What did you do to your bike today?
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2014 12:12 am
I've seen variations of this thread on many sites, and it's a fun one, so I thought I'd give it a try here. I'll go first!
My black '80 has had charging system issues for a year, first the stock alternator croaked on the way home from the last MotoGP race at Laguna, so I repaired it, then replaced it with one of J.R.'s units, then I discovered it was overcharging the battery, which lead to a spate of half-hearted troubleshooting while the uprated alternator fried my battery. So this week I got down to business:
Replaced the main wiring harness with one of FallDownPhil's excellent repro harnesses:
NICE part, all the connectors and wire colors are correct, but it's made of modern materials, fits great, spotlessly clean. For the record the problem was NOT J.R.s excellent alternator, it was my crappy old wiring harness that had been poorly repaired, by me.
Replaced the fried DieHard battery with a BigCrank battery for a GL1500, which fit nearly perfectly with the addition of a wee bit of foam.
Lubed the choke cable to address a sticky choke return
Replaced the side stand with a straighter unit
Fixed a balky horn that needed adjustment (Thanks Aris)
Replaced the left-side exhaust heat shield from my Delkevic exhaust, as the screw worked loose and that in turn popped the spot welds to the clamp.
Had it re-spot welded and shortened a screw to fit, locktighted it in there this time.
Adjusted the fit of the chain guard.
Replaced the oil sump gasket and oil pump pickup screen.
No more oil leak from the sump! Screen was surprisingly clean. Bonus! (Thanks for the millionth time Dave)
Wired in a relay to power the coils directly.
This was easier than I expected and satisfying, and sure enough, I was seeing in excess of 12V at the coils once it was done. Can only help, in many ways. (Thanks for the encouragement Tony)
Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned.
It looks great again, had been a while since it had been shined up.
FIRED THE EVIL BEAST UP (best part of all) and it sparked up and ran perfectly, and mo bettah, the alternator was correctly charging the battery, minus my funky messed up old wiring harness, and all the lights, and turn signals and whatnot worked perfectly right off the bat.
Tonight it is getting its new battery topped off, and tomorrow we are going for a spin, and assuming all is well, I get to tear into my BMW and fix it's antilock brake pump next.
How about you? What did you do to your bike today?
My black '80 has had charging system issues for a year, first the stock alternator croaked on the way home from the last MotoGP race at Laguna, so I repaired it, then replaced it with one of J.R.'s units, then I discovered it was overcharging the battery, which lead to a spate of half-hearted troubleshooting while the uprated alternator fried my battery. So this week I got down to business:
Replaced the main wiring harness with one of FallDownPhil's excellent repro harnesses:
NICE part, all the connectors and wire colors are correct, but it's made of modern materials, fits great, spotlessly clean. For the record the problem was NOT J.R.s excellent alternator, it was my crappy old wiring harness that had been poorly repaired, by me.
Replaced the fried DieHard battery with a BigCrank battery for a GL1500, which fit nearly perfectly with the addition of a wee bit of foam.
Lubed the choke cable to address a sticky choke return
Replaced the side stand with a straighter unit
Fixed a balky horn that needed adjustment (Thanks Aris)
Replaced the left-side exhaust heat shield from my Delkevic exhaust, as the screw worked loose and that in turn popped the spot welds to the clamp.
Had it re-spot welded and shortened a screw to fit, locktighted it in there this time.
Adjusted the fit of the chain guard.
Replaced the oil sump gasket and oil pump pickup screen.
No more oil leak from the sump! Screen was surprisingly clean. Bonus! (Thanks for the millionth time Dave)
Wired in a relay to power the coils directly.
This was easier than I expected and satisfying, and sure enough, I was seeing in excess of 12V at the coils once it was done. Can only help, in many ways. (Thanks for the encouragement Tony)
Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned.
It looks great again, had been a while since it had been shined up.
FIRED THE EVIL BEAST UP (best part of all) and it sparked up and ran perfectly, and mo bettah, the alternator was correctly charging the battery, minus my funky messed up old wiring harness, and all the lights, and turn signals and whatnot worked perfectly right off the bat.
Tonight it is getting its new battery topped off, and tomorrow we are going for a spin, and assuming all is well, I get to tear into my BMW and fix it's antilock brake pump next.
How about you? What did you do to your bike today?