Author Topic: '80 CB650C Cruiser - Project Wraith - Another setback (Read 48148 times)

The_Crippler · « **Reply #175 on:** April 11, 2010, 07:05:25 PM »

Sorry for the let-down. If it makes you feel better, I bid on an M60 and an LAW on Ebay...

nitroeagle · « **Reply #176 on:** April 11, 2010, 08:18:07 PM »

thanks for the info on the shocks.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #177 on:** April 11, 2010, 08:24:36 PM »

No problem. I was pretty pleased when I found them, and am glad that I can help someone else not have to search high and low.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #178 on:** April 12, 2010, 06:04:55 PM »

New brake line arrived today, along with my headlight. Here's the line, in all it's bad-picture glory:

The headlight required a bit of Dremeling to fit right. Anyone who is squeemish about such things, just pretend I didn't say that.

Looks cool, though:

Zaipai · « **Reply #179 on:** April 13, 2010, 06:10:10 PM »

Head light looks great.. Where did you get the brake line? Looks cool..

.: Scott :.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #180 on:** April 13, 2010, 06:14:03 PM »

Custom length made for me by a forum member. Fast turnaround, too.

http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=54790.msg761477#msg761477

Nicolai · « **Reply #181 on:** April 14, 2010, 07:54:13 AM »

I bought the same shocks as you some weeks ago. But the plastic "thing" wont fit on my bike (the biggest one are to small). My old shocks had a metal "ring" instead of the plastic one. Did you just leave the plastic out? Wouldn't it cause the rubber to wear?

The_Crippler · « **Reply #182 on:** April 14, 2010, 07:56:24 AM »

I was having the same thought yesterday, and was going to take another look at it this weekend. If the plastic doesn't fit, I'll probably just find a piece of pipe the right size and cut a short piece for use.

Nicolai · « **Reply #183 on:** April 14, 2010, 08:03:14 AM »

Exactly what I was thinking of doing

The_Crippler · « **Reply #184 on:** April 14, 2010, 08:09:39 AM »

See? Great minds and all that.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #185 on:** April 15, 2010, 06:33:23 PM »

My new LED turn signals arrived today, and I'm pretty stoked about them. This is what they look like:

I have four of them, so I will be able to replace both the front and rears. I will also need to replace the relay to a more modern one that can handle LEDs.

Because I'm the impatient sort, I ran down to the garage and mocked them up. Upside down, of course, but you get the idea.

Zaipai · « **Reply #186 on:** April 16, 2010, 04:22:53 PM »

Yea they look great. You will have to get shots with them on and working..

.: Scott :.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #187 on:** April 16, 2010, 05:00:22 PM »

That's going to be a little while. I need to make a custom wire harness for the rear, as I don't want to hack up a perfectly good stock one, and I won't get to that until I make/buy a custom rear fender. I've found very few fiberglass ones out there that I like that are available - so, if anyone knows of someplace that has 'em, please hook a brother up.

I have a wedding to go to tomorrow, but on Sunday, I hope to do surgery on the headlight bucket and at least see if I can get the front end wired up.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #188 on:** April 18, 2010, 06:33:56 PM »

Lots of pictures tonight, so please bear with me.

Got some work done on the headlight bucket. Some good, some bad, but it's progress one way or another.

The first hurdle was to get the mounting screw holes drilled correctly. As you can see below, I fitted the headlight rim on and marked lines with a sharpie to get the position marked:

After that, I removed the headlight and replaced the ring so that I could see where the mounting tabs were. A side note here is that you'll notice that it's pretty rusty in there. Mainly, it is surface rust that I'm not that concerned about. I'll probably sand it down a bit and coat it for protection. However, you can see that the adjustment screw spring is short - that's because it just fell apart when I touched it. That will need to be replaced, at least:

This allowed me to mark were the holes should be and to drill some tiny pilot holes. Like many brilliant thoughts of mine, this worked about as I could expect...which is to say not well at all. The holes were slightly off, but I was able to widen them a bit and get the screws to mate up:

Now, the bottom looks great, but the top (once everything was tightened down and pulled together) the top turns out to be way off (about an 1/8th of an inch.)

I have three options here. 1.) I can live with it, but it will bother the heck out of me 2.) try to find another headlight (I know a '71 350 should work perfectly) or 3.) get my glass 'n Bondo skills out and reform the top of the bucket. Three is most likely right now, unless another light plops in my lap.

Putting that aside for the moment, I still needed to get the pivot/mount holes for the bucket itself drilled. It is deceptively hard to measure out equal placement of holes on a small flat strip in a sea of curved surfaces. Here was my solution:

First, I traced out the shape of the mount surface on the side of the bucket. I cut this shape out and folded it in half to find the dead center of it:

Then, I placed this on the old bucket to see how far down to make the hole.

From there, it was a simple matter of poking a hole and then marking this hole on the bucket to drill.

The surface pitting around the hole can be touched up before I paint it. At this point, there was nothing keeping me from mounting it up and seeing how it looked:

Zaipai · « **Reply #189 on:** April 19, 2010, 05:50:04 AM »

Very resourceful.. Would it be cheaper/nicer to just buy a 350 headlight assembly from ebay and use that?

.: Scott :.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #190 on:** April 19, 2010, 05:54:05 AM »

That's how I got this one. It was supposed to be the same size, it just wasn't. I've been keeping my eye out, I just haven't seen one in great condition (this one only cost me about $20, so I'm not out much.) The custom bucket was originally designed by a guy doing a build on a '71, so if I see one of those I'll know that fits.

manjisann · « **Reply #191 on:** April 19, 2010, 06:59:34 AM »

why not repaint the original bucket? Bummer about this one not working, $20 is $20.

Brandon

The_Crippler · « **Reply #192 on:** April 19, 2010, 07:11:44 AM »

I seem to have to keep defending this bucket...

Short answer: I don't like the looks of the original bucket. I like this bucket.

Frankenkit · « **Reply #193 on:** April 19, 2010, 08:18:51 AM »

I like that bucket, too.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #194 on:** April 19, 2010, 08:29:59 AM »

Thanks, Kit - I knew you'd have my back.

This bucket is big enough and long enough that I'm hoping that I'll be able to fit the speedo in there when I settle on one. (cue the cries of, "what's wrong with the perfectly good stock one?"

;D)

The_Crippler · « **Reply #195 on:** June 11, 2010, 06:40:06 AM »

Holy crap! Has it really been that long? My last post was April? Wow. Yeah, spring and summer happened, and I got waaaaaaaay sidetracked. I need to get back to it.

Here's the next steps that need to happen:

Finish the front brake, including speed bleeder and sending out the rotor to be drilled, refinishing caliper cover
Dismantle engine covers so that I can get them coated
Order push/pull cables for the higher bars
Order forward controls and figure out how I'm going to connect them
Settle on a frickin' headlight and get it wired in.

Hopefully the brake with be fairly straight forward. However, until now (and part of the reason I've put it off) I've had a fairly firm "I don't touch brakes" rule...but I guess I need to start sometime.

Engine cover removal - another thing I've put off, because I just don't know what I'm getting into. I posted a thread about it back in March, but no one ever responded to it.

Headlight - I should have gone with my gut and bought the headlight everyone screamed at me about for being too expensive, I really should have. I like the bucket that I have, and still intend to use it, but I realize that I've wasted money trying to get a period light that will fit it. If I'm going to have to "tweak" the bucket a bit to fit a light anyway, I might as well get the modern one and be done with it. Oh well, live and learn.

Forward controls are picked out, and I've seen instructions on modifying shift and brake levers to connect them, but I'm not wild about it.

Cables, I have a quote, just haven't gotten around to ordering yet.

So, yeah - that's where I am. If anyone has any advice on the brake or engine parts, I would really, really appreciate it.

The_Crippler · « **Reply #196 on:** June 20, 2010, 07:57:58 PM »

Wow...seems to be asking questions about the best way to go about opening up the sides of the engine is the sure way to get no one to respond.

I futzed around around with it a bit this weekend, and nothing seems to be giving me any problems (Haven't opened up the clutch cover yet - that's the part that has me really skiddish, and I also didn't feel like draining the oil.)

So...the &^*$'n headlight. Blargh. So, I got my brand-spanking new headlight (see above) and it's pretty:

So, it is - like the other unit I tried - listed at 7"...that, of course, does not mean that it's the same seven inches, it appears. Last one was too big, this one is too small. One way or another, this unit is it - so I'm going to make it work. If I line the top up flush, the bottom shows how different the diameter is:

What I can probably do is to cut a wedge out of the bottom, squeeze it in and refill with glass. It won't be perfectly round, but it will be flush on all visible sides and can be smoothed out. Not 100% sure if I can make it work, but I can try.

In the meantime, I thought I'd try the bucket it came with. First issue is, obviously, that it is much smaller, so fitting everything inside it would be tough.

It's doable, but then I ran into another issue: the turn signals. Using them as the mounting bolts wouldn't work, because the shape of the bucket is different, so I can't tighten them in far enough to get flush with the ears.

My solution to this was to move them back one hole in the ears and use some washers to counter the fact that the hole is larger. This way, I could get them flush and then use the stock mounting bolts on the bucket.

This looks good and clean. If I can't make the other bucket work, it won't be the end of the world if I have to use this one. It fits the look of the bike, and I could be pleased with it

manjisann · « **Reply #197 on:** June 21, 2010, 01:44:38 PM »

Lookin good so far

Brandon

The_Crippler · « **Reply #198 on:** June 21, 2010, 07:21:04 PM »

Thanks, Brandon - glad someone's still reading.

Tonight I tore into the engine to get the panels off and get a powder-coating quote. I realize the engine only has 7K on the clock, but it still surprised me how nice it looks inside:

Notice that I put all of the bolts back in their holes to keep them straight. One thing that I didn't think to get a picture of is a trick I use. My garage floor is covered in kitty litter (because oil never goes where I want it to) so I draw a rough outline of the part I'm removing. Then, as I remove each bolt, I place them at the corresponding spot on the "drawing." Simple trick, but I find that it helps a lot.

So, I sent this picture out to my buddies at Prism Powdercoating for a quote.

Yes, I realize that the guts are still in the alternator cover. This is because the screws are all either stripped, stuck or both. I'll need to tap them out, unfortunately.

Finally, I also asked for a quote on the fender and chainguard. I had planned to paint them, but if the price is right...

Zaipai · « **Reply #199 on:** June 21, 2010, 08:23:36 PM »

I like your trick, what I do is draw a rough sketch on some cardboard (bottled water flats work really well) and then push the screws thru the cardboard and then set it on a shelf until its time to put them back. I did not reply to the motor question because I don't know about 650's so..

.: Scott :.

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Author Topic: '80 CB650C Cruiser - Project Wraith - Another setback (Read 48148 times)