Boorrrringggg Build/Rebuild/Refres&restore

[puskrat]

Early Spring

Thank God for global warming. And Lulls in body shop activity.

Today the painting begins. After work tonight I anticipate installing a new oil filter, filling my crankcase, and trying to turn this beast over. I'm going to be sizably disappointed if my efforts thus far have gone into fueling a locked up seized up engine.

Vision for the future:

Installing a headlight bucket
Wiring headlight
Source, mount, install signals
Get a windshield or fairing (I have a bad feeling about trying to match a batwing to my 80G, but I really don't like the disco era Yamaha unit)
Install my new Chicom mirrors with groovy on board supplemental signals.
Petcocks to tank, mount tank, reinstall or replace seat (I've read "somewhere" a Sportster seat adapts well)
Reinstall side covers
Address as yet undiscovered booby traps
Possibly reinstall hard bags (probably with some goofy lighting)

Develop multiple foolish notions like side cars et al

[puskrat]

Thanks dudes. i always feel so much better about my panics after a quick visit here. Wish I could just start the smoker, invite everybody over, and get out of the way, let you combine your skills on Dora and rock and roar.

[MaximPhil]

Hi Puskrat,
Valve cover , as mentioned by Motoman and also the camchain tensioner is another frequent offender.
I suggest you get a can of de-greaser and clean the engine from the top both front and back as the oil gets moved around by gravity and weird wind currents. Then check after every ride to trace the leak.
Phil

[motoman]

Wiring solutions TBD. in the midst of looking over something else, I realized the front of my engine is covered with oily dirt. For those new to this thread, I had gasoil. The PO claimed to be shocked that there was any gasoil. Is the oily mess on the front of my motor an indication of gasoline/ethanol seeping out of the cylinder/head gasket?

Doubtful oily mess is related to head gasket. Number one area mess is likely coming from valve cover gasket and tends to leak on inner sealing portion of valve cover and runs to open finned area of head.

[3Phase]

I suppose it all depends on how long the fuel's been leaking and the bike was run with fuel in the oil. If there was already a leak, the fuel would thin the oil and leak faster but it's really unlikely the oily dirt on the engine is from any recent problem.

Assuming you ignored the noise and none of the pistons tried to escape, the rings and bearings would go bye-bye before oil started leaking.

[puskrat]

Wiring solutions TBD. in the midst of looking over something else, I realized the front of my engine is covered with oily dirt. For those new to this thread, I had gasoil. The PO claimed to be shocked that there was any gasoil. Is the oily mess on the front of my motor an indication of gasoline/ethanol seeping out of the cylinder/head gasket?

[3Phase]

I tried to reply earlier but Chrome crashed and disappeared so I shut down the computer, went outside and cut down the tree in the front yard instead of worrying about it.

Anyway, as T.C. suggested, just cut and splice a wye to connect the mirror LEDs in parallel.

Check the signal brightness and blink rate and if they're correct after the procedure then Robert is now your father's sister.

[puskrat]

I'll be testing my way through. I'll report back when I have some success or when I can't get past the fail.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey again Rat,

I was hoping that Scott/3phase would have chimed in here by now? Brant/Motoman, that's what I thought I said....just in a different way!

Okay, so I'm assuming that you're keeping the OEM signals, and are wanting to splice into the lines to ADD the mirror signals as well as keep the OEM lights. The load that most LEDS put on a line is like 0.3 amps for a large array of leds, but as little as 0.03 amps. I tired to find out online how many ohms they have, but because they are DIODES, they don't behave like regular resistors. A value that came up was something like 13 ohms, but that seems quite high...yet when I plugged in the other values like watts/amps and voltage, the OHM calculator came up with 40 ohms!?

But like we've stated, they put a very small load on a circuit. They DO have a polarity (+) and (-) line, and when you put 2 loads in series the resistances are added together, but like you said....putting the LEDS on then end of the OEM bulb circuit...ie. run the green or brown wire to the OEM fixture's (+) line, then instead of running the OEM (-) to frame/ground, run it to the (+) line of the LED, and then run the (-) line of the LED to ground, and it should work just fine. If you keep the OEM incandescent bulbs in the OEM fixtures, then the self cancel circuit should still work.

If you were replacing the OEM fixture bulbs with LEDS, as well as the mirror lights, that's when you would NOT have enough resistance/load to activate the OEM thermal flasher as well as the self cancel system.

Tapping into the OEM lines and running a Parallel circuit will actually reduce the resistance/load on that line since the circuit would have 2 paths to ground=less resistance. Here's where the electrickery gets me....less resistance can cause increased current draw on that line.

Because I have the electronic flasher, when I put my mirror lights on, I'll be tapping into the signal line and running a parallel line to them since the amount of load doesn't matter.

Good luck.

[motoman]

What T.C. was meaning is MORE resistance is needed than provided by LED's...... if self-canceler is expected to work.

[puskrat]

Some of what I planned I know is correct. Some I am now unsure of. Am I right in thinking series circuit? the low resistance of the LEDs should have negligible impact on the load, current draw, if I'm not mistaken. Am I? I'm also trying to factor in the "geography" of routing wires. If I go series, I can cut and splice in one spot.......

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Rat,

That's exactly what you want/need to do, run it from the OEM signal lines, but because they are LED's, they just don't draw enough current to activate the OEM Heat/thermal style flasher unit. That's why you need the electronic flasher that doesn't rely on a current load to function. But the oem flasher and circuitry with the self cancelling circuit won't work with a standard/electronic 2 prong flasher. The 3 prong auto flashers aren't not designed to work with the Yamaha self cancel circuity, that's why you only want to get and use a 2 prong unit.

A few members came up some fancy technique to be able to run LED's and retain the self cancel feature, but IMHO the self cancel isn't that critical of a feature, and I prefer to turn them off manually myself, and that's what I do with my LED signals and electronic flasher.

T.C.

[puskrat]

My intent was to power the mirror signals off the original signal leads by tapping into the line. My new wisdom from TC discombobulates me entirely. dunno wat to do

wait. No. i have the 80 G

[TopCatGr58]

Hey there rat,

You have the 80 SG so the left and right signals circuits are separate unlike the 79SF that uses one dash indicator light for both sides. But if you have the OEM signal flasher, then you will probably need to install an electronic 2 prong flasher, will loose self cancel feature but most folks just shut them off by pushing in the signal lever instead. But if you really want to keep self cancel, then search for led turn signals for threads about flasher circuit mod. Using resistors defeats the purpose of leads low power draw and also adds more fire risks due to heat with resistor. YMMV

TC

[puskrat]

zzzzzzz

"...long winter's nap..."

mirrors off. Soon to be replaced with the groovy rectangular turn signal-augmented mirrors. Guess I'll need a resistor betwixt the new mirror and the switch to avoid effectively shorting the turn signal circuit. Is my thinking correct here? Original thought was to tie in to signals nearer to OE lights. If I can recover them.