Everyday TR1 - converting to an oil-pressure switch

A stock TR1 will run a rather unreliable oil-level switch, when mine finally gave up a few days ago, I decided to tackle the issue once and for all.

First step was to remove the starter. In order to not have to remove the left engine cover and starter clutch, I split the starter at the planetary gearbox

And this is why: So you get access to the casting-mark that goes to the main oil-gallery.

Close-up.

Prior to drilling you either remove the right engine cover or just the oil-filter cover. As the latter is very tight on my TR1, I prefer to take off the complete cover.

Close-up on the filter housing.

As I was admittedly a bit nervous of not drilling perfectly perpendicular, I quickly knocked up a drilling guide. The same goes for the tapping guide. I tapped it in M10x1 as this is a standard thread for oil-pressure switches in Continental Europe and can be found on many German vehicles.

If you read this and are from the US or UK, you may want to check your local parts store for a roughly 1 bar, opener switch. 

I decided to drill the hole undersized by 0.4mm as I used a handheld drill.

Tapping in progress.

And where you end up inside the filter housing.

Oilpressure switch in place.

This is the original oil-level sender unit. I chopped off the cable and then extended it a bit to run it up to the new oilpressure-switch.

Another thing that totally made sense was to clean up the starter from carbon deposits.

Recommended oil-pressure switch(es):

Hella 6ZL 003 259-437, 1bar, opener - this one will flicker a bit, when hot

Bosch 0 986 344 033, 0.8bar, opener - intended for a Volvo 140

 

 

Tricks from the elders: Oiling cables

Every now and then you run into some pieces of ancient cleverness. Nowadays if you want to oil your clutch cable for example, you grab a can of teflon cable lube and oil it. But how did our grandparents do it?

They used a funnel and some rubber hose (which I didn't have, hence the tape) unhooked the cable and filled the funnel with oil and then moved the cable back and forth a bit. As I found out, it doesn't matter much, whether you use fresh or old oil (unless it is all gooey and mucky and comes out of an old diesel - you know the sort!) In this example I used up some old 10W50 fully synthetic, which made the clutch slip in every bike I tried it... 

The cable's uber-smooth now. And yes, I really have to get some proper rubber hose and zip ties.

The XS Triple Sidecar - a new project

Do you know that feeling, when selling a certain vehicle, that this might not have been your smartest move? Well, honestly I felt a bit like that, when selling my XS750 triple hack five years back.

Now time's said to be a healer and all that, but an even better healer is to buy another XS 750 (this time a '77 model) and build the ULTIMATE XS TRIPLE SIDECAR.

It was stored for several years in a friend's garage and hadn't been running (much at all). So I kind of knew that this was going to get interesting.

First step was to buy three complete carb overhaul kits and strip the bike back to the bare essentials:

(Doesn't look like much, but there's a whole day's work between those two pictures...)

Now the sidecar is the second part of the story...

... and what it looks like after removing the spare wheel and LOTS of dirt.

What's that you say? Why didn't you go for the big un'? Get the eleven?

Simple: Listen to these two videos.