Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

[joecoolsuncle]

Merry Christmas!

[5speed]

congrats on bikes of the month SB

[Sidecar Bob]

So spring has sprung (sort of) and I've been making plans all winter for what I'll do and in what order. Planting the veg garden is the least flexible part of that so everything else has to fit around it. Kay has started parking outside and I can use the big space in the garage again so normally I'd be chomping at the bit to get Mr.H into there for its pre-season checkup but she also says it is OK for me to have "Antique Computer Sale Part 2" (getting the rest of Matt's old computers & parts into the hands of people who enjoy that sort of thing) so I want to use the space for that before I move Mr.H.

But I do have a project that is directly related to Mr.H: The ground in front of the shed is always soft in the spring and I've often had the back wheel sink in up to the rim. Last spring I mentioned that I don't want to be pushing 800+ Lb of bike & sidecar over soft ground when I'm 70.
While I was pulling weeds between the patio slab path in the garden last summer and thinking about how much easier it is to pull weeds in the area covered with wood chips it occurred to me that if I used those slabs in front of the shed it would be kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
I don't think I want to move the slabs when I'm 70 either (that happens this summer) and since I was already planning to leave Mr.H in the shed a few more weeks anyway that should give me time to get the slabs out of the garden before I start planting things in there and get them re-laid before I have room in the garage for Mr.H so I have started the "Bike Shed Pad" project (It isn't really a pad but I don't know what else to call it).

After counting how many 18" square slabs I would have several times I decided I'd have enough for a 9' x 7.5' pad in front of the shed so I marked out the area where they will go. The shed is 10' wide but the doors are closer to the left side so the pad will be in line with the left side of the concrete pad (a real pad this time) that the shed is on.

01 - Marked for digging.jpg

There is no angle where I could get a good picture of the whole path; It was 2 slabs wide along the back wall of the house except at the chimney (fireplace in basement rec room) and one slab wide out to the gate (where I stood while taking the pic).

02 - Slabs in garden.jpg

At the end of yesterday the path was gone, all the weeds that had already grown up between the slabs were pulled and the slabs were piled near the shed. They will stay there for a few weeks while I get other stuff done but now I can spread wood chips where they used to be before I start planting things in the garden a few days.

04 - Slabs piled.jpg

[Sidecar Bob]

I finally got back to the patio slabs. I got this much done in2 days

07 - 2nd Row Jul 6.jpg

[Sidecar Bob]

Getting there

09 - 4th Row Jul 8.JPG

[ritalz]

Slab is looking good. Your shed is a bit larger than mine. I took a different approach to having a slab. I call it my landing strip. Long enough and wide enough to do most of my maintenance tasks.

shed slab.jpg

[Sidecar Bob]

My shed needs to be bigger. Or wider anyway

I got the last row of slabs finished yesterday so this afternoon I uncovered Mr.H and tried the pad out

10 - Mr.H on pad.jpg

It was sooooo much easier to push it around on the slabs than on the bumpy ground and in a couple of minutes I had it where I'd be able to drive it past the shed and away. It looks like one more row of slabs would be a good idea

11 - One more row needed.jpg

OK, prime the carbs, put the battery in, turn the key and....... Nothing.

So back to the garage to get the voltmeter. Battery connections are OK, how does the main fuse look? Pop the cover and... Oh my, that doesn't look good at all.
I was too busy walking back & forth between the shed and the garage to take a pic until later but you get the idea. When I tried to pull the fuse out one of the contacts broke off but amazingly the fuse still conducts.

01 - Old fuse & holder.jpg

Of course I don't have a suitable fuse holder on hand but I really wanted to get the outfit moved into the garage without pushing so I cut the wires off of the old holder and improvised this, not a great fix but good enough to get it to the garage

02 - Temporary replacement.jpg

And a few minutes later the oil was draining

In garage 9 July.jpg

[rcmatt007]

I recall the main fuse burning out just as I pulled off the freeway. I knew it was the connections had just gone bad, so I hot wired to get home

[Sidecar Bob]

I thought about doing something like that but with a bunch of fuses and the fastons & tools in the shop that was only about 20M away.....

The battery is back in Eccles now so I can take it to get a proper fuse holder (+ a spare).

[rcmatt007]

I actually stop at the stealer and the Price was HIGH, so I did it to drive the ten miles home. new the issue was with the OEM fuse not after it

[Sidecar Bob]

NOTE: I have to say that the while the VHT Engine Metallic paint looks nice I cannot recommend using it. After 5 years, about 3500 Km and hundreds of heat cycles it is still not resistant to gasoline spills.
The next time I paint an engine I will use Plasti-Kote.

[Sidecar Bob]

Monday I spent half an hour trying to get Mr.H's oil filter cover out from between the frame crossmember and the sidecar subframe. I'd done it before so I knew it could be done but I just couldn't get it at the correct angle. I finally ended up tapping it with a piece of wood to get it to move that tiny bit more.
While I was turning it this way & that it I realized that it only needed half a mm more of clearance so once it was out I ground away about half of the material between the o-ring groove and the edge on the top of the cover & sanded it smooth. After that I put it in & out several times easily before finally putting the new filter in and bolting it back on.

For those who aren't familiar with the "main fuse mod" for Hondas of this vintage, they came with so-called "dogbone" open link main fuses which don't exactly age well (I've heard of many with tiny cracks and a few that turned to powder when touched). Starting in the early '80s the fuse was under a door on the side of the starter solenoid so it has become common to replace the dogbone with a blade fuse in an inline holder.
Here is the new one with ring lugs added, ready to install

03 - New fuse & holder.jpg

And here it is installed. The sides of the door need to be trimmed a bit to clear the lugs when closed. I also added a zip tie for extra support.
Note that when I changed to the bigger battery I moved the solenoid into the space vacated by the original battery so this looks a bit different than on a stock bike. Also, the extra red wire runs to the fuse and relay for the HID headlight and yes, that's the new battery cable running across the bottom of the pic

04 - New fuse & holder installed.jpg

[rcmatt007]

christmas colours

[Sidecar Bob]

Many years ago I bought a coloured zip tie assortment, thinking it might be nice to be able to have the colours match sometimes. Eventually I started using them on the bikes where they don't show. There's a yellow one around the solenoid to hold the door shut too.

[Sidecar Bob]

When I plugged the big syringe into the priming hose and squirted fuel in it came out around the stem of the tank selector valve again. The last time this happened I blamed the o-rings and replaced them even though they looked & felt OK. This time I wondered if with the priming connection between the selector's output and the fuel pump's inlet it backs up because one of the valves in the fuel pump is blocking the flow (this might depend on where in the pump's stroke the engine stops).

Here's what it has looked like since I added the carb priming setup a couple of years ago



Here's the change I decided to make

Priming setup mod proposed.jpg

Would you believe it took me a couple of hours to make this little change?

Priming setup mod done.jpg

And I probably won't know if it made any difference until next spring