D-Mac's rat bike to......cafe bike? Here we go again.

[Breadman]

  Great thread!

Thanks for all of the photos to bring your story to life for us all.

[veefer800canuck]

+1

[Tyrroneous]

This is shaping up to be a great project.  Keep up the good work.

On the battery front, have you looked into the new Li batteries?  They are lightweight, really small, can be installed in any orientation and hold a charge well without having to be hooked up to a battery tender.  I've been impressed the the Shorai battery I installed in my Daytona.

[D-Mac]

I hope everyone is having a great holiday! I'm back from vacation and starting in on the bike again. Since I don’t have too many bike pics from today (at least none showing much progress), here’s what I’ve been up to lately.

Went and saw this…..

Hung around here (Santa Monica pier)

And I lost a little money at this place, although my wife did much better and we ended UP $4.50 cents on the casino. I’ve already used the money to buy more sandpaper!

While I was gone, the UPS guy got cozy with my housesitter, and a nice pile of boxes was waiting for me when I got home.

Parts, parts, and more parts. I can already tell that I’m missing a few critical things for the rear caliper. Argh. At least I have enough to rebuild the forks now, and hopefully the front caliper. My clip-ons came in too!

Stators – old and new

Gen cover – old one was ground down to the point where I decided to replace it. The new one will be stripped and polished to match the crankcase covers.

Sightglasses – new and old.

New cheapo shocks. The extra bushings that came with them are a good replacement for the stock ones. Unfortunately, they don’t stay inside the larger rubber bushings on the shocks very well. I hope this isn’t a problem. I might wrap the metal bushings in a piece of inner tube to make them a snugger fit. They are a tad longer than the stock ones.

I did do some work on the bike today, but nearly all of my time was spent sanding the front wheel with 220 paper (6 HOURS today alone!) I’m about 75% done with the 220. The rest should go much faster. The tough part is sanding down all of the little ridges cast on the spokes. I hope to get the sanding/polishing/masking/painting done over the next week, but my hands are KILLING ME.  Although they had 10 days to heal on vacation, it didn’t take long for new blisters and open wounds to show up. I know this is gross, but it seems like the outer layer of skin on my fingers is actually SANDED OFF. Ouch. Feels like a burn. I gotta find a new way to sand this stuff or I’ll be typing with my face by Monday!

[Jeff]

Oof. What about different grit sanding drums on a Dremel?

It's been interesting watching this thread. Good luck on the build.  

Jeff

[D-Mac]

Oof. What about different grit sanding drums on a Dremel?

It's been interesting watching this thread. Good luck on the build.  

Jeff

I will use the dremel to help with the polishing, but I would go through dozens of Dremel bits trying to sand down the spokes and hubs. No substitute for muscle.

[D-Mac]

Happy New Year!

I got a little work done today. Yup. More sanding. Got the rear wheel sanded with 220 on one side (yesterday I finished the front wheel with the initial sanding). Not terribly exciting, but it’s coming along. Wearing nitrile gloves with mechanic’s gloves over top is helping my hands. Too bad I trashed my fingers before I figured that out. It’s been slower sanding without the use of my thumbs (!), but I’m on track to finish polishing them next week so I can finally start painting.

I also checked over some of the parts I received last week. I’m now ready to reassemble the forks. I will do this next week when I have access to a fork vise.

I do have something that might be worthy of a pic or two. I finally got around to securing my new vise to the workbench and decided to have a go at modifying the top triple tree. Since I’m now going with clip-ons, I don’t need the original handlebar mounts. I’d like to fabricate a new triple tree top, but for now I’ll settle for modifying the old one.

I broke out the hacksaw and cut the tops off most of the way down (there’s a faint casting line on them that makes a nice cutting point). Very easy and quick.

Cutting.

Here’s what they used to look like (pic actually taken after I cut the tops off, so I placed them back on to give you an idea). Excuse the protective duct tape.

One side removed.

Both sides removed.

Angle from the front.

Next I will use my angle grinder (with a proper wheel for aluminum) to smooth them out a little. I’m not sure exactly how much I can remove safely, so I’ll probably just round off the sides. Then I’m planning to strip off the paint and shine them up.

[mxvet57]

Stators – old and new

Is that a Electrosport stator?
If so, keep an eye on it and don't throw away the old one because from my experience with them you will be needing the old one.





This was not even a year old. I replaced it with another electrosport and it started to fail again after 6 months. The same exact coils started to burn up again. I went back to my origanal OEM stator and have never had a problem since.

[D-Mac]

Yikes! It is an Electrosport. The OEM stators are known to be complete garbage on the GSs, and the Electrosport was recommended by pretty much everyone on the GS forum. I will keep an eye on it for sure.

[Jeff]

I got the new stator for my Sprint from Rick's. http://www.ricksmotorsportelectrics.com/stators.php

So far so good.
Jeff

[D-Mac]

Daily update.

I went in for a few hours late last night and did some wheel sanding. This afternoon I finished the initial sanding (220 grit) on both wheels, and quickly sanded the front wheel with 400, 500, and 1000 grit. Then I took it home to buff it with an assortment of drill attachments.

Front wheel ready for buffing.


One side polished. Not perfect by any means, but it shines!


Other side polished.


I will wash and dry it thoroughly, mask off the polished edges and re-paint the inside this week. FINALLY! I’ll likely finish sanding and polishing the rear wheel first though so I can paint them both at the same time.

I got some better looking emblems off e-Bay and attached them to the covers. Here they are…..



New sight glass installed. I used a little Yamabond and pushed it in level from the outside. Hope it holds!

[BradleyRas]

   fantastic work!

[veefer800canuck]

Lukan gud.

[Atitalongtime]

 
Love it... love the name... great job so far!

Not that it's anything like your project... but
I picked up a total, grafted a GT750 front fork assembly and an American Turbopack in 77'
I can say they come apart much easier when they're just a year old!

[Gerry Sweetland]

Nice job, can't wait to see the wheels after paint  
I would like to try to design and machine a top clamp out of billet some day.  
I have a 72 OIF Bonneville that is all disassembled with a few parts cleaned, rust removed and primed/painted, I have been working on that on and off for the last 2 years  
But not any where as far as you have gone in the last couple of months.  At this rate you'll be riding it this summer for sure
Gerry

[Ketch]

Nice job, can't wait to see the wheels after paint  
I would like to try to design and machine a top clamp out of billet some day.  
I have a 72 OIF Bonneville that is all disassembled with a few parts cleaned, rust removed and primed/painted, I have been working on that on and off for the last 2 years  
But not any where as far as you have gone in the last couple of months.  At this rate you'll be riding it this summer for sure
Gerry

I have a 73 OIF Tiger that is about at the same point as your Bonneville.

[D-Mac]

As of 2am, both wheels were polished and fully cleaned.

Rear wheel polished. Didn’t come out quite as nice as the front, but it’s a major improvement. The tire is actually a little too fat for the rim. Since this isn’t a wannabe chopper anymore it’ll be replaced with a proper fitting tire.


Ready for paint, right?

Ummmm no. I spent most of the day just making off the wheel. I went through a lot of tape and a bunch of sharp blades. I’m planning to go to the lab tonight and do the painting. I’ll be using caliper paint (dull black) for the inside. No clear coat will be used (I must like polishing too much).

Front wheel masked.


Rear wheel masked.


I apologize if this thread is grinding along endlessly, but if so it’s an accurate reflection of how I’m feeling about these wheels. I can’t wait to get them done and get on to something else. I did take a break to do some grinding on the top triple clamp yesterday. I’m not too thrilled with how it came out, but it’ll work. The paint on it is very thick (not coming off yet after two applications of stripper). I haven’t decided if I’ll ultimately repaint it or polish it up.

The next pics will (hopefully) be of painted wheels!

[veefer800canuck]

Much easier to paint the wheels with the tires removed. Then you can get all the way around the lip.

[D-Mac]

Much easier to paint the wheels with the tires removed. Then you can get all the way around the lip.

That would be true if I was painting the lip, but I'm only painting the inside parts - not anywhere that meets the tire. I decided to leave the tires on to help keep me from scratching the polished parts.

[veefer800canuck]

OIC.

Carry on then........