"A Bird in the Hand" take 2. DR650 Deadtail Bobber, now with a sidecar

Just keep chipping away at it, bud. Looks great. (Do you have to take that brace off to remove the wheel?). :oops:
 
Just keep chipping away at it, bud. Looks great. (Do you have to take that brace off to remove the wheel?). :oops:
Much thanks fellas.

Yeah Cory, the wheel will fit off still, though now you have to pull the caliper loose to get it off. No big thing, two bolts.
 
Need to actually get back on the final fab on this thing, but I finally got it tilted in my name and a historic tag for it. In Ohio, a historic tag doesn't need renewed for 50 years and it's a one time $30 fee.

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The build goes on slowly but surely. Lots of little things happening, but they don't make for great content on a forum, so I'll just catch up what may be interesting here.

If you remember WAYY back to the beginning of the build, I have put together a "mockup" engine and had another complete engine mothballed in the corner to use in the completed build. That engine had been treated poorly and largely "over sprayed" with blue spray paint at some point in its life. As it turns out and needs a bit more love than I had hoped. I decided to take it clear down to bare cases so that I can send it off to @irk miller for vapor honing. When doing so, I also found that the head was less than healthy and the nikasil bore was flaking, which explains the pre tear down compression of 50 p.s.i. Good news is the bottom end looks great inside, and my mockup motor has a usable head, and possibly a usable cylinder (i still need to break it down to check). Oh, and check out my fancy clutch holding tool.

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I also picked up a secondhand fcr40mx carb. The fcr39mx that I originally grabbed was a bit worse for wear, and I have read about several people actually having better luck with the 40 anyways. The handle bar switch gear that I'm running is actually 4into1 CB550 repops, and amazingly enough, a stock cb550 cable and throttle tube bold right in and work swimmingly on the FCR carb. I am planning to run a pull only on this bike, though with a little more finagling I could fit the push pull cables if need arises.

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On the note of the handle switch gear, my good friend @ridesolo from just up the road graciously offered to help me out with the wiring harness on this old girl. It will be pretty stripped down, but electrical is still lost on me, so I'm grateful for his help! I will get him the electrical stuff i have and a wish list of sparky bits, and he will start drawing up a harness. Then at some point we will figure out how to socially distance and build a wiring harness.
 
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On the note of the handle switch gear, my good friend @ridesolo from just up the road graciously offered to help me out with the wiring harness on this old girl. It will be pretty stripped down, but electrical is still lost on me, so I'm grateful for his help! I will get him the electrical stuff i have and a wish list of sparky bits, and he will start drawing up a harness. Then at some point we will figure out how to socially distance and build a wiring harness.
Yeah, it's been too long coming, but we'll Git R Done for sure. W/ Mrs Ridesolo scheduled for knee replacements we've been trying to be really careful about being distant from folks.

Thanx to my brother, the "Mad Scientist" I've got a different approach to planning out wiring than the usual eyeball numbing tracing wires on a schematic method. I don't know if it's actually "better" but it's easier for me to wrap my few little, weak, atrophied brain cells around than a schematic. AND because @Hurco550 is somewhat colorblind this method will probably be a little easier for him to troubleshoot as well. We'll see... Maybe it'll turn out that the turn signal switch causes the horn to go beep beep beep and applying the brakes causes the starter motor to turn and the headlight beam switch turns on the neutral light! At least it would all be a theft deterrant.
 
One of my friends is color blind and I numbered the wires for his CB750. Worst case of color blindness I've seen but he still managed to join the Army! I asked him if he cheated on the test! I used the numbering labels used by commercial electricians. I chose the white labels with black numbers as he can differentiate black and white. This is the type I used but there are many variations














I drew a schematic for him with the numbering system for each wire. It is a chopper so very minimal wiring.
 
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I think he uses color blindness as an excuse not to mess with wiring. LOL. The DR370 we bought at Mid-Ohio a few years back was wired with speaker wire. Colors don't matter.
 
I think he uses color blindness as an excuse not to mess with wiring. LOL. The DR370 we bought at Mid-Ohio a few years back was wired with speaker wire. Colors don't matter.
That too! I bought a Honda 750 in Augusta that was wired with extension cords!
 
I passed an XT350 on to @Mr.E a few years back that was also re wired with speaker wire and wire nuts. That was not a good bike lol.

As far as colorblindness, I'm not grayscale colotblind. For example, blue and green do not look the "same" to me, but I couldn't tell you which one is green and one is blue next to each other. Same with red, orange, yellow next to each other. I've been able to muddle though most vjm wiring harnesses and plug "x color with x tracer" into each other.

My excuse for not wiring bikes has far more to do with my idiocracy than colorblindness Haha

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AND because @Hurco550 is somewhat colorblind this method will probably be a little easier for him to troubleshoot as well.

My excuse for not wiring bikes has far more to do with my idiocracy than colorblindness Haha

Yeah... I could just see me. saying, "AND because @Hurco550 is somewhat of an idiot this method..." No, that ain't happinin'. I believe that once we get his feet wet on this one he'll see that it's all pretty straightforward and not all that intimidating. All in all it doesn't really matter who wires it as long as sometime this spring or summer he'll be out terrorizing the back roads of Ohio on his bad ass Thumperer Bobberer!
 
Yeah... I could just see me. saying, "AND because @Hurco550 is somewhat of an idiot this method..." No, that ain't happinin'. I believe that once we get his feet wet on this one he'll see that it's all pretty straightforward and not all that intimidating. All in all it doesn't really matter who wires it as long as sometime this spring or summer he'll be out terrorizing the back roads of Ohio on his bad ass Thumperer Bobberer!
Haha been called pleny worse (I'll omit my usual addition of "by better people")

My new goal date (I mean ive missed about 5 so far, whats one more?) is May 23rd. Thats not real far off, but thats the new date for this years Distinguished Gentlemans Ride. I'd like to be on the bobberer if possible.
 
Haha been called pleny worse (I'll omit my usual addition of "by better people")

My new goal date (I mean ive missed about 5 so far, whats one more?) is May 23rd. Thats not real far off, but thats the new date for this years Distinguished Gentlemans Ride. I'd like to be on the bobberer if possible.
You get this done, I'll get the airhead done.
 
You get this done, I'll get the airhead done.
The airhead will likely have 3 different finished versions by the time I get this done. That said, I'm hoping the cases and a few other bits are headed your way for vapor honing next week.
 
So long story short, i picked up engine #4 for this stinking thing. Drove down to Portsmouth Ohio last Tuesday (3 hrs 1 way) to pick up another DR650 with what i had hoped to be a good cylinder instead of having the first one nikasiled.

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This is what I found when I pulled the head off. OOF... Evidently it sat out with the exhuast off and the valves open.

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once i cleaned up the milkshake, the bore didn't look as bad as I figured it would. There are a few small flakes of nikasil missing where the rings froze to the cylinder, but after running it on the sunnen hone and having a trusted mechanic look at it, I'm going to throw some fresh rings in it and send it. He said he wouldn't sell it to a customer that way, but if it were his bike, he'd run it. Worse case scenario should be a small bit more blow by or ring wear, but "shouldnt" end in any catostrophic way.

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Rings, gaskets and a few other bits ordered and should be here in a week. Im hoping that i can get this thing wired up enough in the stock DR frame to hear the engine run before pulling it out and swapping it into the bobber frame.
 
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Still plugging away as I get a few moments in the shop. It's to the stage that all the little projects get it closer to the end goal, but nothing makes a real gratifying visual change.

@ridesolo is still working out my wiring for me, a feat that I'm more grateful for than I can Express.

I've been racking my brain and subsequently avoiding the issue of how to adapt and plumb the oil cooler. Strangely enough, noone makes a kit to mount a Honda CB400A belly mounted oil cooler to the down tube of a custom framed dr650 bobber. Strange as it seems like a no brainer cash cow of a market... I digress.

I ended up cutting the crimp off of the stock oil cooler engine fittings, and underneath found a simple solution. They lend themselves well to using 3/8" fuel line and a hose clamp underneath.
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From there, I made up a manifold out of a chunk of aluminum. The inlets and outlet are 1/8 27 ntp fittings transitioning to 3/8 fuel like barbs. Someday I still want to have a mill in my garage, but yet it's pretty impressive what a 4 jaw chuck on the lathe can accomplish, with the aid of a drill press and a file.
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Now that that's made a few simple mounts will be fabricated to hold the oil cooler in place.


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