Just Say No

My Gen Y son tells me I should have Kijiji app on my phone, since I can upload pics from phone to a Kijiji ad, etc.
I do that and check my favourite section of the used motorcycles ads and see that its range is now from St. John's to Victoria. On my laptop I had a radius of maybe 110 k.
So I am gazing in wonderment at those hopefuls across the land who have listed hard tail choppers for $5000.00 and up, the guys that have their retail red hinge seat Specials listed at $3,500.00 ........ and the guy who listed a 76 daily runner in good condition with a bunch of decent spares for $1500.00, an hour's drive away. And the ad is 5 weeks old and bike still available.
I have sworn off any more purchases, especially since the 77D I got 2 or 3 weeks ago was supposed to be the last, but in a moment of weakness, I went and got the UVIP from Service Ontario and all is well.
I am going to continue to tell myself that the price is high retail even though it is a Standard and I do not need it, ........

I relapsed and went to buy it. Seller showed it one kick start, all stock appearing and proper improvements made. Pictures to follow in good time.

Plenty of wind left in your sails?

They should put you on the cover of "Retirement magazine".

Spare bedroom????????.................For you i mean not the bike

Well here it is. This morning, rolled it out of the van and 1 kick fired it up to a contented idle and to the amazement of the two young landscapers I borrowed from the neighbour to help get it out.
As an aside, once in a while one has to be heartened by some youth one meets. These guys would have been 25 + or - and once they saw what had to be done, one said, here let me get in there and loosen it off - you guide it down the ramp.
It went into gear easily, clutch works fine, rear brake feels like stone, front brake fine, tires are current date. Pamco and PMA with a battery, stock carbs, cone shaped air cleaners which I will replace with stock air boxes. Although I have a nice 35 mm front end for it, I will stick with the existing 34 mm for now after I put the legs back down to the top of the chrome tree. Rear luggage carrier is off already, I will move the signals back where they belong, torn between using one of my french red tanks and side covers or my 75 set of tins, will put the puffy seat aside for now and use one of my more stock appearing ones. To my eye, the mufflers are too short, so I will bolt on a set of stockish ones. Present tank and side panels are in good shape, but just as a matter of personal style I am not going to display foreign characters that some guy tells me just means Yamaha. Looks like a decal, so may soften them up with a bit of heat and maybe do a tasteful vinyl stripe. Lots more checking of various systems to do, but I am a willing worker.
I spent the day going through the parts that came with it - lots of good stuff.

For the historians, the bike has matching numbers 447 2101xx, the later cases - 447 0027xx, the early case is an e start #S650 2161xx, with crank and cam, both spare motors have matched head and covers.
The red on the motor in the pics is paint, not rust.

Nice find! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

Quite a score. Now I understand the temptation...

What are you bringing to XS Southeast? (Not that it matters)

yeah a nice collection, some rather tasty bits here and there! Any idea of the language meaning of the lettering?

The lettering was said to say YA MA HA, but now it is moot as a bit of heat and WD40 has resolved the issue. The paint is quite nice, almost a match for the 76 French red which I expect was the plan. I may use that tank on the 77 bitsa as it needs some shiny stuff.
Hanging on the fence behind you can see the survivor tank which will probably get the nod, Some po has coated the inside with some silver paint like material, so a rinse out and gas filters will be installed before use. I may well keep the black 75 side covers on it, I think it balances the colours better, and I have a new grab handle and the longer stock exhausts to use, they are 75 and I think they changed in 76, the alternative is a new Mike's Commando set I have been saving, don't know if this bike is the one for them - replacement cost even for the repop in CDN$ has about doubled since I bought them.
It also came with a set of Mike's slider carbs, in a box, po said they worked well on the bike but it took about 4 or 5 kicks to start and with no estart, he went back to stock. I have read most of the threads on these, but I may bolt them on the bitsa just for the experience.
I hope to check all the clearances today; twice after shutting off, it has had a sort of exhalation of air within about 30 seconds so I have to see whats going on with that.

Up date on the red hammer (named after the place I bought it) and a shout out to member Shenanigans who sold me the direction lights I used on this. I installed the repop grab bar which had to be adjusted in at least 4 dimensions it seemed to get it to fit on, but success, then on went the shiny direction lights. Then I as took out the back wheel to address the poor braking I banged my head on the direction lights a few times.
Left over from my Harley hop up days were a pair of White Bros E type slip ons which initially appeared to be all wrong for this use, but I turned them sideways and made a bracket and think they look good.

Looking good lakeview! Wonder how they'll sound?

Reminds me of the SuperTrapp I had on my TT350...nice!

OK, back from the XSSE and again working on the (76) red hammer. The idea was to pull off the rear wheel to check out the brake and in the process removed enough stuff to see that the solid state regulator was zip tied to the bike and the wiring of it was a bit dodgy. (Bike came with a PMA, Pamco and electronic reg/rec). Luckily, the po had left the installation instructions with the spare parts and I saw that the recommended 20Amp fuse was not put in line.
Recalling that one of the more experienced denizens of this forum had suggested taking advantage of the rubber mounting of the battery box to protect solid state to a certain extent, I drilled out the semi-hole left from the old regulator to 3/8th and mounted a piece of steel strap to the bottom with holes in each end to mount the regulator. I had to cut stand offs from tubing to clearance the back of the heat sink from the bottom of the mounting bolt. Here it is:


In the middle picture you can see that the rectifier has been mounted with double length bolts. Took them off and threaded a nut on to the correct length and cut them to size, using the nut to refresh the threads. So now, back to freeing up the rear brake pivot and reinstalling same. Then check all the clearances and fire it up.

After a couple months of tidying up and changing a few things, I filled up the carbs and again it was a second kick start. The repurposed White Bros Super Traps sounded quite mellow, of course they were handling less than half the exhaust gas of their previous assignment on the Road Glide. Turns out there is more work to be done, so I am starting fresh in the Garage.

Red Hammer Runs!
Before I started on the wiring, I put the test tank on, filled the carbs, second kick, starts up and runs really nice. Doing the work one new job at a time so the base line is only one step away.
I think the White Bros E types off my Road Glide 8 years ago sound fine.