Ciao everybody. I wanted to write out a brief history of my bike and where it stands now and the plans to come!
Chapter I
I was gifted this bike by a family friend a few years ago and I have tinkered with it ever since. It's the classic story of a bike sitting in a garage for 10 years and then brought out of the spider web covered, dusty, dirty garage and into the light. When the sun hit the dusty paint I was able to see the beauty. Stock muffler, stock seat, stock tank, stock, stock, stock. Love it. It is easier to list the small amount of things that were not stock: The bars were swapped to superbike bars (good move PO), the mirrors were changed to plastic square ones, and that is all I can think of.
10 years is a long time for something to be sitting. The bike was a gem but looked tired and needed some love. The engine powder coat was cloudy, there was surface rust on a lot of the chrome, it looked like it had been laid down once on the left side and even maybe the right side. The alternator cover was silver unlike the rest of the engine, there was a dent that matched up with the left handlebar in the tank, the left foot peg was slightly bent back, and the back left turn signal was scratched and bent. All evidence of an unfortunate event. The right side is excellent except the muffle is scratched and all the scratches are going diagonal so it seems there was another unfortunate event. Anyway, I called up a friend with a pickup and we loaded it into the truck (which was a pain since the brakes were frozen) and drove it to my house.
Chapter II
My first move was to scrub it as clean as I could get it to see how well it would shine up and it looked great! But the chrome was still dull, the engine was stilled cloudy, and the innards were obviously untouched and still a mess. So I tore it apart, well, when I say tear apart I only mean take off the tank, exhaust, seat, airbox, and carbs.
Fast Forward a few months from fall to spring, I was able to get back to cleaning and purchasing new parts. I used a lot of simple methods to clean this bike for instance, I clean all the chrome with the finest steel wool I could find and some chrome polish and that worked wonders but two of the headers had some uncleanable pitting. To clean the inside of the tank I used white vinegar and metal chains. I drained the tank of the sludge, poured a lot of vinegar in the tank, put in the chains (I didnt use rocks or nuts and bolts because the filler hole is indented and has a little lip on the inside which would have given me trouble so I used chains so i could fish 'em out) and shook till I my arms wanted to fall off. And what do you know! It looks like new! On to the carbs...
I took apart the carbs and they were all green and gross but i scrubbed them with a tooth brush and blasted air but the sludge was too thick so after some research I took the rack of carbs and boiled them in lemon juice concentrate. and they are clean enough to drink out of. (dont do that though, thats nasty). NEXT, I washed and blasted out the airfilter because at this point I want to mock it back up to see if she will fire. While the airfilter was drying i took out the spark plugs, brought one to the local bike shop, and bought four new ones. I threw everything back together and she fired! But she wasn't running too well, it seemed maybe on 3 cylinders.
In order to get her to fire on all four I had to tear the carbs apart again, clean the idle jets again, replace the accel pump, and after more head scratching I sorted out some points grounding issues and cleaned all the bullet connections around the coils and then she fired up and ran so smooth. What a wonderful feeling right?
Chapter III
FF to another several months to the summer (last summer). This was the summer of taking more bits off the bike and cleaning what I could. Turns out a dremmel with a steel brush on the end does WONDERS. I was able to polish and clean so much. I took apart the brakes and cleaned them, got new pads, and strapped them back on. I ordered some more stock items such as new stock mirrors. I left the superbike bars because the stock bars are way to tall and way to ugly.
Now the engine. So, there are no leaks anywhere and the I changed the oil which was surprisingly clear and with 8,000 miles on the clock I figured I can rebuild the engine another time so i scuffed up the paint, masked off anything I didnt want painted and used some high heat engine spray paint and coated the engine with a semigloss black. (Since I had the paint and tape in hand I took the oppurtunity to paint some other little bits black like mirrors, chain gaurd, and shocks, but I want to keep the bike as close as I can to stock so I am going to strip all those bits back to their original color scheme.) It came out great, it is obviously not pro but its good enough for me and WAY better than the greying cloudy black.
Next is tires and gas and hit the road.
Man this thing is fun! And it doesnt look to bad either! everyone compliments me and says how it makes them happy seeing a vintage bike on the road again.
Chapter IV "The Future"
When the weather finally gets warmer here in New England I am going to reclean, redo the brakes and hoses, and ride the snot out of it until the fall when I do a full restore on it.
I really would like to pull the engine and get the tank repainted and get a yoshimura replica exhaust and even cafe it out a bit in the near future, but I feel like its hard to come by a 78 F'er in close to completely stock condition.
So thats the story so far. Unfortunately I dont have any progress pictures but I have a picture of how it is now, let me know what you think!
Sam
