Hanging out on the patio

Hanging out on the patio.

This morning after I finished up the dishes I headed out and began to work on the bike.

A lead mallet with a liberal application of liquid wrench pulled most everything apart. My shocks have an 11 1/2" eye-to-eye length. I wonder what I have to do to use go-cart shocks on this thing, since I am having a bitch of a time finding anything even remotely similar to what is on this thing now.

It looks like most of the threads on the girder have had a hard life. I have begun to think it may be better for me to find a machinist that can make some of the pieces for me. I don't believe that it should cost too much to machine the stepped bar stock and maybe even thread it for me.

But for now I am keeping it simple. I have a bunch of sandpaper and a little time. So knock off the rust and get it looking presentable, then scrape up some cash to get me a few cans of primer.

And thanks JaySco, I appreciate the help on the ignition stuff. Plus those coffee cans helped out a lot.

Arrrghhh!

Well here it is. Twisted and hammered and generally screwed up. I am not sure if I am brave enough to cut off the whole stud and re-weld a new one. But I am pretty sure that is what is gonna happen.

I could cut it at the shoulder and then drill and tap it. Use a dose of loctite to make sure it wont walk and then go to town. My big fear is that I would make the head of it too weak. But last night I was browsing other sites with girders and this one is pretty damn stout in comparison.

Well I posted this up on the Honda board, hopefully they will have some other ideas.

Another fine mess you got us into.

Yeah I let myself get ahead of my good sense. I pulled the girder apart today to check out all the pieces and inspect the shocks.

All of the nuts came off perfectly, except for one...

Oh boy, guess what? It had an allen to keep the nut from walking. Stupid me went and spun out the threads. Completely destroyed. Damn

Right now I have a post on http://hondachopper.com to see what options I have on this one. So I will post later on what gets decided for this fsck up.

But to the good stuff.

The brakes are in good shape And the front rim is a Kawasaki drum set-up. I wonder what I would need to do, to set it up with disk brakes rather than drums. But maybe later, I have to remember I am going low dollar. Not like I have money to throw at it.

And the bearings are all in good shape and none of the girder pieces(save for my destroyed stud) are messed up. But I have a feeling I will need some new coil-overs for the front. Maybe I should go to a single shock and change the spacer set-up.

And a while ago I tossed out all of my old coffee cans. But I sure could use one now for these bits and pieces.

In the morning I am going to head over with a camera and get a few pics of the girder to post up and hopefully figure out a good repair solution.

No dice at the boneyard.

Yesterday I drove to a Pick-a-Part to see if there was a chance I could find some of the missing pieces for the bike.

I am deeply disappointed to find out that the 750 may be a bit of a relic. Every single bike there was at least 6 years newer than what I have. A lot of late 70's and all the way up to the early 90's. I did find a wild looking Virago that was set up as a trike. I bet that would've been fun to mess with.

I do realize that the late 70's Hondas had the pieces I was looking for, but it seems like I am not alone in the parts hunt.

So after striking out in the bike section I figured that I might be able to find some oddball car pieces to adapt. Nothin'. Damn...

So I left empty handed. Well, mostly. I do have about 5 dollars in fuses.

Homecoming and a little once over

Yep, I brought the bike home. Boy I am feeling pretty good about this too. After the trip to the new resting place, I began the once over. The bike surprisingly complete. I am missing the coils, some relays, and the clutch. As far as the main engine components. I need to replace some of the cables and a lot of nuts and bolts, plus some bushings in the front end. But these are pretty small ticket items considering.

I initially took the side cover off to see why the kick start wouldn't work. Turns out the culprit was just a misaligned kick start gear.(I promise someday I will look up the proper name) And I got it seated and gave it a shove and the engine turned and blew out the plastic bags being used to plug the exhaust ports.

Another small victory. Now I have to prepare a full list of what I have and what I need. So maybe mid-week I will have a small update. A shopping list really.

And I also am going to try and drag the boys back over there next weekend and we will pull the engine out. I am also going to find some flap disks to sand down the frame. Hopefully even give it a coat of primer.

What in the world was I thinking?

Look at the kidney beating goodness.

On Dec. 8th I emailed my local freecycle group to take a long shot at getting an old beat up motorcycle. I figured that if I picked up an old backyard stray I could spend money when I had it and let it sit when I was broke. Then over a few weeks/months/years have myself a running bike. Ugly as sin, but paid for and running.

To my surprise I wound up recieving an email from a gentleman that had a Honda chopper. Now this I had to see. I remember those old choppers from when I was a kid. And I have wanted something like it (Japanese, British or American) for many years.

I do wonder if I have the wherewithal to finish this project. And of course money is an object for me. An elusive object. So my plans are to build a low to no buck chopper from what I have here.

There is going to be some obvious new purchases of course. No way would I consider running those old tires or keep that rusty chain. But my ultimate goal is to have this running with as small of a financial investment as possible.

My own rat bike.