R60/5 rebuild nears completion – with some puzzles. . .

Olive. Extra virgin.

I'm liking the sealed panasonic the PO put in. Must have 5+ years on it now.

Haven't priced a replacement.

With the small battery I would reccomend the most CCA you can stuff in there. And have a really first class full-auto-all-bells-and-whistles trickle charger/maintainer. The best you can find will pay off.

I don't think you're supposed to put oil in them. Anyway the sealed ones don't have a fill port unless you drill a hole somewhere.

Listen, I'm trying to run a serious thread here and all you guys want to do is ham it up with your pathetic humor. It's my thread and If anyone's gonna be pathetic, it's me.

However, while we're talking about olive oil et al, allow me to share a tidbit I picked up from a used car salesman years ago. It seems on occasion, if a clunker had a noisy transmission, he would stuff banana peels in it to quiet it down for a few miles post sale. I don't think our airhead trannies would notice a banana peel or two judging from what I've seen come out of a few of them.

Wanna bet who gets their wiring done first?

Remind me to tell ya the land rover/banana oil story sometime...

Wiring - complete.

Battery - bought and charging.

Need for land rover/banana oil stories - overwhelming now that you stuck that image in my head.

Complete, tested and documented?

Nope - dodgy, iffy, crusty and suspect. My four buddies. Again, hope rules supreme.

Land Rover/banana oil story please.

Battery is fully charged and installed. All lights operate correctly with the exception of the turn signals because I haven't installed a new flasher unit. Spark plugs are bungeed to cylinder jugs and produce bright spark when I manually kick over the engine (these are the original coils - I read somewhere they have a life span of 10-15 years - these ones are 40 years old.)

Start button does not engage the starter (it's the original Bosch that I had dismantled, cleaned up and bench tested.) Traced the problem to the starter relay - looks like it's the original one, too.




With the can off, if I close the points with my finger, the starter cranks enthusiastically. According to Snowbum, I have three choices -

1. Buy a new relay.

2. Modify my existing relay (bypass the transistor circuit and run the risk of accidentally engaging the starter while the engine is running.)

3. Buy a generic relay and modify that with the same potential hazard as choice #2 above.

I welcome your recommendations.

You could try and fix it and probably get it to work. But, the first time your bike doesn't start you'll be kicking yourself for not replacing it. I would bite the bullet and get a new relay.

I was sure I had "fixed" mine before a trip last year. Left the house just fine. After about the sixth push start, I was calling myself a cheap bastard.

The ignition coils last a long long time. Most of was will still have these 6V series coils in another 40 years. It is a common failure point of many other ignition systems but not the early vintage Airheads.

The heavy Bosch starter is another hard working well made part on these bikes. They do have two varieties for the Airheads. Early bikes, 1970 through 1976, are 8 tooth starters. Starting in 1977 they become the 9 tooth starters. This is the major way we tell them apart. The number of teeth on the bendex matches the number of teeth on the flywheel. You use the starter that has 8 teeth.

If the stater needs rebuilding, eventually, it can be done if you have a good bendex. (that's the part that engages the flywheel) The 8 tooth bendexes are NLA any more. If you had a later bike with a 9 tooth starter those bendexes can be bought if needed.

There are after market starters that will replace the OEM one you have. They have the correct tooth count and they are lighter.

Back to the Bosch starters. There are two varieties of the 8 tooth starters. There is a longer number on the starter that is either 000115007 or 000115015. The 015 starter is later and fits earlier bikes. The 015 starter is a stronger motor. Not much difference but if you were shopping OEM starters look for the 015 starter.

Any Bosch starter with an 8 tooth bendex that works should not be thrown away but the modern replacement works better.

You mean the starter protection relay? Throw it away. It's doing something automatically that a big boy like you can do for themselves.

I once had 2 /5's. Oe I rode and the other I parted out to myself over a great many years. So I had 2 starter protection relays. When first one died I learned to carry a little three way jumper to jump around it and not get stranded. When the second one died I jumpered it out for good. I was running Baren bar end mirrors so I had these left over holes from the original mirrors on the control perches. Just the right size for a cheapo radio shack rubber hooded momentary push button switch. This got wired in in place of the relay contacts. To start the bike I held the momentary with my index finger and hit the starter button with my thumb. Worked like a charm and the motion became reflexive on like day one. Bit of extra security too...you couldn't just start the thing with a nail anymore. Eventually the rubber hood rotted off the switch but the switch itself never failed (until very, very recently when I went to use one of the spares I had saved up...). I was very impressed with the silly little thing.

You can mount a momentary anywhere...but it's nice to be able to operate it and the starter button with either the right hand or the right hand and anything but the left hand.

Cool story, Bro!

Good point although I don't need to call myself a cheap bastard - others will happily do that for me.

The start switch checks out OK and I'm liking the idea of keeping the protection circuitry stock although this little relay seems to be problematic judging from what I've seen on other threads. I've been following Swanker's thread and Pokie's comment about the starter relay working with the charging circuit reminded me I'm still waiting for my new diode board to show up (yes, the old board is shot).

Does anyone see any point in plugging in the old diode board and wiring it up on a temporary basis?

I'd wait til you had a good diode board and a working charging system in before condemning the starter relay. It may need replacement eventually but may be good now.

--Bill

Tightened up the petcocks, put a little gas in the tank, tickled the carbs and . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xos2MnVxe-c

Fired up like a champ - there's something almost eerie about hearing it's voice again after all these years. From boxes of inanimate parts to a living, breathing motorcycle, I'm frankly a little skeptical it really happened.

Very exhilarating.

Thanks everyone for your help - I really appreciate it.

Then the next day you roll it out to go for a ride and fire it up---nothing. Shit.

grab a spare plug and check for spark. nothing.

Didle the kill switch. Nothing.

Check the fuses. Good.

Pull the tank and check for power to the coils. nothing.

Pull the ignition module and swap in a good one. nothing.

just before you dig into the bean can diagnosis you take a peek at the wiring diagram for anything else in the circuit. Clutch switch. Pull the clutch and try it. Fires right up. Sucker was in gear.

Sigh.

Yay.

Time to sit back and give a whew and chill.

Thumbing back through this thread I'd forgotten all what you've been through with this refurb. I'm getting ready for similar fun and games on my bike-- Rear Main Seal and new clutch, timing chain and sprocket, rebuild forks (and finally, install the Toaster Tan upper triple).

Here's hoping it's a routine and boring job... :)

--Bill

This thread has been such a massive help with wire routing and headlight bucket organizing. Thanks again! I even went back and rerouted the r90's cables to match.
Would you mind detailing the fuse setup you went with? My r75 has no fuse assembly at all so I need to wire from scratch there. I'm pretty sure its stuff I can get at an auto zone but don't know which fuses to look for.

^Whatever you decide to do about the fuses, don't decide to leave it without them. My /5 had no fuses, and the predictable did happen. What were they thinking?

My PO did the same thing AND was running a windjammer with extra lights....PO's are the cwaziest peoples.