Down under, an idiot and a 400F

neevo said:
Legend! What about tapered bearings for the head stem? Or do I need to buy a kit for that?

AllBalls do a kit, but I don't have the part number off-hand. Should be easy to find.

ian
 
Question about the wheel bearings. Kits on eBay have seals although I didn't pull any out. Is this extra protection and do you sacrifice bearing width to accommodate them?

That website listing bearings didn't list seals. Have seals on my enduro bike but assume those bearings take much more of a hammering vs a fine weather road bike.
 
hillsy said:
Go with sealed bearings. It's "new" technology and they'll outlast your bike.

Planned to anyway. My bearing place has a good selection of Nachi etc at great pricing. Pop the lip and pack a bit more high quality grease in there and they last ages.
 
Tore into the forks the last couple of nights, could not for the life of me get the bottom 6mm hex head bolt out :(

In the end managed to persuade the missus to let me have a go on my christmas present early, only if I promised to use it this one time, then put it away. Yellow thing in the front:

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Wow these things are good. 1 leg bearly sniffed resistance, the other took a fair hammering but gave up in the end.

Now need to get my fork legs rolled as they are slightly bent at the lower triple clamp.
 
More to report from this evenings endeavors. This bike was always going to have knee cut outs, I love the look but didn't have the budget to buy one of Benjie's tanks.

Why should I when I got a perfectly good tank with the bike? It needed a clean out as I could hear crap rattling around in it, well one more reason to get the grinder out.

Here's the pieces:

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Cut the tank back to the frame on the rear with sweeping lines out about half way:

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Struggled to visualize what the end result would look like so after some extra trimming I mocked it up with some paper:

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When I was looking at it I quite liked the contours of the bottom following the tunnel, but not too sure now I am looking at the pictures. Easy fix either way, can fab up an overhang when I weld in a new piece if required.

1 issue I didn't think about, I have cut out the drain for the petcock. Not the end of the world as I do prefer the look, what options do I have for fuel? I was thinking of running 2 copper lines from the front of the tank, flush with the bottom of the tank, 1 with a reserve pipe, 1 without and a remote tap near the rear of the tank for each. What's peoples thoughts?

Here's some pics:

28fd7939.jpg


The old tap placement:

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Also I have a air tool coming that accepts sandpaper and grinder bits. What's the best attachment for tidying up the sharp edges on the tank?
 
neevo said:
More to report from this evenings endeavors. This bike was always going to have knee cut outs, I love the look but didn't have the budget to buy one of Benjie's tanks.

Why should I when I got a perfectly good tank with the bike? It needed a clean out as I could hear crap rattling around in it, well one more reason to get the grinder out.

Here's the pieces:

cd159108.jpg


Cut the tank back to the frame on the rear with sweeping lines out about half way:

17bde4ea.jpg


0ae33f69.jpg


Struggled to visualize what the end result would look like so after some extra trimming I mocked it up with some paper:

6105c20c.jpg


d28f2ecd.jpg


3d9b0f6c.jpg


When I was looking at it I quite liked the contours of the bottom following the tunnel, but not too sure now I am looking at the pictures. Easy fix either way, can fab up an overhang when I weld in a new piece if required.

1 issue I didn't think about, I have cut out the drain for the petcock. Not the end of the world as I do prefer the look, what options do I have for fuel? I was thinking of running 2 copper lines from the front of the tank, flush with the bottom of the tank, 1 with a reserve pipe, 1 without and a remote tap near the rear of the tank for each. What's peoples thoughts?

Here's some pics:

28fd7939.jpg


The old tap placement:

0fb7bfe9.jpg


Also I have a air tool coming that accepts sandpaper and grinder bits. What's the best attachment for tidying up the sharp edges on the tank?

Following this one neevo as that was the only bike I ever bought new in my life !

Sweet machine and well ahead of it's time. When I got the bug again, I realised that my increasing bulk in the intervening years would not be fair on the little chap - so with 7000 miles on the clock I passed it on to a friend and went for bigger things [ capacity wise ].

A couple of things from reading your thread through - the "kink" in the rear fork tube IS meant to be there ! Personally I use a linishing disc for thin "tin".

I too have had to go down the DIY route with the tank for my Yamaha TR1. Not because of cost [ well an alloy one WAS out of the question at £500 ! ], but lack af a suitable alternate.

Pacomotors in the US has made one using a Duke [ ?? ] outer shell, but I was looking for an AJS 7R 6 gallon style - the so called "TT" tank.

The tunnel on the stock Yam is HUGE, so I decided to make an outer shell only as a dummy to cover the stock tank. I'm also building 3 replicas for friends, so we needed to be able to duplicate the tank easilly.

I went down exactly the same route as you with the paper / card plant ons to guage the effect. Yours looks the biz BTW. One thing I found helpful was to make the card plant ons the same colour as the tank - gives you a better impression of the finished article.

That's my task for the next few days - fettling the tank shape, before final surfacing ready for the moulds to be taken.

Keep the pix coming, this will be one sweet machine.
 
Thanks beachcomber! Good to know about the kink in the rear frame support. Did some mockups and worked out its a 7 degree bend, just seeing if anyone here in Sydney can bend me a bit of 1" 16g to replace that section. At the same time seeing if they can do the rear hoop.

Good idea re the colored paper, might pop out and get some black stiff card on the weekend so I can mock it up properly and also create some templates.

Any idea what gauge steel the tank uses?
 
The tanks vary in material thickness - personally I'd go for a gauge up on the stocker so the implant keeps the shape better.

Also - re: cutting and splicing damaged tubes. Been doing that for YEARS with our racing replica Cobras ! Make a good fitting spigot to go inside the the tube after you've cut the bad bit out and simply splice in a new piece of tube. More work afterwards in fettling but simple, effective and safe. Of course if you can get someone to bend the relevant pieces that's better. Maybe blackberry a damaged frame? [ front end ].

Can't wait to see progress on this little chap.

Before and nearly after on my TR1 tank ! Still work to do - remove material at bottom edgs of tank [ too deep at the moment ] and radius off the edges on the top of the tank to the rear. A bit of surfacing - primer / filler - and then final prep for moulds to be taken. I'm fitting a 2 1/2" brass Monza filler cap and a Manx style tank strap.

BTW - I did take my own advice and we fitted Blue plant ons before the first mock up!

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Sooooooo, my quest for carbs is a bit off track at the moment and without a kickstarter doing a run test or checking compression was going to be tough. So I did the newbie thing and removed the motor from the bike:

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Cardinal sin #2 I thought I would go a bit further:

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Issue #1, it looks like something has got caught in the cam guide, it has wedged itself in there and taken a strip out of the cam itself:

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Anyone got some thoughts on how and if I should get this fixed? It looks like it has taken enough material out that it's no longer cutting material out, and the cam has enough guide on the end to run on. Would like to fix properly if required though.

Went further and split the cases:

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Crank bearings look good with a few tiny rub marks, is this something to worry about or not?

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Gearbox is immaculate:

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As is primary drive and chain:

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Crank seems fine too, how do you tell if cam chain needs replacing, or should I just do it anyway with the sliders?

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Lastly the cases are absolutely filthy, thinking of giving these to a pro to clean up, any thoughts? What would they do to clean them up, what needs to be done afterwards (paint or leave stripped)?

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Thought I would have one last go at the bike before I cleaned up the garage. Cut off the side stand and centre stand brackets.

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The side stand had split the frame rail, not sure why as the tube wasn't rotted out at all. I think it may have taken a whack with a forklift like the rear frame upright.

Cleaned up and ready to be welded back on. It's got a bit of a link in it too that will need to be hit out of it before its mounted:

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Honestly man, and I don't mean to be a downer, but the head and cam are toast. They will never wear right after that amount of damage. The crank bearings need replaced as well. They are pretty worn out of spec. I have a cam that you can have once I get it completely pulled that is stock from a spare motor in good shape if you pay the shipping from the US. I would keep an eye out for a "new" head on Ebay. The cam chain....replace it while you have it down that far. Get a DID or a Tsubaki HD replacement and keep the peace of mind. Pay special attention to the cam tensioner horseshoe and make sure it isn't worn and that it moves freely. Also pull the cam tensioner bolt out of the front of the motor and replace it with a solid sized bolt and lock nut instead of the step down bolt that is factory. They will break eventually, trust me. I would replace the cam tensioner with one of these while it's apart if I were you with one of these. They are bronze bushed and MUCH higher quality than the cast, seizure prone original:

http://www.phildentonengineering.com/product.asp?pid=490

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the head is going to be the worst of your problems, but they are obtainable and will guarantee you keep on running with no worries later. It could have been an oil starvation issue to the head, so make sure all of the oil galleries are clean, clean the crap out of the oil pickup screen and tube in the sump, and rebuild your oil pump with new oil rings. Get an oil seal kit and replace all of those while you're in there. You're doing the right thing by doing a complete rebuild. You'll be much happier when you do all of this, I promise you.
 
Thanks Kanticoy, definitely take that cam off you, very generous, thanks!

Will have more bike allowance in Jan if you don't mind waiting till then.

Planned on replacing the chain, sliders so good to hear that's the right move. Crank bearings are relatively cheap too so good to know I should pull them out too. Any tips on getting them out?

2 fell out but the rest are in there pretty tight.
 
neevo said:
So I did the newbie thing and removed the motor from the bike:

In the event - not neccessarily a newbie thing !!

IF I intend to pull a motor down in a new to me bike, I don't see any point in running it first. Had you run the motor and been tempted to rev it a little - who knows what additional damage may have been done?

I agree with Kanticoy - oil starvation looks a likely candidate for the cam issues.
 
Bummer about the cam journal, but at least you found it before hand... and yes, I would start looking for a head as well as taking Kanticoy up on his generous offer for the cam.
 
Might look to see if I can get a custom journal made up for it, 2nd hand heads are pretty thin on the ground and not guaranteed issue free.

Kanticoy, definitely interested in that cam :)
 
neevo said:
2nd hand heads are pretty thin on the ground and not guaranteed issue free.

I've always wondered if the 500/550 heads would fit these bikes? I know you can swap the DOHC 750/900 heads with a little work, so maybe the SOHC form-factors are similar enough as well? Lots more 500/550 parts around.

ian
 
Unfortunately no bikeboy. The profile on the 350f and 400f are totally different. The mating surfaces are completely different. A 350f head will work but its a bit of a downgrade because of the valve profile. I know they suck to find used heads, I've looked for them. Pretty much your option as it stands is to replace the head with another one, or machine out the cam journals to accept a needle bearing that fits over the cam and seats into the head. Sean and roc city did that with a cb360 head. Either way would fix it, just different avenues. I'll hold on to the cam for ya man.
 
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