It's Alive!!!!!

A new day, a new challenge, a new chance for success.

I called up a couple of local shops. I spoke to a guy at a Harley shop, but he said he had lots of experience on 2T bikes, so I told him what was going on. I was just desperate to get the bike running. I could tune it myself later. He said he could take the bike, but it wouldn't be done till next week. And unfortunately, he had to leave in an hour to go to a hill climb competition. (Good for him!) But before we got off the phone, he advised me to maybe switch the spark plug wires around, because it really did sound like a timing issue and I agreed. I swapped the wires and it fired up on the second kick! He was right! I'll stop by with some beer for him next week.

We're Getting Close!

Well, I spent some time putting the bike together a little more. I'm so busy now. Between work (which keeps trying to get me to work more hours) and my dad, who is very sick right now, I'm just trying to squeeze a little work in here and there. After work, I'll come home with a to do list and I'll usually try and do a couple of things off the list just to get a jump on the next days tasks.

Over the past two days, I installed the oil tank, battery box, seat pan and fuel tank. I know they sound like such easy tasks, but everything always becomes such a big issue! First I couldn't get the filler neck on the tank. Ultimately, I soaked it in some boiling hot water and it was able to stretch over the opening. Mysteriously, the neck clamp got lost, so I had to take some bailing wire and create a clamp. Then I found that I didn't have the screws to secure down the filler neck! Oh, God! another trip to the hardware store! With the seat pan secured to the frame, the oil cap needed to be cut down to fit the profile. And I had to hack about half an inch off the top of the dip stick too. Then there was the battery box that was such a tight fit that I had to grease the rubber mounting pieces to force it in.

Fitting the seat pan was not really a big deal, except that some powdercoating paint was clogging some of the cotter pin holes, so I had to take some tiny drill bits to them to open them up. The gas tank was a tight and secure fit. But getting that tight hosing over some of the fuel fixtures was a bitch.

I ran down to the local Chevron and bought a gallon of the Supreme 91 stuff. I thought it might be a good idea to do pre-mix for the start up, so the engine wouldn't starve of 2T oil and seize up. Doh! I did a 32:1 ratio. I figure that'll be good for startup until the oil is getting sucked up from the Yamalube system.

While the bike was still on the hydraulic stand, I cut down the rear engine mounting bolt, since the chain was rubbing on it. And I did a quick clean and lube of the brand new chain. I installed the newly painted kick stand and stretched the new retention spring on it. Then I let the bike stand on it's own.

I installed the Factory Pro expansion chambers and attached the new Moose exhaust springs to them. The oil tank was filled and I started putting the pre-mixed gas into the tank. Then panic sets in! The petcock started leaking gas like crazy! The gas was coming through the screw holes! I threw some towels under it, so it wouldn't get on the engine cases too much.

Then came the moment of truth...would the bike start up? I turned the key and made sure the kill switch was on run. then I gave it a kick. Nothing! Then another kick. Still nothing! After about 6 kicks, I turned off the key and gave up. Hmmm....back to the drawing board. Dammit!

Tomorrow I'll try and throw some sealant at that petcock, then I'll check to make sure I'm getting a spark across the plugs. I've emailed Paul to see if he might be able to help me to start it up on Sunday. After he got his money from building my engine, he's been less helpful. Imagine that.

Electrical- My Nemesis

It's been a while since my last update. As for past problems, I was able to pull out one side of the front wheel bearings, then I slipped a very slim shim on top of the spacer, before pressing the bearing back into the wheel, essentially lengthening the spacer just  tiny bit. And voila! It worked like a charm! No more binding wheel bearings and I was successfully able to torque down that front axle to 60 ft/lbs.! Yay! That will surely help the steering system rigidity.

I tried filling the rear brake system, but wasn't successful. I tried to burp it. Also used a MityVac to suction the fluid through. I still never got to the end of the air. I got tired of trying to solve such a simple task. I still have a couple of tricks up my sleeve, but I thought I would give it a rest and move onto something else for a while- something that I've been avoiding since the very beginning. The electrical system.

Mind you, it's been over 10 years, since I dismantled the bike. When I pulled out the electrical harness, I tried to label the ends and take lots of pictures best I could. But over the years, some of the printing on the Dymo tape had faded and become illegible. Plus many moons ago, had some shop in Concord, Grumpy Bear (since defunct), rebuild my alternator. When they returned the bike to me, they used whatever colored wire they had on hand, and they hard-wired the alternator to my harness, doing away with any connectors! They just crimped all the wires together! I was young and naive. The bike worked, so what did I care?

Anyway, so for me to wire the alternator to the harness again, I wanted to do it right, to do it stock again. When Paul built my engine, he installed the original correct colored wires with appropriate connectors, minus one which I didn't happen to have at the time. But in order for me to know how to connect the alternator to the electrical backbone, I had to rebuild the old wiring system, marrying the original parts (wires), just so I could realize what had happened. So my old harness didn't have any alternator connectors, plus some it had other issues. I just happened to have three RD400 harnesses!! 1) my original dilapidated harness  2) one that I had purchased from Australia through the early days (late 1990's) of internet buying/trading and  3) I don't even know where this harness came from- I probably just bought another one off eBay.

Well, after careful analysis, I realized that that Australian harness had too many wires in the front. Let me just put this out there- a simple disclaimer- I suck at ready schematics. So I was afraid to just cap off the "extra" wires, not knowing if I really need them or not. But luckily, the mystery harness was very similar to mine, so I decided to use that one. I did have to re-wrap  much of the harness, but it cleaned up quite nicely!

Since I'm using high output coils with more resistance, I needed to get rid of the resistor unit. I did have to look at the schematic to figure that one out, but it wasn't too bad. I had to construct a robust and complicated spreadsheet with all the connection numbers and appendages they belong to, which really aided in patching together the front of the bike.
I spent a few minutes just to hook up the battery to see if I was on the right track. Moment of truth! I turned the key and the oil and neutral light came on! The headlight worked both low and high beam. And the rear turn signals worked, but they didn't blink, because they're LED. So that's a huge step in the right direction! Encouraging.

Tomorrow I'll start attaching the oil tank on the bike. I might be able to fill fluids too. If I'm lucky, I might try kicking the motor over!