On the road again at 40.............the bike that is..........PART DEUX

Thanks Bob, I appreciate your kind words. It was a fun challenge but I'm glad this project is done. Could have had this bikes mechanicals sorted and all the polishing done and back on the road in the time it took, but then what would I have done next year?

Still not totally sold on it, but I'll probably run one of them and see how it goes. I can't see any other mounting options for an analog gauge.

Robin that analog gauge is looking quite appropriate up there in front. You really put out the extra effort , Cheers on that ! Now I just gotta ask, Arent there any nice gauge buckets way over there in Canadia Lol ? I wish I could airdrop you parts care packages sometimes.. Sure is fun to watch your projects. Thx, -RT

Hi All: I was in RobinCs garage on Tuesday and he really has done a fine job with a great of optimization to arrive at a very slick installation.

Well done Robin - really nice work (and those high tech spray booths....yeah!).

Pete

PS - I had to make another quick trip to London today because my rear tire was installed backwards (wrong rotation direction). Oh well, nice day for a freeway blast on the ST.

Thanks TM.

TimeMachine said:

Arent there any nice gauge buckets way over there in Canadia Lol ?

Click to expand...

Always look whenever I'm at a swap meet. Haven't had any luck finding anything better yet, although very few parts are ever offered for these bikes.

I think they may have been redone by a PO already and that finish is deteriorating. Not sure, but the finish on my 77 gauge buckets is a matte/satin finish while these ones are more semi gloss/gloss. Maybe Yamaha finished the 78's with more of a gloss finish? Don't know and haven't come across another one yet to compare.

Thanks Pete.

Boy this has been quite the tiring process for you.........sorry.......lol.

Its OK - the dealer felt so badly about the extra trips to London and lost time (mine) that they cut me A HECK of a deal on a brake job for the ST.

That thing has linked (front & rear) ABS brakes and so doing the brakes on it is not all that simple (there is probably 100 ft. of brakes lines on the bike plus several quite complex valves, an ABS pump, well as wheel sensors and on-board men's and lady's rest rooms). When I was doing the wheels, I noted that my brakes were close to totally shot - so they needed fixing and now I don't have to worry about that task and returned to my beloved....<sort of>....Lucille.

Nice!
Good on them for taking care of you.

MaxPete said:

Its OK - the dealer felt so badly about the extra trips to London and lost time (mine) that they cut me A HECK of a deal on a brake job for the ST.

That thing has linked (front & rear) ABS brakes and so doing the brakes on it is not all that simple (there is probably 100 ft. of brakes lines on the bike plus several quite complex valves, an ABS pump, well as wheel sensors and on-board men's and lady's rest rooms). When I was doing the wheels, I noted that my brakes were close to totally shot - so they needed fixing and now I don't have to worry about that task and returned to my beloved....<sort of>....Lucille.

Click to expand...

You're falling out of love with Lucille ??

Nooooo.....just a normal tiff between partners. She is cranky and doesn't want to...you know, go - and I do.

We'll get there.

I'm new here so forgive me for not finding finding this thread sooner. You do good work Robin. I look forward to seeing and reading more. Seems we have the same passion (along with most others here)... taking a sad looking old girl and making her young again.

Thank you Jim, I appreciate that. Yes it is labour of love isn't it? One of those projects we can enjoy without "being on the clock".

I have enjoyed watching your exploits, and appreciate the high quality of work that you do. You have some serious chops.
You may be new here but have already made some very significant contributions. Thank you.

I look forward to your future updates.

Be well.

Probably the last project of the year on this old girl.

I figured what the heck since I had done all this work to make those plate VM mounts I'd install one of them.
I really wanted to wrap this up this year. Took it apart again so I could refinish those gauge buckets.



I have stripped and refinished lots of furniture over the years so no stranger to using paint stripper.
This was the first time I have used Aircraft Paint Stripper. Man, that stuff works fast.



So then here's what we had.




Sanded, acetone wash.
Then some Bondo on the dings and dents. Sand, primer, wet sand, glaze and spot putty, more primer, wet sanded, etc.
Guess I didn't get any didn't get any pics of this but you guys know what Bondo and primer look like.

Sprayed with Dupli-Color gloss black.



And then temperatures dropped dang, so I figured they'd have to wait till spring for clear coat. I would have done them in the basement, I love the smell of paint but my wife not so much.

Last Sunday we had a warm up. Ambient temperature was 60° which was still too cold but did a mod to my high tech paint booth.
Version 2 - the ‘Easy Bake’ paint booth. Raised temps in the booth to 76°.
Good enough.



Tracked down some SprayMax 2K, gloss clear coat at a local auto body materials supplier. I know Yamadudexs650C has used this successfully and highly recommends it. Now I do too....lol.



Link: http://www.spraymax.com/en/products/product/clear-coats-and-spot-blender/2k-clear-coat/
Note: wear a good respirator mask, there is some nasty stuff in there.

It really is a nice product to use. Really covers and builds nicely with insignificant orange peel.

Put everything back together, jumpered a remote battery…..huh.
Don't you hate it when you put things back together without testing everything first?
Now for the second rhetorical question of the day.
What are the chances that both speedo light bulbs would be burned out?

Took it apart again and replaced ALL the bulbs in both gauges with DanielBlack’s favorite little LED’s. Except for the High Beam lamp that is. It would appear Mama Yama designed the wattage reading tolerances on those RLU’s pretty tight. With an LED bulb the high beam lamp stays on dim all the time, and goes to full intensity when the high beam is on. Actually had similar findings on my 77. With LED’s the Headlight Warning light stays on all the time and the Brake Warning light stays on dim all the time and then goes to full intensity when brakes are applied.
Seems we have to keep the full 3.4W loads of these bulbs. Or remove and jumper the Reserve Lighting Unit I guess.

So, we went from this…….



To this…….





Couldn't finish this without some shiny new nuts. Stainless of course.



I love this Spraymax product and will use it on the tank and tins next year for sure.

Before I put a blanket over her for the winter I just had to let her talk to me one more time. Put in the battery from my other bike.
That old trolling motor battery just won't spin the starter anymore and my kickin' days are hopefully over.
Haven't replaced the missing starter top hat button yet so I pulled out what WER calls my ‘anti theft device’, and started her up one last time for the year.





Until next year………..

Wow, Robin! They came out beautiful! I love your paint booth, what a smart idea. Something else I have done on cool days is to warm aerosol spray cans themselves by filling a small plastic tub with hot water and setting the cans about halfway up in it. It brings the paint itself up to a nice warm temp.
I have never heard of Spraymax products, I'll have to look into them.
Great job!

Those look great, Robin!

Thanks Bob. Yes, that's a good idea. I have also just used a hot air gun on low to warm up rattle can paints.
I am really impressed with this product. Available at the Napa parts stores that sell auto body supplies as well as specialty auto body supply shops.

Nice product to work with I can't wait to use it again.

Thanks Daniel.

Nice spray work, Robin !

And the stainless nuts (I'll forgo the obvious joke) are to die for.

And to emphasize an important point, SprayMax 2K contains isocyanates, that is, cyanide. Deadly, literally. One should investigate the appropriate mask at the original website, and dont rely on other sources. Safety data sheets here:

http://www.spraymax.com/en/products/product/clear-coats-and-spot-blender/2k-clear-coat/

oops ! you already gave us that link !

Thanks 'Dude. Good additional info here. Thank you. Fortunately I had read all the Material and Safety data sheets prior to use after reading the can labels. Great product but be careful.

I guess that's why it's labelled 'For Professional Use Only'.

Results look great, but I'll second the above statement.

The ONLY safe way to paint with ANY isocyanates is with a positive pressure mask, in a downdraft booth or outside. NEVER inside unless you have a makeshift downdraft/backdraft booth (I've used one of these before, just like a fume extractor, but it's tough to get the right amount of flow to keep you safe without ruining the paint). If you MUST paint without one, then so yourself a favor and get upstream of the product. Those molecules will get into your lymphatic system and wreak PERMANENT havoc. It's colorless, tasteless and odorless, so you'd never know if you were exposed to it (acutely) until you had symptoms.

All the good products are ALWAYS so bad for you. This is why I like to use tractor and Tractor and Implement paint with a brush. You get all the effects of a catalyzed paint without the aerosolized catalysts. I did the front differential on my Blazer with that and its up there with powdercoat toughness.

I do love the spraymax products, but there are just tons of risks to using one.

Your spray booth is a cool idea, but allow me to offer up my method for minimizing the concentration of particulates one could possibly breathe in due to mask leakage:
Spray outdoors. Pick a moderately warm day, moderate humidity, and a slight breeze. Try to stand upwind of the spray. The breeze will carry most of the particles away.

It appears that Wannabridin and I were typing at the same time !