Topic: 1976 CB500/550 Project "Squirrel"

[RAFster122s]

You hate sanding then, it is a lot of sanding before you start buffing/polishing it.  You can polish a turd but you still have a turd when done...
I doubt you have the free funds to send it out... if it fit in a medium or large flat rate priority box that is the best value...  would they fit in either?
David

[riverfever]

Yeah I'm not a huge fan of sanding but...once I start I usually enjoy seeing the progress. The M Lock mount won't take much work. Really the bigger issue/quirk for me is that I have electrical crap spread all over the bench and sanding and polishing is so damn dirty. I'd rather things be surgically clean during the wiring. It's hell being me David.

[RAFster122s]

Yeah, it makes a mess and you have to use a mask to not breath all the crap you are making black dust filling the air.  I got a 100ft roll of plastic to drape over the garage door rails so I could make a room to control the dust and confine it to that area.

Really have to take precautions for your lungs as you don't want health problems from polishing down the road.  Naturally eye protection as well.

How big a box would it take to farm it out to someone and what kind of money to get a professional job done?  I have polished some stuff to high gloss, I like sanding as it is relaxing work.  But, I am unusual fom most.

David

[RAFster122s]

I hope your trapping efforts result in good things, the squirrel has crossed the line.  If he continues to tick off your wife she may want to eat him in revenge...

They can be a real nuisance, this one sounds possessed.  Going to be like the gopher in Caddyshack before long...

David

[riverfever]

I really want the whole thing polished. I like the idea of it being modern but still in the stock location. It'll get some weird looks from people that know these bikes but then aren't sure what's inside it. It won't take that long to do.

[riverfever]

Snuck down to the garage for a rare weeknight opportunity to work on the bike. Drilled holes in the backbone of the frame.



Installed a rivet nut on each side.



P clamps on each side to hold the looms and provide some grounding points.



And just in case you were wondering...the score is Squirrel 2...river...0. He's gotten all the peanut butter and sprung the trap two days in a row. I have two traps out there for tomorrow and if that doesn't work...I have another idea.

[Restoration Fan]

Your exterminators will have a squirrel cage/trap.  Put the peanut butter in one of those.

[riverfever]

Man...I don't wanna catch this damn thing in live trap and then have to deal with it. He'd be back in a week anyways.

[Restoration Fan]

Man...I don't wanna catch this damn thing in live trap and then have to deal with it. He'd be back in a week anyways.

Catch him.  Shoot him.  </problem>

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

[riverfever]

Oh don't kid yourself Cal. While I did say I wasn't sure that I could pull the trigger on an elk or a deer...I'd gladly do it to this little varmint.

[BLAC]

Funny story, I was sitting on the floor working on my bike one night,when out of the corner of my eye I see what I think is a huge rat/cat crawling out of the bucket of water I was using to wet sand with, about 2 ft from my face...

I was initially too horrified to "jump"  or even turn my head to look at it. my brain went right into, you are probably just hallucinating and there is no demon lookin rat/cat crawling out of that bucket and toward your..

I was wrong, there was.

I slowly turned my head to look at what I was dealing with and came face to face with a severely mauled and deformed possum.  It had somehow crawled or fell in there after a near death experience with either a dog or a car.  I let out noises that I'm not proud of and hopefully never produce again.

Then my next thought is "I have to put this soaking wet devilbeast-orc-demon out of its misery" so I frantically look around the shop...

Plasma cutter, welding torch, hammer, band saw, angle grinder... basically a "torture chamber starter set"

After considering drowning it with one of my old fork tubes, I remembered that there was a pellet gun in the house...

I just wanted to work on a motorcycle.   

[Stev-o]

...the score is Squirrel 2...river...0.

Little differant at my house....Badass Black Cat 1...squirrel 0

However, I did see another one yesterday but they dont bother me.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

...the score is Squirrel 2...river...0.

Little differant at my house....Badass Black Cat 1...squirrel 0

However, I did see another one yesterday but they dont bother me.

My little dachshund mix runs after some "critter" in our backyard at night, but the sucker is small enough to get through a chainlink fence grown over with ivy. 

[riverfever]

That squirrel is now 4 and 0. I'm a little annoyed but mostly I'm just impressed. You can get lucky once. Even twice. But four times??!! Clearly, this is not your average squirrel. This is some kind of super hybrid ninja squirrel. I've switched to a different trap for tomorrow. I've had success with this trap before on gophers. The squirrel really is more akin to a gopher so I think this is the smart move. However, I do have a pellet gun lined up for Friday that will see duty on Saturday in the event of empty traps tomorrow and Friday during the day.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

That squirrel is now 4 and 0. I'm a little annoyed but mostly I'm just impressed. You can get lucky once. Even twice. But four times??!! Clearly, this is not your average squirrel. This is some kind of super hybrid ninja squirrel. I've switched to a different trap for tomorrow. I've had success with this trap before on gophers. The squirrel really is more akin to a gopher so I think this is the smart move. However, I do have a pellet gun lined up for Friday that will see duty on Saturday in the event of empty traps tomorrow and Friday during the day.

Did the Black Hole fail you?  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007O24US/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought one of these after you successfully deployed it in 2015, but The Better Half would not have it.  She was too freaked out about finding a dead gopher in it or having the dog get her nose trapped by it.

[riverfever]

Dude the Black Hole aint no joke. I'm 2-0 with that thing. Not sure why I was even messing with the Victor trap. Stay tuned.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Dude the Black Hole aint no joke. I'm 2-0 with that thing. Not sure why I was even messing with the Victor trap. Stay tuned.

Mr. Squirrel's fate . . .

[riverfever]

I hung out in the garage most of the day today just working slowly, stopping to shovel snow and drink coffee. The peace was glorious. My Jeep has been at the dealer for 3 weeks now and they had some problems getting the thing fixed correctly but it was finally done last night so I went to pick it up. I got there and found a big tear in the leather on the driver's seat. The dealer experience has been a real let down. The squirrel is still rogue as well. Oh well...it's keeping things interesting and I'm grateful that I'm beginning to feel better and can, at least, spend time in the garage, playing with the pups and hanging out with Heather.

A master cylinder showed up today so I threw that on. It's a Nissin model with a 14mm piston. I started running wires for that but left them hanging from the backbone with the others until I'm closer to being done up front and know what else is going to need to travel back to the M Unit.

This was some of the ugliness in the headlight bucket. It's the trifecta of connectors from the headlight.


I cleaned it up a bit.


I was using these 1/8" spade connectors but I'm not sure what's going on with the male connectors. They are huge. Apparently I ordered from the Ron Jeremy line of spade connectors. I don't like them. I'll probably use three of them for the headlight wires but snip them down a bit and then switch to bullets.


It's starting to look like a motorcycle again. I got the top clamp back on, mirrors reinstalled and gauges bolted down.


I had to order some yellow wire but next I'm going to extend the wires a bit from the coils (the yellow, blue and black/white wires) and then install a few more rivet nuts on the backbone and start thinking about how wire looms will be routed. I also need to order a brake line and wire the horn.

Question about the brake line...the end of the master cylinder (right where the line would bolt to) is just outside of the headlight mounting ears. I'm a little afraid that if I order a line with the stock fitting (90 degree) that it will create a bit of a bend in the line as it drops down and then has to angle in to get inside the mount and behind the headlight. Can I ask Slingshot to use a straight connection there so it just goes right on in behind the headlight? If I picture would help I can get one.

[joeyvans]

I had asked Shaun this same question about my 450. He will accommodate any reasonable request. Just add a special instruction to the order and maybe call him to clarify so you are on the same page.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RAFster122s]

Cal, So...River has been burning down the SMS lines with his verbal banter with you and lots of questions I take it.
At least it isn't your Netflix account telling you that they are going to suspend your service since you can't be in VA and CO at the same time with 3 active connections in VA and one in CO...

 

So, those are long skinny spade connectors you are showing River...  Do you have stock spare bullet connectors?  Just curious why you put those in, given the rewiring for the bike.  Those are designed to be in a housing/connector block, thus their length. 

I've been fighting with the computer for hours.  Trying to update drivers and I screwed up my wireless USB dongle software driver and it wasn't happy.
Finally got it to establish a connection to the router.
It isn't any fun when things go sideways.

Glad you are feeling better River.  Coming back from something like you did is seriously not fun.  Former co-worker in Sierra Vista, AZ had a bad diverticulitis attack and ended up in the hospital for a bit over a week and he wasn't on solid foods for over 6 six weeks.  He bought a $400 blender/juicer that turned celery into liquid...That is quite the blender...something like 400 watts.   His diet for over 6 weeks was through a straw (virtually) with lots of veggies until his GI tract decided it would begin playing nice.

I've done a liquid diet after some surgery for about 3 weeks and it was an interesting time...

Well, until later...

Best of luck in the continuing world of wiring...

[riverfever]

I'm beginning to fell like the MPAA. I've seen all these pictures and posts before as they were submitted for review and approval prior to being published.

Oh, and by the way, River, Verizon rang me up to say my Unlimited Texting plan has caused a DOS outage on their network. Wondering if I might prefer to use the phone for voice calls to let them have their data network back? 

This from the guy who texts me this morning to at 7:30 telling me to get to work. Today I'll be calling collect. 

[riverfever]

And yes...I've been asking A LOT of questions. I really do feel badly for it most of the time because I know they're probably stupid ones. I'm beginning to understand how this is all going to look in the end but it's been a process for me. Thankfully, we have text capability because I can't imagine doing this via hand written letters. 

Someone else (local to me) said those connections were meant to be in some sort of housing too. I had no idea when I was ordering. I don't like them being that long. Right now, those are the only three spades I've used at all. Other than the master cylinder, which used a closed/insulated type of spade, everything else has been no connections yet (because of the way the M Buttons connect internally). Now I'll probably go back and redo those three from the headlight connector with the bullets that have the incorporated rubber protectors. Always learning with this project. What I still can't understand (I'm sure it would make sense if I saw the housing those spades were designed to be in) is why the male is long and the female is so dang short? And how do they stay because they aren't locking? Oh well...I'm always learning with this project.

Sorry to hear you're battling computer issues.

I had a few bad days this week where my intestines hurt but things are much better. I'm almost done with my meds and then it's a process of getting my gut healthy over the next few months. One thing I'm doing now that I've never done before is that each day I eat a bit of raw sauerkraut, pickled ginger, I take a particular strand of probiotic twice a day, and I use turmeric powder like it's my job. Heather says the sauerkraut stinks but I rather enjoy it.

Alright well I'm going to get to work and not send any update pics to Cal so that he can join the party later on when I reveal my mediocre progress.

Cal, So...River has been burning down the SMS lines with his verbal banter with you and lots of questions I take it.
At least it isn't your Netflix account telling you that they are going to suspend your service since you can't be in VA and CO at the same time with 3 active connections in VA and one in CO...

 

So, those are long skinny spade connectors you are showing River...  Do you have stock spare bullet connectors?  Just curious why you put those in, given the rewiring for the bike.  Those are designed to be in a housing/connector block, thus their length. 

I've been fighting with the computer for hours.  Trying to update drivers and I screwed up my wireless USB dongle software driver and it wasn't happy.
Finally got it to establish a connection to the router.
It isn't any fun when things go sideways.

Glad you are feeling better River.  Coming back from something like you did is seriously not fun.  Former co-worker in Sierra Vista, AZ had a bad diverticulitis attack and ended up in the hospital for a bit over a week and he wasn't on solid foods for over 6 six weeks.  He bought a $400 blender/juicer that turned celery into liquid...That is quite the blender...something like 400 watts.   His diet for over 6 weeks was through a straw (virtually) with lots of veggies until his GI tract decided it would begin playing nice.

I've done a liquid diet after some surgery for about 3 weeks and it was an interesting time...

Well, until later...

Best of luck in the continuing world of wiring...

[Stev-o]

Yes, Slingshot can install any type of fitting for you. I made a simple drawing for him to get exactly what I wanted on a couple of custom lines.

[riverfever]

I feel like as long as I was down in the garage today this thing should be done. I know many of you would have it done already but I'm working really slowly. I'm almost done running wires/looms from the front of the bike. Everything but the gauges is done. I'm out of green wire and yellow for the coil so that's on order. As soon as that's here I can finish the gauges up and the wires for the coils and then start dealing with all the grounds at the forward most p clamps. Once those are out of the way I can put the remaining wires in new sleeving and run it back to the m unit input side. At that point I guess it's time start running wire from the output side. As nerve wracking as this is I'm enjoying it. I get to make everything perfect (at least in my eyes) with how things are run. I also realized that before I can run the wires for the m lock I need to polish that housing so I started on that today. Right now I'm up to 1000 on it and will wet sand it to 1500 tomorrow and should be able to finish it, install it, and begin running those wires.