"Bad Idea" low budget build

[ericheath]

Yankee ingenuity, ayuh.

[elwood440]

I had basically the same stainless steel headers, made by Mac I think. Mine also had dents like that. If you want to fix the dents, this is how I did it; I bought a Steel ball-bearing the same size as the inside diameter of the pipe and welded a washer to the ball bearing. I tied mechanics wire around the washer and fed the ball bearing into the pipe. I had a buddy heat up the pipe with a torch while I yanked the ball bearing through with a hammering motion. It only took maybe 5 minutes to completely hammer out the dent with the ball bearing.

I had thought about a few ways to pull the dents, but decided not to bother. I don't feel they will hold me back.

An interesting experiment here:

[elwood440]

More parts. good news/bad news

YAY NEW MOTORCYCLE PARTS in the mail!!

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from left to right: Emgo switch repair kit 40-15810 from Amazon, 07-08 Honda CBR 600RR Starter Solenoid, and 06-07 CBR 1000RR (FH008) Rectifier/Regulator from ebay.

I swapped out the ignition switch first, because it's easy, and here's the bad news: There's still a 1v drop between the battery and the black sense wire. I must have taken bad measurements last time. It's hard to get the meter probes up to the back of that switch while its installed.

Electrical bits - $40.65
Total so far - $2755.90

[doubleminded]

You guys are good.

[elwood440]

ELECTRICAL UPGRADES
PT 1, REGULATOR/RECTIFIER

I took a while figuring out how I'm going to wire what to where with what, and I quickly came to the conclusion that if I wired it how I originally planned, I was going to end up with a mickey-mouse wiring job that nobody would be able to figure out down the road if anything needs service. Drawing out the components on my white board at work helped a lot to figure out that I needed to do it properly.

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So I went to Cycle Terminal and bought $28.38 worth of quality connectors and a proper crimper tool.

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All of the places that will sell you the supplies to make professional crimped connections will advise you to buy a few extra terminals to practice with. I am VERY glad that I did. Not because it was hard to figure out how to get a good crimp, but because TWICE I crimped down a terminal only to realize that I hadn't put the rubber seal on the wire first. The first practice crimp actually worked perfectly. Here's a pic of the stator lead prepped and crimped,

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and then assembled with the plastic.

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Repeat this process 3 more times, and it's ready to install. I did end up cleaning up a bit of the wire harness once the connections were made. Since I'm going directly from the stator to the R/R, I didn't need any of the yellow wires in the harness. One yellow wire makes a short trip from the stator plug to the R/R plug in the harness, so that wire was removed completely. The others go up to the handlebars and the old regulator so they were left, but got taped up into the bundle. This left it pretty clean.

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The R/R I chose is the FH008EB. It was the only FH I found that had wires coming out of it instead of receptacles. This allowed me to mount it in the stock location. If I needed to plug a connector into the side of the box, the connectors would stick out either into the gas tank, or the side cover. I eventually discovered that you can buy the mating connectors to the ones that came on the FH008EB from Cycle Terminal, but only after I had already cut them off. (And was about to do the sketchy wiring). I'm okay with the change though because the Metri-Pack connectors I used are a little smaller than the ones that came on the R/R, and they are waterproof.

If you've been following along, you might remember that I originally used small gold RC connectors for the stator connection. I didn't go with those again. Not because I have any doubt that they are electrically up to the task, but because they don't have a locking tab to ensure they don't wiggle apart.

A curious thing I discovered was that there was a third ground wire on the harness coming to the old rectifier. The wiring diagram only shows two, and in fact the regulator itself only wired to two. The third was just an empty socket. I'm fairly certain the reason for the double wires for power and ground at the rectifier is not because of the current capacity of the wires, but for the current capacity of the connectors. Since the Metri-Pack connectors are high current, I'm certain I could have just picked one red and one green wire in the harness, but I did end up combining two of each of them into one crimp. While this is possible, it's not recommended. The third green wire was left unconnected.

Total so far: $2784.28

[elwood440]

ELECTRICAL UPGRADES
PT 2, SOLENOID

The other component giving me issues was the starter solenoid. It functioned fine, but would stay connected for a brief second or so after I released the start button. That did not give me warm fuzzies, so it has been replaced with a modern OEM solenoid. You will notice here that I left the old connectors in place and added the adapter for the new solenoid. I struggled with this a bit because I would REALLY like to eliminate the old connections, but I was not able to eliminate them AND put the new solenoid in the stock location. The wires wouldn't reach.

Here's the wires that I cut off of the old part, and the connector kit.

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Here are the contacts crimped on, (with un-shrunk heat-shrink to replace the crumbling cloth wire armor)

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and here they are assembled.

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The part that I found came with the rubber isolator and even had the spare fuse with it! The rubber fits in the stock location perfectly! It even accommodated the stock starter lead and the battery lead works with no modifications. Making the harness adapter above really makes this a plug and play upgrade.

My battery compartment looks tidy now, and you would never know it didn't come with these components.

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[5speed]

I don't understand any of what you posted..but it looks great.

[ericheath]

Here, here

[Sugs]

Looks good, nice and clean!

[elwood440]

Thanks fellas.

I tested the starter, but I didn't test the charging system yet because it was raining yesterday.

[BikeMaine]

I admire your perseverance with that wiring.

[elwood440]

I admire your perseverance with that wiring.

thanks. I guess it pays to be stubborn?

I tested the charging system and it seems.. minimal? I got 13.4 at idle and 13.8 at 5k. I'd like to see another .2 on both of those, but I guess it meets specs. The voltage gauge on the dash indicates 14ish, so that's happy.

[555]

Bravo! I wish the donor 79 motor had been in better shape. It was a big unknown when I picked it up, but I hated to see it sent to the scrap yard. I also wondered why someone cut the flange off the exhaust. I can only guess, people often do strange things. If you used assembly lube while building your engine, that may be the source of the smoking exhaust. I hope you get a lot of use out of this bike and congratulations on a job well done.
Regards,
John
AKA 555

[elwood440]

Thanks again 555! I couldn't have done it without your help. It seems to be running like a champ, but with its water-in-the-crankcase history now I'm thinking every little noise might be a knock (thanks Gord.) I guess I'll find out before too long if it is.

I have some beauty shots from Saturday after the local vintage club's breakfast. Enjoy

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[elwood440]

more pics

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my new avatar pic!

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This one is my favorite

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