What have you done to your XS today?

Went to madison and resto died when I hit the right blinker. Shut it off and it came back to life, but was full dead at the stop sign. Got it off on the sidewalk. Opened the seat and immediately saw the problem. Snipped a bit of insulation off my charger cord, wrapped it around the terminal.
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And made my appointment. 5 minutes, dead to back on the road. Had to kick start it til I got home and made a perminent fix.
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I had swapped batteries the day before, must have been the last straw for the terminal .
I’m planning on a little day trip to Galena next Saturday. I guess it’s not that far away, but I sure hope I don’t ever need to do this sort of roadside maintenance!
 
Today was front brake day for the 80. I had previously cleaned the master cylinder so the caliper had to come off and be rebuilt.
I had to take apart 4 of them before I found a piston that could be reused. The choice of calipers was made easier as the second runner up must have had the bleeder broken off and you can see the innovative repair. It also appeared to have been sand blasted inside so I choose the shiny one. Everything now 20180720_165043.jpg 20180720_162820.jpg
reassembled and I have zip tied the lever to the handlebar to allow the system to bleed itself overnight.
 
Very pretty, even if I'm biased.
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You will be rebending or making a custom shift lever unless this is a linkage shifter.

LOL! Just walked in from the shop, where I was putting a bend in the stock shifter to clear this cover!

Edit: I almost took my die grinder to the front sprocket cover of this side cover. I hate the way it looks. But it's my sons' bike, and defeating safety features could cause me future regret. So it stays, for now.
 
Ugh. Putting on right side cover, the new gasket from Parts-Traders on eBay arrived brittle and cracked. Also on backorder with Yamaha, with an estimated Ship date in August, so no help there.

Luckily, I have skillz! Many years working with unsupported older motorcycles from Ducati have taught me how to whip out a gasket faster than it takes to drive to the local dealer...

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IMG_1354 by michael delage, on Flickr
 
Just found a motor with this gasket made from a Kellogg's bran flakes box. :rolleyes: It was quite neatly made. Sold it to DJ Dave or I'd post a pic.
:lmao:
Found one once that was made out of a beer carton...
It was so old, I'd plum forgot I did that:rolleyes:.... hey... it works.
 
OOOLLLDDDD gasket making trick use a ball bearing bigger than the hole needed, place gasket on cover, with bearing on top of gasket centered over hole, tap bearing with a hammer to punch a perfect size, location hole in the gasket.

I wuz taught to use the ball-end of the ball-peen hammer to cut gaskets, edges and holes. But, that's for cast-iron blocks and parts, with sharp edges. Gotta be real careful if working with aluminum...
 
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IMG_1357 by michael delage, on Flickr

The bike as she'll sit for the next 75 days. I put on a set of Clubman bars that I bought for the Norton, but didn't work out. Still haven't figured out how to mount the seat. Needs brackets but I'm going to run the stock fender. And I don't want to pull the fender every time I need to pull the seat...

A lot of the front end needs to be painted black, but I've run out of time. Oh well, the boy's 15, still got nearly a year to figure this out...
 
Indeed. Plan of attack: Pull the tank, retorque the head (installing the new washers as I go), install new bars and attendant bits, connect, fill, and bleed the new master cylinder, and then (and only then) put the tank back on. This still leaves the bent signals to fix, and the left turn signals don't blink as of right now so I have to figure that out yet.

Do all that, and if the oil leak is at least slowed, get it inspected and some plates on it. Gah. Lots to do...
 
What bars are they and how wide are they? I'm looking to replace the stock ones on the '75 and would like something a little lower and narrower.

They are these: Emgo Chrome 7/8 in. CB750K Replica Handlebar - 23-93145

Width: 32 in.
Rise: 5 in.
Pullback: 5-1/2 in.
Center Width: 6 in.
End Rise: 6 1/2 in.

I held them up over the stock bars on my Yamaha TW200; they are the same width, approximately, but angled differently, and I'm wondering if I can find bars like that which are not chromed because they'd be perfect on the TW.
 
Well, nothing new to see here, eh, unless you had seen the '80 yesterday. The worm gear lock nut finally succumbed to the chemical persuasions of PB Blaster which allowed me to get some clutch action going.
Too bad the lower bars I installed have to come off and the higher Special bars go back on as the flatter bars did not really have enough space on them for the grip, perch and bar switches. More importantly, since this will be offered for sale on completion, I could not let it go with the Special master sitting cock eyed and ready to spill brake fluid all over as soon as someone looked to check it, especially as I am putting a nice shiny black tank on it.
 

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