# Some work on a TX650.



## th62 (Oct 1, 2021)

The hub on the TX was in pretty poor shape, so I mounted it on the lathe, trued up the flanges, removed the casting bridges between the fins, trued them up then polished the hub and brake backing plate. The rims were badly scored from tyre levers and oxidisation, so I ground the edges of the rims down as much as I could then polished it.. Then I spun up some stainless spacers and aluminium dust cover.  The brake anchor was a danged ugly thing, so I fabbed an ally one from 10mm ally, bending it to clear the tyre.

Brake actuating rod wasn't in the best of condition, so I binned that and made a new one from 6mm stainless rod and threaded it both ends. To connect the rod to the brake foot lever I made a funny looking stainless thingy, no idea what they are called, but certainly a lot better than the original piece of rubbish. At the other end of the rod I spun up an adjuster nut and pivot, also from stainless.


----------



## Nogoingback (Oct 1, 2021)

Nicely done!


----------



## Aukai (Oct 1, 2021)

That turned out very well


----------



## th62 (Oct 1, 2021)

Front end rebuild. Forks needed a lot of work: Badly corroded and the previous owner must have only had a hammer and chisel in his tool box, the seal area was badly gouged, bits broken off and bent out of round. Not much I could do there, other than clean. Both legs had calliper mounts, but as the bike only has one disk, I ground off the mounts on the left leg, No need for the guard stay tabs as I've shortened the front guard, so I also removed the guard mount tabs then ground the leg smooth and polished both of them up. Whilst I had the innards out, I modified them a little by drilling two holes in each of the damper tubes, supposed to improve fork performance I've read. The stanchions had some deep rust spots up around the lower tree, so I removed the rust and applied some silver paint. As this area can be seen I bought some gaters to cover the area. Bottom tree was painted black, top tree was mirror polished, along with the brake line Junction. Whilst working on the front end I decided to do away with the headlight brackets and made my own from 3mm ally and machined up the risers.
The hub was mounted on the lathe and the flanges trued, there was a rather heavy, deep flange between the flanges, so I machined that down a bit so I get get a small mop in there, there polished it.  I drilled some go fast holes in the disk, polished the edge, blasted the ally disk mount and fabricated an ally cover to replace the rusted steel cover that covered the left side disk mount holes.  The lower tree was painted Black and the brake line distributor polished.  I polished the top tree, machined up some risers and polished them also.  Front rim was similar to the rear, badly damaged from tyre levers and a few accidents by the look.  And finally I machined up some stainless spacers and pressed ally dust cover I also machined onto them.








Attachments​


----------



## th62 (Oct 1, 2021)

Some painting. Tank had one decent size ding and a few minor ones which I bogged up. Frame was blasted, welds cleaned up as best I could, unfortunately, the Japanese didn't know how to put frames together, nor could they weld when they built these bikes, so the frame is rough as guts. Pegs had the forging marks removed, guards were shortened, rear guad had a few dings which I panel beated and used just a smidgen of bog to smooth it out. Seat pan I put together some time ago. I float coated the final coat over 1200 wet and dry, but I haven't bothered polishing anything yet because I'll probably have to repaint further down the track. Bike already has a number of scratches and dings from resting in the workshop.


----------



## FOMOGO (Oct 2, 2021)

The bike is looking great. A lot of effort on the the polishing. It's dirty work, but a very satisfying outcome. I have a 1980 650 Yam that I plan on turning into a dual sport configuration for back road use. Cheers, Mike


----------



## th62 (Oct 2, 2021)

I never bothered to start the TX when I got it home, I put a compression gauge on it, the compression was down to around 65 in one, 80 in the other, so I never bothered trying to start it. Instead, I pulled the motor and stripped it down, this is what I found: the auto advance unit was a homemade, bodged up thing, cam chain was stretched, putting the timing out by around 60 degrees. Cam chain guide and adjuster were worn through, carbs were full of gunk, valves seats were pitted, there were a couple of missing pins behind the star on the shifter drum, so no gears, clutch basket was grooved, oil filters were totally gunked up, starter gear spring was loose, there were numerous leaks, the crankcase above the drive sprocket had been torn off, the bearing mount for the shifter drum was damaged, drive sprocket teeth were non existent and the retaining nut looked like Arny had got stuck into it with a sledge.

I had the barrel rebored two sizes over, had the valve seats reground, then sent off for some new parts: new pistons, rings, gudgeons, clips, cam chain guides, auto advance unit, carb kit, new second hand crankcases, gasket kit, seal kit, stainless allen kit, cam chain and probably a few other bits and pieces that I can’t remember now. I had the oil pipe re chromed along with points and auto advance cover. Manufactured a sump filter guard. The rocker shaft bungs are stainless bungs I found on ebay for a fraction of the price of OEMs.

While I was waiting for the parts to arrive, I blasted the cases, barrel, head, rocker cover, and carbs, cleaned them out afterwards with a pressure cleaner about a dozen times. Blew every orifice out at least two dozen times with compressed air and once satisfied they were clean and free of grit I painted the cases, barrel, head and rocker cover silver, polished the side covers, valve caps, dipstick, starter ends, cam chain adjuster housing and breather box, made new pins for the shifter drum, reworked the starter gear spring and started putting it back together in a stand I made for the job.

Once it was all back together, I didn’t fancy starting the motor up on the bench and watch it vibrate itself onto the floor, so I made another stand, with wheels and a rudimentary ignition system. I spun the motor over with my Milwaukee 18 volt drill for a few minutes to get the oil circulated, bolted on what was left of the two into one exhaust, filled the tank, switched it on and hit the starter button. I wasn’t expecting this, but as soon as I hit the starter button, the damn thing roared into life. And by crikey these things are shakers, with the motor going it started walking its way around the workshop, so I pulled out some rope and tied it to the bench grinder stand, then it just jumped up and down every time I gave it a handful. Of course, the carbs were way out of sync, so I put together a manometer and synced the carbs.

End of the engine story: Well, not quite, I thought the motor just looked so bland, so I pulled it apart again, stripped the silver paint off and painted the cases, head, barrel, rocker cover and carb bodies black, polished the carb caps and float bowls then put it back together again with new gaskets. And lo and behold, after priming it, it started straight away again. All good except for a small leak at the base of the barrel. I haven’t fixed that yet, instead concentrating on the frame and fittings.

So, that was the easy bit, the cycle parts have proved never ending, but that's alright, I enjoy my time in the workshop. Being a DIY kind of guy, I insist on doing everything myself, the only diversion from that was taking the frame out for blasting. So to come: New exhaust, seat pan with cowl, ally battery carrier, ally side panels, modified guards, ally tail light, ally brake anchor, stainless brake linkage, ally engine mounts, ally remote filter housing and mounting hardware, risers, cable splitter, ally coil mount, mods to the frame for side panel tabs and battery box mounting, modified fork legs, painting, and did I mention polishing, lots and lots of that: rims, hubs, forks, tree, brake collector, risers, side panels, tail light, battery box, battery retainer, brake ancho, brake backing plate, dust covers, wheel spacers, carbs, valve covers, breather box, cam chain adjuster, carbs, side covers, PMA mount, starter ends, dipstick, remote filter and cooler fittings. In between jobs it was back to the engine for a PMA mount, reg/rect mount, single point conversion, carb sync adjusters, plus a few more bits and pieces.

I can never ride the bike, it’s just a workshop project, so there is no end planned. I’m reaching the end of my time anyway, so after I’m gone the wife can sell it and maybe get some bucks for it, along with all my tools and machinery. I’d really love to take it all with me, but I’ve been told that’s simply not feasible!


----------



## th62 (Oct 2, 2021)

I decided to convert the electro magnet alternator to a PMA, but balked at the price of a kit. I could have searched for a second hand rotor, stator and banshee mount, but none of the wreckers around me had any, plus, who knows what you're getting with 40 year old second hand parts. I searched ebay and found a new rotor for a Banshee and a stator and reg/rect for an XV, all for $130Aust. I then bought a slab of ally for a few bucks and turned up a mount for it. A lot better than a dodgy, cut down Banshee mount. To time the new PMA I timed it with the original alternator, bringing the pointer on the rotor around to the timing mark, then removed it being careful not to disturb the timing. I then installed the new PMA, made up a pointer plate and afixed it to the side cover, installed the side cover then scribed lines on rotor and pointer plate. Prior to installing the stator on the mounting plate I polished it, this helps the lektrisity flow smoother.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 2, 2021)

This is a very involve restoration, the caliber of work is awesome


----------



## th62 (Oct 3, 2021)

Single points conversion. I wanted to simplify the points system, but I do like mechanical things, so decided to convert the twin points to a single points system. There was a cam available for this conversion, but apparently they weren't very accurate, so I decided to make my own. First order of business was a backing plate which I made from some 3mm thick steel, shaped it on the lathe, filed cutouts for the minting screws and drilled and tapped the plate for points and lube felt.

Next I turned down some stock to 18mm, bored it 8mm, filed the ramps, then cut the keyway. Nope, timing was way off. Did it this way for a few attempts without luck. So, I decided to do it in reverse: Cut the keyway, mount the round stock on the advance rod, time the engine, gap the points, set the points at the midway position and mark where the heel of the points counted the round can and file the ramp. Success, I managed to get the timing for number one cylinder spot on with the correct dwell after only a few files. Next I rotated the cam 180degrees and did the same for the other ramp, success again. It's tiny bit out out, but nothing a quick touch up with a file won't fix. I'll also have to look at the points position on the backing plate, it's almost touching the bowl.

For this conversion, the two single outlet coils don't work, so I bought a twin outlet coil for CB750, made an ally bracket and polished it and mounted it to the original tab on the frame.


----------



## th62 (Oct 3, 2021)

Exhaust pipes. I mocked up a pipe for the right side, welding together some exhaust pipe at the appropriate angles with the right amount of twist then took it to an exhaust centre and asked them to mandrel bend two bends from 42mm pipe to match the angles, so I could weld them together later. The exhaust guy assured me he could bend the entire pipe with the correct twist, then reverse it for the left side, so naturally I jumped at the chance to avoid welding the two bends together. Roll on five weeks, yep that's right, it took him five weeks, and I picked up the pipes and took them home. Well, what a balls up, the only thing that was correct was the twist. So, I cut both pipes around half way between the two bends, removed a 25 mm section and welded the two bends together. Problem! The bottom bend was way out, leaving the exhaust bending down toward the ground. To fix, I made a V cut in the pipe a few inches after the bend, bent the tail section up and welded the two pieces together. Repeating the process for the other side. Now, if you think exhaust pipe is round, it ain't! So twisting the pipes and butting them together leaves a few steps. So, I hammered them a little so they'd match up, welded them together and ground them smooth, then painted them with exhaust black pint.
I mounted some 10mm thick ally in the four jaw, turned up the 42 mm hole, then marked the position of the 10mm exhaust stud holes drilled them through, shaped the clamps and polished them. For the lower mount, I bent up some 3mm steel plate in a half circle with short returns either side, shaped another 3 mm piece of steel to affix to the frame and welded it to the half circle clamp, then painted it exhaust black paint. Next I bent some 3mm ally plate in a half circle with returns each end, stuck it together with the steel half circle and drilled through four holes for stainless Allen heads, and polished the ally half clamps. The pipes have a very slight upwards sweep.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 3, 2021)

WOW....


----------



## Firstram (Oct 3, 2021)

Very nice!


----------



## Nogoingback (Oct 3, 2021)

Nice job! The pipes (and the bike) look great.


----------



## th62 (Oct 3, 2021)

Remote spin on oil filter and cooler.
To effect the modifications for inclusion of a remote, spin on filter and cooler, I had to modify the right side engine cover. The oil pump is located inside this cover.

The oil galley from the pump is 10mm and is drilled at a odd angle on two axis' to the cover. Halfway along it is cross drilled at a right angle, both of these holes are plugged with a blanking bung at the front of the cover. The cross drilled hole leads to the stock filter behind the cover on the side of the engine side cover. So, the pump pumps oil up the 10mm hole, does a right turn into the cross drilled hole and on to the filter, then on through the engine.

So, in order to fit a remote, spin on filter, I had to remove the bung to the 10mm hole on the front of the cover, drill the 10mm hole out to 10.8mm and thread with a 12mm tap to a depth of 40mm. I then turned up a stainless, threaded barb to suit, the threaded barb when screwed in place, covers the cross drilled hole, thus bypassing the stock filter in the side of the cover. So the pump now pumps oil up the 10mm hole in the cover, through the threaded barb and then on to a remote spin on filter, via a rubber hose.. The oil enters the filter and then exits that and continues on to the cooler. From there it flows to the replacement filter cover I machined up, into the filter housing behind the cover, which is now empty, then on to the engine. Sounds complicated, but it’s not really. The spin on filter does a better job than the stock filter as the stock filter is really only a strainer.

Mounting the side cover on the drill table was a job and a half, as the hole to the oil pump is off skew on two axis’. Once I’d drilled and tapped the 10mm hole, because of the weird angle the hole exits the cover, it’s not square to the surface, so I had to square the surface up and countersink it to accept an O ring to seal the barb using a modified router bit.

Next I spun up a spin on filter housing, drilled two holes in the side and tapped them for mounting, drilled two holes in the top for oil inlet and outlet and underneath turn a round channel for the oil to enter the exit.  I then spun up a threaded spigot to screw the filter on, pressed that into place in the filter housing, then spun up a threaded barb that screws into that, sandwiching the filter housing between.  To mount the filter housing, I fabricated some new engine mounts from 10mm ally, the right one being extended downward some 25 mm and affixed the filter housing to that.  I drilled and tapped two holes in the front of each each mount, fabricated a cooler mount from 3mm all and fixed the cooler to that via four small, Rubber grommets.  For mounting I cut four lengths of 10mm ally tube to length to fit between the cooler mounting lugs, cut four stainless 6mm bolts to length, threaded them through the cooler lugs and ally tubes and on through the grommets. To prevent the grommet from being squished from overtightening, I spun up four positive stop T nuts from ally and threaded them.
I removed the old strainer cover and binned it, then machined up a new cover with a protuberance for oil inletand pressed a barb I spun up into that.  

So now the the system works thus:  Oil leaves the pump and travels up the 10.8mm hole in the side cover and exits via the stainless barb screwed into the front of the cover.  The oil enters a rubber tube and travels via the central stainless barb in the filter housing, into the filter then out via the pressed in barb next to the inlet barb.  It then travels to the cooler via a rubber hose, through the cooler and cooled oil then flows via a rubber hose to the protuberance on the right side of the engine cover via the pressed in barb and on to lubricate the engine with nice, clean, cooled engine oil.

A big job.  Took a lot of thinking and work making fiddly little things, housings, brackets barbs, brackets and so on.  There's a bit of a jumble of rubber hoses behind the cooler, but they aren't too noticeable.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 3, 2021)

Damn you've been busy, I need a nap now.


----------



## th62 (Oct 3, 2021)

Cable splitter.
The TX650 came with a silly twin cable hand throttle, one cable for each carb. I bought a single cable throttle and looked around for a two into one junction box. Only ones I could find were made of plastic or steel with no means on mounting them, so it just flops around under the tank with the cables.

Didn’t like that idea, so I made one from a small slab of ally. I bored a 14mm hole through the slab and ran a 5/8” UNF thread through each end on the lathe to a depth of 11mm. Next I milled a step and drilled two 6mm holes in the step for mounting it to the upper engine mounts.
The two end caps are also aluminium turned up from some round stock. One has a one cable inlet, the other takes two cables. I ran a 5/8” UNF thread on them and then ran my scissor knurler over them. Both caps are fitted with O rings as the body will be filled with grease for lubrication. Only the second time I’ve used this knurler since I made it about five years ago. It works well.

The slide I made from brass, 14mm round, for a snug, sliding fit inside the main body, and 25mm long. Through this I drilled three 1.5mm holes, then countersunk them with a 3mm bit for the cable nipples. I still hadn't cut three slots with a slit saw in the slide in the picture, so the. Cables could be fitted.

I also turned up some long adjusters for the cables to aid in syncing. These have a fairly long threaded section about 30mm long. The adjusters were drilled through 3mm for the inner cable, the top drilled to about 10mm with a 5.5mm dill for the outer cable and the top section was also knurled. To fit these to the carbs I fabricated two ally brackets and threaded them the same as the adjusters and fitted them to the carbs. I then made up up three cables, fitted nipples to the ends, fitted the splitter to the top right engine bracket and fitted everything together.


----------



## th62 (Oct 4, 2021)

Seat pan build.  I started with a sheet of sheet metal, marked out the shape, bent the rear section up, bent the sides down and bent some more sheet metal around the upturned part to make a cowl, then migged it together.  Once on the bike I didn't like it:  Cowl was the wrong angle and rear section was too high.  So, I cut the cowl off, lowered the bent up section a bit and tried to put the cowl back on, wouldn't fit!  As I didn't have any more sheet metal to hand, I cut the cowl in half, bent two sections around for the cowl and spotted them together.  This left a gap of around 3-4mm, no matter, I just filled the gap with weld, ground it smooth, then welded the cowl in place.  Mounting it was a bit more difficult, front end was easy, I just made up a receiver and bolted it to the frame.  For the tongue, I welded a bent spigot to a piece of angle, slid some rubber tube over the spigot, spotted some nuts on the pan and bolted it in place.  Rear end was a little different as there was insufficient room between guard and frame to fit a bolt.  So I welded a couple of upright tabs to the frame, drilled and tapped them, sunk two grommets in the side of the cowl, turned up a spacer and screwed in two 6mm allen heads with washers.  Finally, I cut a section from the front of the seat to avoid the tank tab, bent up some more sheet metal and welded it to the nose of the pan.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 4, 2021)

Your going to get through the check list pretty quick, nice.


----------



## th62 (Oct 4, 2021)

Side panel build.  For the side panels I decided to use ally, as I wanted them in polished ally.  First I welded a tab to the rear frame downtube and spun up an ally bullet and bolted it in place,  over which the side panel grommet would slide.  For the front mounts I welded two B shape brackets to the central downtube and welded two nuts to each.  Now the hard part, beating up the side panels.  I'd done this before for a Bonneville, but my hands worked back then, nowadays my hands don't work too good due to plastic joints and fused fingers, and crikey it hurts.  
I tried using the wife for the hammer work, but that didn't work out, so I resigned myself to to lots of pain and lots of Ibuprofen.  
I made up a wooden mould the shape I needed, cut out two ally sheets a little larger and started beating.  After getting the edges rolled over at 90degrees, I then had to bend and twist the panels to follow the shape of the frame.  Sounds easy, but as the top and bottom rails are set at different angles, believe me, it wasn't.  I got the front bend/twist right after much swearing and cursing, now I had to bend twist the rear section to follow the bend on the rear downtube.  I finally got that right, then bent up another for the other side.

To fit them to the bike, I sunk three Rubber grommets into each panel and spun up some positive stop T nuts to fit into the the front two grommets.  So to fit, you simply slide the the single grommet over the ally bullet bolted to the tab on the rear downtube, then screw two Allen heads, with washers, into the the front B shape brackets.  These panels fit real well and looked great, so next came a bit of polishing, even better!

Now after all that work, both side covers were binned. As I had a change of mind on carb intakes and battery box.  But, the making of the battery box and two new side panels is another story.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 4, 2021)

I like all the work your doing, but the hand is taking center stage on this set. I'm thinking you owed someone money  or arthritis repair?


----------



## th62 (Oct 4, 2021)

Yeah, I stole some money from Jimmy Hoffa, so he smashed my fingers.  Moral, never steal anything from a dead man!


----------



## th62 (Oct 5, 2021)

The batter carrier on the TX was just a lump of rusted metal when I removed it. Tabs everywhere with numerous electrical items attached, that went in the bin real quick. Removing it was a real chore: The rear wheel has to be removed along with the plastic guard and the box pulled out the rear. So, I decided to make one from ally. To mount it I welded a bracket across the frame and sunk two Rubber grommets into it along with a couple of positive stop T nuts I spun up. The box was made of three pieces, one each side pieces and a bent section for the remainder. I then welded the box together, drilled some holes for mounting the starter solenoid underneath and four more on the top returns for mounting. For the front mounts I decided to use the little spigots on the frame and welded up a couple of steel brackets to fit over then. Simple brackets made of 20mm strapping bent at a right angle and welded to a short section of 22mm tube, into which a rubber bushing fits. I also welded some ally strips on the side for mounting the side panels and fabricated a top clamp to secure the battery.

The side panels finish at the front of the battery carrier to allow pods to fit on the carbs. Side panels, being short, didn't require a rolled edge for strength, so they are just flat 1.6 mm thin sheet panels bent at a right angle at the rear to allow fitment of a grommet. At the front two holes were drilled to match up with the battery box brackets, grommets fitted and positive stop T nuts spun up to fit in the grommets. To fit, simply slide the rear grommet over the ally bullet on the rear downtube and two stainless allen heads, with washers, secure the front to the battery box.

The starter solenoid hangs off the bottom of the battery box and the reg/rect is bolted to an aluminium bracket mount to the frame behind the battery box. To join the battery cable, reg/rect positive cable and a cable feeding the two fuses fitted to the reg/rect bracket I spun up a delrin insulator/terminal block. I've since run a fused wire from battery to the terminal block.


----------



## jonesn7 (Oct 5, 2021)

This, besides being an amazing build, looks like it is SO much fun!


----------



## th62 (Oct 6, 2021)

These are a couple of tail lights I built. First one was made of steel which I didn't really like that much, so, I welded up an ally one. I had to make it in two parts so I could get in to polish it. Both came up pretty good, so I can pick and choose.


----------



## th62 (Oct 10, 2021)

Pushed the starter button this afternoon and the TX roared into life, very loudly with those pipes. So, the single points cam works beautifully. PMA conversion works well as does the dual output coil, cable splitter, remote filter, cooler and ignition wiring. It's running a little lean at the moment due to the pods and exhaust, so I'll have to rejet before syncing. Very happy chappy.


----------



## Firstram (Oct 10, 2021)

Absolutely gorgeous, what a show piece!  How long have you been working on this?


----------



## jonesn7 (Oct 10, 2021)

Splitters are a devil on vintage bikes. The pattern ones available appear to be a crap shoot, in particular the three-way for 2 stroke oil injected bikes. Did you use bicycle cables for cores and shields?


----------



## th62 (Oct 10, 2021)

I used bicycle cable for the outers and the original inner cable, shortened of course with new nipples.  I bought the TX about 12months ago, it was in terrible condition, been busy ever since polishing bits and machining bits for it.  Unfortunately, living in the workshop while I make bits for it and try them on the paintwork is scratched and chipped in a lot of places and the ally has dulled considerably due to workshop dust.


----------



## th62 (Oct 12, 2021)

If you've set the float level in your carbs and want to check the actual fuel level , you'll need to access the float bowl. Most bike carbs have a plug on the bottom for emptying the fuel. If you have a spare plug, mount it in your lathe chuck and drill a suitable size hole through it. Don't have a lathe? Too easy mount the plug in the bench drill chuck and a drill underneath in a drill vice, or something similar and drill a hole through the plug. Don't have a bench drill? Too easy, mount the plug in your hand drill and the drill in a vice and drill through. Do not place a drill bit in the drill and drill through the plug, the hole will not go through centrally. If you want an accurate size hole, always use a pilot close to the finish size hole first, yes, even with very small holes. You'll need to either use a centre drill or centre pop the plug first. Then find a barb to plug in the hole, drill the through hole using the same method. For a leak proof join you'll need a barb10mm bigger than the hole. For example a 4.5 mm drill is actually somewhere around 4.34mm and drills a hole around 4.5mm or slightly smaller using pilot first, so you'll need a barb around .10mm bigger. You can turn it down on a lathe, or, turn to size using a drill and file.


----------



## jonesn7 (Oct 12, 2021)

I've done it, but went ahead and spun and threaded a new plug on the lathe. Discovered I was doing a pretty good job of setting the floats static.


----------



## th62 (Oct 13, 2021)

I set my floats at 24mm as per the specs.  At this height the fuel level is supposed to be 2mm below the level of the upper carb body.  When I measured the fuel level, it was 3.5mm.  So, setting the float level won't necessarily give you the right fuel level.


----------



## th62 (Oct 15, 2021)

Synced the carbs and checked the PMA today.  Bike runs beautifully now, idles nicely, revs cleanly, no spitting or hesitation.  PMA/reg/rect output is 14.6 volts, so happy with that as well.  Timing is spot on on both cylinders, so the single points cam also works well and the filter and cooler deliver a good oil supply with no leaks.  Fancy that, all the engine mods worked as planned!  This is my homemade manometer I use for syncing, super easy to use, gives a good, stable reading.


----------



## th62 (Oct 19, 2021)

I nutted out a simplified schematic for the TX last night and did a little work on it today. Rather than one harness, I decided on two, one for lights and one for ignition and charging. Five wires for the lights run up the left side of the backbone for lights, another three run up a harness on the right for ignition. I've included some earth cabling in the harness rather than just depending on earthing through the frame.

Once I've routed all the cables to their destinations, I'll zip tie them then wrap the harness removing the zips as I go. Having one harness for ignition and charging circuits and another for lighting simplifies fault faulting and cuts down on the number of colours needed in the harnesses.

I've ordered some stainless spokes, should be here this week. Can only get front spokes at the moment for some reason, seems to be a shortage on rears. As soon as they arrive I'll repolish the hub and rims and spoke it up.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 19, 2021)

You don't hear a lot of people lacing their own spoke now days.


----------



## jonesn7 (Oct 19, 2021)

"Neat and workman-like" was an old Navy standard that applies here.


----------



## th62 (Oct 22, 2021)

Speedo/tacho/voltmeter bracket made up today.  I'll be adding a few LEDs later on for oil, indicators and so on.


----------



## th62 (Oct 23, 2021)

Started the TX up again to check the tacho and voltmeter. I had intentions of checking the timing on each cylinder, unfortunately, the POS timing light refused to play. Not to worry, max voltage from the PMA was 14.5 and the bike idles nicely at around 1250 RPM. I placed the camera behind the bike to record the exhaust. Camera doesn't do it justice though, it's very loud and emits a nice burble.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 23, 2021)

Nice, I had a Honda 305 that sounded similar


----------



## th62 (Oct 27, 2021)

Front spokes arrived this afternoon, so I laced up the wheel. The spokes for the rear wheel are coming from Heiden Tuning, so they probably won't be here for a while. Much better looking than the mags I think.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 27, 2021)

Classic.....


----------



## th62 (Oct 31, 2021)

Just watch who you get your spokes from. The thread on the spokes I bought is longer than stock spokes, so when trued there is about 3mm of thread visible between nipple and hub. Probably wouldn't bother most, but I'm not most! If you blow up the picture you'll see what I mean, the dull grey ones are stock. Not happy, I complained to the seller, GeoffsXS , he now says he wont deal with me and sent me a number of abusive texts and emails. Not that I need him, there are a plethora of XS accessory shops around.


----------



## Aukai (Oct 31, 2021)

Not genuine I'm thinking....


----------



## th62 (Nov 2, 2021)

Does the bike look 'genuine'?  No such thing as genuine stainless spokes.  If you want genuine you have to settle for plated spokes.  No excuse though, if advertised as fitting an XS650, they should fit properly.  Never had this problem with other builds.


----------



## th62 (Nov 12, 2021)

Some new stainless spokes for the rear wheel arrived this afternoon, from a different supplier, so I laced the rear wheel with them, notice there's no thread showing.
So I'm stuck with the front wheel with it's visible threads, spoils the whole bike -not happy!


----------



## Aukai (Nov 12, 2021)

When someone starts to bend over to look, kick'em in the butt


----------



## th62 (Nov 15, 2021)

I wasn't happy with the original side panels I made, fit and finish wasn't up to scratch and I wanted a bit more meat around the rear bend, so I made two new panels.  Here's some pics of the panels at different stages of fabrication.  I also spun up some Delrin T spacers for insertion into the two front grommets.  These stop the grommets being squished to much and allow the front of the side panels to be extended to the front of the battery box.


----------



## th62 (Nov 15, 2021)

Some progress shots.  Looks much better with spoked wheels.  I've taken the carbs off as one diaphragm has been holed, so, I'm tossing up between VM round slides or fixing the BS38 carbs.  Not real keen on vacuum carbs, so leaning toward the VM round slides.  Damned expensive though at $600.  It's come a long way from such a humble beginning.


----------



## th62 (Dec 14, 2021)

I have some VM round slides coming next week. I've read the cable interferes with the petcock, standard fare is to tilt the carbs inwards at the top to fix the problem, but, that's a bit too rough for my liking, so to circumvent the problem I made up these two 20mm spacers. Hopefully, these should move the carbs back enough so the cables clear the petcocks.


----------



## Nogoingback (Dec 14, 2021)

th62 said:


> Some progress shots.  Looks much better with spoked wheels.  I've taken the carbs off as one diaphragm has been holed, so, I'm tossing up between VM round slides or fixing the BS38 carbs.  Not real keen on vacuum carbs, so leaning toward the VM round slides.  Damned expensive though at $600.  It's come a long way from such a humble beginning.


That bike looks beautiful!


----------



## jonesn7 (Dec 15, 2021)

Solid looks and progress. Just to throw out something for thought - the spacer blocks look to have a lot of thermal mass and may cause a need for increased warmup time for smooth operation.


----------



## th62 (Dec 15, 2021)

All manifolds have a lot of thermal mass, look at the manifold on a car!


----------



## th62 (Dec 19, 2021)

I bought some round slide VMs in kit form, they come with extra jets, cables , manifolds and rubber boots for mounting.  The kit is put together as a kit expressly for the XS650.  However, when I mounted them on the bike I found I had to tilt the carbs over quite a bit for the carb cables to clear the petcocks, amateur hour in my opinion.  To stop the carbs hanging up on the petcocks, I turned up an aluminium manifold, 40mm longer than the kit manifolds .  It moves the carb back behind the tap, so I can sit the carbs upright and get to the adjusters.  Problem with is, the fuel spigot on the tap now gets in the way, so I swapped the taps left to right, right to left, so the spigot now faces forward.  Rather than turn the manifold up from one 90mm round, solid lump, I turned the spigot up from a 50 mm piece, leaving a 2.5mm  lip at the bottom.  I used one of the spacers I turned up beforehand for the flange, enlarged the hole and forced the spigot through.  The lip actually seals against the cylinder head stopping the spigot from shaking itself loose.  Longer inlet tracts do move the torque curve further down the rev range, but like a lot of performance mods, twin carb conversions, porting, velocity stacks, and so, the difference in performance, particularly on a street bike, would be hard to pick up, only a dyno would pick up the difference.  This was only a rough manifold to try it out, I'm happy with this solution, so I'll turn up two identical manifolds over the next few days.  Once done, I'll polish the float chambers and screw tops and paint the bodies black to match the engine.


----------



## th62 (Dec 23, 2021)

Finished off the right side manifold, looks OK when polished up.  Unfortunately, you can see a couple of scraping from where I pressed the two pieces together, I'll try to fix that on the left side.  I did make one boo boo with the flange, I drilled the mounting holes before the bore, bad mistake, makes it very difficult to line the three holes up.  Oh well, I'm committed now as I've made two flange blanks the same way.


----------



## th62 (Jan 10, 2022)

Finished off the rear carb mounts and anodised them.    The brackets that attach to the carbs were brush finished prior to anodising, whereas the larger brackets was polished prior to anodising, so the finish is slightly different.  Everything fits and works as intended, but it's very tight in there.  The manifolds sit the carbs 10 mm behind the taps, so I had to swap the taps so the outlets faced forward.  The small brackets attach to the larger bracket via a grommet and positive stop T nut, the larger bracket bolts to the front of the battery carrier which is rubber mounted.  I also spun up a couple of brass 6mm to 8mm brash fuel line adapters.


----------



## Alcap (Jan 10, 2022)

The work you’re doing is like artwork


----------



## FOMOGO (Jan 10, 2022)

The Mikuni's are great carbs. I put a 40mm flat slide on an 80" Evo years ago, and what a difference in performance over the stock Keihin. Looking good. Mike


----------



## Manual Mac (Jan 10, 2022)

Just ran across this photo of my 1st Yamaha 650. It is a ‘71 (last year of Kick start only) 
photo says may ‘73. Almost 49 yrs ago, sheesh....what a geezer...
Me in red plaid shirt, other 3 buddy’s on Harley’s, photo on Santiam Pass between Sweet Home & Bend Ore.
 we were going over to camp on the Deschutes River for some fishing & beer drinking.
Your TX 650 is gonna look much nicer than they looked new


----------



## th62 (Jan 12, 2022)

I made this this afternoon, total waste of time because this senile old fool made the slot too small. On the plus side, at least I know it's easily done and should look Ok in chunky, polished aluminium. Tomorrow I'll pay attention to what I'm doing and make one with the right size slot.


----------



## th62 (Jan 13, 2022)

I cheated, bent one up from 3mm stock.  A lot harder to make this way and doesn't look as nice, but a lot less material wastage.


----------



## jonesn7 (Jan 13, 2022)

Polished SS looks good and seems appropriate for the application and location. Adding an index mark above the axle makes it faster to get a ballpark setup on wheel alignment.


----------



## Steve-F (Jan 13, 2022)

Way better!!


----------



## Ski1919 (Jan 13, 2022)

Your attention to detail is amazing! Great lookin bike! Cant wait to see it done


----------



## th62 (Jan 14, 2022)

I made a billet adjuster today as a comparison.  I think I prefer the billet adjuster.


----------



## th62 (Jan 17, 2022)

I finally had a win. Initially I made the adjuster with a 15mm slot to fit over the swingarm axle mounts. That didn't work too well, scratched the hell out of the paintwork. Next I tried putting a step in the slot, 15mm where the axle slips through and 16mm for the rest, but couldn't get a decent finish inside the slot. So today I milled the slot out to 16mm for the whole length, papered it reasonably smooth, then put it in the vice and stepped it by bending the ends in to around 15.5mm. Seems to work pretty well, so I'll try making another tomorrow the same way. I think I'm going to have to powder coat the frame though, the acrylic lacquer just scratches and chips too easily.


----------



## jonesn7 (Jan 17, 2022)

Have you tried Rustoleum Appliance Epoxy (which isn't an epoxy)? That is used by many of the cafe racer folks. I tried it for a GL1000 rescue and RD400c touch-ups over etching primer. Seems to hold up well. You can always 2K clear coat over it with Spraymax.


----------



## th62 (Jan 21, 2022)

I've been messing around with chain adjusters the last few days:  I made a fabricated one from ally and stainless which didn't look too bad, then a snail cam which looked bloody awful then a billet one.  The billet chain adjuster won, so I made a second one and bolted them up.


----------



## DavidR8 (Jan 21, 2022)

Nice work!


----------



## th62 (Jan 26, 2022)

Couple of small jobs.
I did away with the tacho and voltmeter up top, simplified it by just mounting the speedo on the top tree, I'll put some idiot lights in the headlight bucket..  The voltmeter is now below the right hand side panel.  I'll either connect it to the battery via a toggle switch or connect it to the brake light wiring.



I designed and taped up a couple of harnesses a while back, decided to go with two:  One for ignition, plus the neutral cable, the other for lighting.  A much simplified system for fault finding.  Four wires in one, six in the other, although I think I'll delete the neutral cable, don't see any need for that or the tacho.  It still needs a little tidying up, a bit raggedy at the moment.



Scraping the barrel for fabrication and machining work now, only have to finish off the wiring and fit brake lines, chain and sprockets and mufflers, nearing the end, what'll I do when I finish.  This build has been very enjoyable, learnt lots of new cuss words.


----------



## th62 (Feb 5, 2022)

Nobody does anything properly these days. I bought some VMs a month or so ago and found the cable ends that sit in the adjusters on top of the carbs are a very sloppy fit inside the brass adjusters, so today I pulled them out and took some measurements. The hole in the brass adjuster where the cable end sits is 7mm, whereas the cable end is only 6mm doesn't sound like much but that 1mm allows the cable end to flop around inside the adjuster. I spun up a couple of brass sleeves that were 6mm inside and 7.05 on the outside then pressed the sleeves into the adjusters, I couldn't risk making the fit any tighter as the walls of the sleeve were only .5mm thick. All worked out well, now the cables are a good fit, as they should have been from the shop. Why doesn't anybody supply good fitting accessories anymore?

Whilst I was at it I made a Spanner to fit the carb caps so I could tighten them reasonably tight. The spanner is aluminium so as not to scratch the polished caps too much. Previously, when I made the throttle cable, I made the inner cable a bit too long , so the adjuster in the throttle was at the end of it's adjustment, that also had to be fixed by removing the nipple, cutting 8mm off the cable and refitting the nipple.

After putting everything back together I started the bike and synced the carbs at idle, then increased the revs to around 3k and synced again, all good, or so I thought. Then I found as the revs rise upwards of 4-5k the left inlet tract on the left pot loses vacuum putting the carbs out of sync at higher revs. So, I synced the carbs at 4-5k revs then took it back to 3k revs and damn it, the sync is out again. Sync at idle remained constant and even More mucking about to find the problem.


----------



## Aukai (Feb 5, 2022)

That sucks, out of sync is a tough thing to track down.


----------



## th62 (Feb 6, 2022)

Ham fisted.
I broke the brass adjuster on the left hand VM, so had to make a new one. Instead of a hex head I knurled the head so I don't have to mess around with an 8mm spanner when adjusting. As you can see, the thread isn't much chop, the only M6 x .75 die I had was a non split die and carbon steel so the thread is a little undersize and a bit ragged. I've ordered a HSS die, so as soon as that turns up I'll make another, plus one for the right hand carb. Might make them from stainless though, stainless is bit hardier than brass. So much for the brass sleeves I made.


----------



## th62 (Feb 20, 2022)

I have chronic RA so the clutch lever on the bike is too heavy to use comfortably, so I put the law of the lever to work.
The clutch lever's distance from pivot point to nipple centre is 30mm, whereas the clutch actuator lever's distance from screw, or pivot point, to nipple centre is 35mm, so the law of the lever is already at work, but not enough for me.

I had an old clutch actuator lever that came in a box of parts with the bike. I removed the original lever, cleaned up the damaged screw and turned down the head of the screw to 13mm.

After fashioning a rough lever I attached it to the screw, turned up a dust cover and welded everything together. As I wanted better leverage I drilled the pivot point for the nipple holder 10mm further out from the screw, 45mm.
Attached everything and pulled the lever, much, much better. The actuator lever, due to the increased distance between screw and nipple holder pivot actually moves the pushrod less than the original, but still separates the plates enough for the clutch to do it's job.


----------



## th62 (Mar 4, 2022)

The coil on the TX went kaput, so I sent off for another CB 750 coil. It arrived yesterday so I went to install it only to find it didn't fit' the bracket I made a while back, the mounting holes on the new coil are 10mm closer together. Not much choice so I made another mounting bracket. Being as it's under the tank I anodised it instead of polishing it as I'd done with the original. Prior to anodising I rotary sanded it, then hit it with a scotchbrite wheel, then dumped it in the anodising bath. Unfortunately, anodising tends to greatly amplify any imperfections in the finish, whilst it looked great before anodising it came out showing the sanding scratches. Acceptable and not seen under the tank, but I wasn't happy with the finish, so rather than do it all again, I put it in the blasting cabinet and gave it a light blasting with glass beads. What a great finish this gave, still anodised so it won't oxidise, but boy, what a great finish. I still have to route the cables and harness neatly, that's why it looks a little untidy. I might also do the same with the top engine mounts.


----------



## th62 (Mar 4, 2022)

I sent off for a hydraulic clutch slave cylinder and some hoses, they arrived today and I was pleasantly surprised. The slave cylinder mounts where the original cable was and pulls on the lever attached to the course thread screw. It was cheap and is pretty darn good quality, just not sure it will work that well as the bore is only around 12_14mm. Tomorrows job.

Some hydraulic hoses also arrived, these were advertised as 'braided' but certainly there is no external braiding. They are quite small in diameter and appear to be made of some sort of plastic with braiding of some sort under the clearish outer surface. The smaller of the two came with three banjos: straight, 28 degrees and 90 degrees. Again, they appear to be quite good quality.

The slave cylinder and hoses were only bought to play with, but if everything works ok, I may look at the hoses for brake lines. I'll be on the lathe again shortly to make a slave cylinder that pushes on the clutch actuating rod, not a fan of the course threaded screw actuator.


----------



## jonesn7 (Mar 4, 2022)

Where did you find the hydraulic line? A universal kit like that would be very useful.


----------



## th62 (Mar 4, 2022)

Ebay!


----------



## th62 (Mar 19, 2022)

I've designed and put together a couple of much simplified harness' one for lights, the other for ignition, minus stuff I don't require, neutral light and so on. But still the spaghetti bucket lived up to it's name - untidy. I dislike untidy with a vengeance so made a bracket that sits inside the spaghetti bucket to try and keep things neat and make it easier to find and connect the wires.
Two grommets sit in the middle for routing earth wires through to earth connections and a couple of linked, Delrin, insulated terminal bridges sit either side of them for power connections. Mostly connected up, but still have to connect the headlight cables and speedo light cables, not sure about adding idiot lights, more procrastination needed there me thinks! The cables emanating from the switchgear are very, very light gauge, not sure if they'll handle the current, even though all lights are LEDs, so I may have to either solder in heavier gauge cables or change the switchgear.


----------



## th62 (Mar 22, 2022)

Finished off the front wiring and spaghetti bucket. Still looks a little untidy, but neater than most I think. I even mounted the lens on a couple of wire safety straps to stop it pulling on the harness. I had, to buy these double female bullet connectors from China, couldn't find anyone in OZ who stocks them. Trying to find sub 6mm eye terminals was a job, same with 3mm blade terminals, they stock female blades but not males. And they complain that everyone is turning to online shopping - no bloody wonder.
Got to attack the back end now, mount the indicators and plug them and the tail light into the lighting harness.


----------



## jonesn7 (Mar 22, 2022)

Vintageconnections.com (USA) stocks a wide range of connectors. I think they also have the more modern (smaller) connectors, too.


----------



## th62 (Mar 22, 2022)

The indicators I bought don't have a long enough threaded section to go through the guard bracket, so I made these extension brackets to mount the indicators on.  The V shaped cut out at the rear of the brackets fits around the frame tab protrusion, thus stopping the brackets from moving.


----------



## th62 (Mar 23, 2022)

Nup, binned them. Looking at the picture I noticed the line on the top the aluminium bracket doesn't follow the line on the top of the frame tab. So I made a new pair. Not a lot I could do with the bottom line as the tab angle is different to the guard angle, so I followed the tab angle down to the bottom of the guard then followed the arch of the guard. I might have to thin it down a bit though, looks a bit too big???


----------



## th62 (Apr 4, 2022)

A few weeks ago I sent off for some tapered mufflers, these were said to suit from 38 - 45mm pipes using the supplied sleeves. Well they came, but aside from being chrome when I ordered black, they were rubbish: The spigot that goes over the exhaust pipe is tapered, so no matter how tight the clamp is done up, they have an alarming amount of movement, so I wrapped them up and on sold them.

Today I went to an exhaust shop and bought 1.5 m of 57 mm pipe and the same amount of 41mm pipe and asked the guy to taper the ends of the 41mm pipe out to 57mm. This was just an experiment mind, just wanted to see what they'd look like. Once I'd welded the tapered cones on to the 57mm pipe, I slid the 57mm end of the mufflers over the exhaust, stood back and had a squiz. Very pleasantly surprised, they give the bike the look I'm after. So next week, or whenever, I'll get some 45mm pipe and get the guy to expand the ends out to 57 mm and weld them on to the other end of the muffler.

The plan is to make up a couple of long baffles and slide them all the way inside the mufflers, start the bike and gradually slide the baffles out until I achieve what I think is an acceptable noise level. I'll also throw a bit of fibreglass insulation in the bodies to dampen the high level noise.

They look a bit Pommyish, but that's alright, I like Pommy bikes.

Once I've finished the mufflers, that's pretty much the build finished. So I'll strip it down, repaint everything again, give the tank a coat of isocynate free clear coat and stick the bike back together. All that remains to be done then is get some tyres fitted and upholster the seat. That'll be the end of my bike building days though, unfortunately, this build has pretty much stuffed my body, my elbows are stuffed, can't doing anything without lots of pain now. So once finished I'll probably book elbow replacement surgery and retire from life. Although, every now and again I'll probably wander out to the workshop, sit on the bike, blow through my lips to make some bike noises, dribble down my chin and remember the good old days of my youth. Still a bit left to do though.


----------



## th62 (Apr 7, 2022)

Finished one of the mufflers today, plus a baffle. Unfortunately, none of the tube sizes will slide inside the next size up, .25mm too big. I did, consider getting the exhaust guy to expand the tubes, but, I don't share their idea of a 'good fit'. So, using a drum sander I shaved .25mm off the inside of the tail pipe and the same amount of the receiver end. Now, because round tube is not round, more egg shaped, I can match the oval shapes together, push one tube in, twist and get a really tight fit.

Baffles were fun to make, 168 holes in total. I drilled 14 along the length of the pipe, then drilled another 11 lines of holes around the circumference, by the time I'd drilled the last line the holes didn't match up, so, I mounted another piece of tube on the lathe and used the bit to scribe lines along the length, 9.9mm apart, then used the dial indicator to mark around the tube at 10mm intervals, then drilled using the mill. Success. I know you can't see the holes in the baffles and it won't make any difference, but,
At least I'll know they are neat and the rows and lines match.

All I have to do to tune the decibels is start the bike and pull the baffle out until I'm happy with the noise level then cut the excess off. In area, I need 58 x 5mm holes to match the area of the exhaust pipe outlet, I can probably go a few less actually because the exhaust outlet is only arlound 34/36mm as is the baffle outlet.

Welding the cones front and back was also fun: Tacked the cone in four places as straight as I could get it, then mounted the muffler in the chuck, spun it and using a dial gauge, marked where I needed to weld in order to pull it straight. Four times from memory I did this, with 25mm long beads. The tail pipe on the other one I did yesterday, manually, is a little off, but I'll remedy that after I've added the receiver cone.

A good day today, muffler gives the bike the look I wanted. Once both are done, I'll double skin a portion on the inside, weld some mounting points on, then paint them black. Not sure what type bracket to use, but it will attached to a polished aluminium stay bolted to the pillion passenger peg mounts. I'm thinking of a wide polished aluminium clamp around the body of the muffler, that will negate the need for double skinning. I can feel a 'try and see' coming up


----------



## th62 (Apr 12, 2022)

Finished off the muffler today and made a polished aluminium hanger for it. I was going to double skin a section on the side of the muffler and weld mounting tabs to it, but decided this full cradle hangers would look better, plus, nothing to break off from the vibration. Happy with the result, these mufflers look nice and suit the build I think.


----------



## jonesn7 (Apr 12, 2022)

Very nice. Better quality than factory, it appears. Will the hangers be painted to match the pipes? Very nice either way. I had a heck of a time keeping fiberglass packing in my Emgo slash-cut shorties. Ended up with stainless steel pot scrubbers sandwiched between inner and outer layer of fiberglass cloth, all wrapped and wired around the center perfed core. Happily, the Emgo center core is removable via just one bolt.


----------



## th62 (Apr 12, 2022)

Why on earth would I polish the hangers if I was going to paint them?


----------



## jonesn7 (Apr 13, 2022)

th62 said:


> Why on earth would I polish the hangers if I was going to paint them?


One man's polish is another man's paint prep. As I said, looks nice either way.


----------



## th62 (Apr 13, 2022)

You polish metals before painting, an interesting method.


----------



## th62 (Apr 15, 2022)

These are the exhaust hangers, they clamp around the mufflers, a stainless washer between the bends allows the the clamps to be done up tight thus gripping the mufflers securely and preventing the ends of the clamps from bending.


----------



## th62 (Apr 20, 2022)

Probably the last startup before tearing it apart again for repainting. Sync was a little out, so I adjusted the idle screws, turning the idle screw a fraction results in a big difference to the manometer. Happily, the mufflers do an excellent job of quieting the beast.


----------



## wachuko (Apr 20, 2022)

Just WOW!!  It shows that you are really enjoying the build.

We are very lucky to tag along for the ride.  Thank you for sharing.


----------



## DavidR8 (Apr 20, 2022)

Wow, that just sounds fantastic! Such beautiful work, well done!


----------



## Steve-F (Apr 20, 2022)

Looking Good!! What are you attaching the manometer to on the carbs please? I need to do that to my Norton


----------



## th62 (Apr 20, 2022)

Steve-F said:


> Looking Good!! What are you attaching the manometer to on the carbs please? I need to do that to my Norton


i shrunk a barb into each manifold.  Triumphs have a cross over tube between each manifold, you take that off and connect the manometer tubes to each barb, Nortons probably have something similar.


----------



## Steve-F (Apr 21, 2022)

Thank You!


----------



## Alcap (Apr 21, 2022)

Wow ! I can’t believe how smooth you have yours running . My XS650SE always shook like crazy , I think if it was set on a stand like yours I would have to chase it around the driveway lol


----------



## th62 (Apr 21, 2022)

I thought I’d make one more video before tearing the bike apart. This one deals with carb syncing with a manometer.

This manometer has a relatively large body of water, and the vacuum lines are fitted with a .6mm jet.  This has the effect of slowing down the movement of water stabilising the readings and making the device extremely accurate.  Just a miniscule turn of either idle screw or throttle adjustment screw greatly effects the fluid levels.

I have great trouble with my fingers, so you'll notice me changing hands frequently trying to turn the adjustment screws.  I also turned the adjustment screws the wrong way a few times, putting the levels out.


----------



## wachuko (Apr 21, 2022)

Pretty good indeed!!! Sweeeeeeeet!!!


----------



## th62 (Apr 22, 2022)

Alcap said:


> Wow ! I can’t believe how smooth you have yours running . My XS650SE always shook like crazy , I think if it was set on a stand like yours I would have to chase it around the driveway lol


Don't worry, this thing shakes alright.  When I had the engine in it's start up stand I had to tie it up to the bench grinder stand.


----------



## matthewsx (Apr 23, 2022)

I have a 650 motor that needs a bike to go into. Gonna try to figure that out next month, suggestions appreciated.

John


----------



## Firstram (Apr 23, 2022)

Ice Kart!


----------



## matthewsx (Apr 23, 2022)

Firstram said:


> Ice Kart!


Nope, spent 10 winters in Michigan. Have plenty of karts where the engine is but it will  go into a bike frame.


----------



## th62 (Apr 26, 2022)

This is a new brake divider I machined up to replace the original. The original hoses were rotted, so I replaced them and did away with the two steel tubes that connect the hose to the calliper and the hose from the master cylinder to the divider. Unfortunately, the new hoses have the banjos on the same plain requiring the lower hose to be twisted through 90degrees to connect to the original divider, so I machined a new divider to get around the problem. The lower hose connects at the rear of the divider, as does the brake light switch. The top hose connects to the side of the divider.


----------



## th62 (May 10, 2022)

A few hours is all it took - it's just a pile of bits that once was an almost complete bike now, just needed tyres and the seat covered. Going to be a big job polishing all those bits again, any volunteers???

A couple of mods on the frame to do: Remove the coil and flasher mounts then repaint along with tank, guards, seat, trees and a few other bits. Not sure what paint to use this time. I used acrylic lacquer last time, but spilt some petrol on the tank and it stained it. Painted heaps of tanks with acrylic lacquer before but never had this problem, either the paint is different or the petrol is. Don't really want to repeat the exercise.


----------



## Aukai (May 10, 2022)

Coming around the turn to the finish line


----------



## jonesn7 (May 10, 2022)

So far, Spraymax 2k clearcoat (I prefer their Glamor gloss, but they also have satin) has worked for me over lacquer and water borne color for the tank & tins. I just use Rustoleum Appliance Epoxy (which isn't an epoxy) on the frame. After several weeks curing the Rustoleum handles gas well. Might try to find the Rustoleum in a pint next time. Their main draw-back is their spray nozzles. Crap pattern and hard to press. The Spraymax 2k nozzles are very good. I've not tried Spraymax in colors, but it is a true 2k paint, so you must protect yourself and only have ~12-24 hours to use it once the inner part is activated. Cuts and buffs great. So far (~5 years on my oldest ones) the clear has held up great, and protected the cheap color underneath very well.


----------



## wachuko (Jun 8, 2022)

Is everything okay? Or still polishing parts?


----------



## th62 (Jun 11, 2022)

Applied the final coats of acrylic lacquer to the tinwork and some ancillaries this afternoon, didn't come out as clear or as good as I hoped, but acceptable I guess.  I'll give it a few more days then sand the tank and spray over with 2k clear.   Not the done thing, technically, but plenty do it, so we'll see how it goes.


----------



## th62 (Jun 23, 2022)

Painted the tank, seat, guards, headlight and callipers with 2k clearcoat this morning. Unfortunately, I can't wear glasses under the respiration so I couldn't see too clearly - bloody great run on the tank, damn. Couldn't get any non isocyanate free, so just the usual 2K.

It's been over 40 years since I used 2k, so I couldn't remember what coverage was like, how much paint I'd need, googled it in various painting forums. 2litres minimum for frame, tank, guards seat, headlight I was advised. Armed with that knowledge, I shyed away from 2k because it would have cost near as damn it to $450/$500.

Seems our painting professionals haven' a clue., I mixed up 250mm clear, 125mm catalyst and a little thinners. Got three coats down on tank, guards, seat, headlight and callipers and still had 200mm of mixed paint left.

By the look of it, I won't be spending anytime compounding or polishing the paintwork.

This pic should give you some idea why painting and, polishing aren't my favourite past times. Scared the crap out of the dog.


----------



## Aukai (Jun 23, 2022)

That piece came out great


----------



## FOMOGO (Jun 23, 2022)

I have one that I will be modifying into a dual sport. You might see if you have a motorcycle junkyard in your area, to find a suitable frame (you want one with a title). You can build a frame from scratch, but not for the faint of heart, and more work to register. Mike



matthewsx said:


> I have a 650 motor that needs a bike to go into. Gonna try to figure that out next month, suggestions appreciated.


----------



## jonesn7 (Jun 23, 2022)

The runs in 2k sand and then compound out beautifully. I use a rattle-can 2k clear, and one can is always enough for tank, fenders, side covers.


----------



## th62 (Aug 9, 2022)

Fuel distributor.
I binned the original fuel distributor I was making, too big, and made another smaller one. The design has changed a little: There are outlet spigots either side of the fuel distributer which feed the carbs via fuel hoses, the two outlet spigots are joined by a 4.5mm through hole. A line from the petcock feeds into small plastic filters which feed into the two brass spigots on the front of the distributor, via fuel hose, and these feed into the 4.5mm through hole.

The brass spigots have been undercut on the face connecting to the distributor to allow for an O ring. The brass spigots are a push fit in the distributor so shouldn't leak, the O rings are just added insurance.

This was about as neat as I could make it and certainly neater than the jumble of hoses, adapters and T pieces I had there before.

I didn't bother polishing the ends, that was a mistake - looks unfinished, so I'll have to remove it and polish the ends.

Here's lots of pics (as usual), including the build process.


----------



## jonesn7 (Aug 9, 2022)

Neat, clean solution. My RD400c petcock has with two spigots to the carbs, and a cross-over hose at the front of the tank to connect the two sides of the tank (it runs under the backbone, and has to be disconnected each time to pull the tank). Every tank should have two petcocks allowing cross-connecting the sides.


----------



## th62 (Aug 23, 2022)

I stripped the clear coat off the side panels because the polishing wasn't good enough. Interestingly, After soaking the 2k clear just wiped off the blasted inner surface, the outer polished surface was a different matter, had to scrub and scrub and scrub to get it off.

Then I polished again: Sisal and black, sewn cloth and white and then loose leaf cloth with green. Finish was pretty good, but I wanted better so finished off with a loose leaf Swansdown mop and green compound. Normal loose leaf cloth mops are calico, Swansdown is a finer, softer material providing a better finish. But don't be fooled, all mops, sisal, calico and even Swansdown mops leave streaks in the aluminium, you just have to look closely. You can reduce the streaks by polishing in different directions leaving a cross hatch finish, again, if you look close enough. Polishing with a very soft touch will reduce the streaking even further.

The compound is what does the polishing, don't use enough compound and all you'll produce is heat. Compounds when running lean will leave little globs on the surface of the material, particularly around holes and edges, particularly green compound.

I use Silvo as a final hand polish, Silvo has a finer texture than aluminium polishes such as Meguires and Autosol, so provides a better finish. Final polishing with Silvo and a microfibre cloth will also scratch the material, particularly if used in a circular motion. So, take note of the direction in which the streaks run, polish with the microfibre in the same direction, streaks are then less noticeable. These streaks are hardly noticeable unless you look very, very closely and are very, very fussy, not something you would normally notice.

I've been at it for over 55 years, so I'm very fussy. Here's some final polishing I did today; side panels, engine mounts and a filter mount I made some time ago. Aluminium will never polish up like chrome or stainless, it is a more 'subdued' shine, which I prefer. Nevertheless, it does come up nice providing a good mirror finish. In pic three you can see the hairs on my fingers..


----------



## Aukai (Aug 23, 2022)

Very well done.


----------



## th62 (Aug 30, 2022)

The clear coat on the forks and sides wasn't up to scratch so I stripped them and re polished them. I also re-polished the chain adjusters, headlight brackets and brake backing plate. I might make some new headlight brackets, these ones are looking a little shabby. Brake backing plate came up pretty good with just a quick rub on the mop . The wheels have been sitting on the floor of the study for a couple months now so have lost a bit of their shine. When I've finished with the other bits I'll de spoke and polish up the hubs and rims again.


----------



## Steve-F (Aug 30, 2022)

Beautiful work there!!!


----------



## th62 (Sep 6, 2022)

I've clear coated most of the polished aluminium, smaller bits, just have the wheels to finish. Unfortunately, the clear coat dulls the shine quite a bit. Funny stuff to spray on polished aluminium: I had to spray a very light coat first, give it a few minutes then hit it again with a heavier coat so the paint would pool and flatten out. Still a bit of orange peel though, particularly on the triangular engine mount. The clear coat doesn't behave the same over painted surfaces, just polished aluminium, very disappointed in the finish. I may not clear coat the wheels as they'd be hard to get the clear to pool, there's a very fine line between pooling and a run. Float coating seems to just run and build up on the edges.   I'm also thinking of painting the side covers black, they just didn't come up to scratch.


----------



## th62 (Sep 15, 2022)

A little premature, but I did a little detailing. Stainless fasteners don't look the best straight off the shelf, so I've started neatening them up a little. Allen heads have striations on the side of the heads and numbers stamped on the face of the heads, so I chucked a heap of them and turned them down a little before polishing. Hex heads were very rough, so they were ground down a little before polishing. I ground and polished the ends of any bolts that were seen as well as removing the excess thread..
I've only done one side of the bike, tomorrow I'll tackle the other. Then the engine fasteners, a few little ones on the carbs. I haven't done the washers, can't figure out how to hold them without polishing the ends of my fingers.
The footpeg holes to which I mount the mufflers are 12mm, heads of the fasteners on the inside looked like they'd scrape against the swingarm, so I turned up some brass shim tubes and pressed them into place so I could use 10mm fasteners, they just clear the swingarm.
Once I've finished, I'll remove the clear coat and just leave the ally bare.


----------



## tq60 (Sep 15, 2022)

A good wax will protect and seal well.

Just need to re apply

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk


----------



## Aukai (Sep 15, 2022)

There were aluminum sealers, but I'm not sure if they are still around. Zoopseal changed it's name to Shineseal.


			:: ShineSeal ::


----------



## jonesn7 (Sep 15, 2022)

Polished aluminum on my GL1000 GoldWing is easy to restore if it isn't coated in any way - just lightly polish once a year and it is good. That is, after the weeks spent getting the initial polished finish.


----------



## th62 (Oct 10, 2022)

Reed valve engine breather.
I made this little gizmo yesterday, finished it off this morning with the bead blaster. I was going to polish it, but damn this gizmo looks good with a bead blasted finish.
Petal was taken from a pit bike read valve and cut in half, two holes drilled and screwed to the base plate. Base plate was tapped M3 10mm deep to take the petal. Not fun tapping this small, but, this time around the tap survived.
Main body was carved out with an endmill to give the petal room to move and air to flow. Base plate has a channel on the engine side for any oil to run down back into the rockers. Topside was channelled either side to get the Allen heads level with the top surface. Stainless Allen's were turned to make them shiny, I do like shiny baubles.
Outlet spigot is 16mm with a 10mm hole. If it's not big enough I can take it out to 12mm later on.
Air from the engine enters the main body from the reed valve is channelled upward, does a U turn and travels downward to the outlet spigot, losing a little oil on the way. Any oil trapped before the reed valve is channelled back to the rockers.
I'll have to design and build a catch can now, thinking of mounting it behind the downtube between the carbs. But, it's getting a little busy in that area.
Manual machining only, would love a CNC, but not in my budget, would've made things a lot easier


----------



## th62 (Oct 24, 2022)

A while back I made two wiring harnesses, one for ignition, the other for lights. I wrapped both up in plastic insulation tape, not an easy job keeping the cables straight and in the same order for the harness length. I managed that reasonably well, but after wrapping the harnesses were s tiff as a board and twisted.

This morning some cloth insulation tape arrived, so I cut the old plastic stuff off and wrapped both harnesses in the cloth tape, boy what a difference. The harnesses are now quite straight, pliable and easier to thread through the frame. Big improvement. Good stuff this cloth insulation tape.

Tomorrow I'll solder on some more terminals for the rear end, shorten a couple of leads and hook everything up.


----------



## jonesn7 (Oct 24, 2022)

Very nice! Someone (Vintage Connections?) sells a harness wrap tape that is much thinner than regular electrical tape (and not designed as insulation).


----------



## 7milesup (Oct 24, 2022)

I believe that tape is called "friction tape."
Looking good BTW


----------



## th62 (Dec 17, 2022)

I've slowed right down now, I can only manage an hour or so in the workshop before  the elbow complains.  But, I haven't been totally idle:  I stripped the clear coat off the forks and gave them another polish.  Pulled the front wheel apart, polished the rim and hub and re laced it.   I stuck the caliper together, hoping the pistons would seal, no such luck, so I'll have to,order some new pistons.  Still haven't re painted the seat and covered it yet or bought tyres.

Most of my interest is making stuff, and mostly machining, but being as the bike is all but finished I didn't have anything more to make.  So, I thought real hard about it and decided on some air cleaners, pods just don't do it for me.  I turned up an aluminium base and a couple of knurled nuts, then beat up a rear plate and polished them.  I was going to use the black, stainless mesh to hold the foam in place, but changed my mind, just don't like the look of it, so I'll look around for some perforated sheet and use that. 

I was going to use a catch can for the engine breather, but being as I'll have pancake air filters I'll plumb the breather hose into the filters via a T joining piece.

I finally decided on a shrink fit for the base of the filter, so did a little experimenting with heating and freezing.:  The carb bell mouth is tapered slightly by around .05mm,, so I chucked the carb body and trued up the bell so it measures 57.38mm, then stuck it in the freezer for a couple of days to see how much it would shrink - virtually nothing, .01 mm.  Next I bored out the centre of the air cleaner base to 57mm and stuck it in the over at 250C, it expanded by .18mm.  So, I chucked the base again and turned the hole to 57.20mm.  So if I heat the base to 240c it'll expand to 57.38.  That of course won't fit over the bell mouth, because it's not a clearance fit, so a little light pushing in the vice will be required.  That should give a good tight fit and just to make sure it won't come off, I've tapped the side of the air cleaner base for a 5mm grub screw.

So, you'd probably think freezing the carb body is a waste of time as it doesn't shrink enough to make a difference, but there is a good reason to freeze the carb: Bringing the air cleaner base and carb together to press fit them can't be done quickly, so heat transfer will take place and the carb will heat up slowly, if I'm quick enough it should reach normal temperature sometime during the press fit and hopefully the air cleaner base won't cool down too quickly.

Tomorrow, I'll find out if my plan works, if so, all I have to do then is is make another air cleaner for the left carb.

Well, it's not quite that simple:  A while back I made a fuel distributor block that bolts under the front lip of the battery carrier to neaten up the hoses joining carbs and taps, and also to get a level fuel flow in both carbs.  Unfortunately, the distributor block hangs too low, so the filters interfere with the fuel lines, I've made the filters as small a diameter as I can, so another 'narower' fuel distributor block will route the fuel hoses around the filter.

There is a method to my madness, I've now got more stuff to machine up, Oh happy days!


----------



## Aukai (Dec 17, 2022)

Lacing gives me the shivers, to me that's a special talent.


----------



## Firstram (Dec 17, 2022)

Lacing is easy, tensioning is a black art!


----------



## wachuko (Dec 17, 2022)

Firstram said:


> Lacing is easy, tensioning is a black art!


Totally agree!


----------



## th62 (Dec 17, 2022)

Lacing is super easy, probably the simplest job you can do on a bike.  Likewise for tensioning.  Once you have trued the rim both side to side and eccentrically you just need to tap the spokes, then tighten or loosen the nipples so you get the same tone.  You'll never get them exactly the same, duen to some spokes touching and some not.  Trueness of the rim and so on.  How tight, now that's the art:  Tight enough so they don't work their way loose, but not tight enough so the spokes will snap.  There are such things as spoke torque wrenches, but good luck getting them all the same and the rim trued as well.  About all the tension wrenches are good for is assisting in getting roughly the right ring from the spokes
when tapped. But take heart, not even manufacturers can get that right all the time.  I've had spokes on new wheels on new bikes come loose or snap.  Practice and experience, attention to what you are doing, not rushing and having pride in your work are key.  Unfortunately, some of those things go out the window at commercial shops.


----------



## Firstram (Dec 17, 2022)

I laced quite a few bicycle wheels years ago, they would never stay true. I always missed it by that much!


----------



## th62 (Dec 21, 2022)

Well, I finally got around to finishing off the right side filter, and damn it looks good. It gives a nice unobstructed air flows, much better than pods. My plan on heating and cooling didn't work too well, much to hard to handle all the bits and pieces and tooling trying to press them together, so, I ended up pressing together cold.

Same with the sizing, .020mm press fit was much too much, so after a few tries I got a good fit by decreasing it to about .04mm. And of course my day wouldn't be complete without misplacing parts, I lost the idle mixture screw spring, no idea where I'm going to get one of them from.

All I have to do now is make an identical one for the left carb from that great slab of aluminium I spent yesterday tracking down, and beat up a rear plate. But first I'll make another fuel distributor block to keep the hosing neat and simple.

If I can remember, I'll take lots of pics of the machining and fabrication process and bore you all to tears with them.


----------



## wachuko (Dec 21, 2022)

Trust me... we will not be bored to tears with the photos.  I am always looking forward to the next update and photos.


----------



## th62 (Dec 22, 2022)

I did warn you: Here's loads of pictures taken while making a new fuel distributor block. It's little smaller than the first one I made and routes the hoses from petcock to carb nice and neatly, it also levels the fuel on both sides of the tank so one carb doesn't run dry when the fuel level gets low.

The block is drilled through left to right 5.5mm and has barbs machined on the end to take the 8mm hose going to the carbs. Two 6mm brass barbs are pressed in place on the front which take the hoses from the petcock via a couple of inline filters.


----------



## Bone Head (Dec 22, 2022)

Pressed in barbs?  I'm curious how that holds up (leaks).


----------



## th62 (Dec 22, 2022)

Look on any carb, they all have pressed in barbs!


----------



## th62 (Dec 26, 2022)

Here’s the process used making the air filters. I took sizes of the first filter I made and replicated them to the second. This time I took lots of pictures to outline the steps in making them. I cut a 15mm slice off the 101.6mm lump of ally and turned down one end to 97.4mm, then cut a piece of 1.7mm sheet to around 111-mm in diameter, stuck them together and bashed the overhang until there wasn’t one. I have to use my left hand now, as the right elbow complains. Sound easy, but it’s not, out of every 10 strikes, I think I miss about nine.

Once formed, I mounted it in the four jaw, and turned the overhang down to 3mm, then smoothed out all the scratches and what not with sand paper, finishing off with the random orbital sander with 240 grit.

Next, I mounted the 15mm slab in the three jaw using the turned down area and drilled through with a 25mm bit, machined the outer diameter to 101.4mm, machined out the centre leaving a 2mm wide lip on the periphery, 3mm deep, then bored out the 25mm centre hole to 57.3mm to fit the 57.4 mm carb bell mouth. .10 mm proved a little tight, .07 would have been better I think.

I flipped the slab over and mounted it in the four jaw, then spent a couple of hours trying to centre the damn thing, then turned down the inner mounting ring so its 8mm wide and the flat body of the filter 2mm thick. Final step, turn down the inner mounting ring so its 9.8mm deep.

The cutting tool was then centred., spot on, and used to scribe a line across the back of the centre mounting ring. After removing from the chuck I found the centre point using a calliper, centre popped it, mounted it on the mill and drilled the centre pops with a 4mm bit, then mounted it on the pedestal drill, centred the holes and tapped the 4mm holes with a 5mm x .8 tap. The plate was then turned on its side, and drilled and tapped in the centre of the centre ring at 90degrees to the other two holes on the face.

The piece was mounted in the three jaw again and using 240 grit any cutting ridges were smoothed over, then both plates were polished.

The knurled securing nuts were turned up from a piece of 20mm stock, tapped 5mm and then knurled using the scissor knurler. These were mostly done by eye, so won’t be absolutely identical. You’d need a calliper to pick up the difference though, so good are my four eyes.

The carb body was mounted in the three jaw and a file used to remove the ridge at the beginning of the bell mouth. The face of the bell mouth was pretty rough, so I took the time to smooth that with some emery. The turned piece was located over the bell mouth, the assembly was then stuck in the vice and pressed into place.

The lead into the bell mouth is flat, so not a perfect shape for induction. You can recess the filter lower on the bell mouth, creating a bit of a lip on the outer periphery of the bell mouth to improve induction, but realistically the improvement in induction wouldn’t be worth the time.

Both filters fit well and the hoses from the fuel distributor block lead over the filters nice and neatly. Happy with the outcome, except the inner knurled nuts are a little difficult to get to, probably due more to the fact my fingers are fused, but I can turn them with a little bit of messing around, better still, use the wife, her fingers aren’t fused. I’ve yet to get some perforated sheet metal to replace the stainless crap I used to keep the foam in place.


----------



## th62 (Dec 26, 2022)

more pics.


----------



## Bone Head (Dec 26, 2022)

Very impressive work.  Now, do they feed enough air to the motor?


----------



## th62 (Dec 27, 2022)

Nope, I designed and made them so the motor would be starve for air!  You'll probably want to know itf they leak air now, yes they do as a matter of fact, they leak through the foam rubber.


----------



## Bone Head (Dec 28, 2022)

Never mind...carry on.


----------



## jonesn7 (Dec 28, 2022)

Nice to see someone go to the effort to avoid pods. They seem to cause tuning nightmares on many bikes. Is any kind of filter element planned? An extra feature of yours is the removable plate which would allow element cleaning/replacement.


----------

