And as you can see in the last post, I have mocked up most of the bike to get a better idea of how it will look. Part of the reason I did this is because I am stepping away from the project for a few days, and just wanted to see how far I've gotten.... Here's another pic:
New side panel design. Yes it will be more work, but those giant white panels in the last post just don't look right to me.
At some point, someone posting on this thread called me patient. It might have happened more than once. That might be true in some instances, but one thing I cannot stand is waiting for parts in the mail when they are holding up progress. So.... I have been getting closer and closer to getting the engine re-assembled and put back into the frame. However one thing I have not really paid much attention to is the various shaft seals scattered about the engine. Having read in one of Zombie Stomp's posts somewhere that all shafts seals are replaceable without too much work, EXCEPT for the decompression shaft seal (which requires engine removal, no less!), I decided I'd better investigate that seal before installing the rocker cover. Well guess what? It was visibly trashed. So I called my local NAPA (which is a very good parts store) and tried to order the seal just using the dimensions, but no luck there. So then I called BikeBandit and after that PartsZilla, and both of them had the part but couldn't get it to me any faster than about 6 days. Enter: IMPATIENCE. I ordered the seal from PartsZilla, along with some others for good measure, but I already had an alternate approach in mind. What I did was..... I machined a small ring from aluminum with the same dimensions as the seal. I put a groove for an O-ring on the outside of the aluminum ring, and another O-ring groove on the inside. I then pressed it into the seal recess, using a little silicone on the outside. The ring is near the white arrow. You can see the O-ring on the inside. I then softened the leading edges of the decompression shaft with a scotchbrite wheel so that they wouldn't tear the internal O-ring on the way in. Softened edges at blue arrows. I then started thinking that my little seal invention might fail, and if it did then I would be really mad at having to pull the engine to replace the seal. So I welded a small bolt (orange arrow) to the external end of the decompression shaft and fabricated a bracket which engages with this bolt (with appropriate washers and nylock nut) to control the in-and-out-of-the-engine movement of the shaft. The pin which is installed from the inside of the rocker cover which otherwise controls this movement is now obsolete, and I assembled the engine without it. Here's what it looks like: Now, if I ever need to replace that seal, I can do it without removing OR opening the engine. Just remove the bracket, pull the shaft, and replace the seal. I am giving up the automatic decompression cable, but I've read about enough people pulling it off their bikes that I'm not too worried. In the worst case scenario I could add a little collar to the fabricated bracket and get the cable on there again.
So I DID get the engine installed today! And the carburetors and the exhaust. However, as soon as I put the exhaust in place I knew I had a problem with the placement of the oil cooler (which was mounted to a bracket I welded on the frame WAY BACK when I was working on the bare-metal frame). So I had to make up some little arms to re-position the cooler. The advantage is that the cooler is much more out in where the airflow will be, and less likely to be blocked by the front fender. The disadvantage, of course, is that by being more out in the airflow it's also more vulnerable. I played around a little with sticking it under the headlights, but it didn't fit there well. So I might end up making a little rock-guard for it... In this picture you can see the little re-positioning arms holding it in place, and also another view of the decompression shaft retaining bracket: I also have a problem with the front fender hitting the exhaust headers. The fender is from a 1988 BMW R100GS. I will have to trim it. OK, good night.
Thats bloody genius. Just wondering why you didnt fit the oil cooler to the other side of the engine, clear of the headers? Id be worried about radiant heat from the headers effecting the oil cooler temperature.
Great question. The simplest answer is that I never really thought about it. I'm sure that my intellectual laziness was influenced by the fact that the previous owner (poorly) mounted the cooler on the right side of the bike. And HIS decision was probably influenced by the fact that the plumbing is somewhat biased over to that side. And back when I was working on the frame, I welded on a bracket for the cooler on the right side of the frame. But none of those are very good reasons! So I will have another look and see if the other side of the bike would work better. The bummer is that I have no bracket on that side. If it proves to be a big pain in the butt, then that's another reason to wrap the headers, I guess. Cheers, Christian
Homerb, I just looked up where you live. Looks nice! I toured with Big Day Out in 2009. A few friends and I saw the whole country (or the big cities and a bit of rural Western Australia anyway) and I personally fell in love with it. Good on ya, mate! -C
Hey, I really like your build! Could you tell me more about your headlights and how you have them wired? This is what I am planning on working with, explained here: http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245878&page=469 Thanks!
The lights and the fixture that holds them are from an old Mercedes. I talked about it at some length starting around post 6637 on page 443 in the main XL600 thread. Click here to jump to that page. As for the wiring, I am just wiring them as if they were the stock light. I wired to two lights together in parallel, and will plug them into the stock harness plug. The individual lights are 35 watts, total 70 watts, and the stator circuit is good for 100 watts. I haven't started the bike yet so I don't know if I will have any issues. I've read about your lighting setup and it sounds pretty trick. I will continue paying attention to the main 600 thread to see how it goes.
I went to town today to get an important accessory for my bike.... It's the yellow rectangular thing....
And I took Homerb's question to heart. Here is the re-positioned oil cooler: I fabbed a bracket whidh utilizes mounting points already on the frame and thereby saved myself from having to do any new welding. I also made up some hard lines from aluminum tubing to plumb in the cooler. The stock hard line is 10mm OD, which is only about .018" larger than 3/8", so I went ahead and used 3/8" tubing. This made dealing with the cooler pretty easy, as the fittings in the cooler are NPT. However there was a little bit of slop where I transitioned from metric to the standard tubing, and there is one place in particular that I am a little worried about leaking. If I get myself sufficiently worried I may re-make that line with a piece of metric tubing, but that would involve going to town to try to find said metric tubing. We'll see. -Christian
I think your custom oil lines should seal fine because they are flare fittings, and if the threaded ferrules can put enough pressure on the flared pipe, the aluminum, softer than the original steel lines, should squish into place just fine. That's my opinion just from observing. Nice bends in the lines, did you use one of those spring tubing benders?
Yeah, that was pretty much my thinking too. Flared aluminum tubing = one-time-use! Thanks, no I used a lever-style one like this. (Not trying to plug Amazon or anything... just looked for an image of one like mine)
I really have enjoyed watching this build. The old school looking stamped plate even looks great! I wish Indiana still stamped theirs out since the flat screen printed ones we have now look a bit out of place on our vintage bikes. Build on!!!
The sticker on it says LOCKHART. I've seen the same cooler in other pictures scattered around the web so I assume it's a universal aftermarket item.