<=== Prev Next ===>

Friday, Apr 25 2014 [25,724 miles]

Today I’m going to add the finishing touches needd to get the bike ready to start and hopefully ride. I’ll spend more time cleaning than wrenching.

exhaust

I put the exhaust and muffler pieces out of the way when I dismantled the bike. As I gathered them today I found them covered in four months worth of dust in addition to the road grime that existed prior to take off. I cheated and used a Porter-Cable polisher with some Mothers metal polish to make the job go a little faster.

Once the pipes and crossover were clean I applied some anti-sieze and loosely attched the parts to the bike.

muffler

With the exhaust installed I attacked the muffler with the polisher and got the dirt and stains off. The polisher doesn’t help with the road dings. I mounted the mufflers and tightened the system starting at the front of the bike and working my way back. Given my history of mufflers that fall off the bike I used some blue loctite on the muffler mounting hardware. I also used plenty of anti-sieze around the exhaust nuts before tightening.

carburetor install

I did nothing to the carbs except bolt them back up to the bike. They were adjusted well when I took them off the bike. I did apply a touch of white lithium grease to the O-ring before screwing the top on after installing the slides. I also used new wavy washers. The old were quite flat.

final checks

The last items to do were top off the oil and hook up the battery. And clean. Anti-sieze colored hand prints and dark smudges show up very well on a white bike. I tried to get them off without adding any new marks.

The rain stopped and I could have rolled the bike off the stand and tried to start the bike. However, it was late in the afternoon and a cold beer was calling. Plus, if I run into any issues I want time to look/think before doing anything. Tomorrow.

 

<=== Prev Next ===>