Someone on the forums requested some pics of details of the steering stem and nut.  It’s aluminum and seems quite flimsy, others are having issues with it, not much thread there. 

Also, I’d like to point out the carb rebuild in progress in the background, specifically, notice the tray.  I went to Kavanaugh’s restaurant supply store the other day to pick out an industrial size baking sheet.  I was pleasantly surprised to find, next to the baking sheets, a strainer sheet designed to fit on top.  It’s very nice for rebuilding things with fluids involved like carbs, and it’s big enough for forks!

Back when I had my ‘81 Honda CBF, one of the preferred mods was to fit a headlight from a Suzuki of the same era, specifically a GS1100E headlight because it’s the biggest, round headlight available on a motorcycle at over 10” in diameter! 

I’m not sure why this wasn’t more common on motorcycles, they always look so puny with only a little 7”, maybe 8” headlight.  The only other round light that looks big enough is the one on the BMW R100R.  Thus I had considered installing one, that is until I saw the price.  I sold many parts off of my bike at prices that I thought were reasonable, even reasonably high as these parts go, but I adjusted for the fact that they were BMW parts off of a somewhat rare model.  Even so, I haven’t found the BMW headlight for much less than what I could get a Baja racelight.

So, remembering the old Suzi headlight idea, I went searching for one.  This should match the front of a large bike like mine much better than anything else without having to go with a rectangular one.  Thus, I found and bought this on Ebay yesterday:

Got the rear shock coming in next week. And I just spoke with my suspension company about the parts for the forks, he said he was getting to it next week!  Eeee, I’m so excited to finally get this project back on track.  Finally I have a timeline with some sort of ending in sight.  Now for more money…

I still need:
- Tires
- Headlight of some nature (possibly Baja Designs racelight)
- Truck Lites.  I also need to fab up some sort of sheet aluminum/chromo taillight housing and fairing with cutouts to house the trucklites (like you see on industrial trailers and vehicles).  More on that later.
- Paint for the frame and engine touchup.
- Oil
- Wire to repair the harness, possibly replace it altogether.  Unfortunately, the only way to get the proper colors is to order 100ft of each color for $35.
- And a custom brake line to connect the stock BMW master to the KTM front caliper.

wiiildstyle:

oooooooooooooooooooooooo… (drool).

Woo Hoo!  Just ordered my new rear suspension, hope you like the eye candy, it’s gonna look damn good on my bike!

I was looking into new shocks when I heard about a new brand called Yacugar out of the Netherlands.  Ted Porter is the distributor for Yacugar shocks and his customer service was TOP NOTCH.

I was considering getting the ubiquitous Ohlins until he informed me that they are aluminum body, racing shocks.  Nascar racing is their bread and butter.  But that means frequent (expensive) rebuilds and lack of durability.  Yacugar are designed by the lead engineers from WP when they moved the factory to KTM in Austria.  They have a steel body instead of aluminum, apparently have a very good rap and a 5 year warranty.

It is the same price and function as the Ohlins as well, except all Ohlins come from the factory pretty much the same.  It then costs another $200 to customize.  Yacugar are custom made from the factory to your specs and style. 

Eeee!  I can’t wait to ride this year!

(sorry, no source on this, but not mine)
Seems legit.  I’m working on that third one, and going for the last one.  Although, I’d disagree partially with the later one, it’s not that the wizard doesn’t need a bike, it’s that his bike is so far evolved that it can no longer be considered just a bike.

I made “scope creep” my bitch today.  This weekend, it’s been the source of many hours of wasted time spent agonizing over my plans for the bike now that I’ve got it in my shop and mostly apart for service.

The bike ran very well last year, so I didn’t think it would need any mechanical repair.  None the less, I disassembled things for a spring inspection and service.  I found evidence of a bad transmission, but it turned out to be nothing.  However, I’m still tempted to rebuild it to correct flaws and bulletproof it.

Also, having the bike this far apart makes me want to do all the mods and tweaks that would be easy to do right now.  Besides the transmission upgrades, there’s also frame bracing, a rebuildable driveshaft, better ignition, strip and repaint the frame, and more.  

Thus, I spent too much time this weekend considering my options… until today.  Today, I said, “It works, it worked great last year, I don’t need to restore it to look pretty because the damn thing isn’t meant to look pretty!”  And I promptly cut my list down to the necessities.  I’ve already started on the front suspension, I need to finish with a headlight/fairing, lights, and rear suspension, as well as shed weight where ever possible (both the bike and myself), not to mention repair the wiring I burnt out at the end of last year.

Speaking of the wiring, I think I’ll replace it all, install thicker wire, run wires uninterrupted from source to destination, and then solder and seal every connection unless absolutely necessary to have a socket (like lamps, but not relays).  Considering the wiring failure I had, I think a main fuse off the battery would have prevented this, so I’ll be installing one.

kloblow:

black-jackalope:

 

well shit

This is me considering working on the bike, derpressed by all the work I need to do, which makes me procrastinate.  Then I get derpressed for procrastinating on such a great bike.

WTF Tumblr!?  You auto-orientate my pics now, and badly?  Grrr…

Anyway, I made a post over on ADVRider, and five minutes later got a really nice guy (he even told me to wait on paying him until I’m happy with the stuff) offering these forks. They’re from a 2006 KTM 250SX-F and are open cartridge WP4860s, a good year for them from what I’ve read (and they’re black, which matches what I have better than the more common gold).  He’s also sending me a matching axle and rotor. 

He did have a hub as well, which would have fit neatly into the plan to get a new excel rim wired up with Woody’s “supersize superlace,” but in the interest of getting the bike on the road with this stuff sooner, I decided to browse ebay for a complete wheel, pictured above.

Beemer, meet the orange.  Orange, welcome to beemer land.  (Orange is the official color of KTM btw).

Now all I need is a tube&tire, a brake caliper, and a custom brake line.

Oh yeah, and I’m no longer going with the WP50s I mentioned earlier.  It would require spacers and the deal I had on a full front end was thwarted by my wife’s pregnancy.  But that didn’t work out either, so now I’ll just go with newer stuff.  WP50s were last made in 1999, and that’s nearly as old as the latest airhead, 1996.

Well, this is what $500 gets you from a custom machinist, triples that will bolt up to my bike and fit KTM WP4860 forks, or as I am doing, fit the WP50 extremes that I’ll need to have adapters machined for.  Sort of future proofing.  I have a line on a set of WP50s with a wheel and rotor for cheap.  Any way that I go gets expensive tho.  One thing at a time.  Slowly.

Yesterday was the best Sunday I’ve had in a long time, a good weekend overall really.  I had spent all day saturday replacing my ‘04 325’s oil separator valve (an overcomplicated excuse for a PCV valve) that is buried under the intake.  So, in need of relaxation on Sunday, Chris, his 1150GS, and I went for long scenic ride to meet up with the Cheese Country Trail in Mineral Point.  And what a drive it was.  I don’t even know where we went, or how we got there, Chris enjoys being the GPS expert, and I quite enjoy relaxed worry free following. 

We saw like 7or8 Lotus Ellise go by, all different colors, followed by an Aston Martin, followed by a (ROFLMAO) Chevy Cavalier.  Yes the cavalier was with the group, and they flipped me off for my spontaneous laughter.  Sorry buddy, I didn’t mean to laugh, it just came out.  I wouldn’t want the lotus either, I’d rather have the Toyota MRS it’s based off of, for $80K less.

So we got to the trail, mostly just a narrow, well kept, gravel road, but it was my first time off road on the bike.  I need to work on my leg strength, but otherwise, tons o fun!  Chris was a speed demon, but I lounged back at less than 30mph so that I could relax and enjoy the scenery.  The faster you go, the narrower your vision becomes, and with such beauty around, who needs to go fast.  I’m becoming such a grandpa in my 30’s, but I intend to keep this pace well into my old age.  Racing looks fun, but even after just a little off roading, I don’t think I could ever get into rally racing.  Perhaps I can work as a volunteer scoping out paths and whatnot.  They do have some awesome tracks, especially out in Appalachia where I grew up on a dirtbike/4wheelers.

So, anyway, we head back having forgotten that we’ve been riding for half the day, hit the pavement, and get just outside of Monroe, WI, before my bike seems like it misses a couple of beats, barely perceptible.  I didn’t think anything of it, but a couple miles further and it REALLY misses a few, sputters, I pull off to find smoke coming up from the front of the tank.  At first, I thought it was oil, but then my nose told me that it was magic smoke (electronic).  Electronics don’t work well when you let the magic smoke escape.  But all the lights stayed on, and my first thought was, “oh fuck, my battery is shorting out!”  Seat flies off, out with the 10mm and the snap on, neg post OFF NOW.  Whew.  Ok, what happened?  I Poked around, and found my fuse box lying on the exhaust, 4 wires had been melted bare.  When I removed the POS chinese HID trail lites that the previous owner had spliced into the wire harness for, I couldn’t find my zip ties and it seemed to seat properly on it’s little tab, so I left it alone.  Stupid stupid stupid.  So we wrapped some paper around the bare wires, Chris had some zip ties on him, and despite the key switch being fused ON, I connected the battery and she ran fine all the way home to Madison.  Good girl, yer a good bike :D!

Photo tags.

It is difficult to get your head around viscosity ratings. This 5W-50 is amazing stuff, only a synthetic can get such difference in viscosity.

I found this site rather educational.

The confusing part is that the SAE30 looks like a standardized measurement of viscosity, but remember that NO oil stays the same viscosity over a given change in temperature. Thus, motor oil “grading” like SAE30 is not a viscosity measurement specifically, but is a measurement of CHANGE in viscosity over temperature. Straight weight oil has a consistent CHANGE in viscosity as it gets cold, multi-weight oil like 10W30 starts to resist thickening as it gets cold.

A natural oil’s molecules are already, naturally formed, and it will thicken consistently. In order to make a natural oil resist thickening when cold, an additive must be used to make the parafins in the oil resist sticking to each other and becoming thick. These additives burn off and the oil itself degrades.

Synthetics on the other hand, “are chemically made from uniform molecules with no paraffin and don’t need viscosity additives.” So you can get a synthetic oil that REALLY resists thickening, and at the same time, has more stable oil molecules that don’t degrade as easily. This 5W-50 stuff is amazing because it is really difficult to get a 50 weight oil when hot to be a 5 weight oil when it is cold. Remember, that 5 weight oil still gets thick when it is cold, but a 50 weight oil would be solid. Molecular engineering is a beautiful thing!