New bike project.

New project, a bike with a motor this time, I’ve been working on this for a while so done quite a bit so far. It’s been 20 years since I sat or worked on a bike, last one was a Triumph Bonny, they just cost too much these days so I settled for a 74 TX650 wreck and boy did it turn out to be a wreck. I have psoriatic arthritis so I’ve largely lost the use of my hands but I manage a few hours work on it every day. I’ll never be able to ride it thanks to the PsA so this will be a long term project: Every nut, bolt spoke, piece of steel was rusted through. Inspection also revealed the chain had come off at same stage, as well as removing the top section of the crankcase as in the picture, it also tore the top section of the gearbox drum shifter bearing housing off. After tearing the engine apart I sent off for a second hand set of crankcase.

The bike came with an extra set of carbs, mag wheels and a pair of spoked wheels and a box of assorted bits and pieces. While I was waiting for the cases, I cut the rusted spokes off the wheels, stuck the hubs on the lathe, trued up the castings and then polished them using cloth wheels and progressively finer compounds. The rims, which were badly damaged from tyre irons and badly pitted from oxidisation, were repaired, ground and polished. While on a polishing kick I also polished the top triple tree, lower fork sliders, brake backing plate, brake fluid distributor, brake master cylinr and also bead blasted the switches and polished them up. Polishing on the buffer machine really hurts my hands so I have to loop a roop around my neck, tie it to the item to be polished to support it and then polish. It took quite a while to do the polishing as I could only manage an hour or under each day, any more and I’d be laid up recouperating for a few days. A very painful job for me, polishing. Some pics of the journey:

 

New project, a bike with a motor this time, I’ve been working on this for a while so done quite a bit so far. It’s been 20 years since I sat or worked on a bike, last one was a Triumph Bonny, they just cost too much these days so I settled for a 74 TX650 wreck and boy did it turn out to be a wreck. I have psoriatic arthritis so I’ve largely lost the use of my hands but I manage a few hours work on it every day. I’ll never be able to ride it thanks to the PsA so this will be a long term project: Every nut, bolt spoke, piece of steel was rusted through. Inspection also revealed the chain had come off at same stage, as well as removing the top section of the crankcase as in the picture, it also tore the top section of the gearbox drum shifter bearing housing off. After tearing the engine apart I sent off for a second hand set of crankcase.

The bike came with an extra set of carbs, mag wheels and a pair of spoked wheels and a box of assorted bits and pieces. While I was waiting for the cases, I cut the rusted spokes off the wheels, stuck the hubs on the lathe, trued up the castings and then polished them using cloth wheels and progressively finer compounds. The rims, which were badly damaged from tyre irons and badly pitted from oxidisation, were repaired, ground and polished. While on a polishing kick I also polished the top triple tree, lower fork sliders, brake backing plate, brake fluid distributor, brake master cylinr and also bead blasted the switches and polished them up. Polishing on the buffer machine really hurts my hands so I have to loop a roop around my neck, tie it to the item to be polished to support it and then polish. It took quite a while to do the polishing as I could only manage an hour or under each day, any more and I’d be laid up recouperating for a few days. A very painful job for me, polishing. Some pics of the journey:

Great project! I really sympathize with with your PsA. It’s hell when you want so bad to do something you know how to do and your body lets you down. I refuse to say “never”. We don’t know how much time we have but I’ve decided that every day is the start to the rest of my life. Please hang in there. Remember, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life.

 

New project, a bike with a motor this time, I’ve been working on this for a while so done quite a bit so far. It’s been 20 years since I sat or worked on a bike, last one was a Triumph Bonny, they just cost too much these days so I settled for a 74 TX650 wreck and boy did it turn out to be a wreck. I have psoriatic arthritis so I’ve largely lost the use of my hands but I manage a few hours work on it every day. I’ll never be able to ride it thanks to the PsA so this will be a long term project: Every nut, bolt spoke, piece of steel was rusted through. Inspection also revealed the chain had come off at same stage, as well as removing the top section of the crankcase as in the picture, it also tore the top section of the gearbox drum shifter bearing housing off. After tearing the engine apart I sent off for a second hand set of crankcase.

The bike came with an extra set of carbs, mag wheels and a pair of spoked wheels and a box of assorted bits and pieces. While I was waiting for the cases, I cut the rusted spokes off the wheels, stuck the hubs on the lathe, trued up the castings and then polished them using cloth wheels and progressively finer compounds. The rims, which were badly damaged from tyre irons and badly pitted from oxidisation, were repaired, ground and polished. While on a polishing kick I also polished the top triple tree, lower fork sliders, brake backing plate, brake fluid distributor, brake master cylinr and also bead blasted the switches and polished them up. Polishing on the buffer machine really hurts my hands so I have to loop a roop around my neck, tie it to the item to be polished to support it and then polish. It took quite a while to do the polishing as I could only manage an hour or under each day, any more and I’d be laid up recouperating for a few days. A very painful job for me, polishing. Some pics of the journey:

You are an inspiration, Sir! Motorcycle restoration is a long and tedious process and most people give up after they realize the work involved. Not you!

I had one of those yams back in the day and absolutely loved it. My older brother had many Triumphs but I much preferred the reliability and engineering of the 650. Best of luck going forward.

 

So, finished machining the second manifold, managed to get the second one identical to the first, well not quite, the second one is 0.02mm longer, but i can live with that. i also turned up a couple of brass spigots, drilled the manifolds and pushed the spigots into place, then polished the second one and bolted them in place. you'll notice the spigots for the balance pipe is tucked up out of the way, bit of a bugger attaching syncing hoses to it, but i didn't want the balance tube seen. urned out quite good, the adjustment cable sits around 10mm behing the tap, so plenty of room to get a spanner in there for syncing. Outlet on the tap now faces forward so it's a bit of a trek to the carb inlets, and damn, the left side carb has the inlet on the same side as the right hand carb, so it's seen. so much for left and right hand carbs.

The carbs have to be supported at the rear via rubbers for vibration. I'll make a two piece polished ally clamp to clamp onto the main frame downtube and go from there.

 

As you are probably aware, when fuel runs low in bike tanks, due to the tunnel one carb can run dry, BS carbs overcome that problem by linking the carbs via a short hose between them. I run VM carbs on the TX so there is no fuel link. Previously I had a jumble of hoses and T piece barbs linking the petcocks, but that was just so untidy, so today I made a fuel distributor. Not quite finished yet: I still have to drill the linking gallery through so the petcocks are linked, but, I don't have a 4.5mm drill long enough, so I'll have to drill from both sides and blank one side off with a screw and copper washer, then punch in three brass barbs, clean it up a little, round off the edges and polish it.


The distributor mounts underneath the front lip of the ally battery carrier I made some time ago.. A tube from each petcock attaches to the two inner barbs via a small filter, fuel line links the two outer barbs to the carbs.


I was going to make one with integral sintered bronze filters, but the unit would have been LARGE , so I decided to go with the two inline filters.


The left side works well, plenty of room for the hoses and filter as the carb hose attaches to the side of the distributor, but the right side is a little crowded as the fuel inlet on the carb is on the same side as the left hand carb, I may have to make another just a few mm wider.

I'm going into hospital today for five days, that'll be followed by about of month sitting on my bum, so it'll have to wait a while before I can finish it off.

 

New project, a bike with a motor this time, I’ve been working on this for a while so done quite a bit so far. It’s been 20 years since I sat or worked on a bike, last one was a Triumph Bonny, they just cost too much these days so I settled for a 74 TX650 wreck and boy did it turn out to be a wreck. I have psoriatic arthritis so I’ve largely lost the use of my hands but I manage a few hours work on it every day. I’ll never be able to ride it thanks to the PsA so this will be a long term project: Every nut, bolt spoke, piece of steel was rusted through. Inspection also revealed the chain had come off at same stage, as well as removing the top section of the crankcase as in the picture, it also tore the top section of the gearbox drum shifter bearing housing off. After tearing the engine apart I sent off for a second hand set of crankcase.

The bike came with an extra set of carbs, mag wheels and a pair of spoked wheels and a box of assorted bits and pieces. While I was waiting for the cases, I cut the rusted spokes off the wheels, stuck the hubs on the lathe, trued up the castings and then polished them using cloth wheels and progressively finer compounds. The rims, which were badly damaged from tyre irons and badly pitted from oxidisation, were repaired, ground and polished. While on a polishing kick I also polished the top triple tree, lower fork sliders, brake backing plate, brake fluid distributor, brake master cylinr and also bead blasted the switches and polished them up. Polishing on the buffer machine really hurts my hands so I have to loop a roop around my neck, tie it to the item to be polished to support it and then polish. It took quite a while to do the polishing as I could only manage an hour or under each day, any more and I’d be laid up recouperating for a few days. A very painful job for me, polishing. Some pics of the journey:

GREAT job polishing!!! What is your recipe as I'm about to do the same to my 1965 Norton and could use some tips please

 

Good luck with the hospital


















1

 

When you return to the shop (soon, I hope), just something to have in mind; have found that drill press on high speed with buffing wheel allows some parts/areas to be polished with less stress on the body/hands/etc.

 

Nice work! I too enjoy working on bikes!!

 

New project, a bike with a motor this time, I’ve been working on this for a while so done quite a bit so far. It’s been 20 years since I sat or worked on a bike, last one was a Triumph Bonny, they just cost too much these days so I settled for a 74 TX650 wreck and boy did it turn out to be a wreck. I have psoriatic arthritis so I’ve largely lost the use of my hands but I manage a few hours work on it every day. I’ll never be able to ride it thanks to the PsA so this will be a long term project: Every nut, bolt spoke, piece of steel was rusted through. Inspection also revealed the chain had come off at same stage, as well as removing the top section of the crankcase as in the picture, it also tore the top section of the gearbox drum shifter bearing housing off. After tearing the engine apart I sent off for a second hand set of crankcase.

The bike came with an extra set of carbs, mag wheels and a pair of spoked wheels and a box of assorted bits and pieces. While I was waiting for the cases, I cut the rusted spokes off the wheels, stuck the hubs on the lathe, trued up the castings and then polished them using cloth wheels and progressively finer compounds. The rims, which were badly damaged from tyre irons and badly pitted from oxidisation, were repaired, ground and polished. While on a polishing kick I also polished the top triple tree, lower fork sliders, brake backing plate, brake fluid distributor, brake master cylinr and also bead blasted the switches and polished them up. Polishing on the buffer machine really hurts my hands so I have to loop a roop around my neck, tie it to the item to be polished to support it and then polish. It took quite a while to do the polishing as I could only manage an hour or under each day, any more and I’d be laid up recouperating for a few days. A very painful job for me, polishing. Some pics of the journey:

It takes a lot of patience.

 

I don't use a drill press press for polishing, nor do I polish by hand or use wet and dry. I have an 8" bench grinder which I converted for polishing. Nylon fibre wheels are good prior to polishing if the surface to be polished is rough and uneven, use carefully as they can remove a lot of material, very quickly. A random orbital sander with 240 grit paper is also good and will flatten the surface prior to polishing, removing any uneven sections. There are a number of polishing mops available as well as compounds:

Sewn sisal mops are for roughing, sewn cloth mops are for smoothing. Loose cloth mops are for polishing and loose leaf swansdown mops are for fine polishing, if you want to go that far.

Black compound is for roughing but can be used on both sewn sisal and cloth mops. White compound is generally used on sewn and loose leaf mops. Green compound is for use on loose leaf cloth and swansdown mops. Don't spare the compound, the compound is what does the job, the mop is simply a platform which holds the compound. Use too little and all you will get is heat. Polishing is a filthy job, use a bunny suit and full head covering.

For maintenance, use Silvo on a soft cloth applied by hand, allow to dry, then polish off with a fresh, dry cloth.