Electrical work Pt. 1

My favorite! 

Seriously. I have a degree in electrical engineering. I eat, drink, and breath electrical work.

The Tusk wiring harness I ordered last week finally came in today. Now, this is not a plug-and-play deal. The bike is currently running on strictly AC voltage straight off the stator, including the headlight and taillight (back when they existed, probably well before my FIL bought it).

In order to figure out how to run the new harness, I needed to remove the existing wiring to see exactly what stays and what goes. 

Here is the original bike harness in it's entirety: 

Keep in mind that includes the CDI and coil, which are going back on the bike in order to, well, run.

Here is the new Tusk lighting harness:

After checking over the bike's original wiring diagram, I was able to remove all of the unneeded wiring used for lighting from the original harness and temporarily install the Tusk harness to rough out where everything is going to go. Unfortunately I don't have any pics, but it's fairly unremarkable as it's hidden from view anyway. 

As for function check, that will likely be done once I trace the wiring. The supplied diagram from Tusk isn't totally useful, nor does it explain why the brake/tail light connector has two grounds and one positive when my new taillight has one ground and two positive inputs... Oh well, not a huge deal, I'll figure that one out.

Speaking of taillight, check this out: 

That is an R6 taillight with integrated turn signals. I originally had it installed on my Metropolitan, but wasn't a fan of how it looked on that bike. This works out better.

Next up: Handlebars, clutch lever repair, and maybe even a test ride!

IT LIVES!!

She's alive! 

I reassembled the carb (with all the old seals), reinstalled it into the bike, shot some starting fluid into the intake, and kicked it over a couple times... Fired right up.

After that initial endorphin rush, I got a wild hair up my butt and installed the gas tank full of 16 year old fuel, and with some more starting fluid sprayed into the intake, it fired up and actually ran on the old gas. Progress!

Next up, getting it rideable! Handlebars, front/rear tires, front rim, and the clutch lever assembly (whole thing)...

Carb problems

So when we pulled this out of my FIL's shed, he told me why it wrecked and why he parked it: he was riding it around, the throttle stuck wide open causing uncontrolled acceleration, so he tried to pull it up into a wheelie and jumped off the back, letting it crash itself.

I pulled apart the carb earlier and found almost immediately that the slide itself would get good and stuck in the bore at wide open throttle position. Somehow I managed to get the slide out, but not without worrying if I was ever gonna get it back together again. 

Let's check out the carb. It's a Keihin "PD11A", and I can't find a lick of info about it online 🫤

This is the slide bore:

Note the "polished" areas inside and around the top edge - these are high spots that prevented the slide from being able to move up and down freely.

Here is the slide itself:

I was able to sand down the high spots inside the bore with 220 and 400 grit sandpaper (wet sand + dry sand on both grits) and give the slide itself a nice finish. It now moves freely in and out of the bore without sticking at all. Now I just need to find a rebuild kit... Wish me luck.

It's 2024, why are we still blogging?

You may be wondering what this is and why it looks like 2007 is back in style... I'm old school, and this blog is honestly more for me than anything else. Plus, this is how we documented the VW restoration, and I reference it quite often to show friends and coworkers.

Anyway, back to work sleep...

And so it begins...

Nearly 20 years ago, me, my parents, and my siblings embarked on a journey to restore a classic 1963 VW Bug. I learned a lot about the restoration process, and that car really boosted my interest in anything that had an engine.

Long story short, today, May 4, 2024, we brought home my FIL's 1980 Honda XR500 motorcycle. It's a 500cc "thumper" competition dirt bike that has sat for 16 years in the back of a shed. It's in pretty rough shape, and may need a new carburetor to even get it started. But we'll get into that later.

For now, here it is in all its busted-up glory:

 

We had to get creative in order to get it home. Here we have it stuffed into the back of the family minivan: