Topic: '80 CB650C Cruiser - Project Wraith - Another setback

[The_Crippler]

Battery purchased and installed...with varying success.  First and foremost...



+1 to Brandon and scunny.  Fit right in.  Good call, guys.

After that, I plugged in the battery and started testing stuff.  Starter works, but the horn does not.  Have to look in to he latter.  Looking up front:



That's good.  Tail light is also lit, but the rear indicators aren't.  Later, I sat down in a chair and I saw this under the rear fender.  This it might have something to do with it?   



The signals do not blink right now.  Flipping the switch, they just turn off.  Tried the wires boh ways on the relay and nothing, so maybe it's blown. 

A few other things that I'm not sure about.  On this model, are there any lights that don't light up unless the engine is on?  Normally, all the idiot lights come on when the key is turned on most bikes.  In this case, the highbeam indicator, neutral and oil-pressure lights don't come on right now. 

The neutral light is most likely because it wasn't in neutral.  I don't have the clutch hooked up right now, and it didn't seem to want to shift in to it without it.  The turn signal indicators also don't work, but if the signals themselves don't work...   But, the other lights, I would have expected to come on.

Next on the list is the brake light.  The main light is lit, but it doesn't brighten when the brakes are applied.  (They aren't installed right now, but I thought the indicator was separate.)

Last, but certainly not least is the last little problem I noticed when I walked around the back of the bike...



Notice that the key is in my hand that the tail is still lit.  Well, that's certainly not right...


That's it for today.  More to follow next time I get to work.

[manjisann]

WOOHOO progress!!! As for the key in the hand, on my 500 if I turned it all the way to the right, I could pull the key, but the rear light would stay on. 

Did it matter which brake you tried, foot or hand and it wouldn't light up? Before you go tearing into everything, ensure that both fillaments are still intact in the bulb. As for the blinkers, when you try using them, does your headlight dim noticably? If so you have a short somewhere, or if the blinkers don't work but the headlight looks like it's blinking you definately have a short in the signal circuit.

Thats all I know for sure (well sorta for sure  )

Brandon

[The_Crippler]

WOOHOO progress!!! As for the key in the hand, on my 500 if I turned it all the way to the right, I could pull the key, but the rear light would stay on. 

*Facepalm* Dude...My old Suzuki did that.  Hadn't even thought of that.

Did it matter which brake you tried, foot or hand and it wouldn't light up? Before you go tearing into everything, ensure that both fillaments are still intact in the bulb.

Yeah, I'll check that.  But no, it didn't matter which brake I tried.

As for the blinkers, when you try using them, does your headlight dim noticably?

It does not.  Although, point of interest, the headlight turns out if I hit the starter and don't pull the clutch.  Comes back on when I wiggle the thumb-stud a bit.  Gotta look in to that, but that's not connected to the blinkers.

Thanks for the help as always, buddy.

[manjisann]

Thanks for the help as always, buddy.

No prob, after asking non stop questions for over a year, its fun to finally answer some 

As for the blinker issue, try taking a 9v battery if you have one, and touch the two leads of each blinker two it, ie ground to neg, the colored one to pos, one blinker at a time. If the blinker lights up, albeit faintly, then the bulb and wires work. Had to do this on a neighbors bike, had an absolute headscratcher of a time. I was testing circuits left and right, fiddling with this and that, and after several hours of not being able to figure it out was just about ready to give up. As I started to put everything back together I sat down to put the bolts in for the seat. Being the lazy bum that I am, I sat down on the driveway and had the best view of under the rear fender. And low and behold, there was the
!@#$%^& short I had been looking for, the tire had rubbed the insulation off on one set of blinkers and shorted them together. This caused the headlight to "blink" whenever we tried using the left side blinkers, but not the right. Sorry, long story but it might have some bearing on your current situation.

Brandon

[tattdadd]

I recently picked up a CB650C as a project, and my plan is to do a semi-bob on it.  Semi, because local laws won't let me go all out and still have it street legal.


Street legal, What's that??

[The_Crippler]

What's this...Two updates in one weekend?  Say it ain't so.

First off, yes, the tail light was on because of the "Park" feature.  I feel like an idiot.  Well, sometimes the big picture distracts us from the little, important details...like the markings on the ignition.

I pulled the fender back off to get a look at the things that weren't working.  First is another of those stupid questions.  The wiring diagram lists two wires going into it, but I only see one when I pull the units off (see below.)  Is this because it is just grounded against the frame?



Now for those two dangling wires under the fender.  Those are a real head-scratcher.  There is nothing that corresponds to them on the diagram.



Now here is where it gets screwy.  I noticed a lot of electrical tape on the main connector.  Peeling it back and looking underneath, I found this:



That's right...those mystery wires are spliced to the cut-up sections of the brake light.  Might explain why those aren't working, either.  Any idea what the PO might have been doing here?

I moved on and decided to take a look-see at the carbs.  Now, these things had been filled with cleaner by the PO, and no matter how many times I moved them around while working, more came out.  I guess he wanted them clean...   

I pulled off the bowls, and they weren't so bad.



Kinda gunky, but the cleaner kept it loose.  A few Q-tips, and two of them came pretty clean.  The other two will need to be soaked.



Floats all look in pretty good shape as well.





I popped off the tops, and they were surprisingly clean, especially for their age.



Same with the pistons.



These puppies might actually pop right on and work without much hassle. 


 

[manjisann]

There are two pet peaves I have when it comes to motorcycle electrical, the use of electrical tape for anything other than just keeping the wires together so they can be routed, and the use of wirenuts. I don't know why it bugs me, but it does.

To answer the question about the blinkers, yes it grounds to the frame. Give the lovely rats nest of wires I'm wondering if the blinkers aren't properly grounded. Check in the brake light area, actually kinda in the thing that holds it up and there should be a tab sticking out that has a ground wire attached to it. If that isn't there, that would explain why the blinkers aren't working. If you aren't sure which tab I'm referring to, I can take a pic when I get home to point it out, but sadly no going home early today so it'd be around 4pm.

I think I also took pics of the wiring before I disassembled the tail section, I try and find them and post them if they look like they'll be useful.

Brandon

[The_Crippler]

Pictures would be great.  Although I can probably figure it out on my own, I love to have references.  Don't worry about when you can get them up - I wouldn't be home from work until after 6, and don't even know if I'll make it down to the garage after me and Mrs. Crippler have dinner anyway.

Really wonder what the PO was thinking with this wiring... *rolls eyes*

[manjisann]

I really shouldn't be so self-righteous, I can't count the number of shortcuts I've taken on things in my life. I guess as I get old and hopefully wiser, I've learned that if you are gonna do something, do it right. I've seen wires spliced and just electrical taped together, gives me the creaps.

Brandon

[manjisann]

Here's the only pic I have that might be of any use. I circled that tab I was referring to, at least one ground wire should go to it, otherwise your blinkers won't be grounded.

Brandon

[The_Crippler]

Well, mine looks slightly different, but close enough...there were several connections that I either disconnected when I moved the taillight, or where unplugged already.  When I get a chance, I will reconnect them and attach the fender back on - see what happened.

[The_Crippler]

Very frustrating evening of work...but one takes the good and the bad.  Still can't get the &^$&(*&@!@'n rear marker/turn signal lights to work



I've checked all the connections, and everything seems solid except for those two mystery wires...which are spliced in to the taillight, which is the one thing that works.  I popped the covers off, and both signal lights' filaments look fine...they just don't light.  Front ones do, but don't blink (which usually happens to me when a signal bulb is blown.

Brake light also doesn't turn on.  Again, both bulbs look fine, and both sets of filaments are intact.  I'm no electrician, which is part of the problem here.

It was about this time that it occurred to me that I'm spending all this time on something that I am 95% sure I'm going to axe eventually...so I decided to get back to the engine.

First off, whoever it was on these boards who clued me in to Simple Green on carb-bowls is a genius.



Beautiful stuff.

Once I got the carbs reassembled, I tried to fit them back on the bike.  Tried.

I had read about that trick of using ratchet tied-downs, but no luck.  I guess I'm going to have to try someone else's idea of getting a cheap heat gun.  *sigh*  So, really, I didn't get anything done tonight - but that's the way it goes sometimes.

[The_Crippler]

Really too damn hot to work in the garage this weekend, but I did a little.  I checked the bulbs and replaced the relay, and still nothing.  On a whim, I rechecked the fuse box - sure enough, the one controlling the horn, signals and brake light was blown.  I removed the jury-rigged wires on the back and replaced the fuse with a spare and rechecked.  Horn and signals work, but as soon as I pulled the brake, the fuse blew again.  So, obviously, that's where the problem is.  Next, I need to trace the wiring and find the short.

[cb650]

The 2 dangling wires are not supposed to be there.  Thats why you cant find them in the diagram.  PO might have had bags with lites as they are hooked up to the brown running lite wire.

[The_Crippler]

Yep, that's what I figured when I traced them back to that hack-job of a splicing for them.  That's why I took them out before checking that fuse.  Given the screwy history of this bike, I'm pleased that that is the strangest thing I've found so far.

[cb650]

Try using a little silicon spray on the boots.  Bungie the air box back.  Clean the TANK & PETCOCK to.

[The_Crippler]

Cool, I'll try the silicon. 

Tank and petcock are good to go.  The tank itself had actually been cleaned, prepped and painted (except for color sanding and clear coat.)  Of course, I don't like the color so I'll be doing it all again...

[The_Crippler]

Didn't get a chance to work this past weekend.  Life happens.  But, today I played hooky from work today and decided to use the time to get some work done.

I rewired the back fender, and now all the lights work without blowing fuses, which is certainly nice.

I messed around with the carbs as well and got them back in.  I hooked up the throttle and choke cables where they go and tried them out.  They do what they're supposed to, but the throttle sticks open.  Where/what should I lube to correct this?

Once I hooked them up, I remembered something:



I was supposed to get the air thingy-majigger in the frame first.  Doh.  So, back out everything came, in went the box, back in went the carbs.  It was about this point that I realized the boots on the front whoosit are not all identical and when I put them back in, they didn't line up.



This, coupled with the fact that it appears that I need to remove the battery bucket to get the air box portion in caused me to make a sound that was something like, "Fla-arglefrickbah!"

...and then I called it a day. 

[manjisann]

Sounds like your day is going about like mine. I'll let you read my thread to see what crap hit the fan for me.

As for the boots that go from the carbs to the engine, you can get the oem ones, but it'll set you back around $80+SH assuming you can find them. Soos was awesome and pointed me toward some for the 84 600cc Kawasaki Ninja. On BikeBandit it comes to around $50+sh for them, so you might want to check into that if you need new ones.

Brandon

[The_Crippler]

Boots look like they're still in good shape...just hard from age (heat gun trick was awesome.)  Once I get the engine running, I'll do the old starter-spray trick to see if they have any cracks.

[manjisann]

Something you can do to prolong their life is boil them in water and wintergreen oil (geez, I haven't already posted this in here have I??) I did that to the boots on the 500 last year and in addition to makeing them pretty supple, it made my bike smell like a lifesaver  You can pick the stuff up at a local pharmacy usually, I had to search a bit but found some. I had to do some work on the same carbs again just a month or so ago and they were still a lot softer than when I got them.  Unfortunately this only works if they aren't cracked.

Brandon

[The_Crippler]

Slow day today, which has given my mind time to wander.  This post is a bit of thinking out loud/musing.  I keep thinking about my plans for this bike, and where I'm headed.  I'm still at that magical point where I'm working on fundementals, and haven't gotten down to aestetics, which is good.  Good because I still have time to re-think.  I love bobbers and want to build one, but the practicality is getting to me.  I don't really want to hack the frame and weld a hard-tail on, and there is only so far I can drop the shocks.  I can't lose the fenders and still pass inspection.  Pod filters are a headache and a half on these CBs.   So, when all is said and done, what would I be left with?  A CB with higher handlebars and forward controls. 

This is not to say that I won't still go that route.  I might decide the form and function still meets my wishes - however, I am revisiting the Cafe concept.  Most Cafes are too....pretty for me, I guess is the word for it.  Even so, they often look fantastic.  There are also some very agressive-looking ones out there they I like as well.

For example - and forgive me, it's a Harley - this one:


(Hotlinked for her pleasure.)

The lines of the frame, bars and seat follow the CB fairly well.  I like the tail on it, and I think that an in-line 4 would look even better than the twin.  Hmm...it's something to think about.

[manjisann]

For example - and forgive me, it's a Harley - this one:

BLASTPHEMAY YOU SHALL BE HUNG FROM THE TALLEST TOWER IN THE SHORTEST BUILDING!!!

Seriously though, have you checked out the bobber thread? Theres some 650 bobbers in there that are really good looking, course thats just my opinion.

Edit- here's the link http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=45618.0

Brandon

[The_Crippler]

Oh yeah, totally some great looking stuff in there - but the common thing linking most of the great looking ones together is mega short rear fenders (no can do in PA) and hard tails.  That's what got my brain headed in in this direction.

Like I said, I'm still in the, "Wait and see" mode.  Still have a lot of work left to do to even start it, so I have some time to think it out.

[manjisann]

Oh yeah, totally some great looking stuff in there - but the common thing linking most of the great looking ones together is mega short rear fenders (no can do in PA) and hard tails.  That's what got my brain headed in in this direction.

Well, lame as they may seem we have to follow our local laws. I'm sure you'll find something that you like and we'll all cheer you on!!

Brandon