60° outside means 70+ inside. Had to throttle way back on the heaters to stay in the shop.
I'm slowly but surely running out of things to do. We replaced the black thumblatch on the gas cap with a chrome one also from Joker. The Gold cap, black latch idea just wasn't good, and we decided to go all chrome. The paint was too thick on the latch bracket to allow it to move freely. Rather than disturb the bonding of the paint we went after the latch with file and Dremel. The chrome was so thick and soft, I think we got the re-sizing done without too much damage to the latch. (We had to re-size the black one too, before this. But it was anodize rather than chrome.)
The owner at Joker said he never had one that didn't fit before, which I believe as his stuff is the best. He said if I couldn't re-size it to my satisfaction he would send me a new one. First, its not his fault that I have a thick custom paint job, and second I don't know what sending another one FOC would accomplish except a second try at it I supppose. Nevertheless he was willing to help, whatever it took, and that was commendable. We made both of them work. The chrome works so well, latches and moves freely, we surprised ourselves, though it took a couple of hours.
So, with the tank finished and back on, we started it up. Hasn't been started since we put the HondaMan transistors in. Worked fine. But, sad to say, it still smoked.
With the front end hopefully working, I'll put some miles on it in case something needs to set in. But I don't think so. I'll share my speculations as to whats wrong later. It's just an engine, it can be fixed.
In the meantime, we admired it.
You can see the minihorns each side under the headlights. Fitted with relays, they are pretty loud. Once I got over the idea that they aren't yachtlike in tone, my first desire, I really like the bikelike sound and their location tucked away. That leaves the OEM horn bracket available for the oil cooler.
Anther bit of shopping done was for the instruments. I have a like gold NOS OEM K1 tachometer. Fresh from the box. The speedo is from a K1 also, but very used, guts work though. So, to really mess with the aficionados, I bot K0 faces from Lecram (eBay). The tach face is redlined at 8500 rather than 8k, more fitting for my motor. So I'll have those put in. Then on the speedo side, I'll have the guts re-calibrated to the 18" wheel and a new K1 body, also from Lecram. Just waiting on the bodies, crimp rings, from Lecram. Foreignspeedoinc.com will do the work.
I can use dummy instruments while those are gone, to run the bike if need be. A centerstand is at K&J Performance to cut it down so I don't have to wrestle with the lowered bike. But this won't keep me from riding either as the sidestand now fits perfectly.
The last (I think) thing on the list is the oil cooler, but that won't keep it off the road either.
If the smoking is a head problem, it will be in Mike's hands for a fix. I don't really think it's rings/cyls. But anything's possible.
