Topic: Almost everyone here knows Rita

[Terry in Australia]

Very nice mate, and not too expensive, for what it is. Cheers, Terry. 

[Dusthawk]

I've been looking for years for a replacement fitting for Rita and found many over the years, from several different sources, and finally found Mototeks this last year. I was very excited when they told me they could take a credit card over the phone and when it finally came time I ordered it with great glee. The day it was delivered some friends were there for the unboxing and I entertained them with a little dance and jig, lolol. I have, over the years, found bits and pieces here and there, some for great prices, some for outrageous prices, and some as gifts from good friends. I have a vision for Rita and am pretty confident that my vision will find it's expression this year. I look forward to showing everyone here just how beautiful a fully custom can turn out.

[Dusthawk]

Okay, been a while but done a few things lately. Almost have the front end buttoned up but need to get a different spacer for the bottom of the neck before I can finish it off. Should be able to do that tomorrow.

A few days ago I received a third set of carbs. I have gone through all three sets, cleaned everything needing cleaned, and inventoried everything that need done to them. I will be ordering 4 rebuild kits tomorrow from Parts & More for the set I want to use, and am compiling all the parts to make to complete usable sets of the other two. All I need for the set I am going to use are the bowl gaskets and a set of mains, everything else in them is new or in excellent condition. I'll be putting in a set of 120 main jets, the mains used before Rita broke down were 115's and I had bog problems, the 120's should resolve that issue, especially since I will be using an airbox from Steel Dragon. I have figured out how to keep air leakage from getting by the base of the velocity stacks, lay in a bead of Ultra-Copper sealant and let it cure before installing. Then, once cured, it will make a tight seal but not adhere the parts together or make a mess all over the place. The airbox should be ready sometime this week and I can't wait to get my grubby hands on it, lolol.

I will have lots of time to work on Rita tomorrow so I will be pulling the head and jugs off, pulling the pistons off and preparing to install the 836 pistons. I hope to have the handlebars and headlight mounted tomorrow as well. I will make sure to get pics as I do each step.

More to come tomorrow.

Peace and Long Rides,

Jeff

[Dusthawk]

I am so frustrated today. I finally get the bike propped up with a jack, get the front end pulled out, go to install the bearings from Honda and the shaft is way too narrow for the bearings, there is a gap of several mm's so I need to find some sort of sleeve shim to go in there to hold the bearing in the right position. I can't go down the road with my front end wobbling all over the place. It's too late to go to Ace hardware, or anywhere else for that matter, to find a sleeve shim so it's going to have to wait til tomorrow or when ever I can find more time to work on Rita.

I went to mount the new kickstand only to find the bolt and spring were missing, so I had to go out and buy those. I'll take bets that I'll find the originals here in the next week or so.

I had planned to get the head off today but UPS showed up with my carb parts so I worked on the carbs and got those back together again. Now I have to wait for my next check to buy the carb rebuild kits I need. With four kits I can make 3 complete sets of carbs, I will use the kits on the carbs I am going to use, then compile the take outs to replace parts that need replacing on the other two. Or should I just get 12 kits and sell the other two sets of carbs as rebuilt and ask a higher price? The one thing I need to do is find the thread that tells how to set float height. That's the last thing I want to screw up. I am going to post here to see if anyone is looking for a set of carbs.

In the mean time, I am done for the night. Too many distractions from getting any progress so I will just surrender and start again next time, hopefully with more luck than I had today, it just wasn't in the cards for me to get anything done today.

[Retro Rocket]

I wouldn't shim the bearings, i would measure the correct inside and outside diameters and get he correct bearings....

[Dusthawk]

Well, there's some good news, lol. I went back out, after I calmed down a bit, and measured the height difference between the lower Harley bearing and the Honda bearing, no difference, so I can use the Harley lower which fits the neck stem perfectly. The upper race is part of the problem I face, it is a bit smaller than Harley so the Harley bearing sits higher in the race than does the Honda, but the Honda inner diameter is larger, by about 1mm, than the Harley bearing. There sits my most profound problem, I need a bearing with the Honda outer aspect with the Harley inner diameter.

The other problem I am facing, but should be easier to conquer, is that the Honda neck is about an inch or so longer than the Harley neck, so I have to find a nut half the size I already have, which is about 2 inches long with a shoulder to accommodate the top tree. There are plenty of places I can go to find a different size nut, one that will fit my application, whether it be Ace, Napa, or several other parts stores around here, one has to have what I need. My alarm is set so I should have enough time to do a little running around before I have to be at the store.

[Dusthawk]

It's a week later and finally I got some time to myself to work on Rita. Put the front end together when I got up and took measurements of everything I needed to get the front end installed then headed out to hardware stores, parts stores and finally a machine shop. The stem nut was too tall so I had it cut in half. I also bought the 2 washers I needed, one to shim the bottom bearing and the other to lift the top tree enough to clear the top edge of the neck. The bottom bearing shim was too wide so I had the machine shop take a grinder to it to match the original shim which was almost 2mm too thick.

I greased all the bearings, put the bottom shim and bearing in place, slid the front end into the neck, slid the top bearing on, the seal, and the top shim, then the newly sized stem nut. It tightened down perfectly, just loose enough to move the front end around but no play in the neck so no wobble. Much better than the old front end, lol. Had a little frustration mounting the risers but finally got them mounted and torqued down, then I pulled my handlebars out from storage and mounted those up. They need a good cleaning up, and one turn signal got some rust on it, but they look in overall good condition. Everything should shine right back up to like new condition.

I am going to Denny's to celebrate a good day. I had to take a lot of breaks because my back is still giving me lots of grief but dammit if progress of any kind isn't still progress. This is so far the most progress I have been able to boast of since May of 2005 when I had to re-spoke the rear rim. I replaced all the bearings, new chain, new rear sprocket, new to me rear hub, new hub torque rubbers, and new brakes.

Next item should be quite simple, and will probably fight me every step of the way, putting on the new kickstand. Once I get it freestanding I will be able to focus on the engine, getting the head pulled and the jugs pulled and off to Jake at CycleX for cleaning and boring for an 836 kit.

I will post pics tonight, my cell phone is charging up and I need that cord to transfer the pics from my camera.

[Dusthawk]

Here are the pics!!! The first pic shows the front end in final install position. Second pic shows a little of the forks but the focus is the twisted spokes, they should clean up well too so more shiny. The third pics shows the top nut installed but I had to get another shim for it for the top tree to clear. The fourth shows how bad I need to clean the handlebars, lolol. Been in storage a very long time, should shine up very nice. The fifth pic shows how shiny the forks are, I'll get better pics of the forks once I get them cleaned up and shined up.

[Dusthawk]

I went around today looking for narrow hose clamps for the carb insulators but found none anywhere. I didn't want to drop another $50 if I could avoid it. So, I gave up for the day, stopped by a chinese take out for Hot and sour soup and Mandarin Beef. Got home and pulled open the silverware drawer I keep my chinese utensils in, and found 8 clamps from the VF rebuild I did last year. I knew there was a reason I was craving chinese, turns out it was to find those clamps I had stashed, LMAO.

[Ecosse]

following this one! glad to see rita's re-birth under way.

[Dusthawk]

Thanks Ecosse for following, for everyone watching this thread. Means a lot to me to have people along for the ride.

I was able to do a little work on Rita today. I started off with a simple yet satisfying task, remounting the headlight to the forks. Unfortunately the springs are too close together to fit so I need a new mount block. It's cheap so I'll order it tomorrow. I am going to wait to rewire everything because since I will be having the ignition switch in a different location, and indicator lights for oil, neutral, and high beams, I plan to rewire much of the bike later on. I'll be picking up a bunch of rolls of wire and connectors and shrink tube here soon, though I won't need them til I am almost done with the rebuild. Having them on hand will be reassuring. As much as I can I plan on running all new wires from everything I can, from the points, coils, oil and neutral sensors, everything, so I need to inventory which connectors I will need. Since this is a custom build a stock harness won't be of any help, lol. All the same I want this to be as close to a professional wiring job as I can make it.

Got the exhaust pulled and removed the old kickstand. Went to mount up the new kickstand only to find out it is too long by several inches. Going to have to figure out what to do, the old kickstand(stock stand cut shorter) is way too short with the new front end so I have it propped up with blocks. Looking into options: 1.) cut and bend the new kickstand I have to fit, will ruin the chrome. 2.) Find and buy a new shorter kickstand with the same kind of mount as old kickstand, was hard enough finding the new kickstand I have, let alone finding another, lol. 3.) Buy an OEM kickstand and have it chromed or painted to match the bike, this will probably be the easiest way to go.

As I pulled off the exhaust, I found three of the spigots loose, one with a screw almost all the way out. Glad I still have all 8 screws! Going to buy some blue Locktite for the reinstall to keep that from happening again. Heat shouldn't effect Locktite, should it?

After I gave up on the kickstand, I decided to pull the head. I went nut to nut and found 3 loose enough for me to wiggle the studs. Gee, maybe that's why it didn't run so well, lolol. All thee were on the number 1 cylinder. I don't think any of them were torqued down correctly, I loosened all the nuts with one hand on the ratchet, and didn't need to even apply all that much pressure to get them loose. About the time I got all of them loose enough to pull them off with my fingers my back started really hurting so I called it a night, leaving the nuts in place and the head still on, and covered the head again til I can pull it the rest of the way off tomorrow. I am almost afraid of what I'll find once the head is off, but it doesn't really matter because Rita is getting a whole new top end and I know she'll be done right by me, down to the correct torque on every nut and bolt on her.

More to come soon, along with pics.

[Dusthawk]

Well, today was eventful and a rousing success!!!!!!!! I feel so good right now I can't stand it! Everything I did went very well, with a small hang up that I figured out pretty quickly. I started by removing all the head nuts and washers and bagging them so I wouldn't lose them. Then, I tried for a good 20 minutes to pull the head of but it was stuck tight. I tried everything but all I could do was pull the head and jugs together from the cases. I came inside, sat down and opened a soda to think for a few minutes and rest my back. I came to the conclusion that there must be bolts somewhere holding the head and jugs together but where were they? I looked all around the outside and while I found the one bolt above the cam chain tensioner earlier, I could find no other bolts or nuts holding the two together, until I thought to look under the rubber pucks. Lo and behold, there were the bolts!!! I also discovered a small problem, there were 8 pucks in there, two stacked pairs and one was off center so it was squished and deformed, probably why I had a little oil leakage.

I got my 10mm socket and an extension out and started pulling those bolts out, got three out but one was missing. Once I got the bolts out the head came off the jugs easy as pie. I flipped the head over and though there is a bit of carbon build up, it isn't near as bad as I thought it would be. I have yet to check if the seats are sealing at all, will do that in the next day or so. If they are sealing fine I will just have the blue paint stripped and lap the valves and reassemble. If they aren't sealing I'll have to send it off to CycleX for machine work.

Once I got the head off I found the broken bolt sticking just slightly out of the jugs. It is so close to the machined surface I am worried about how I am going to get it out of there. I think first I'll try to dremel a slot in it to see if I can just unscrew it out, if not, I'll have to figure something else out. I don't have a torch or welder so I might have to get some help from the local machine shop.

Continued in next post...

[Dusthawk]

After I pulled the head and set it aside, I pulled the jugs off. They came off very easily, there was virtually no drag from the piston rings. Looking at all the machined surfaces I couldn't be happier, they are all smooth and ding free, and as far as I can tell all true. The straight edge I have isn't great but I don't see any warping with it. One O-ring on the top was off center and squished but I don't think it leaked there. Had a little trouble getting the bottom O-rings out but eventually got them. Two were pinched a bit and no longer smoothly round but I don't see any leakage there either. The bores look good, though maybe they are glazed a bit. I'll be sending it off to CycleX to have them bored for the 836 kit I have.

Both the head and base gaskets are in good shape so I doubt I'll have any problems with the assembling. My main concern at this point is how I'll get the jugs back on. There are two ways I can think of doing this. First, mounting the pistons on the rods and lowering the jugs down on them, trying to get the rings compressed and into the bores that way. The other way I can think of is putting the pistons in here on my table then mount them to the rods after that. any suggestions here would be greatly appreciated.

Once I got the jugs off I tried pulling one of the studs out by butting two nuts together but all I did was start to round off the nut, didn't even budge the stud. I'm debating whether or not I should even try to pull them out. They all look in okay condition, but I also worry that I'll get the jugs and head back on and when I am torquing them down one will snap. None of them have any rust on them, they are all clean, and none have any messed up threads.

The next thing I think I'll tackle is the tank mounts. I have a set of Harley flat side tanks and mounts so I am going to put them all together to figure out the optimal mounting set up then asking a friend to bring over his Mig welder to weld it in the best position. The backbone on mine is at a slant so I will have to get creative on how I mount it up, plus, I have to think of the tank mounted dash and speedo, I think I am going to have to raise everything up an extra inch or so to clear the speedo cable. I should also have more than enough room between the tanks for the starter solenoid and flasher unit. By the time I get the jugs back from CycleX I will have the tank off getting prepped and painted, then it'll just be a matter of getting everything put together and start the rewiring of the bike.

I still have to drain the oil from the bike, and pull the two covers I'll be replacing, but that should all take less than a day to do. I have a new oil filter housing bolt and a full gasket set so it'll be a simple matter of putting it all together and tightened up again. I have a set of allen bolts as well to replace the Philips head screws.

Anyway, done for today, more to come soon,

Peace and Long Rides