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Bike is now running and starting with the electric start, neither of which was functional when I got it. The original wiring harness was butchered with no switch and quite a few dangling wires. I scrapped it and have built my own simpler harness that uses a keyed automotive type switch with a momentary starter switch(that I mounted in the right side cover, Brit style). I have yet to wire in the charging system but so far, so good.
I have pulled the rotor off 3 times so far to attend to the starter clutch as the plungers were stuck in their holes and one re-stuck after cleaning, polishing and reassembly. I figure one more stuck plunger and I will have to spring for new rebuild parts....sigh.
Yeah it is, I'd be making sure those clamps stay tight as the bottom fork clamp does all the weight holding pretty much. If they slip that top clamp just might snap instead of holding them.
Uh oh, trouble in paradise. The engine is running only on one cylinder and compression is way down on the offending cylinder. I will investigate further tonight.
Hope you kept those early 70s K&N/Flanders type chopper bars from the first pic... they make pretty decent trading stock if nothing else.
That type of headlight mount was really common in the 70s. They work fine, you just need a couple larger outside diameter washers and a dab per bolt of loctite.
The 450 is back among the living. The loss of compression was due to my faulty valve adjustment. Armed with a much better understanding of the procedure I readjusted all the valves and then the compression came back and she fired right up on TWO cylinders. Good times.
I have pulled the rotor off 3 times so far to attend to the starter clutch as the plungers were stuck in their holes and one re-stuck after cleaning, polishing and reassembly. I figure one more stuck plunger and I will have to spring for new rebuild parts....sigh.
The hose is that long because it's what I had. In the final rendition it will get an appropriate length braided line. I'm using Unifilter foam clamp on filters. Those bars are Norman Hyde "M" bars.
I added some OOS (Old Old Stock) aftermarket shocks that still have damping and are sprung close to right. No doubt they are of top quality since I did see "Made in Mexico" on the shock body when I stripped them...lol.
If you look at this thing from just the right angle, with the right kind of eyes and squint, it looks almost pretty good...lol. To me it's crying out for a set of chrome Triumph style TT pipes that exit under the engine.
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