Motor's Almost Out

Today, I made huge gains in getting that motor on my bench. I was still having trouble figuring out how to detach the wires from the generator. So I decided to empty out more of the frame, pulling out the oil reservoir, battery box and lower half of the air box. That left most of the electrical harness and components exposed and easy to see.

A long time ago, I was having some weird electrical issues, so I took my bike to this shop, where the owner went by the name Grumpy Bear. He told me that he had to do some creative wiring, but that old bike fired right up and I never had electrical problems again, so he must've know what he was doing. But now that I'm in there really examining things, I noticed that he by-passed the customary plastic connectors and just hard-wired the motor to the electrical harness. Umm...okay...so it worked, but that's not really the way to do things, and it's really not cool. So after cleaning the wires, so I could actually see what colors they were, I labeled them and then cut them. I might need to know this stuff for later reference. But if I end up going with a new ignition that eliminates the battery, it will have it's own wiring. And I do happen to have a electrical harness in very good shape I just recently purchased, so the labeling might not even matter.

I was then able to remove the generator. In order to take the generator out, I had to remove the engine clutch cover, so I could stop the center bolt from spinning, during the removal process. Surprisingly, the clutch was in very good shape- all nice and clean. Matter of fact, when I drained the oil from the engine, there was still about two quarts of oil in the case! I just thought that after leaking all over my parent's garage floor, there would be no motor oil left in there. I finished the night but locating and loosening all the motor mount bolts, readying them for the next day.