'78K Resto-Mod-"HaCkJoB"

[shinyribs]

Hahaha! Yeah,I'm horrible with words. I have the hardest time trying to type my thoughts. I like pics.

This slave cylinder has a fair amount of tension on it. I'm gonna work out some way to measure it tonight,but to toss out a guess,I'd say it has about 10-15 lbs of pressure it will put on that pushrod.

Oh,and I had another idea(after reading my own words...): a floating pushrod! If I machine the outer tip of the pushrod to go in place of the single ball that is already there that will support that end. Then machine the pressure plate side of the pushrod to support that end and-bam!-floating pushrod that needs no bearing/bushing or anything. Not sure that's doable actually,but I'm gonna look in to it.

[TOOLS1]

shinyribs wrote

Hahaha! Yeah,I'm horrible with words. I have the hardest time trying to type my thoughts. I like pics.

This slave cylinder has a fair amount of tension on it. I'm gonna work out some way to measure it tonight,but to toss out a guess,I'd say it has about 10-15 lbs of pressure it will put on that pushrod.

Oh,and I had another idea(after reading my own words...): a floating pushrod! If I machine the outer tip of the pushrod to go in place of the single ball that is already there that will support that end. Then machine the pressure plate side of the pushrod to support that end and-bam!-floating pushrod that needs no bearing/bushing or anything. Not sure that's doable actually,but I'm gonna look in to it.

That's what I said. Anyway the throwout bearing in the pressure plate should be sufficient for when the clutch is released. It worked with the mechanical clutch actuator.
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

Wow,it's been over a month since I've touched this thing?? It'll be rusty before it's ever finished...


Anyway, I worked on the hydro clutch some this evening and actually made good progress!

I got the adapter for the side cover machined finally! The wall in the center is for the bearings (for the push rod ) to press up against. The four holes drilled in that wall are to allow oil to flow through to lubricate the single-ball bearing on the end of the SC piston. Machined a groove for a snap ring so I know the bearings can never fall in to the engine.I never could source a nice, long single bearing for this. Kinda hate using double stacked bearings like this, but...you do what you gotta.


Of course, pop off the dust covers so the oil can actually get inside and around the bearings.


Here's what the pushrod ended up looking like. The small end fits inside the pressure plate, the hub is so it can't fall in to the engine,which it can't do anyway,but I still felt like doing it.



So it slides in like so. If you look in the four oiling holes you can see some of the balls in the bearing. It lined up nicely.


Then the slave just plops down right on top. Easy-peasy! I know two of those "bolts" are actually counter sunk fasteners,which don't belong here, but that counter sink come in handy. If you use that after tapping the first hole it centers the fastener in the hole of the part perfectly. I taught myself that trick...tonight...due to a lack of proper hardware. Still a neat trick,though...


Side view with the pushrod poking out...ready for bidness.


That one mounting ear on the SC is really tall and I'm not sure why. It's not horribly in the way,but I may shorten it up.




Almost done. Gotta weld the adapter to the side cover and heat treat the pushrod to hold up to riding on bearing material. I plan to make another cover to hide the webbing on the side cover. Just to clean it up a bit and hopefully it will help the SC look like it's not protruding out so far.



Previous tab            $1,380

pushrod bearings            12
------------------------------
Current tab              $1,392


Technically this tab should be lower since this front end setup left with The Water buffalo. I'll retabulate later. Is that a real word? Retabulate? It oughta be.Oughta...is that a real word? It oughta be,too.

[shinyribs]

So I'm using the CBR 1000 forks that came on my '80 F for this bike now. They are 3'' longer than the GSXR forks were and that will work out just right for this bike.

First I looked in to a simple bearing conversion, but while measuring for the sizes needed it was obvious that approach was not gonna work. Too much difference in stem lengths.

CBR on the left. CB on the right. The CBR stem is just too short to adapt in to this neck. That's cool! Stem swaps are way more funner anyway!


Turns out this was probably one of the easiest stem swaps ever. EVERY dimension of these two stems are identical except for the overall length. The upper and lower bearing area are identical and all of the threaded portions are identical as well. Good ol' Honda.

So I popped the CBR lower in the lathe and cut the weld off holding the stem in to the lower. Boy,did I ever get lucky on this cut. Right on the money!


The CB stems don't press all the way flush inside the lower yoke like the CBR did. They have a little step on them. Which I actually kinda like. The length worked out that I could keep that lip on the CB stem.

CB stem in the CBR lower.Just gotta weld that lip to the stem now. probably just give it a few tacks vs Honda's 360* welding. Seems overkill to me and a good way to warp something.


And since all of the dimensions were the same the top clamp fits on the register on the CBR stem just right. No adapting of any sort needed here. Happy.


Heading over to  for some tapered bearing now...

[shinyribs]

Got off my lazy bum and finally mounted the tank. I don't know why I've been dreading doing this.

First thing, I cut off the factory rear mount (nowhere near working for me) and reinforced the area with some patches. Stress cracks on fuel tanks scare me.



I wanted to reinforce it since this ( I guess you'd call it a crossmember ) is kinda skinny. Just wanted to spread the load a little. The rubber isolaters are Sportster oil tank mounts. They're handy.



Goes like so.



Split some exhaust tubing and made some cups for the front mounts. Exhaust tubing is awesome. Easy to cut, easy to weld, easy to bend and plenty sturdy when braced correctly.





Coils clear just barely. The cups still need to be braced on the bottom since a tank of fuel is heavy. I still need to build an inner wall for the cups to keep the tank from sliding side to side, once that's in place it should tie it altogether and support the bottom of the cups just fine.



Frame mounts for the rear tank crossmember to lay on.




On the bike and bolted down..finally! Looks nice and straight. Pulling a line is the only way.



As she sits now. The line on this slave cylinder looks like it's gonna be long enough to work, I'll just have to sort out how to adapt it to the Ducati MC that Mikegyver hooked me up with. Sitting on the bike and holding the bars in place it was quite a stretch to the top clamp. Looks like I'm gonna need some pretty tall risers with a lot of pullback built in to them. I have a feeling those aren't gonna come cheap.



Been so long I almost forgot how stoopidly wide these motahs are. It really was evident once the tank was finally on the bike.



Big,wide,fat SOHC Honda Four...wrong engine for a tracker? This guy didn't think so.

[shinyribs]

Front tank mount is doned.



Had a little bit of a clearance issue getting the R&R under this tank. The unit itself would fit, but the hardware would not. So I shaved off the tabs I had mounted for this before and replaced then with almost flush bungs. Still wouldn't clear! I had to shave the mounting ears on the R&R down so the head of the fastener wouldn't stick past the body of the unit.






Now it cleared, but just barely!



All the 'lectrical bits are still under the tank. I didn't think it was gonna be possible with this tank, so I'm pretty happy about this.


I still had the tab on the neck from the GSXR steering stabilizer. Rather than whack it off I thought I'd just go ahead and make a mount for it to go on these forks. Looks racy anyway.




Temporarily stuck the front rim on to see what things looked like. It will take some fiddling, but I think I can manage to squeeze a speedo drive in there. Definitely no caliper-to-spoke clearance issues like before.



Oh, and I just plain ol' lucked out right here. Whew!! So close it's crazy.


And snapped a couple pics with the front rim on. It looks mysteriously motorcyclish like this. These conventional forks look sooo much better on this bike than those fat USD's did.




Just waiting on bearings so I can mount the forks and the rim (20mm axle needs conversion bearings). And if anyone is looking I need a brake splitter like the DOHC bikes have. Holler if you have one. I have Paypal on speed dial.

One of these vvvv

[shinyribs]

Not much going on here, but just trying to keep track of the tab...

Got the front end mounted. Picked up a set of risers for the 1 1/8'' Protapers cheap off a buddy on another forum. $15. I needed them pretty tall and was afraid they'd look horrible sticking way up. The bars feel good in this position. I'm happy with them.


Need to blend them in to the top clamp still, but my air compressor finally bought the farm and I'm way too lazy to file this down by hand, so...


Cut up some old pizza boxes and mocked up an oil tank to fit under the tail.

Doesn't show up too bad....except it wasn't quite big enough. This pic is pretty accurate to what the finished product will look like, but it's about 5/8'' deeper now.

Still working on the internal baffling before it gets all closed up. Such a shallow tank I don't want the oil sloshing around and causing venting issues or leakage around the fill cap. Fill cap will protrude through the tail and be right behind the seat. Hope it looks cool in real life like it does in my head right now.


Picked up two bearings to be able to use the stock 20mm axle in this CBR front end. $14 for the pair to my door. They are 1mm thinner in width than the stock pieces. Shouldn't be a problem to work around though.

Previous tab                $1,392
1 1/8'' risers                    $15
16 ga. steel for oil tank     $15
20mm conversion bearings $14
-------------------------------
delete GSXR front end -  $256
-------------------------------
Current tab                $1,180

[TOOLS1]

I still think you should just make a deeper oil pan. Just get another one, and cut one off short, and the other off long, and weld them together.
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

I can't drop the pan straight down with how these pipes run. There's no room. I'm gonna see what happens after the oil tank is down. The plan is to fill it with bb's and then pour them out to measure the actual capacity. If it's not enough, I have enough room to cut out the center of the oil pan and drop a sump right there. Wouldn't be very big,though. Probably 10''x4''x2'' deep.

[TOOLS1]

Fill the tank with water, then pour it out into a measuring container. I would hate for a stuck BB to come loose, and go through the oil pump.
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

Good point bud. I thought about that later. Thanks for looking out.

Ready for more pics? OK, another pic heavy post.  (dial up guys must hate me)

Had to make a new axle spacer for inside the hub since converting to a 20mm axle. Kept the wall thickness pretty thick since it's AL, so needed a way to be able to knock the bearings out on a later date if needed. So I went with notches.



It droops a tad, but the axle goes in easily anyway. Plenty of access there to remove the bearings.


I think I'm actually using this rim backwards on this bike due to making room to use the speedo drive that came with this front end. It was designed to run on the left side of the rim and I'm pretty sure stock on the SOHC bikes was opposite. I don't know...just make it all fit,right?

Anyway, here's what it started as:


The original lip on the SD kept it from being able to hit the bearing inner race so that had to be trimmed. Once on the axle, and in the forks, I just tapped the axle deeper and deeper until the rim was centered. That made it where I didn't have to shave the SD down any and only would have to make a spacer for the right side of the bike.


This left a gap between the hub and the SD,of course. Made a spacer for that. Looks like it's touching,but it has .010'' of room to float.




You probably noticed the machine screw on there. I tapped a hole in the hub to put that in there to drive the SD. Just gotta get a 10-32 set screw to replace that with that will sit flush and not interfere with the rotor.


You probably also noticed that the bearing retainer portion of this rim was pretty chewed up looking. Those bearing retainers aren't really needed. If you look at modern bikes they don't use them. Once both bearings are in and the spacers are clamped between the forks the rim can't move off the bearings. But since this thing was chewed I just decided to make a spacer to hide it. Was easier than unlacing the rim to turn that face down pretty again.

Just like the other spacer this one looks like it's touching but it floats. Its locked to the bearings,of course,but has .010'' gap away from the rim.


So, long story short...front rim is on.

[shinyribs]

Too lazy to type much,so I'll just post pics of tonight's progress. You get the point anyway.





Hangs down a bit. I wanted that full 2 qts. Got it. Doesn't show too bad. Happy.

Oh, oil filler source...

Mo' baffles...

[shinyribs]

Wooow,it's been over 4 months since I touched this bike?? Gee...

Chunky pc'd my yokes,risers and brake splitter. So the front end is officially on and done. Well, I still dont know what to look for concerning rotors,but we'll get there.


Seems I was crazy before when I decided that the Magura clutch MC wouldn't clear the CB switchgear. The lever clears fine and the supplied braided line is exactly the right length. The hydro clutch is then on and done as well,though I forgot pics of that. But you've already seen it.


Started back on the oil tank. I got the vent line installed. I don't think it should have any issues with oil slosh in this location. Gotta pick up some bungs for the oil lines and put the side wall on and it will be ready for leak testing and PC.


Progress feels good! Hope to really make some headway tomorrow.

[shinyribs]

The oil tank is done and leak tested. Sitting ready for powder. There's no good way to spot paint where i had to grind some powdercoat off the frame, so as of now the bike is stripped to an empty frame again for re-powdercoating. I might see about hiring someone to blast this sucker for me. Wire wheels and sand paper get old...fast.

But I got me some parts on the way to help get this thing closer to done:
-wiring connectors
-headlight
-grips
-brake lines

Aaaand,I had a total laps of memory concerning this replacement motor I tossed in here. It's a '76 or earlier engine. The counter sprocket shaft is 10mm inboard vs the original engine to this frame. I don't feel like redo'ing the chain run or hunting down the proper cush drive to correct it, so I'll just wait a bit longer until I can go ahead and build the 836 I want for it. It's not like I've been in a big rush anyway.

In my defense I've been lost since my air compressor died. I'm so spoiled to air tools and my compressor is impossible to get at right now( buried in the far corner of a 34' long bay ). But I picked up a new pump for it so I can get back to D'ing some W now.

I need to blast the head and the cylinders and have them pc'd. Then get the bores done. You know, there's really not much left. Or ever was. Working 10-14 hrs a day just sucks. lol

[TOOLS1]

Do you want a cush drive?
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

TOOLS1 wrote

Do you want a cush drive?
TOOLS

Not as bad as I want an 836.   Heck,I already have the parts, I just need to bore the jugs. It's sad how lazy I've become. Women are like lead weights.

[TOOLS1]

That's why I am a card carrying member of the "He-man Woman Haters Club".
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

Does Toolbabe know that?

I don't want to hide this rim behind two big ol' rotors,but I do want strong brakes. What do y'all think about one big 320mm rotor with a six pot caliper? It'll be worlds stronger than the factory offering. Keeps me from buying twice as many parts,too.

[TOOLS1]

Trackers do not have front brakes.
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

TOOLS1 wrote

Trackers do not have front brakes.
TOOLS

Flat trackers,no. Street trackers,yes. lol