OK, been making some progress. The frame looks SO much better black! I have the motor back in the frame, and things starting to go back together. Below is a shot of the bike sitting in my shop. Waiting for the steering neck bearings, so I can put the fork back on. Till then, it rests on a jack stand.
The exhaust is done, should seal up real well. I still need carb kits, (should be here by June 8th along with the steering bearings), and a couple nuts and seals for the plug wires on one coil. While I wait, I will work on the new wiring for the bike. I am also looking at changing the gearing on the bike. I want to tall it up as much as possible for best gas mileage on the freeway. I know it will hurt me coming out of the hole, but I don't mind. I would rather get good gas mileage. Besides, I have a car that jumps out of the hole pretty well, and sucks the gas pretty well to. I will stick with fast cars, and nice cool touring bikes.
OK, It is June 17th, and I just finished up some work on the bike. I have a lot of the wiring done. I am glad I decided to rewire the bike. When they made it a chopper they spliced about every wire on the bike! And not anything nice either. Mostly they just twisted the wires together and wrapped them with a big ole ball of tape! Some they used solderless connectors, but had them real close together so the harness looked like a snake that just ate a pig! I am doing my best to figure out the best way to run the wires, and best way to wire everything while keeping it looking neat. I am using new ATC push in type fuses, with a nice new fuse block. (my old fuse block had the mounting tabs broken off) I am also soldering all my connections and using heat shrink tubing. I took the advice of the SOHC forum and installed relays to turn on the high and low beam headlights. This way they get juice right from the battery, and not the ignition switch. This makes the head light brighter as there is less voltage drop.
I also installed taper bearings in the steering neck. I also installed a grease fitting in the steering neck so I can fill the whole neck with grease to lube the bearings. They feel VERY nice, much nicer than the stock factory .250 ball bearings. The carb kits are in, the carbs all redone and back on the bike. I checked the points cam to be sure it would advance, and it does. Did a fast and dirty static timing on the points, and the bike fired right up. It even idled after a few seconds of running. Not bad considering the carbs are not adjusted yet, I have not checked the points dwell, nor have I put a timing light on it. I "synced" the carbs "by eye" on the bench. I may or may not bother going through all the trouble to actually sync them properly. The bike did smoke some, but then again I have had the engine out, and rolled all over, so there could be some oil above the rings. I did not run the bike long today, only 30 or 40 seconds. Just enough to hear it run and know that it did not miss or rod knock! I am hoping the smoke will go away. Not that bad even if it doesn't, but bad enough that if it keeps smoking I will NOT use synthetic oil in it.
Here are a couple photos of the bike right now. Still more to be done, but getting closer!
All right, where to start. The front tire is flat because it is the old tire off the spoke rim, and has all sorts of rust on the bead. It is on just to hold the bike up until I get a new front tire. The rear tire needs to be replaced also, as well as the rim. The rim has seen some damage, plus I am sure it is well rusted inside just like the front wheel was. I still need to finish the wiring. I am down to the charging system, and the brake, turn, and parking lights. You can see a home made baffle on the muffler. It did help quite the bike some, but I want more. So I will be putting more baffles in it later, and welding it onto the muffler.
The front rotor is from the 74, and the front wheel is from a 79 or later. The rotor has the correct OD, and correct offset, but the ID and the bolt pattern are wrong. I will try to find a rotor locally, or on ebay, that is cheap enough. If I can't I will simply drill a new bolt pattern in this rotor, and use gage pins welded on at 120 degrees to fix the ID to the size I need. No big deal, made rotors that way for my 62 Corvair, will do it here if I have to. The paint job will not be finished by the time I start to ride. I just want to be sure the tank and rear fender are painted black, and clear coated. The side covers, front fender, bags and trunk will be easy to do later. Also, the flames I want to do will be easy to airbrush on with the tank installed and full of gas. Painting the base coat and clear coat with the tank installed and full of gas would be another story.
The bike has come more than a little ways in a rather short period of time. I hope to be riding this in a week or two. More to come soon!