Monday, September 1, 2008

Back to the beginning...

With the bike pretty well disassembled, I decided to clean things up as I put her back together. Dropped by Home Depot and bought a dremmel and some Simple Green. Everything was scrubbed prior to reassembly. Everything looks much better but she's still an old bike and there's only so much shine I could get back (not that I'm looking for a shiny bike). You can see the difference from these pics compared to the disassembly pics. Especially inside of the front cover where all the oxidation was. Once I get everything back together, I'll probably give the engine case another once over.






Everything back on except for the exhaust. Spent Labor day with some 100 grit sandpaper and some elbow grease. Got the pipes all shined up and then hit them with some heat paint. Have some black header wrap on order. I have a triathlon this weekend so I'm not sure how much time I'll have this week. I'd love to get the exhaust completed but we'll see. Here's how they turned out.







All that for nothing???

I post my latest tribulation on the ADVrider forum and Blake (my neighbor and bmw confidant) asks me why I didn't call him before tearing the bike down? I think to myself....."yeah, why didn't you call him????" He says it's most likely something very simple since the bike had been running before. Blake went with me when I first went to check it out and took it on a test ride. Everything worked fine aside from the parts needing replacement. He comes over 1 night to look at everything and determines the cables appear to be binding. Oh, wow, ugh......I'm an idiot. 8hrs in the hot sun could have been avoided. No biggie. This is all a learning experience for me so it was still a good exercise BUT, it would have been much easier to just replace the cables.

Call up Han's @ Hucky's and order up 2 throttle cables and a new clutch cable. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....now I wait.

**Update - Got the cables.

@$#%#!!!!!!

I'm to a point now that I'm about ready to start riding this old girl. So I thought......

Finally received the new EBC brake pads and got them installed. All of the safety issues I set out to fix when I bought the bike have now been addressed with the brakes. Cosmetics be damned, the bike should be ridable. Get set for my 1st ride. Fire her up, drop her into gear and away I go.......I should have gone. Nothing. The wheel spins when it's on the center stand but as soon as I drop it off the center stand, it's like the clutch isn't engaging. Frustration sets in. It's at this point I make the decision that something is mechanically not right. I'm thinking something in the transmission. What's the only logical thing to do at this point? Tear it down to the frame I say! And away I go..... As I start tearing it down, it's clear that this bike hasn't been maintained so well. Lot's of oxidation and in general, very dirty.


Time for some updates

Have I been slacking on the updates or what? Geez. Things have been going pretty slow frankly. Between the triathlon training and the hiccups I've run into during the bike rebuild, progress has stalled a bit.

Been a couple months since I posted anything but I have been working on the bike. I believe I left off with the front forks completed and a new package had just arrived. Well, that package contained my newest tank (I've got 3 now....the old /7, the old /6 that won't fit and the new to me small /7 tank).

Pulled off the old exhaust system and put the new 2-1 on just to take a gander. Looks pretty ugly since it's white but the overall style is cool. Also got the new tank on. I prefer the old /6 tour tank I've got but it just doesn't fit unfortunately. This tank will do the trick though. Once I have some more time and possibly a garage to work in, I may attempt moving the master cylinder to bar mount. Anyhow, here's some pics of the bike w/ the latest tank and the 2-1 exhaust as well as the NEW rear shocks...installed.





Getting closer.................