In reality i don't have much going on at all, but when i do you see it here. Just happy to get through the day most days haha. Winter weather isn't inspiring lately.
Just thinking it'd be great to have the good gear like Tinkicker has at work.

Yep.  I advise the young uns at work to avoid growing old.  It is not for sissies.
Cannot believe I am 61 next and paying big time  in hurty bits for the excesses of youth on my poor abused body. Where did the time go?

Last week I was a young lad tearing around the countryside at highly impropable speeds on various high powered motorcycles, pumping iron in the gym, and chatting up girls in nightclubs.
​​​​​​Iron Maiden,  Black Sabbath, WASP and Deep Purple comprised the soundtrack of my youth and in fact still often are.

This week, I find myself looking into my shaving mirror on a morning and finding an old, saggy face staring back.  I think " what the hell happened to you".
Thing is my mind is still 21 years old.  That has not aged.  I am still the big kid inside I always was.  

As for the equipment at work.  Yes, it makes doing restorations a doddle.  I can do a far better job than I ever would have been bothered to do at home.  Biggest thing is the time saved.

Frame took 15 minutes to blast, another 15 minutes to prep for paint with a rotary wire brush in my 11000rpm die grinder, two minutes to locate and pull the broken off stainess brush bristles sticking into my flesh out - common occurence they can go straight through thick nomex overalls and stick in the skin 1/4" deep at 11000rpm.  Usually they hit flat and bounce off, but if they hit end on they are like spears.  A lot of the lads are scared of using them and hand prep things like gasket surfaces.  I like the time saving and the fact that going around the polished metal with a file afterwards really makes any high spots obvious.

Wandering off track again.  Paint and rust removed from upper and lower yokes is literally 30 seconds each.

When I come to the lower forks, the beadblaster using glass beads is too harsh for aluminium, so I will put those in the paint stripper tank to get to bare metal.

I am thinking of changing the original 1977 onwards silver paint on the lower legs back to the earlier bare alloy, polished and scuffed under clearcoat finish of the earlier models.  I think silver paint on this particular model looks really cheap and nasty.
 

Managed an hour on the bike this lunchtime.  Put the steering head together and cleaned up the hardware.  With four exceptions, all you see are the original 46 year old screws and fittings polished up with metal polish to remove the dull oxidation and thin film of dirt residue.
The only ones that are not original are the handlebar clamp bolts.  They were rusty.
I just put those present in at work to tie the clamps to the top yoke.  They are 13mm heads and I am on the lookout for JIS small factor headed bolts. M8x40mm with 12mm head.

Other disappointment is one of the steering lock screws would not shift and the 5mm screw sheared getting it out.  No biggie though, since I do not have the key.  Not worth drilling it out, likely take the alloy threads with it.  Must have been threadlocked at the factory.


Flabbergasted at the condition of the 46 year old hardware.  Practically unheard of in the UK with our harsher climate.






 

I see a whole bunch of tile on the floor.. both in and out. Is there a reason why? I’m obviously curious as I see architecture from other countries…
Sneezles61

I don't have a garage or workshop.  The land the house is built on is too oddly shaped to place one.
I just have a 8' x 6' shed that is currently housing my VFR750 and has not enough room to swing a cat in it.

​​​​​Consequently I have commandeered the conservatory (sun room) to house the DT175 and 100.  It too, is very small.  It used to contain a small dining table and chairs, but now my bikes and my watchmaking lab.
This is the reason why my current project had to be a small bike.  Too little room for a full size one.

Once the 100 is finished, my motorcycle restoration projects are over.  No room for anything else.

​​I will resume restoring vintage watches.  Now that IS an endeavor in frustration.  After messing with the bikes in there, the entire conservatory will require a very deep clean before I resume horological activities.

Restored Vintage Tissot movement getting put through it paces.  I like to run them for a week in various orientations before final regulation to let the oils and greases settle down.  If you thought two stroke oil was expensive, try moebius synthetic watch oils for size  . 





 

I got to thinking that you are surrounded by salt water. Concrete doesn’t like salt… so clay products, tile and pavers, become the out of door product for hard surfaces?
I’ll have to believe watch movements are very sensitive. And being able to work on them takes a very skilled hand… you must have a great deal of patients!
Sneezles61

An hour or two yesterday evening and a Saturday morning of scrubbing, painting, polishing and general pottering around making a mess.

The missus was at work, so I struck while the iron was hot. The dishwashing basin was filled up with a strong dish detergent solution and I set to with scrubbing brushes ect on various parts - oil tank, wiring harness, inner fenders and other electrical bits n bobs.

So armed with an armful of freshly scrubbed parts, those needing a quick paint were rubbed down with scotchbrite and painted, in the meantime other parts were prepped and polished.

The sun was shining, so I took myself outside and set up at the picnic bench with wiring harness and multimeter.
Tested every wire for connectivity or high resistance and have found no faults (as yet).
The outer sheathing had hardened and split where it goes around the headstock, so it was time to dig out my roll of loom tape and effect a repair.
Could I find it? Could I hell.  I searched high and low without result.  I know I saw it someplace recently...  I will probably trip over it tomorrow. 

Ended up putting the broken sheath ends together and wrapping them in insulating tape.  Not the best solution.  I wanted to cut the sheath off and completely rewrap the harness.

The speedo was looked at.  The glass was polished with polywatch acrylic watch crystal polish for 15 minutes and has brightened up consederably.  Shame about the case, it looks a little sun faded, but it is a lot better than it was.

Then I started putting everything back on the bike. Of course, I needed it off the floor to save my back and being human, found the most rickety, unstable plastic wheeled trolley from my watchmaking lab. Perfect. What could possibly go wrong?
The prospect of the frame falling three feet to the floor, damaging the paint and cracking the floor tiles should keep me on my toes nicely.
It stayed put and the upshot is 70% of the wiring is now complete.  I have the bar switches to strip and clean tomorrow.

Is it going to fall?  Not this time.  Stuff going back on.


Wiring coming on nicely.  Main harness, ignition coil, flasher can, battery, ignition switch, rear  brake light switch and all new bulbs fitted in the speedo.  Just waiting for a BA7S bulb for the oil warning light.
The rear shocks are dangling for balance, the frame is front heavy without.  I will be progressing with the swinging arm assembly next week.


Uhoh, sounds like we have a thunderstorm heading our way.... Crashing and banging is getting closer.

I keep banging on about it, but I am astounded at the condition of the 46 year old fittings.  It may be normal or common in the US, but unheard of here.  A daily used 6 month old bike in the UK would not be as good.  This is a very different build compared to the devil bike.


Dashboard and speedo attended to.  Looking far better without the slight fogging of the glass.  Yamaha do not supply the bulb for the oil light separately, they expect you to buy the entire fitting.  Very odd.





​​​​

And the first frustration.

Cleaned out the right handlebar switch, lubed it with plenty of GT85, gave it a lick of paint.  Did not need much, it is in remarkably good fettle, polished the front brake lever, fitted the handlebars and decided to fit the switch and throttle tube.

Naturally one has to route the throttle cable and attach it to the switch housing and throttle tube before fitting the switch to the bars.

With a cheery whistle, I got my spurious replacement throttle cable from my meagre stock of new parts and offered it up to the switch housing.
1. The thread on the cable entry elbow is course.  The thread on the switch body is fine...
2. The upper cable is about three inches too long.  A lot of slack to get rid of.
3. The lower throttle cable is about two inches too long.  Again, ridiculous amount to get rid of.
4. The oil pump cable is again two inches too long..
5.  The original oil pump cable has a threaded cable entry elbow into the clutch covef and the spurious one has the unthreaded one for a circlip.

It appears I am the victim of an unscrupulous vendor selling "one size fits all DTs". 

Since the original upper cable is trash and the connecting cylinder is broken, it appears that I have some OEM part finding to do.
I can reuse the lower throttle cable and pump cable.

I found a NoS connector tube for the cables and have ordered that and discovered that the upper cable is no longer available on the correct part number.  Which is why I went down the aftermarket route in the first place.

However, now I know what I am looking for, I looked at all DT100 cables for sale on the internet and found a NoS one for a 1976 DT100.
Different part number though.  It looks identical apart from it has a rubber boot like a DT175 mx at the switch end and the metal guide elbow has a slightly less bend radius. The thread looks the same fine thread.
As with any classic bike restorer finding altetnatives for long out of production parts, I had no choice but to take a punt..

76 cable exits the switch above the brake lever, 77 exits below, hence the difference radius.  I dunno if I can adjust the bend without kinking the elbow.

1977 with part number prefix 2F5


1976 with part number prefix 558.

A productive day today. 
Forks stripped at morning break, cleaned and tubes straightened at lunchtime - well straightened to within 0.020" runout in the full length.
Did not have time to continue chasing the high spot around so settled for the 20 thou. 
Considering the bends when on the vee blocks turned out to be a good quarter inch before I put them on the press, I am happy with them.  Close enough for me.