What did you do to your bike today?

[TexinMaine]

Painting fiasco

Well tried my hand at painting my fairing and lowers. Not so good today. First time using compressor that I bought a couple months ago. It came with a sprayer. Lost the manual, or was not able to locate in my garage. So added oil, plugged in and it began to fill however at about 60 psi began to slow down like the piston was stuck. Great I thought. Went online and found out I need to open bleed valve at bottom and let it run without pressure for about 15 mins to get things going. O.K., now compressor is charged up to 125 psi, got output set at 40 psi. Start painting fairing, it seems blotchy so I began to turn the dial on the side and it seems to spread better. However I guess it was too thick so now I have some runs to touch up tomorrow, plus the hose rubbed across a part so need to fix that as well. I did however notice as I was running thinner through it to clean it out I messed with the knob again and seemed to have found a better spray pattern. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Also forgot to add that halfway through the painting I noticed that the pressure was dropping but was not coming back on, I wasn't sure when it was supposed to kick back on, remember I lost the manual, so ran it down to about 30 psi then come to find out I had tripped a breaker. So, it took me 3 hours to do what I am sure most you folks could do in a half hour. Oh well all part of the learning process I recon.

[STEPPENWOLF]

Finnaly installed new brakes...

[subike]

Dismantled my rear brake caliper, replaced the seals, fitted new pads, reassembled and fiited caliper. Bleed brake, cleaned up and went for a 150mile ride around the block. Yeaha good day!
Had to negotiate a few earthquake cracks in my favoritwe roads, but all good!

[cywelchjr]

Well, as I said last week I recovered my seat. I'm not really happy with the job but here are a couple of pictures of it. I plan on redoing it later this winter at the latest, I'll probably use fabric glue to fasten it down to the foam rubber.

[subike]

Repaired the faulty brake stop light switch on the handle bars, then while cleaning, discovered that my left front signal lamp had decided to seperate itself from its mount, but a quick trip to a local engineer to weld the broken horn and it was back in servicable condition, but I will be looking for a replacement signal lamp mounting horn off of a 80std, as the weld looks ugly as. I also noticed that my nissan utes oil was low, so the bike got an oil change.....

[jwhughes3]

Fixed a wonky turnsignal rubber

Maybe you remember me recently asking about a source and was referred to a Yamaha boat dealer of all places. Well I ordered a pair even though I only had one damaged one - thinking I would go ahead and do both.

Got them in the mail. Very excited! Put them on the coffee table and turned my attention to Call of Duty because I was in the middle of invading a scrapyard.

To make a long story short, the dog ate one so I am glad I ordered 2!

Put it on before he could get the other and now I happily have straight turnsignals.

John in San Antonio

[subike]

Maybe you remember me recently asking about a source and was referred to a Yamaha boat dealer of all places. Well I ordered a pair even though I only had one damaged one - thinking I would go ahead and do both.

Got them in the mail. Very excited! Put them on the coffee table and turned my attention to Call of Duty because I was in the middle of invading a scrapyard.

To make a long story short, the dog ate one so I am glad I ordered 2!

Put it on before he could get the other and now I happily have straight turnsignals.

John in San Antonio

do you have the rubber flexibile mounts? Mine are the crome solid mounts. if a dog chewed on these he would have no teeth

[CatatonicBug]

do you have the rubber flexibile mounts? Mine are the crome solid mounts. if a dog chewed on these he would have no teeth

There should be a rubber isolator for each of the 4 signal stems. That is why the signals require a separate ground wire, and can't ground directly to the mounts.

[fredintoon]

- - - To make a long story short, the dog ate one so I am glad I ordered 2! - - -

Hi John,
those rubber parts are not very digestible. Keep an eye on the dog's south end for a while, you may get it back.

[subike]

There should be a rubber isolator for each of the 4 signal stems. That is why the signals require a separate ground wire, and can't ground directly to the mounts.

My english assembled std has solid mounts and only one wire to the lamps.
Look closley at the red one (the 80) and you will see what I mean.
These pic were taken the day I got the red bike for $20NZ, in the condition you see in the pics, since then I have changed the bars and mirrors, ftted a fork brace, repainted the seat strips, and fitted Oxford heated hand grips. otherwise it is std and has done 373000 miles untouched. Im the second owner
it

[CatatonicBug]

I always forget the models that have the front signals mounted to the forks instead of the headlight bucket. You also have the license plate signal bracket (to allow for saddlebags), so they are not in the stock position in the rear anyway. In the stock rear position, the stems mount to the sides of the fender, and require a rubber isolator for vibration.

[subike]

I always forget the models that have the front signals mounted to the forks instead of the headlight bucket. You also have the license plate signal bracket (to allow for saddlebags), so they are not in the stock position in the rear anyway. In the stock rear position, the stems mount to the sides of the fender, and require a rubber isolator for vibration.

The rear tail lamp assembleys are the std fitting for all the models outside of the USA from what I understand. They also have larger tail lamps than the USA model, different countrys have differing compliance regulations, which of course means that the fitting of different parts. Such as you headlights dip to the right, ours dip to the left. My NZ new 79 had its speedo in KPH, my ENG new 80 has the same speedo in MPH. Both are square, both read to 160mph, unlike the later USA ones which on read to...80mph? Some examples of slight differences between "factory" origional bikes.

[CatatonicBug]

The rear tail lamp assembleys are the std fitting for all the models outside of the USA from what I understand. They also have larger tail lamps than the USA model, different countrys have differing compliance regulations, which of course means that the fitting of different parts. Such as you headlights dip to the right, ours dip to the left. My NZ new 79 had its speedo in KPH, my ENG new 80 has the same speedo in MPH. Both are square, both read to 160mph, unlike the later USA ones which on read to...80mph? Some examples of slight differences between "factory" origional bikes.

Interesting on the rear signals. I had not heard of the tail light lenses being a different size before... I just looked it up, and the RH uses the same lense as the SF (US model). Also, MC headlights don't dip... In fact, they are adjustable to point dead center. The later speedo stopped at 85mph for ALL vehicles in the US because the gov't thought that might discourage speeding and wasting fuel. Thankfully, that concept was recinded.

[subike]

Interesting what you say about the headlights. We import a lot USA second hand bikes and cars here to New Zealand. All of them have to have the headlights changed.
On high beam yes the light is pointed directly ahead of the vehicle and as close to the horizon as possibile. But on "dip" or lower beam, the USA (left hand drive)headlight throws its light to the right hand side of the vehicle away from oncoming traffic, The Euopean dip (right hand drive) or lower beam, throws its beam to the left side of the road away from oncomming vehicles.To make this change a completly different lense is required.
As for the difference sizing of the tail lights and the location of the signal lamps,The size of the tail light must be a min of 175 sq mm after the manufacturing date of 1975 and the signal lamps must be situated no less than 100mm fron the tail lamp.
Those are the EC (European Commonwelth)vehicle regs which differ from the USA regs for new vehicles. So this mean that the configeration of lights will differ here in NZ as we are under the EC rules.
This also brings into question what is a factory origional bike?
Could it only be the bikes sold in the Japaneese Market new?
As all exported bikes were changed to conform with the compliance laws of the country its was sold new in.

[REFFI]

I walked around my bike to the work bench to get a pair of linemens pliers so I could cut stainless steel wire for SWMBO as she "Espaliers" the new vines along the back yard wall. NEXT SUNDAY, I'M RIDING!

Ralph