IndyXS's project. Picture heavy.

[perurider]

Plastex

Another great way to fix the plastic tab on the sidecover is called 'plastex' a fellow member turned me on to it (and made a new tab from nothing, Thanks Doug) and it works great still like new. As far as paint you could totally diy harbour freight has paint guns for cheap, like most things its all in the preparation. or buff the tank and rattlecan the sidecovers. a friend of mine used rustoleum black on a tractor and it looked like he had it done and was durable too. J IMHO.

[greatnw]

Congratulations on the baby! Makes me think about what will be happening in the world when they are 50. I'm 57 and grew up on rotatory phone dials, black and white tv's, AM radio, books and newspapers. My first bike was a Honda 305 Scrambler when I was in 9th grade. (Had a job.)

I'll bet the electical issues are all ground and connector related. No tach and speedo? Speedo is related to the cable but tach is ground and connector related. Chase down all grounds, clean the connector that comes from the stator behind the fuse panel. Seems to me that when I cleaned the contact points between the chassis and the rectifier it helped eliminate some trouble.

Turn signals require cleaning all the local grounds for each component. One of my front signals was bad inside the socket! Easy fix, but took a little time to eliminate the other connections. None of it is hard. Just keep cleaning connections until they are all clean or you find a problem.

You are doing a great job!

[IndyXS]

Goal tomorrow is lights and rebuild pecocks. The kits are in at cycle recycle. But im watching my son so we will see how far I get.

[IndyXS]

What a day! My son was fussy all day. Only calm long enough to take him to cycle recycle. Good thing there only 2 min away if I hit the one light. I had to wait till 8:30pm when he finally went to sleep to escape to garage.
ALL LIGHTS WORK! traced it to that sorry excuse of fuse "box". One of the in-line fuses had no conection. Rigged it (for testing only.) And ta dah! Stop, turn, tail, and license lights work. I also have a working neutral light. Im willing to bet the tach works now. But tank is off so I didn't start it. The tan wire is common to tach and turn. I still need to rebuild petcocks but that's no problem. Now I need air filteration and that spade fuse box and im ready to roll! But that's another payday. ;-)

PS: I did start by checking the grounds as greatnw suggested. They were good. I will take your advice and clean all conections while im waiting on more $$$

[natemoen]

That is good to hear! It's nice when things go your way isn't it!

[DGXSER]

Very cool!!!

If you have not done so already, I recommend ordering the one TC "distributes" for us. Hate to say he sells them because I do not think he makes much if anything on them. Great deal, fuse box, and the terminals mailed to you for $10 last I checked. And it is a really nice item that bolts up pretty easy.

[IndyXS]

Very cool!!!

If you have not done so already, I recommend ordering the one TC "distributes" for us. Hate to say he sells them because I do not think he makes much if anything on them. Great deal, fuse box, and the terminals mailed to you for $10 last I checked. And it is a really nice item that bolts up pretty easy.

Seen that on other members bikes. Its the one I want to get.

[IndyXS]

Ok. Got it on the road for a shake down run yesterday. Need to tune carbs. It doesn't like to run smooth below 2000rpm. It getting to much fuel. We have a vacuum sync tool so that shouldn't be to bad. Otherwise bike rides great! I thought the ride in the rear was a bit soft but the preload was on the lightest setting. We did verify that my buddy's 2007 honda shadow 750 can't keep up. I tried to get on it hard in 2nd to see if it would pop out of gear. It behaved very well no problems. However I didn't go all out. We had cops around the hood. No oil leaks at all. Nice and dry. I can't wait to get the last few things done and start racking up the mileage. I have alot to plan for this winter. Carb rebuild, 2nd gear fix, repaint (myself. Cheap. But I know I can do.it without runs like it has now.), paint motor. This bike is going to see some miles. Triumph will be a weekend toy. Im also pondering riding it to arkansas in october. Who knows. Im dreaming big. Its has been a great buy for me. Ill be riding for less than $600. If all goes well I hope to make it look good again eventually. Im stoked!

[DGXSER]

Very very nice!!! Congrats on the fruit of your labor!! The rich issue may be the mixture screws want to be turned in a little.

[IndyXS]

Very very nice!!! Congrats on the fruit of your labor!! The rich issue may be the mixture screws want to be turned in a little.

That helped a little. Still pops and sputters under 3500rpm unless im giving it half or more throttle. I was going to sync yesterday but I need longer fuel hose. Next payday. :-( To rub salt in the wound I found a complete MNS air box on ebay for $45. Not perfect but not bad. It had 4hrs left. Im stone broke till next week. AARRRRRRRGGGHH! It didn't sell. I sent a message say I would buy it next week if he didn't want to relist. I had to ask.

[natemoen]

Hope you end up getting it still.

[IndyXS]

Haven't updated in a while. Mainly because not much to update. I didn't get the air box. I spent the money on Red Green tickets. This week it finaly quit raining and I have been able to ride it. I have the carbs as close as im likely to get with out pulling them off and rebuilding or cleaning. Im afraid to pull them without having new intake tubes. I suspect the old one may not come off in one piece.
I have had 1 minor set back. My right muffler broke lose at the header end. I will weld that back up. Not a big deal. It was rusty there but hard to see because of the heat shield.
Other than that it has made a couple trips to and from work and a few short errand runs. It seems to run a bit better every trip. I will take pics of muffler and repair when I get to it and post it up. You all can laugh at my lack of welding skill.
This bike is very quickly growing on me. Comfortable, nimble (for its size. A bit better than my buddys 74 cb750!) Good brakes and plenty of power on tap.

[BlindogSmokin]

Air Box

I also have an 80 Midnight and finding the correct Gold trim air box is nearly impossible. Heres what I did.

I bought an air box for an 81 Special, that I managed to get for 15 bucks. (by the way all the air boxes are the same except for trim and the vent holes on 78 and 79 standards, which can be capped or not depending on your need.) When it came I took the Chrome covers off and sent them to a platter and had them done in Gold. They came out really nice. I ended up having all of the gold redone that way.

There will always be the Stock VS Pod arguments but if you're doing a restore on this bike, you want the stocker, if only for the gold trim factor alone.

There is another good argument for the Stockers. Carb support.

With pods you have no support at the back of the carb and they tent to bounce a bit. This will take out your already marginal Carb boots. I used some Poly Urathane rubber made for bed Liners to coat my boots and they do not leak. Rubber compound found that at my local Wal Mart for cheap.

I have heard lots of horror stories about what a pain it is to install carbs with the stock air cleaner, so I have some tips that make that a lot easier.

I came upon some of this stuff by accident but it works really well.

I will start with reinstalling the carbs because this is where I found out about some of these things.

With carbs off, give the inside of the boots a little squirt of WD40. Like I said I learned this by accident, because I had some rust on the intake valve stem of an XS I was repairing that had not run in years. The lube makes pushing the carbs back into the boot alot easier. Make sure you hook up the throttle cable and the Vacuum line to the carbs before you push them on.

Installing the air box.
Until I learned this trick I always thought the air cleaner box had to be in the frame before installing the carbs, making squeezing the carbs between the intake boots and air box a real hassle. It does not have to be in there.

I had taken the air box out while working a set of carbs so I could see if they were leaking back into the throats. When I got them working right I didnt want to take them off to put the air box back in.

So this is what I did. Take the bottom of the air cleaner box off (4 wing nut screws on the bottom). Take the top bracket off the Air box, reintall screws so parts inside dont move. Dont worry about the snorkle it will fold up enough to get it in. With the boots pointing up, push the air box into the whole and then rotate it, while feeding the snorkle into its place. Put the top bracket back on now or you will not be able to get the longer outside screws out once its all hooked up. Make sure the bracket is above the frame mount point. Hook up the Crank case breather tube to the air box. Once you get the bracket mounted to the air box you can push the boots onto the back sides of the carbs. I used a pry bar between the battery box and Air cleaner to push them on. Tighten the boot bands then install the three mount bolts. The bottom portion of the Air box slides right in under the box and you can now tighten the 4 wing bolts to hold the bottom of the air cleaner on.

Removing them is in reverse. Until I discovered this, I always removed the carbs to change the air cleaner. It stands to reason that the air cleaner service had to be a lot easier than that and it is. Once you master this simple process, you will never fear removing your carbs again. I can remove mine in about 5 minutes, and have the carbs up on a bench. Re installing takes a little longer, But you can run the bike to make sure the carbs are not leaking before putting everything back together.


Turn signals.
You can use the chrome signals from a Special. Except for the black finish they are the same. You can paint them, but you should sand blast them first because paint wont stick to the chrome very well. Put a nice coat of clear on them to make them shine.


Good luck fixing your bike up. I will be watching to see how it comes out.

I should get some pics up of mine. It came out great, and has taken best of show at every show its been in since I finished it.


BlindogSmokin