10mm and I have some pieces of 10mm drill rod that are a perfect fit so I used one of them to locate the holes and plot them on my DRO.









With the holes plotted I drilled three 10mm (.390”) holes in a piece of 5/16” plate steel and checked the fit with 3 lengths of drill rod and they lined up perfectly with the old mount.
















Then I drew a rough outline around the bolt holes to mimic the shape of the original mount, my goal was to leave at least ½” from the edge of the holes. I cut it out using my Portaband saw on a vertical stand I built.









I set the piece up in the vise using the drill rods to get the holes horizontal and milled all 3 sides flat with equal spacing from the edge. Then test fit it on the engine/frame.
















Perfect fit. Then I just had to make another one and use the first one and drill rods to mill them both the same.






















Then I mounted both pieces on my rotary table and made a radius on all the corners.























I installed the bolt through the engine cases and tightened it so I could measure the space between the plates and frame tube to make the outer spacers. The left side measured .590” and the right is .555”. I enlarged  the 2 holes to the frame portion to .625". I machined 2 spacers for the left side with .590” of .980” diameter and .600” of .626” diameter. The .626” part is a .001” interference fit into the plate and the center spacer. I pressed the spacers into the plate and test fit the parts. Perfect so far.
















That’s it for today.


John


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## John Conroy (Sep 11, 2016)

I got the engine mount finished. I decided to add some decorative holes to the plates and I spot welded a washer to each plate to fit against the engine. I dressed the spot welds off on the belt sander. I machined 3 spacers, one for each side and one to go between the plates.































Then I pressed all the part together in my Yost vise with aluminum jaws.







The finished mount fits like a glove and looks a lot better than the original I think.

























John


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## John Conroy (Sep 11, 2016)

I got the Buell forks and triple clamps modified for the XS650. The Buell steering stem is about 1" too short so I pressed the original steering stem out of the lower triple clamp. I ordered some retrofit steering head bearings from All Balls with 48mm OD and one with 27mm and the other 30MM ID. The 48mm OD will fit the XS frame and the ID's will fit the custom steering stem I am machining.  This pic show the original stem and the custom one I made along with the 2 bearings. I machined the stem to have a .002" interference fit into the lower triple clamp but I threaded the ID to 5/8" NF to assure it can't slip off. The lower inner bearing is a .0005" interference fit to the stem and the upper is a snug finger press fit. The upper triple clamp is a .001" interference fit onto the stem.








The Buell stem was originally held to the triple with a press fit and a snap ring. I feel safer with a bolt holding it on.













The outer races fit the frame perfectly.

























The upper end of the stem is threaded to 5/8" NF as was the original Buell stem.








There is some interference between the upper triple clamp and the front of the gas tank. I used some 1/4" bolts threaded into the bottom of the upper triple clamp to form steering stops and will have to move the gas tank mounts rearward 1/2".







It has about the same amount of steering lock as my Buell.


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## John Conroy (Sep 11, 2016)

I got new bronze swing arm bushings from Dime City and cleaned up the old shaft and sleeve. They are in good shape so I'm going to re-use them.







I decided to make a swing arm brace from some old handle bars. The 7/8 Chrome moly tube is perfect for this job. I cut the bars up and used some of the bends to form the brace and TIG welded the parts together.































I MIG welded the brace to the swing arm and bead blasted the assembly before pressing in the new bushings.

























I mocked up the engine with the trans output shaft in it to make sure my sprocket alignment was still good after welding on the swing arm. It lines up perfectly.


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## Alexander (Sep 12, 2016)

John Conroy said:


> The finished mount fits like a glove and looks a lot better than the original I think.


I agree it adds a tough look to the bike nice work. How long do you figure you spent working on that mount?


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## John Conroy (Sep 12, 2016)

Alexander said:


> How long do you figure you spent working on that mount?



Way too much time, I probably spent nearly 3 days on it. Now that I have all the measurements I could make another one in a few hours. I considering re-doing it in 6061 aluminum.


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## PeterT (Sep 12, 2016)

John, that's a mean looking ride just sitting on the stand.
When you mod your frames, do you paint them yourself, or is that something that needs to be outsourced to shop painters or powder coaters or something?


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## John Conroy (Sep 13, 2016)

Peter I have a friend who works in a body shop and he sandblasts and paint my frames with a 2 part epoxy paint. I built an Big Block Chevy 454 for his 57 GMC hot rod and a Small Block 327 for his wife's 62 Acadian hot rod last summer so he owes me a couple of favors! We do work for each other on a "no money changes hands" basis and I think, over the last 20 years or so I have come out ahead. He did all the body work on my 64 Beaumont project car that I finished in 1999. As you can see from the before and after pics it was a lot of work.













I sold the car a few years ago and he still hasn't forgiven me!


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## John Conroy (Sep 13, 2016)

I got the Yamaha front wheel mounted in the Buell forks last night. It was amazingly easy as the 17mm Buell axle is the right size for the Yamaha wheel bearings and the only thing I had to make was a .075" spacer between the left fork leg and the speedo drive on the wheel. I had to machine a locating tab off the speedo drive and make it flat on the side that fits against the fork leg. I struggled with measuring the distance from the wheel to each fork leg accurately until I spent a half hour making up a tool for the job. I uses a simple fixture to hold a dial indicator and very accurately measures that dimension and it now centered perfectly (within .005").  Now I have to figure out what to do about brakes.


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## Jwest7788 (Sep 13, 2016)

PeterT said:


> John, that's a mean looking ride just sitting on the stand.



Could we get some pics and a run down on that yellow motorcycle in the background?

That subframe and swingarm look awesome.


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## John Conroy (Sep 13, 2016)

I found this Buell X1 in a bike shop where it had been abandoned by the owner who did not want to pay the cost to get it running. The word I got from the shop owner was it needed a fuel pump. The shop had stored the bike for over 4 years and had seized it to cover the storage cost. They were getting ready to remove the engine for a chopper project and the thought of that made my skin crawl. The shop owner assured me the engine was in good shape and it shows 22000 km on the odometer. I made a low ball offer just to try and save this nice old tube frame Buell from chopper hell and to my surprise he accepted saying his guys were not comfortable with the fuel injection system. Later I found that they had removed the fuel pump and it's mounting frame from the tank and apparently thrown it away. They also had started robbing some parts off it, the right handlebar switch and throttle was missing and so was  the clutch actuator ramp assembly from under the clutch cover. The muffler had also been lost.














I got it home and started to evaluate what it would take to get it running thinking I could recover my money by parting it out if there was too much wrong with it.
I found and PDF copy of the service and parts manuals online and went about making sure it was electrically good enough to power the fuel pump, injectors and ignition system. Not surprisingly, even after jumping the circuits in the right handlebar switch there was no power to the ECM, fuel pump, injectors or ignition coil. After some time spent with the schematic I went to the fuse/diode block and discovered corrosion had caused the problems.










There was one un-damaged vacant diode receptacle already populated with terminals so I just cut the wires from the corroded terminals and spliced them to the ones in the undamaged diode holder. I removed  all the remaining terminals and cleaned them up with a couple of wipes with 280 grit sandpaper and some contact cleaner then packed the fuse/diode block with di-electric grease and installed new fuses. Some of the terminals on the 2 relays were slightly corroded as well so I gave them the same treatment. After all that, using a test light in place of the fuel pump, I get the 2 second fuel pump pulse when the key is turned on and there is power to the injectors and coil. I then plugged my injector tester into each injector and found them to be seized. I removed them and set up my injector flusher to 50 psi with some injector cleaning solvent in it and connected it to the fuel rail overnight. In the morning when the injectors were energized by the tester they functioned and I ran the entire can of cleaner solvent through them and checked the flow rates after. They both deliver identical quantities of fuel so I'll call them good. You can see the difference in the color of the solvent at the beginning of flushing and the end. There was lots of spooge in them. I re-installed the fuel injector rail and set up the flusher with just premium fuel and the engine started right up with the remote fuel supply. Here it is running for the first time in 4 years.




























You will notice there is a muffler on it in the video. That is the muffler I removed from my 2000 Buell M2 when I bought it new back in 2001. I sold that bike in 2008 and have regretted it ever since.
I cut the muffler into 3 pieces and removed the baffle plate that closed off the end of the 2 major baffles and welded it all back together. A splash of header paint and it's a pretty invisible mod and not as noisy as the Vance & Hines muffler I had on the M2.


























More later.


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## PeterT (Sep 13, 2016)

You make me want to get into bikes. But that's just the mid-life crisis talk'n. Besides, I'd probably shoot my eye out .


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## Jwest7788 (Sep 14, 2016)

PeterT said:


> You make me want to get into bikes. But that's just the mid-life crisis talk'n. Besides, I'd probably shoot my eye out .


You totally should. I love my motorcycle. Haha


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## Alexander (Sep 14, 2016)

@Peter buy a goldwing your wife can ride on the back. My wife didnt like the idea of me riding a motorcycle untill we did our first trip to drumhell on a goldwing. Then she got hooked on bikes too.


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## John Conroy (Sep 24, 2016)

More work on the Xs650 project. I made up some headlight ears and clamps to hold them to the fork legs so I could  mount the large 7" headlight. I started with 2 pieces of 1" X 2.5" aluminum and bored a 2-1/8" hole in each. I let the pictures tell the rest.


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## Janger (Oct 2, 2016)

PeterT said:


> You make me want to get into bikes. But that's just the mid-life crisis talk'n. Besides, I'd probably shoot my eye out .


Take the course! I got my license this year - my kids think I'm an old fart.


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## Janger (Oct 2, 2016)

Something else I've noticed we all like motorcycles, making stuff, and our names are either John or Peter. Honestly I think there's 4 Johns and 3 Peter on this little forum.


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## John Conroy (Oct 2, 2016)

Janger said:


> Something else I've noticed we all like motorcycles, making stuff, and our names are either John or Peter. Honestly I think there's 4 Johns and 3 Peter on this little forum.



That's crazy isn't it?!!


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## Dabbler (Oct 2, 2016)

That's why I chose 'Dabbler'  my name is John also!!!


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## John Conroy (Oct 8, 2016)

I bought a used Buell brake rotor on eBay and was going to machine an adapter to make the 5 bolt hole Buell rotor fit the 6 bolt hole Yamaha wheel. Unfortunately the Buell rotor was bent. I shot a video and sent it to the vendor and he promptly refunded my money and told me to scrap the rotor.

I decided that the bent Buell rotor might be usable if only the aluminum carrier is bent and not the stainless steel braking surface. I removed the 9 buttons attaching the 2 parts together and checked the steel part on my surface plate and it appears to be dead flat. I decided to attempt  to make a hybrid rotor using a Yamaha disc and the outer part of the Buell rotor.
Here's the Buell rotor with the center removed laying over the Yamaha one. This might work!







I measured the button hole radius on the mill and laid out and spot drilled the 9 holes in the Yamaha rotor.







I then drilled them to 21/32" or .656" matching the size of the holes in the Buell rotor.







When I checked the hole layout against the Buell rotor it matched perfectly, that was a relief.


















I measured the OD of the Buell rotor carrier and set up a 1/4" end mill to cut out that circle on the Yamaha rotor.



















The Yamaha rotor is 2mm thicker than the Buell one so I milled a pocket at each button location so the thickness of both parts will be the same where the buttons mount.







I assembled the parts temporarily to check the fit with the old buttons and it looks good. Next I have to pick up some 303 stainless bar to make the new buttons with.













Time will tell if this is going to work out but all I have invested so far is the Yamaha rotor which I was not going to use anyway.


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## John Conroy (Oct 10, 2016)

To finish the front brake set up on the XS650 my plan for rotor buttons was to make a 2 part system where the 2 parts would thread together instead of the press fit of the originals. I decided instead to use the old rotor buttons rather than make new ones. The originals are in the shape of a tube with a raised lip on the outer edge and a conical spring washer on the back side, then another thicker washer was installed over the tube and the tube was peened over to retain the washer. Not very strong but there should be no lateral forces so strong enough. When I removed them I used a disc sander and removed just enough of the tube to be flush with the outer edge of the washer then used a brass drift to punch the tubular buttons out. I thought that I should be able to just put the old buttons, conical springs and washers back on and make a tool to push the washers over the buttons until flush with the edge and then fusion weld them in place with the TIG welder. If it didn't work out I could still make new buttons. I made up a very simple tool to hold the assembled buttons together with 2 openings to allow 2 spot welds on each. I ground the TIG tungsten to a very sharp point and it turned out well.













After I got each one spot welded in 2 places I continued without the holding tool and add 1 spot weld at a time, with plenty of cooling time between welds, until a total of 10 welds were applied to each button washer. I'm confident this will be at least as strong as the originals.













Then I installed the rotor to the wheel and the wheel to the forks and checked the rotor for run out with dial indicator. Less than .001", good enough for me. I had to use a .075" thick spacer between the fork leg and the caliper to center the caliper on the rotor.































I'm really happy with how it turned out, the front brake on this project was one of the things I did not have a plan for.


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## John Conroy (Nov 6, 2016)

A little more progress. I glass bead blasted the 19" wheels and drilled each spoke with 5 evenly spaced holes and powder coated them in a cast aluminum color finish. I mounted a couple of Shinko 241 tires that resemble the old Dunlop Trials Universal tires that came on Yamaha Enduros in the 70", both in 3.50" X 19" size. I'm thinking about front fender options now and leaning toward a plastic dual sport fender. I took the one off my DRZ400 (21" front wheel) and temporarily attached it with zip ties. It looks pretty good so I ordered a black UFO fender for a Honda CR85 that will fit better with the 19" wheel. This weekend I'm going to work on an exhaust system and test my TIG welding skills.



























Last time Dime City had a free shipping deal I ordered a TC Bros exhaust kit from them. Nice quality mandrel bends and header flanges for the money.







I've decided to go with a left side high pipe system something like my Honda CL450 has, I'm a sucker for high pipes!
My TIG welding skills are pretty weak so I decided to MIG weld all the pipe joints and then dress the welds down with a flap wheel and polish them with a Roloc disc. I spent a few hours in the garage today and came up with this for head pipes. The mild steel is easy to work with and if it turns out OK I will probably get it ceramic coated.































I cut some 1" square tubing into a couple of C shaped bracket and TIG welded some 1/4" nuts to the inside, then TIG welded these bracket to the inside of the head pipes for support and also to serve as a front mount for a heat shield I will build later.













I'm working on an idea for a single muffler that will involve a 1' section of 4" exhaust pipe with machined aluminum end caps. I roughed out the idea like this.



















To be continued.


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## PeterT (Nov 7, 2016)

Cool!
- how are you liking your (I think you were one of the guys who bought Everlast) TIG welder so far?
- you mentioned jobbing out manifold for ceramic coating. Who does that kind of work & what kind of bucks if you don't mind me asking?
- the muffler can looks like steel? & you mention aluminum ends. If so, how do you attach dissimilar like that?
- are there internal baffles or noise screens or anything?


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## John Conroy (Nov 7, 2016)

The Everlast TIG welder works great as far as I can tell with my limited skills. I need to spend more time practicing with it. It has a pulse feature that allows the current to be ramped up and down at variable frequency which makes it easier for rookies like me to weld thin metals without burn through. It will probably be a long time before I can make pretty welds with it. Somebody said a MIG welder is like a glue gun and I have lots of experience with MIG and can make decent looking welds with my Miller 180 even on thin metal without burn through. With this exhaust project I am trying to make the welds as invisible as possible so I'm using the MIG and then carefully buzzing them off with an 80 grit flap wheel on a 5" angle grinder then polishing the sander marks off with a Roloc disc on a 4" disc grinder.

I will probably get the ceramic coating done at Perfection Powder Coating in Edmonton and based on other stuff I've had done by them I suspect it will cost about $100-$150 for the whole system including the steel part of muffler can. I am going to machine 2 aluminum end caps that will be fastened with stainless button head cap screws. There will be 2 pipes into and 1 out of the end caps and the pipes will be held into the end caps with hidden grub screws and sealed with high temp RTV. The 3 pipes will be perforated inside the can and possibly wrapped in muffler packing. The design will be a lot like the muffler on my Buell. I'll document the muffler build so you can see how it works out. Of course if turns out to look like a monkeys butt no one will ever see it.


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## John Conroy (Nov 24, 2016)

More progress on the exhaust system part of this project. I've spent so much time on this muffler that I'm committed to using it even if it looks hideous. Kind of like having an ugly dog, it's ugly but it's mine. It started with a 1 foot length of 4" exhaust pipe from a diesel pick up with a cutout to fit around the right rear shock and keep it tighter to the bike. Then I made up 2 aluminum end caps  and the 2 inlet pipes and 1 outlet with baffling holes drilled and an aluminum end piece for the outlet. I tack welded a support bracket to the frame to support the muffler and made a connecting brace from a piece of 3/16" aluminum sheet. My final judgment as to whether to keep it will be hearing how it sounds when I get the engine back together. I welcome your comments, here's some pics.


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## PeterT (Nov 24, 2016)

Very interesting John, looks great! I'm always curious about what's inside the magic cans, especially when they sound good with that mean gurgle. My background is RC models & I flew pattern (aerobatics) for many years. Before the rules changed favoring 4-srokes, 2-strokes were dominant & it was all about extracting max power but with hard stringencies. The biggest was noise limits, being reduced every 2 years from 98dB to 96.. I think its 94dB now. The pipes also had to take the heat & be as light as possible, I want to say they were about 75 grams. Unlike gasoline systems, cant use acoustic batting because of pre-mix oil mix in methanol (it would just mung up). Because we favoured long strokes for lower rpm & more torque, this pushed header/pipe assembly to long lengths like +60cm for the reflecting wave tuning. Longer length = increased weight. The aluminum pipes from Japan were a work of art, feather light, spun to maybe .030" WT. The baffle plates & cones & sub-pipes internals were spot/Tig welded through holes in the can & then polished over flush.

The only thing lighter was carbon fiber & I messed around with that. The plus was design freedom, you were not confined to circular pipe sections & carbon was relatively inexpensive. The minus was the resin was real expensive, nasty, toxic sh*t & you had to post-cure bake at 400F or so to make it stand up to exhaust temp. I had a few successful pipes. It was mostly R&D fun. I also had some failures. The best case scenario was a baffle that let go. If the rpms fell off & you heard this Bbbrrrt sound, the gig was up. The worst is when composite material eventually burns & degrades, this schmeg gets pumped back into the exhaust port with the reflective wave & basically destroys expensive engines very quickly. Ahhh the fun  (fun is spelt $fun$)


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## John Conroy (Dec 4, 2016)

That's cool stuff Peter, I've never had any experience with RC model engines but I have built some 2 stoke expansion chambers in the past.


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## John Conroy (Dec 4, 2016)

I made a little more progress on this mongrel bike. I bought a partial sheet of .040" aluminum to make an exhaust heat shield and some side covers with. First I mounted the muffler and inlet pipes in the mill and cut some slots so the clamps can tighten down onto the inner pipe.







Then I made up 2 brackets that bolt to the mounts I welded to the back side of the pipes earlier.































Then I made a cardboard template to get the bolt hole spacing for the heat shield.







I cut a piece of the aluminum sheet and screwed it by the 4 corners to a piece of 2" X 12" lumber and transferred the template holes onto the sheet metal.













I bent a small piece of sheet metal to work out how I was going to bend the heat shield.







I drilled the mounting holes and then a pattern of decorative holes then I lost my head a bit and experimented with some swirly pattern stuff using a Roloc disc.







I took the piece to work and put into the metal brake to add some bends to fit around the pipes.







I didn't take into account that the heat from using the Roloc Disc would work harden the aluminum and it cracked on the bends. A couple of off color words were uttered. Lesson learned.







I decided to take a break from the heat shield and work on the side covers. I'm going for a slimmer look than the bulbous stock covers give. I used some more of the sheet aluminum. I cut off the old seat latch and re-worked the stock side cover brackets with some heat and pliers then made up some backing nuts from short pieces of 1/4", threaded to 6mm. I spot welded the nuts to the back of the frame tabs.

























I also drilled out the spot welds on the lower side cover retainer brackets and welded nut into them as well.


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## John Conroy (Dec 4, 2016)

I installed the battery box and carbs to check clearances and made up some more cardboard templates. I originally made cut outs around the air filters but later decided to space the side panels out to provide air filter clearance.

You'll notice I painted my cracked heat shield to see how black would look. I kind of like it that way.













After the cardboard templates were made to fit I cut the aluminum sheet and made up some spacers to go behind 2 of the 3 bolts on each cover for correct fit.













I took the covers to work and put a small bend at the top of each on and also bent up my second attempt at a heat shield and bead blasted all 3 parts. No cracked sheet metal this time! All three parts will probably get painted.


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## EricB (Dec 4, 2016)

Looks great, John! If you still wanted the engine turned look you could probably anneal the back-side of the aluminum before bending too. 

This bike is going to be damn cool!

Sent from my B15 using Tapatalk


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## John Conroy (Dec 4, 2016)

Thanks Eric, I decided I didn't really like the look anyway.


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## Jwest7788 (Dec 5, 2016)

Fantastic work as always John.


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## Deni822 (Dec 7, 2016)

Awesome builds and a great thread!  Subscribed.


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## John Conroy (Dec 12, 2016)

I spent almost the whole day Saturday making up some footpegs to replace the rubber covered originals. I used 2 strips of 1" by 1/4" hot rolled steel and milled notches spaced 1/2" on center, .180" deep, then milled that edge flat.













  I used the cheap Princess Auto metal bender to form the 180 degree bends with a 1" diameter die.













I TIG welded the end caps on.







I machined some adapters to fit the Yamaha brackets and welded those to the end caps. The profile of the adapters allow the pegs to fold to 45 degrees. They are about 1/2" longer than the stock pegs.


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## John Conroy (Dec 22, 2016)

I'm planning to use only the speedo from the XS but the one I have has 2 dents in the outer bezel. I used a simple plywood holding fixture and a curved tool to pry the crimp on the bezel open a little at a time until it was opened enough around the entire circumference to remove it. I also used a piece of sheet metal between the speedo and the prying tool to protect the plastic speedo body. I replaced the bezel with the undamaged one from the tach.





































After the speedo was installed onto the undamaged bezel I used a length of brass rod to push the crimp closed again a little at a time until it is back to the original form. It is easier to repaint the bezel when it's on the gauge so I'll do that later.


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## John Conroy (Dec 22, 2016)

I used a chunk of 6061 to machine a speedo/handle bar mount. The Buell triple clamp has a weird diagonal bolt pattern for the handle bar hold down and I wanted to eliminate that as well as raise the bars up about 1.5". I milled the top of the original triple clamps bar mounts flat and parallel.







I machined the adapter block to use 2 of the threaded holes on the triple clamp as simply hold downs and the other 2 as part of the bar mount hold downs thus giving me the perpendicular bar mounts I wanted and giving 4.25" spacing between the hold down clamps.
The Buell triple clamp used Imperial fasteners so all the holes are 5/16" NC.



















I machined the hold down clamps from 2 more small pieces of 6061 aluminum.













I drilled the hole for the handlebar to 3/4" the bore it to .875" for the 7/8" bars I will use. Both bar clamps are bored at once, stacked in the vise.













Then I drilled and countersunk the bolt holes and chamfered the edges.













I used a slitting saw to cut the clamps in half.



















Using the same bolt hole spacing I drilled and tapped the extra mounting hole in the bracket for the hold down clamps.







Now I have the starting point for my bar mount/speedo mount


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## John Conroy (Dec 22, 2016)

I wanted to rubber mount the speedo as XS650's vibrate like paint shakers. I bent up a simple bracket from some 3/16" flat steel and milled the area that will fit on the aluminum bracket to fit between the mounting bolt holes. I found some sleeved rubber mounts left over from my DT250 build and measured the waist area of the rubber part. I did not have a drill bit the right size so I drilled the holes undersize then finished sizing with a boring bar.













I drilled and tapped the 3 mounting holes in the aluminum bracket to 1/4" NC, the Buell triple clamps use Imperial fasteners.



















I soon realized that there was not enough room for the speedo bracket under the handlebar bracket, the rear bolt interfered with the steering stem bolt so I milled a pocket .200" deep in the aluminum bracket to move the speedo bracket upward to provide the necessary clearance. I drilled the 2 mounting holes for the speedo and milled a slot for cable clearance and fitted the handlebar.












































There's more to do on these brackets but the bar height feels right and I like the position of the speedo


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## PeterT (Dec 22, 2016)

Nice. If you ever find yourself having to replace unobtanium rubber mounts, seals etc. for your customs or historic bikes, I've done some dabbling with casting liquid urethane into machined molds. You can buy the 2-part goop in reasonable quantities & various durometer ratings through the arts/casting crowd - brands like Smooth-On & others. There are a few tricks to de-aerate & proper releasing agent, but not onerous & usually only problematic on larger volumes or stressed parts. Sorry no pics, but something to store in the noggin if the day comes


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## PeterT (Dec 22, 2016)

John when you slit slabs like this (in aluminum) do you take multiple passes to a certain DOC, or do you the whole depth & just walk in slowly? I've heard different schools of thought, maybe related to aluminum because is gummier? Another variation was a minor scoring slit just intended to guide the blade, but still cut full depth. I've always chickened out, taken multiple passes & it takes me forever. Despite decent arbors, my HSS blades inevitably make a scuff-scuff sound where all teeth are rarely engaged simultaneously.

I've thought about making a fence for the band saw table & sacrificial clamp plate out of MDF or something for less critical parts. On some things I just don't care what the finish is on the inside of the slit. I thought maybe mount up a 1-axis 'mill table accessory' or whatever they call those things. Then the part would be secure & you could feed it into blade? So many tools to make, so little time!


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## John Conroy (Dec 22, 2016)

I could only cut half way through each cap then I flipped them around in the vise to cut from the other side. I use a brush to apply oil to the blade before each pass and take a .125" depth cut each time in aluminum. With the cheap abor I use the blade is not quite on center but that's not a problem, in fact I think it helps clear the chips. I run the mill spindle quite slow, about 350 rpm. It cuts like a hot knife through butter. You have to ignore all the ugly noise it makes. It cuts very accurately. After each cap was cut in half I put them in the mill and removed
.010" from each side to smoothen the saw cut edge finish.
By the way climb cutting is not a good idea!


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## kylemp (Dec 22, 2016)

No slitting saw is really concentric.. they all do that off center thing. As for the noise it's pretty painful eh?

Surprisingly you are supposed to do the cut in one pass, just adjust speeds and feeds to an appropriate level for the cut. Personally I run around 90 to 150rpm I believe and it goes pretty well.


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## John Conroy (Jan 2, 2017)

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.


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## DPittman (Jan 2, 2017)

John Conroy said:


> 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.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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


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## John Conroy (Jan 2, 2017)

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!


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## DPittman (Jan 3, 2017)

John Conroy said:


> 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.


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## Bofobo (Jan 8, 2017)

John Conroy said:


> 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?


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## John Conroy (Jan 26, 2017)

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


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## John Conroy (Jan 26, 2017)

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!


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## John Conroy (Jan 29, 2017)

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.


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## John Conroy (Feb 21, 2017)

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.


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## John Conroy (Feb 21, 2017)

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


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## John Conroy (Feb 21, 2017)

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


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## John Conroy (Feb 21, 2017)

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


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## John Conroy (Feb 21, 2017)

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.


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## John Conroy (Apr 8, 2017)

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.


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## John Conroy (Apr 25, 2017)

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


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## Alexander (Apr 25, 2017)

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


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## John Conroy (Apr 30, 2017)

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.


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