My wife feels really good today. She had the sixth of seven projected surgeries as I typed that last post. She will be off her feet until next Wednesday, but she looks and feels great. Breast cancer is a horrible thing. I think one of the reasons I was clocking so much time working—and adding more work on top of it—was just for mental health. Engines have finite space, and as such, finite problems that don’t really extend down to a cellular level. The best Dr. she has had was a man who had the air of a mechanic to me. He spoke my language. He could size up the problems at a glance and knew the methods by routine to address it quickly and thoroughly. He and I made friends.
So I found a new triple tree on eBay and snagged it up. The top plate was split so I got it for a song. I’m fine with that. I have another of those. I wanted the indicator cluster and the stem. As I mentioned before, this bike was backed into at one point. The force was enough to slightly bend the stem inward, enough so that threading on the top nut was dicey. I tried a little of every thing, taking a propane torch to it and heating it to open it back outwards, and then using an external re-threader to open up the flattened threads, but it was unfortunately hopelessly damaged. I have new bearings and will press them on the new stem tomorrow after a clean-up, and reinstall the front end of the bike. If it all goes according to plan, I’d like to have the wiring and controls installed as well. We’ll see.
I’m watching the Clemson game tonight and working on the gauges. I was able to get them open, gently remove the old paint and right now the old faces are primed and I’m getting ready to apply the overlay. It will need new rubber bushings for the lights but that’s an easy get. I’ll post the completed job on those later, or maybe in the morning if it needs more drying time. As you can tell from the pic, they have seen better days.
I did one coat of epoxy-based black on the frame today. I’ve used epoxy paint in a number of applications and I think it is great for a base cover. I took a wire brush to it after soaking any rust in dissolver, cleaned the metal and then went over it. My next step will be to knock off a bit of the shine with a pad and give it a light coat of high-temp paint. The epoxy, once it is cured, is extremely resistant to scratching. You have to be pretty deliberate with it to keep it from streaking. It’s a “apply with confidence” sort of job.
I also soaked both my carbs in the new cleaner. My old cleaner was small and underwhelming. The newer machine is a beast, and it didn’t seem like it would hurt.
I did all this while nursing another v-twin back to life after some pretty careless behavior by the part of the owner. It’s probably in my personal top five in level-of-filth and lack-of-maintenance. Managed to break the left side free and have some compression again. Good old Briggs. I picked up a small tarp which I will deliver with it. Maybe they will get the idea?
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