trin's 1979 xs1100sf build

[natemoen]

Try living in the heart of Harley's Kingdom! It is amazing to see all the tools that drive them to work every now and then.

[skids]

Harley thread??

A riding buddy of mine is a mechanic by trade. It's kind of funny that he wont even do oil changes on his Harley. He blames his warrantee. It might have something to do with doing mechanical stuff all day, coming home, and being sick of turning wrenches. I am an engineer by trade and I dont like any shop working on my bikes except for tire maintenance.

[trdriver71]

A riding buddy of mine is a mechanic by trade. It's kind of funny that he wont even do oil changes on his Harley. He blames his warrantee. It might have something to do with doing mechanical stuff all day, coming home, and being sick of turning wrenches. I am an engineer by trade and I dont like any shop working on my bikes except for tire maintenance.

A buddy of mine also own a harley and tell me the same thing tells me that he has to have his oil changed by the harley dealer that cost something crazy because of his waranty, but he is also one of those harley owners that never rides too bought his bike new in '08 and it only has 1500 km on it.

[jwhughes3]

For cars there is a law the warranty cannot be voided for service not done at dealer as long as you keep records that meet the service guidelines. I cannot imagine that law does not apply to motorcycles as well.

John

[tarzan]

A buddy of mine also own a harley and tell me the same thing tells me that he has to have his oil changed by the harley dealer that cost something crazy because of his warranty, but he is also one of those harley owners that never rides too bought his bike new in '08 and it only has 1500 km on it.

You know that would be illegal, right?
A dealer cannot require you to bring your vehicle in for maintenance. All you have to do is keep receipts for products used, to be sure you use require ingredients.And document the recommend services you perform. They can't even make you use their oils and such. You only have to use equivalent or better.

That kills me when people say that stuff. It would be really expensive too if you ride a lot. Change intervals are relatively short.

[crazy steve]

If you do your own oil changes, you have to be extremely diligent in recordkeeping to maintain your warranty. You can't just go in when you have a problem and say 'sure, I did the maintanence'... Bare minimum is a vehicle log and receipts for the oil/filters and proof that what was used meets requirements. This will vary from dealer to dealer, but asking ahead of time (and getting it in writing) will clear up any 'misunderstanding'...

One thing not mentioned is if you buy an extended warranty, those can require you to have all service work done by 'authorised' shops...

[terratek]

I'm glad I have never owned a vehicle with a warranty

Just finished installing the side stand spring, center stand and center stand spring. Have to say, this thing hops right on to the service stand, unlike the gs which takes a couple of tries. Checked the oil and topped it off, sprayed the middle and final fill bolts with kroil.

Will start rewiring the fuse block tomorrow, and see if the middle and final fill ports will open.

Today I have to diagnose a noise issue with mother-in-laws envoy, and start making a list of stuff to fix on father-in-laws f150.

[terratek]

Finished ripping the turn signals and headlight out around 3am, took the headlight apart and fixed some issues, now it lines up correctly. PO had the bucket mounted upside down and tried to install the light rightside up, doesn't work well with a keyed housing.

Today I was going to fix up the rear fender, found out it isn't the original, so the plastic fender won't mount up correctly.

Fun fun fun Will be working on the bike most of the day if all goes well.

[fredintoon]

If I had it my way, I buy a wrecked harley and a pro street rolling chassis and build an assembled bike. But these 11's are very fun and have a ton of potential for whatever you want to build out of em.

Hi Dogg,
there's guys in the UK who will do that very thing for you.
Harley motor + trans in an oversize copy of a Norton Featherbed frame, your choice of brakes and wheels.
A bike like that would arouse hatred and envy no matter which bike meet you took it to.

[terratek]

Just going to post this here as I have a bad habit of not organizing my txt files and this is a build thread after all...

Am thinking of getting rid of the auto-cancel circuit, and the headlight stuff. After that is done, just run a few Leds for oil, neutral, left and right turn, high beam. Replace gauge cluster with an arduino gps logger with 7 segment output.

Main reasons for the change are:
Real-time gps logging, and later playback of routes
Accurate mph/kmh without having to switch gearing with tire size
Maybe directional compass, heading, etc
Ability to add functionality and sensors later (g-force logging, etc)

Right now the bike has the 160mph round speedo, once running i can test functionality and sell it to finance at least part of the dev of the new cluster.

The only part I may have an issue with (due to not researching it yet) is the tach. I am figuring either an inductive sensor or similar should provide an on/off signal i can read via an analog input.

Any thoughts on this?

[fredintoon]

Am thinking of getting rid of the auto-cancel circuit, and the headlight stuff. After that is done, just run a few Leds for oil, neutral, left and right turn, high beam. Replace gauge cluster with an arduino gps logger with 7 segment output.
Main reasons for the change are:
Real-time gps logging, and later playback of routes
Accurate mph/kmh without having to switch gearing with tire size
Maybe directional compass, heading, etc
Ability to add functionality and sensors later (g-force logging, etc)
Right now the bike has the 160mph round speedo, once running i can test functionality and sell it to finance at least part of the dev of the new cluster.
The only part I may have an issue with (due to not researching it yet) is the tach. I am figuring either an inductive sensor or similar should provide an on/off signal i can read via an analog input.
Any thoughts on this?

Hi Trin,
if you are doing all this for style's sake, that's fine.
Practicality, not so much. Going through your points in order:-
1) If you can't remember where you've been, OK.
2) Speedo feeds off the front wheel and there's only one size of tire that fits nice. Speedo reads MPH & KPH already. Odometer only reads miles, multiplying by 1.6 in your head ain't easy, what I do is multiply by 0.8 and double it.
3) My stock 250kph speedo died and it's replacement 140mph speedo off an XS750 is real beat-up looking; what price on the 160mph unit?
4) Aftermarket tachs tend to read off a coil wire. Tell the thing it's reading an 8 cylinder engine or the waste spark will double the rpm reading.
Note that the stock tach quits if the alternator dies but the aftermarket ones don't.
Knowing you've lost charge while you still have enough battery left to get home is a good thing.

[terratek]

Hi Trin,
if you are doing all this for style's sake, that's fine.
Practicality, not so much. Going through your points in order:-
1) If you can't remember where you've been, OK.
2) Speedo feeds off the front wheel and there's only one size of tire that fits nice. Speedo reads MPH & KPH already. Odometer only reads miles, multiplying by 1.6 in your head ain't easy, what I do is multiply by 0.8 and double it.
3) My stock 250kph speedo died and it's replacement 140mph speedo off an XS750 is real beat-up looking; what price on the 160mph unit?
4) Aftermarket tachs tend to read off a coil wire. Tell the thing it's reading an 8 cylinder engine or the waste spark will double the rpm reading.
Note that the stock tach quits if the alternator dies but the aftermarket ones don't.
Knowing you've lost charge while you still have enough battery left to get home is a good thing.

1) I rode on over 1200 miles of unmarked back country roads last year. Having them logged would make transferring them to maps quite a bit easier than having to ride with my netbook, gps, datalogging software, etc. I always hated having to dig the thing out of my backpack and add waypoints... with a playback, I could just mark the pauses.

2) Fair enough, moot point, but, software would eliminate doing it in my head.

3) No clue yet as I need to talk to one of the guys I work with on arduinos and see if it's going to be easily doable or a later project

4) Good call... What does the stock tach read off of?


On a pretty damned happy note, I didn't get anything done on the wiring, but... Cleaned the tank, put a bit of gas in the tank, no start. Put some gas on a rag, held it across all four intakes... Fire, loads of it, luckily none of it backfiring. All exhaust pipes heated up. At this point I am halfway sure the carbs need to be cleaned, and it should hopefully run.

[crazy steve]

... What does the stock tach read off of?.

The OEM tach is actually an AC frequency meter that gets it's signal from the raw AC voltage coming out of the alternator before it's rectified into DC, calibrated to show rpm. You cannot connect a conventional tach the same as the stock unit.

[terratek]

The OEM tach is actually an AC frequency meter that gets it's signal from the raw AC voltage coming out of the alternator before it's rectified into DC, calibrated to show rpm. You cannot connect a conventional tach the same as the stock unit.

Thanks, that is good to know. Will see what I can work up to get around that before progressing with the other ideas.

[Yard Dogg]

Yeah I'm having issues with my tach. Mine is supposed to hook up to the coil, but it's not working, I may have fried it, but I'm sure it's a bad ground in there. I see what your saying with the digital speedo. I assume it's programmable right? That could be convenient unless you have to reprogram it every time you disconnect your power. Food for thought. The only reason you would need to get rid of your auto cancelling unit is to change bulbs, or maybe you flasher went out and you don't want to buy another one. Does it work?