Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Hey, what projects are you planning or preparing for? CBX, other motos, workshop, WHATEVAH!
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NobleHops
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

Well, I am not planning to go into the engine, yet, if I can help it. What I can see through the sump and in the cylinder head and clutch housing looks pretty nominal in terms of wear or signs of overheating, and the cam bearings and journal were decent. And so for now I am going to stay the course - wake it up as gently as I can when we get that far and treat it to a fast oil change after initial run-in, fingers crossed.

You're being undeservedly kind with the engine color. Lacking your own skill and imagination, I repainted the engine a close-to-stock shade of silver, it just looks somewhat like your magnificent silver/grey engine there in the open shade in my photo. But even so, I appreciate the good words!

N.
Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA '80 CBX, sort-of restored :-)

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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by bikeymikey748 »

NobleHops wrote:
Wed May 04, 2022 6:11 pm
Well, I am not planning to go into the engine, yet, if I can help it. What I can see through the sump and in the cylinder head and clutch housing looks pretty nominal in terms of wear or signs of overheating, and the cam bearings and journal were decent. And so for now I am going to stay the course - wake it up as gently as I can when we get that far and treat it to a fast oil change after initial run-in, fingers crossed.
No worries, should be fine, just my anal tendencies getting the better of me once more 😉
NobleHops wrote:
Wed May 04, 2022 6:11 pm
You're being undeservedly kind with the engine color. Lacking your own skill and imagination, I repainted the engine a close-to-stock shade of silver, it just looks somewhat like your magnificent silver/grey engine there in the open shade in my photo. But even so, I appreciate the good words.
“Undeservedly”, ya…I don’t think so. That lump is lookin’ mighty fine 😎
“…skill…”. Ya…I thought we put that conversation to bed awhile back, Nils. I’m a graduate of the ‘by guess and by gos’h school of practical mechanics. YOUR work is always a master class in the way things should be done. Brilliant stuff.

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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

Alrighty, we had another spasm of progress, I'll get as caught up as I can tonight before my chin hits my chest.

Was able to tap out one of the primary shaft restrictors from a hulk engine using a long skinny drift from the other end of the shaft, that drives the ignition. This is 10 x 10 mm and the orifice is about 1mm.

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Tapped it into mine for a snug fit, good to go:

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On to our alternator. Despite the over-oiling, the main components of the alternator were in good shape.

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These slip-ring grooves look worse than they are these would have cleaned up fine.

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This bearing was stuck - did free-up on the bench, but it was well frozen as installed. That carbon dust was gooey, the seal to the wet side was clearly on its last legs,

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This A drive plate is supposed to have about 2mm of shims here - one plastic and the other steel.

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The lack of preload saved this spring, it's well usable at 29.8mm, with the use of the missing shims plus another arbor shim sourced from McMaster Carr. Stock new spring is around 31.4mm.

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Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA '80 CBX, sort-of restored :-)

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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

Here's a little mini tech on the alternator!

https://photos.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/ ... 2-1280.mp4

This got all disassembled and cleaned up and then it was vapor blasted and sent out for polish. On to the starter!
Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA '80 CBX, sort-of restored :-)

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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

The starter would probably have worked OK, but we stock the seal and the orings and have brushes lying around, and that's all they ever usually need, in addition to a clean-out and lubrication. Step 1, skin it and break it down. These caps will get vapor blasted...

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While the permanent magnet and armature will get cleaned up in the heated ultrasonic, which neatly nukes the paint, completely.

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I screwed the end caps together with some SHCSs and taped up the end to keep media out of the needle bearing and vapor blasted it.

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Masked it up for paint...

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Painted it...

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and baked it to speed up the cure.

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Cleaned up the funky commutator with some good metal polish

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Got rid of the polishing residue with some alcohol...

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...and cleaned out the commutator grooves with a sharp pick:

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Reinstalled the brush plate, making sure that this tab made good contact to the starter body, as that's the ground path for the electrical circuit.

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Installed a new seal inside, lubricated the needle bearing, installed new body orings and a sealing oring, and put it back together.

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Touched some jumper cables to the body and post, and it wanted to jump off the bench like a fish on a dock. Success!
Nils Menten
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

OK, polished parts are back, now we can reassemble the alternator.

Fresh from the vapor blaster

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Ya, these drive clutches got HOT.

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...so we'll replace them with a newly ground set from Tom at TrueDisk.net

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Pressed the rotor off the shaft, and cleaned up the rotor and stator in the ultrasonic, and the shaft got a quick tidy-up in the vapor blaster.

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The rotor tested fine at 4 ohms resistance across the slip rings, but I was feeling fussy and decided to use one of our nice rewound ones. Torquing it to the shaft to spec.

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...
Nils Menten
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

The stator also tests fine, but the grommet is super hard and shrunken will not seal the stator area.

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Quick reference to remind myself what goes where on reassembly

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Popped the wires out of the old chipped connector...

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These would have cleaned up, but it's easier to replace the grommet with them off.

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Thread through the new grommet and sheath with a bit of shrink tubing to seal up the sheath...

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Crimp new terminals onto the wire:

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Install in a new connector:

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Shrink both ends...

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and done:

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All the alternator parts are now refurbished, all that remains is a quick reassembly with new bearings, orings, seal and gaskets, into the polished housing.

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Nils Menten
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

One more for tonight: Had these polished crank end caps, but needed to paint the backgrounds. First, mask the area loosely, just get close to the area we need to paint.

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Clean out the background with a swab and some acetone to remove any residual polishing compound.

Grab some handy black spray paint. Give it one medium-heavy coat as shown.

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Not shown - as quickly as the paint flashes, pull the tape off. Now, working kind of quickly, take a thin putty knife or similar and tightly wrap the end with a flat cloth as shown.

Moisten the tip with acetone, and about a minute after the paint has flashed, draw the moistened knife edge across the area, removing the paint from the raised areas. Move the cloth between passes, and re-moisten.

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Tape should have been removed for this photo:

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Make a few passes from both directions till it's 90% perfect. Stop, let it dry. I find it easier to make them perfect when the paint is dry

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Nils Menten
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

We reinstalled the engine!

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Then reassembled the alternator, and installed it, along with the starter and crank end caps, plus a tidied-up battery negative lead.

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Installed the polished clutch cover loosely too, just to keep things clean while I am traveling.

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and that pretty much catches you up!

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Nils Menten
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by heli_madken »

Wow thats looking nice. The alternator and clutch cover look stunning, you have got a really good deep shine to them.

Thanks you for going in to so much detail it makes for fascinating reading.

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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by Syscrush »

The only thing I don't like about these updates is that it makes me kind of sad that I know I'll never have a bike that's been restored by you, Nils. Really nice work - both on the bike and the documentation.

You get amazing results on those end caps! Do you think that this technique is easier or gives better results than just filling the impression using a model paint brush? That was the route I ended up taking when I was doing some Suzuki caps, and despite an utter lack of drawing/painting talent, I was pleased with how they turned out and surprised at how simple and quick it was.


BTW - are you familiar with the work of Gregor Halenda? He's a pro photographer who has also done some very impressive bike, car, and truck builds, plus a very ambitious reno of a midcentury modern home on the west coast. He writes fantastic build threads with very good photography. It was reading this build thread (and some advice he threw in about photography) that made me interested in learning a bit about how to use a camera:

https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/my-9 ... ep.461267/


Also, here's the stuff with his reno and moto garage:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/thr ... er.185104/


There's a bunch of general stuff about his work here:

https://gregorhalenda.com/
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Pics of Perry, my '79.

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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

Gregor is in the extended moto family back East, he raced at NHIS the same years I did. I don’t know him personally.
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by Syscrush »

I don't wanna derail this too much, but might you also know Larry Somma, then?
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

Hey Phil,

Sorry I was a little incomplete in reply. Thank you so much for the kind words as always, I like your work on your bike quite a lot too! Re the painting technique, yes, I think this is far and away and fastest and best way to do this, although it does take a little practice to get a feel for it. We painted these by hand for a while and found it difficult to make the paint thin enough to lay flat and still stick to the edges. This method is pretty even and consistent when it’s dry.

I don’t know Larry - my short but earnest racing career spanned 2000-2001 in New Hampshire. Was he there, then?
Nils Menten
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Re: Another ‘80 - The Bitsa Bike

Post by NobleHops »

OK, on to the electrics. I thought we might be able to install the carbs and upright the engine but we (ahem) found the choke shafts binding a bit and so the rack needs to be split in two at least to see if we (ahem) can sort that out (Thanks again, JoeInTuc!).

I debated trying to resurrect a set of original turnsignals for a long 30 seconds, and I certainly have many donors to do that too, but then I remembered that I don't care if parts of this bike are not original :-). This is an upgraded bike, a super-rider. So we're using these nice reproduction items. The two-wire versions are pretty widely available, but the 3 wire versions that enable the front running lights are not as easily found. So when I was steered to the Ebay seller that had them I bought something like 8 sets, because they shipped from Taiwan.

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Scrounged up the stems front and rear and the nuts...

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These parts are very good, but not perfect reproductions, but I'm still very happy to use them. The one true flaw they have is that there is a flaw in the threading of the inserts. You can gorilla them onto the stems but it's a little bit sketchy. You're better off getting this - a bottoming tap in M14 x 1.5. It's not likely to be in your tap and die kit, I'm afraid.

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We fixed the tap in the vise, started it for a few threads, and then put a few drops of light oil down the stem from inside.

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...and yes, that was necessary:

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It does require pulling the bulb and base out and unthreading the wires, but that's easily done and redone. A few bikes ago, Joe hunted up all the items we needed to fully convert the CBX to LED lighting, and that is a really worthwhile upgrade. Our alternators put out something paltry like 400 watts in perfect working order, and not so many of them are working perfectly. A Dyna consumes 175 watts by itself! Converting the headlight, tail/brake light, and turnsignals conserves something like 70 watts, plus the headlight is quite a lot whiter/brighter, and makes the bike a LOT more visible to others on the road, and not by blinding them either. It is highly noticeable. Joe also found all the lamps for the gauge cluster, and at 3W each there's another 10+ watts to be saved there. Here's the LED in the rear turnsignal, what model it is, and where we get them:

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This is the rear. This came from www.superbrightleds.com

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and this is the front, which is different by way of the always-on running lights.

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These leads are about 4 inches too long, no big deal but being in possession of eleventy-billion replacement bullets and crimping tools, we'll shorten them to the ideal length, slip some sheath on there, seal the end with an inch of shrink tubing and that will make them perfect, done, done and done.

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Not a ton more to catch up on - we need to swap a few connectors on our wiring harness to match up to the stock items, as they don't fit in the frames, that's quick and easy.

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Got some nice new insulators stuck on there, and a set of clamps are chilling in the parts washer where I forgot them yesterday. Joe shamed me into swapping out the chrome bolts on the oil line fittings, and in the background of this photo you can see that he is about to lap me - we installed the engine on his project and the carburetors a couple of times too ;-).

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Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA '80 CBX, sort-of restored :-)

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