So, It has been over a year since I made a progress update, but I have been making progress. First there was the seat rebuild I mentioned last time. The seat is a formed metal pan with shaped foam and a vinyl cover. That cover and foam was just wrecked.
The seat pan had some rust holes around the edges and was difficult to decide what to do with the pan, do I buy a new one or try and salvage what I had.
What I did was get all of the foam, which was glued on the metal and turned to dust when I touched it, off and wire wheeled the remaining paint etc off. I then got some real POR-15 rust coating paint and coated the pan.
Once the paint cured I got the new foam and seat cover mounted and the trim replaced. I think the finish on this is, so far, what I am least happy with on the restoration. At some point, I may get the whole thing professionally redone. I guess I haven't captured any pictures of the finished seat yet, but you can kind of see it here along with much of my progress.
I knew I needed to replace the super old rubber brake lines that were cracked and stiff and probably 40 years old at least. I found a place near work downtown and had new lines made for me. I thought I would hook everything up and be good to go. What I found was the caliper was leaking really bad, even after my rebuild. Rather than trying to rebuild again, I decided it was time to throw some more money at this and not be so cheap. I bought a new, fully assembled, brake caliper for about $80 and slapped it on and success! Well, kind of. Now it wouldn't build pressure on the handle. I poked at it for a few days trying a vacuum bleeder and other little trips to get the system bled. No luck, so, out came my wallet again and another $70 for a brand new reproduction master cylinder. The bonus here was, my grandfather had replaced the master cylinder years ago with a random other model until that was near impossible to identify and get a rebuild kit for. What I bought was a reproduction of the original style master cylinder for a more original look.
The seat pan had some rust holes around the edges and was difficult to decide what to do with the pan, do I buy a new one or try and salvage what I had.
What I did was get all of the foam, which was glued on the metal and turned to dust when I touched it, off and wire wheeled the remaining paint etc off. I then got some real POR-15 rust coating paint and coated the pan.
Once the paint cured I got the new foam and seat cover mounted and the trim replaced. I think the finish on this is, so far, what I am least happy with on the restoration. At some point, I may get the whole thing professionally redone. I guess I haven't captured any pictures of the finished seat yet, but you can kind of see it here along with much of my progress.
I knew I needed to replace the super old rubber brake lines that were cracked and stiff and probably 40 years old at least. I found a place near work downtown and had new lines made for me. I thought I would hook everything up and be good to go. What I found was the caliper was leaking really bad, even after my rebuild. Rather than trying to rebuild again, I decided it was time to throw some more money at this and not be so cheap. I bought a new, fully assembled, brake caliper for about $80 and slapped it on and success! Well, kind of. Now it wouldn't build pressure on the handle. I poked at it for a few days trying a vacuum bleeder and other little trips to get the system bled. No luck, so, out came my wallet again and another $70 for a brand new reproduction master cylinder. The bonus here was, my grandfather had replaced the master cylinder years ago with a random other model until that was near impossible to identify and get a rebuild kit for. What I bought was a reproduction of the original style master cylinder for a more original look.
Now my brake system is working, I just had to replace everything. My most recent work is trying to get it started. After rewiring the bike I was getting no spark. After a week of so of scratching my head, I figured out the kill switch was bad, so again, rather then spending a bunch more time trying to rebuild the switch, I spent $40 to get another nice reproduction. After that I was getting spark on one side only, better then nothing I guess. Well today, I figured it out. Traced it to the points and cleaned one set and re-gaped and BOOM! two sparks! So I buttoned up the electrical covers on the engine and started looking into the last few electrical issues on lights to work towards the startup. I need to figure out why the tail light and turn signals are not working. I hope to have those solved soon and ready to start. Today I also manually tested and primed the oil pump for the two stroke oil. I am committed to starting this soon and riding it this year! I even bolted the license plate on today, I hop I didn't jinx it.
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