It's cabin fever season here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. So it's time to get busy working on projects that keep me in the garage and out of the house.
The side panels on XT500 still had the original paint and decals and were starting to look a little ragged. First project was striping, preping and painting. Now I'm waiting a week or so for the paint to cure.


Once paint is cured I'll apply the new reproduction decals and clear coat.


While I'm waiting for paint to cure, soaking and cleaning a spare carburetor for my RT.


This is going to be my "traveling" carburator. I'll be taking this carburator and an inventory of different size jets along on my road trips and riding adventures. So I can do any re-jetting I need with this carburator. I will be replacing the 188 P-0 main nozzel / needle jet with 159 P-0. This way I can screw the main jet directly into the main nozzel / needle jet and eliminate the jet setter and the o-ring.


And to take up any idle time in between projects, I've started another rack project.


So now I pretty much have enough to do to ward off cabin fever.

It was a good day in the rack factory! Now I've got to take a break from the rack project and get back on my XT side panels.

One of my XT side panels is almost done, waiting on a weather window for clear coat. I wasn't real happy with the paint finish on the one, so I did a light wet sand with some 2000 and another coat of silver. I was really happy with the reproduction decal. With panel and glue side of decal moistened with water and soap mixture I was able to easily move the decal around into position and smooth the wrinkles out. Easy peasy! The reproduction decal set came from thevintagespoke.com with very good step by step instructions written in German. They came for the Kedo company in Germany. Thankfully I have German friends that helped me with the translation .



So while I'm waiting on paint to cure again and a nice weather window I spent the day in the rack factory. This one is done .

One side panel done . Now I wait for a nice day to put clear coat on the other one and it looks like I need to come up with some more projects

Today a fix for my XT500 tool box lid. The lid is not a very strong or durable design and when latched in place there was actually a small gap at the bottom.



Some small stainless bait rigging cable and cable crimps leftover from my offshore blue water fishing days, some very small rubber hose and a rivet work good for the fix. A couple very small holes to loop the cable through and crimped. A piece of the small hose to cover the cable, another crimp to form a loop and a pop rivet to attach to the lid.





And now the cable keeps the bottom of the lid closed and in place and it has a leash so I can't loose it or leave it behind.

Nice fix!

Thanks!

Not only is it a great idea.... It looks like a factory job.... NICE WORK !!

Thanks!

Today's project was fixing my XT500 horn. The horn has been sounding more and more pathetic and finally stopped working altogether. I looked on line to see if there are replacements and I can buy a new one for $10 and free shipping! So I figured I'd open up the old one and see what's going on, the worst that can happen is I buy a new one.



The tools I made for opening tachometers and speedo worked good to open it up.



First check was to see if there was continuity between the two wire connectors and none. The problem was the the piece that the adjusting screw pushes against had gotten pushed far enough that it couldn't make contact. That piece pushed back where it could make contact and I tightened the rivet that holds it in place with pin punch, hammer and anvil. And it's working again, sounds like a real horn again. Put back together and crimped. I did paint to cover marks from crimping.