Topic: 77 750F2 Refresh Project Thread

[martin99]

I had an old rear fender on the shelf so set about tidying it up. After cutting about three inches off the end, the original mount holes for the tail lights were welded up. I don't have facilities to strip chrome, so it got a good scuffing with a medium abrasive flapwheel before filling over the welds and spraying with a few coats of etch primer...





Followed by a few more coats of rattle can gloss...



On the bike with turn signals fitted...

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

That's lookin' really good....I still like the f tanks better.

Martin,

Great work, damn fine for a rattle can!  I, too, prefer the F tanks over the K7 and K8, but that's just me.  On my K7, I swapped in a F tank.  To each his own!

It's coming along well.

Don

[martin99]

That's lookin' really good....I still like the f tanks better.

Martin,

Great work, damn fine for a rattle can!  I, too, prefer the F tanks over the K7 and K8, but that's just me.  On my K7, I swapped in a F tank.  To each his own!

It's coming along well.

Don

Very nice of you to say so Don.

I managed to get it road-ready this weekend. Here's a few pics of how it sits now...













I suppose you could say it's finished!

 

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

I really like how you shaped the seat cut out in the rear.  Fine work!

[martin99]

A few notes on the wiring.

I've used the ever-popular Lucas type tail light, although I would have preferred to do something a bit different I was getting impatient and wanted to ride the bloody thing! I can always change it later.

A word about the Lucas tail light, as sold by a gazillion sellers on eBay - these things are clearly made to a price, and being an aftermarket part you can't expect it to just fit. I had to spend some time re-shaping the housing with a dremel and handfile to get it to fit the profile of the fender properly. As Timbo noted in his build, the fixings supplied were too short so I had to buy longer screws. And also, the unit is supposedly meant to earth through the fender - I don't like that, so I soldered on an earth wire that I could plug directly into the harness...



Here's a shot of the underside. I've also added separate earths for the turn signals. To mount the turn signals, I drilled through the fender and used stainless tube sleeves which pass through the fender and over the threaded portion of the signal, butting up against the inside of the frame-end. This allowed me to tighten the signals up against the sleeve and prevent mis-shaping the fender...



The wiring passes through a grommet and connects to the harness...



 

[Restoration Fan]

Martin,
What a horrible looking bike!  I can't believe you would even consider riding such a hideous piece of junk.

And just to show you how I'm the kind of guy to always think of others first, I'll be glad to take it off your hands so you don't have to endure public ridicule and shame!

Seriously, man.  Outstanding job.  I LOVE how the rear end of the bike looks with the seat and fender.  You did some great work on that bike.

[timbo750]

Bike looks great.
On the wiring issues, the lucas style light I got was LED and has an earth wire so hopefully I wont have any issues.

[martin99]

Martin,
What a horrible looking bike!  I can't believe you would even consider riding such a hideous piece of junk.

And just to show you how I'm the kind of guy to always think of others first, I'll be glad to take it off your hands so you don't have to endure public ridicule and shame!

Seriously, man.  Outstanding job.  I LOVE how the rear end of the bike looks with the seat and fender.  You did some great work on that bike.

Thankyou Ron, being a slow reader I was crying until I got to your last sentence!

Biggest challenge doing this one was resisting the temptation to hack it about. I've kept all the stock parts I removed and left the frame intact, so if I (or the next owner - maybe in ten years or so ) want to make it original again, a day or two's work should do it.

 

[martin99]

Bike looks great.
On the wiring issues, the lucas style light I got was LED and has an earth wire so hopefully I wont have any issues.

I'm sure you'll be fine Tim. Only reason I didn't go for LED is because it's all a bit high-tec for me. Maybe one day I'll join the 21st century, but I have to admit I'm a bit of a curmudgeonly old git and it would seem strange not to have to change a bulb every now and then.
 

[Restoration Fan]

Martin,
Whereabouts in the UK do you live?  There's a decent possibility I'm going to be making a trip to the UK in the summer.

Ron

[martin99]

I'm on the Essex coast, within an hour from London on the train. Give me a PM when it happens, be good to see you!

[Restoration Fan]

I'm on the Essex coast, within an hour from London on the train. Give me a PM when it happens, be good to see you!

Will do.  It will be a work trip but if it happens, I'm probably going to take an extra 4 - 5 days and go visiting some places around the UK I haven't been to before.  I've been to the UK on four different occasions and really enjoy the people, the scenery and the history.  But if that means I get to see a few classic bikes like yours, all the better!

[calj737]

I'm on the Essex coast, within an hour from London on the train. Give me a PM when it happens, be good to see you!

Will do.  It will be a work trip but if it happens, I'm probably going to take an extra 4 - 5 days and go visiting some places around the UK I haven't been to before.  I've been to the UK on four different occasions and really enjoy the people, the scenery and the history.  But if that means I get to see a few classic bikes like yours, all the better!

Martin, you'll notice he didn't list the food amongst his enjoyments... Come to think, he skipped right past the weather as well. Hmmm 

[martin99]

I'm on the Essex coast, within an hour from London on the train. Give me a PM when it happens, be good to see you!

Will do.  It will be a work trip but if it happens, I'm probably going to take an extra 4 - 5 days and go visiting some places around the UK I haven't been to before.  I've been to the UK on four different occasions and really enjoy the people, the scenery and the history.  But if that means I get to see a few classic bikes like yours, all the better!

Martin, you'll notice he didn't list the food amongst his enjoyments... Come to think, he skipped right past the weather as well. Hmmm 

The weather's a given, but I'm surprised that the wife's reputation for cooking (or gruel as it's affectionately known in our house!) has crossed the pond. Fear not Ron, we have McDonalds here too

[Restoration Fan]

Little known fact but London now has more Michelin stars with its chefs than all of America put together.  There are some fantastic high end restaurants in London.  (And I had one of the best meals of my life in Galway, Ireland I might add  ).

As far as the weather, so far I've been the good luck charm there.  I've spent a total of 11 weeks in the UK to date and have yet to see a single day of rain.  I did purchase an umbrella on the first day of my most recent trip to London because it was overcast....and from then on, it was sunny and beautiful the rest of the 10 days I was there.

[Green1]

Are you sure you were in England I'v never known 10 days of sun.

Mick

[Restoration Fan]

Are you sure you were in England I'v never known 10 days of sun.

Mick

Ha!  Yep, I can attest it was indeed England.  To be fair, that was 8 years ago though.  But we spent time in London, Leicestershire, and Stratford-upon-Avon. 

Truth be told, I also once spent a two week stretch in Ireland and then a month later another 2 weeks there...and never saw rain there either.  I began to tell the Irish lads I was working with that I was the Sun God and I could bring them days and days of sunshine if they only continue to buy me pints.  Even though I have no claim to be a god of anything in real life, the agreement worked out well for both of us. 

[calj737]

Ron, you've missed your calling! Travel to Irleand and not see rain? Perhaps you slept through it after all those pints?

[martin99]

I think I remarked earlier that a project is never finished, but I wasn't planning an update quite so soon

It dawned on me that I didn't have any replacement bulbs for my aftermarket turn signals, so I thought I would take one out to see what I needed to buy. Of course upon taking it out I dropped it instantly on the concrete floor of my garage...



I know we've all seen a busted bulb before, but we do like pictures don't we?

Anyways, suddenly I needed a replacement sooner than I had expected. I'm used to doing hand signals on the Norton, which quite frankly is a pain in the arse and can lead to some cheek-clenching moments (why don't they teach kids hand signals anymore?), and indicators on the Honda is a luxury I couldn't do without. So I set about looking round my local garages for bulbs.

Now here's the thing. Here in the UK there is no requirement for running lights, so it's unusual for an indicator bulb to be dual-filament. It's even more unusual to find one with a small head, and consequently I couldn't find them anywhere. A search on the interweb threw a few up, but by this time my OCD was getting the better of me and I was getting frustrated at the thought of having to buy dual-filament bulbs when only one filament was going to be used. I was also pissed off at the fact that these bulbs were more expensive than a standard single filament. Hmmm, what to do...

I had a rummage and found a set of four gash flashers laying around on the shelf. Best thing was, the bulb holders were for the single filament type I had now decided I must have...



So I needed to swap out this...



For this...



Of course, it wasn't going to be a straightforward swap as the mounting points were completely different. So I had a moment of enlightenment

Take an electrical connector...



Err... customise it...



Out with the soldering iron...





(By the way it wasn't until I saw the above pic that I realised the clip said 'Made in Taiwan' on it. Gotta get me an eye test )



And voila! I now have four turn signals with cheap as chips replacement bulbs...



And as a bonus they all work!