IMHO I would consider doing a tank sealer even if it was just an inch or two deep on the bottom. Mainly want to get the inside crease of the seams, that's where any water sat, maybe for decades. I always get fearful when I see paint pops. But i live in the great white north and know what that usually means. moisture (or fuel) is coming through rust perforated metal. I've seen and experienced a lot of rotted tanks.
 
Hey guys!
So this weekend I worked on pulling controls off of the handlebars and pulling off the headlight bucket. I want to completely go through the controls and clean everything up and check all the wiring.
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Can you believe how clean this 46 year old wiring is? I haven’t touched it.
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I then started disassembly of the tachometer and speedometer so I could replace the roached gauge faces with replacements I have ordered from Diablo / Reproduction decals.
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I sacrificed one of my little screwdrivers to make a tool that could peel that rolled metal lip up on the bezel.
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Once you create a little space around the lip, I switched to a paint can opener that had the same shape and worked my way around slowly prying open the lip.
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Now the bezel and glass can come off. Also the thin metal shadow ring can be carefully pried off, it’s stuck on with a very thin adhesive foam ring. ( which I will have to figure out how I’m going to recreate)
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Next up I remove the needle, it’s just pressed on and I tried to carefully pull it off with my fingers, but no joy. So on to plan B, I got a couple of spoons from the kitchen ( please don’t tell my wife) and carefully pried up. Note: photo shows one spoon just to show placement, but I used two, and it popped right off.
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One down one to go. So brimming with confidence I begin the speedometer, should work the same way.

PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL

Or should I say fail. I read everything I could find prior to starting this and I watched videos on YouTube. But my memory failed me and I screwed up. I removed the back, and then removed the screw holding the tripometer knob, here’s where I went off the rails.

I read this statement when I was preparing for this

“Re: Speedo trip meter shaft. 70-73
It does indeed unscrew. The threads are backwards.(Lefty Tighty, Righty Loosey) I removed the E-clip inside the body that secures the bushing to free up the trip meter assembly, held the far end of the shaft that spins within the body being cautious not to let it spin, and backed the shaft off.
Done.”

What I remembered ( incorrectly ) was that to remove the knob , you had to unscrew it - right hand threads. I mangled my perfectly good 46 year old knob. :banghead:

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I stripped out the inside, and buggered the outside........sigh. :(

And I cannot figure out how to remove the odometer shaft. I thought it was supposed to unscrew clockwise. I cannot for the life of me figure it out and I was scarring up the shaft.
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So finally I just said “ Stop the bleeding!”
And I walked away.
I could use some help here. I can’t get the chrome housing off the way it is.
If you know how to do this, please explain it to me in simple easy to understand language.
Thanks
Bob
 
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I recall 2M had a "how to" thread on the early indicators. He's your man Bob.

Thanks Jim, I have poured through that article. His speedo is an earlier model, I'm not sure if his odometer mechanism is different or not, I can't find any photos or mechanical drawings. He might know more about it . Someone here has done it I'm sure.
 
I'm getting way off topic here but, speaking of 2M, if you're visiting, and real lucky, he just might take you the 10 miles up the Mason highway for Sunday Gospel brunch at the Hilltop Café. "Inconveniently located in the middle of nowhere"
http://hilltopcafe.com/
You'll probably find Johnny Nicholas pickin' on the porch, kinda like this....
now back to your regularly scheduled thread....
 
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PS - the tank tumbler I used on my XS750 tank for the Cafe bike fixed up rust like that in a jiffy.

Basically, a litre or two of water and a handful of aquarium gravel - and 24 hours later, clean as a whistle (the muck had to be emptied out a couple of times during the process and new water and gravel put in).

For those who missed it - a tank tumbler is a machine that rotates and revolves a bike fuel tank - think “portable cement mixer”. Apparently, the same results can be achieved with a handful of wood screws or 1/4-20 UNC nuts.

In my research on this - one guy did the same thing by wrapping his tank in an old sleeping bag and sticking it into a clothes dryer set on “cold” for a number of hours.

A couple of metres of lavatory chain does as well, and can be fished back out again in one piece.
For those young'uns who don't know what lavatory chain is - it's a generic term for a light-gauge chain that used to be fitted to the pull levers on high-level cisterns in older houses.
 
I think I can probably work that out. Underneath though is going to require more effort. There were rust spots and it looks like the first owner took silver paint ( silver?!) on a paint brush and just slopped it on.
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I took all that off so I could also remove the underlying rust.
I'd not be surprised if the PO saw some patches of rust and blobbed on some zinc primer, obviously without any prep. Unless it's done right, it's a total waste of time.
 
It may be just my luck but I found 72 tanks to be the most likely to be rusted messes, more than either 71s or 73's, maybe the worst year for rust in the tank.
It's odd, but the early 70s were bad years for early rusting out of cars on this side of the pond, too. I know that, in the case of Fiats, it was caused by a deal involving vodka, potatoes and steel as a barter agreement between the Russian government and the old Fiat production line for the 124 model. The Russians went on to produce the old Fiat as the Lada, and Fiat used a lot of that steel in their production, hence the almost instant decay of the Fiats and Lancias of those years.
I'd not be at all surprised if some of that steel found its way into other manufacturing supply chains, including Japanese petrol tanks.
 
True - we had Ladas here - absolutely biodegradable rubbish cars.

At one point, there was a rustproofing outfit in Canada called Ziebarts and they would guarantee that any new car they rust-proofed would never corrode - unless it was a Fiat or a Lada. I’m sure everyone can recall the dreadful corrosion problems that early 70s Fords experienced (particularly the Mavericks). Early Toyotas and Datsuns weren’t exactly rust-resistant either.

I suppose it is possible that the poor steel and crummy paint used in the early 70s auto industry got intomthe japanese bike industry as well.
 
True - we had Ladas here - absolutely biodegradable rubbish cars.

At one point, there was a rustproofing outfit in Canada called Ziebarts and they would guarantee that any new car they rust-proofed would never corrode - unless it was a Fiat or a Lada. I’m sure everyone can recall the dreadful corrosion problems that early 70s Fords experienced (particularly the Mavericks). Early Toyotas and Datsuns weren’t exactly rust-resistant either.

I suppose it is possible that the poor steel and crummy paint used in the early 70s auto industry got intomthe japanese bike industry as well.
I know the Japanese autos sold here in the first decade or so were shipped for thousands of ocean miles and some of them were deck cargo. This was guaranteed to cause problems, allied to the non-existent underbody protection, thin gauge steel, and not great paint quality.
I recall working in a Datsun (Nissan) dealership and steam-cleaning the wax coating off the cars that had come off the ships. However, those very same cars had absolutely nothing underneath. Some customers got their cars Ziebarted, as you mention (it was a franchise operation, I assume).
I must say the Japanese really got their act together by the later 70s, as evinced by the '79 'Yota in my back yard that has miniscule rust blisters on it, after nearly 40 years in a damp climate. To the best of my knowledge, that car was made in Japan and came with decent protection measures, but shortly thereafter Toyota opened its UK plant for the European market.
 
True enough Grimly - the corrosion issues were really mainly about lousy paint and poorly executed design details such as proper drainage and sealing of certain parts of the body structure, as appropriate.

The mother of one of my high school buddies bought a brand new 1970 Ford Maverick and by early 1972, the police pulled her off the road and told her to either fix the rust - or scrap the car. She chose to scrap it and donated the whole thing to the high school auto shop which harvested the running gear etc. The darned thing only had about 6 or 7000 miles on it...

....and I could be wrong about this, but it is possible that the engine, transmission, rear-end and radiator along with key electrical components out of that low-mileage, lady-driven, 19 month old car may have found their way into an oil-leaking/burning rod-knocking 1964 Comet owned by another one of my buddies in a late-night swap and pizza session. The corresponding Comet parts may then have been ensconced on the engine stand in the auto shop as instructional aids.

....but that entire thing might just be fake news. ;)
 
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Well, Mailman, my XS2 speedo is being a son-of-a-gun. It hasn't been cracked open, but there's a history with the trip knob. Looks like it was glued on, and I had to make a puller to get it off.

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The knob looks good from one side, some mangling and clutch cable rubs on the other side. The inner flat is gone, probably why it was glued.

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The aluminum shaft extension won't unscrew. Studyin' this part, there's a tiny access hole. Got some penetrant in there, may need to cook-up a tool.

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Worse case would be a destructive entry. But want to avoid that, save the shaft extension...
 
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