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I used various wire wheels on a cordless drill and even used some emory cloth around some of the spokes. Once I had the surface rust gone, I used some simple green and cleaned them. After they were rinsed and dry, I wiped them down with Acetone? and then painted them. I used black appliance epoxy in a can.
If you look in Troybilt's thread, he discribes the process.
It is sad when you have to bring back your own topic and it warns you that nothing has been posted for 30 days.
Here is an updated pic...I got the seat finished so now I am comfortable when I sit on the bike and pretend it runs.
Our local MvR (Rockers Reunion, Indy) is on May 14th. That is my new completion goal date. I need to get it done.
Still need to:
Install new speedo/tach
Install new mirror
Build Battery Box
Finish wiring
Repair leaking left lower fork
Install exhaust
Install carbs
Add oil
I am sure there are others and I will add them as I go. This is my first bike so I don't really know what I am doing when it comes time to get her fired up. Here goes nothing!
The seat is about 2in at the rear as it slopes up a bit. I built the pan myself and took it to a local guy to do the upholstery. He charged me $100 for everything. I took the bike to him so he could make sure everything met up and looked flush near the tank.
Cleaned up/organized the garage a bit last night and then got out there tonight and did a little work on the 550.
My left lower fork leaked at the drain plug. When I first went to rebuild them, the drain plug/screw snapped off. I drilled it out and retapped it but it didn't hold. Tonight I pulled it off of the bike and have one to replace it.
I then pulled off the stock tach/speedo to replace them with a pair of 2.5" gauges.
I will take some finished shots tomorrow night with the new gauges.
Also, I have a noob question regarding the front wheel so bare with me. When I tighten down the axle nut, the wheel will not spin on the axle. Are the bearings bad? To me I should be able to tighten to the recommended 30-40 Ft/lbs and it still rotate properly. In order to get it to rotate without much resistance, the axle nut can't be tightened more than hand tight. Any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated.
What are you thinkin of doing for the wiring? Keeping stock harness and hiding it, modding it out or what?
I'm kinda curious what guage wire these bikes use.
The axle should not be moving round and round. I would pull the bearings. Take a look, if they are that stiff, it will most likely be visibly apparent that something is wrong with them i.e. very rusty.
Yeah when I tightened the axle nut to the spec'd torque, the axle wouldn't rotate by hand. I disassembled the entire front hub/bearing assembly and am going to replace the bearings. There wasn't much play but it seemed a little "gritty" when I rotated them plus, I am pretty sure they are 30ish yrs old.
I also got the new tach and speedo mounted.
Hope to button the front end back up by this weekend.
I also managed to pull electrical bits off of the stock mounting plate to reconfigure them into a new battery/electrical box.
Excellent sir.. I to have a 1974 550 build going on.. I can see your progress and laugh as I know exactly what your going through.. by all means I’m not laughing at you, it just I’ve just been there and done that.. So I feel your pain..
Right on man. Yeah I am live just off of 37. Let me know sometime when you are up this way! My plan is to still have it running by May14th, which is rapidly approaching, for the Rockers Reunion downtown.
Excellent sir.. I to have a 1974 550 build going on.. I can see your progress and laugh as I know exactly what your going through.. by all means I’m not laughing at you, it just I’ve just been there and done that.. So I feel your pain..
Well, progress is being made slowly but surely. I have spent some late evenings out in the garage. I am trying to get it down for next weekend (14th) but I am slowly waking up from my dream of that happening. I work great under pressure but I think I am biting off more than I can chew for that. All of the electronics are now in the box that I made.
It will go in the opening below the seat location and house all of the electronic bits. It will be kind of mess in there but at this point, I am not going to screw with redoing the stock wiring harness. That is a future winter project.
I also got the carbs mounted with new UNI Filters and got my Kerker 4-1 mounted. I made a bracket at work yesterday to mount it up but I will finish that tonight. I also need to get a clamp to clamp the megaphone to the pipe.
I also ran a new clutch cable and new throttle cables. I am having an issue with the throttle cables. When you pull back on the throttle it doesn't snap back. It feels as if there is dragging in the cable. There are no kinks and it is has fluid bends. It is brand new but doesn't seem correct. Anyone have any ideas??
I also swapped the tach and speedo so that I can easily access the reset on the trip.
Gotta get a battery charger to juice up my battery so I can finish testing on the wiring, YEA! (not looking forward to that). I also need to get some feeler gauges to set the gap on the points and then adjust timing. Still no light at the end of the tunnel.
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