Tuesday 14 November 2023

Project overview late 2023/24

Whilst being stuck at home due to not feeling quite top-notch, I thought I might as well make a list of what's on the to do list(s):

Let's start with my own stuff (it's ordered by priority)

Everyday TR1 (Tractor):

  • fit spare BT46 rear tyre to spare wheel
  • clean and grease brake sliders on front brake
  • improve mounting of engine breather-filter
  • modify XS1100 (rear) brakedisks, so I can use them as spares for either TR1 or Sidecar

SR500 Sidecar:

  • (finish) the sprocket carrier conversion to XT600 style aka. 6006 method
    •  Make a spacer for the sidecar axle so the modified rear wheel will still fit
    • Swap over to Winter wheels and tyres
  • clean the airfilter (apparently I have been postponing this since before last Winter)
  • build a 535cc engine
    • evaluate my spare engine
    • order a 90mm Wössner piston and have my spare cylinder bored to suit
    • MAYBE get a 48T head

Machinery:

Lathe:

  • make a backbplate for the 160mm 3-jaw chuck I have
  • identify the pitch of the crossslide leadscrew and see if I can get the correct screw and nut as they are terribly worn out in one spot

Mill:

  • turn that huge lump of ally into a suitable riser-block
  • fit a DRO to the quill and maybe look into affordable DROs for all the other axes

Misc:

  • Make a guard and bushings for the wire-wheel for the large benchtop grinder
  • find out what's wrong with my old CRT-oscilloscope (most likely just a blown cap)

Dre-XT-Stück

  • temporarily hookup the engine breather to a can to see how much blow-by the engine actually produces
  • air-filter check (as I have the nagging suspicion that the breather puked quite a bit of oil onto the air-filter)
  • check AFR with both stock and ARROW muffler as last time it seemed to like the stock muffler a lot better and I would like to see what kind of AFR this was at
  • brake-line and brake-pad swap prior to getting it inspected in Summer
  • make a new pannier rack from 18/3mm tubing as the current one, is officially not road legal because of all the pointy bits

Hotrod TR1

  • in essence make it usable for something
    • take off turbo kit and build a staggered 2in2 exhaust (because I think that would look cool)
    • cleanup the wiring and fit front indicators to the handlebar
    • fit the v-star oilfilter-cover
    • and the MikuniOz 2in1 manifold and VM38 to do some back-to-back testing
  •  marginally related: use one of my spare heads and grab the cam specs from the set of hot cams I got ages ago
  • same goes for fitting that other oilpump sprocket
  • build a new left-side turbo setup (and ask two very friendly people in Germany to help me legalize it - but that's probably for next Winter)

Uber-Rat-Z - shocker I have a secret Kawa GPZ1100B1 that only few people knew about 😁

  • assess the engine and wiring
  • reassemble the VM29SS
  • depending on the two prior steps find a suitable tank in my stash and see what happens

 Stuff for my dad:

XT500 4-valve (The Pretty One):

  • fix the threads for the headbolts and install a new headgasket
  • adjust the clutch rod, now that I figured out how it is supposed to work on my XT (and how touchy it is)
VX800:
  • replace clutch lever, because it is completely worn out after close to 80,000km and is flopping in the breeze
  • fix a saggy footpeg
  • sync carbs
  • make fuel valve lever-plate
Goldwing
  • fix the wiring
  • assemble carb and airfilter and fit the headers
  • see what happens, when one tries to start it up (should give the necessary motivational boost
  • cobble together a brake-system, which works like a normal one
Moto 6.5:
  • check the charging system and probably fit a more decent voltage regulator
Bandit 1200:
  • check the fluids, especially for the hydraulic clutch
  • recheck the valves
  • remove rear-sets and bend back the bent footpeg

How & when:
 
TR1-stuff aside from the brakedisks and the sprocket carrier on the Sidecar (plus the stuff that's directly related to it like fitting the Winter wheels) are the things that are underway already. Same goes for the airfilter- and breather topics on Dre-XT-Stück mainly because they are done very quickly and assuming that the odd dry and cold day will be available that should give me some insights on where we are with the old girl and make sure I won't break stuff again next year. (The old girl has quickly become the most expensive bike to run, I have ever had in the last two years.)
 
On my dad's side, his XT is first, mainly because I have already made the threaded inserts to sort the situation on his engine and if it works there I know that when the time comes on my XT that I'll do just the same fix. Second on the list is most likely the VX800 as it's just a case of buying a new clutch lever and adding a single blob of weld to the left footpeg to stop it from sagging. 
 
And then there might be a special project coming up that'll slot in right at this point. 😎

Goals:
  1. Have my two- and three-wheeled sh*te in a state that for the first half of the year I only have to do planned regular maintenance and can just use them
  2. Tackle the low-hanging fruits of my dad's projects: Get his XT back on the road and make the VX800 (the bike he used the most this year) better/turn it into a proper daily.
  3.  Get those machinery tasks out of the way.
  4. Depending on how the secret project works out, I have that one ready for use in Summer.