Winter Cleaning

I'm still waiting for my new rear tire to come in so I have slowly been taking more and more parts off of the bike and cleaning/polishing them. I finished polishing the gauges and I'm waiting for it to warm up a bit so I can paint the bracket that holds the gauges. I also had to buy some new rubber gaskets for them as the old ones had pretty much rotted away.

I cleaned up the rear shocks the other night while watching TV and I've started on the front wheel. I took the front brake apart and everything seems pretty good there. The previous owner must have recently replaced both sets of brake shoes. I took the front wheel bearings out to clean, inspect and repack them with grease but I found they did not turn very smoothly. Not like the rear ones at all. So, I went ahead and ordered a new set for $10. Hopefully I got the right ones.

I probably won't be updating this blog for a month or two since it is pretty cold now and I'll just be cleaning and polishing instead of riding. If anything humorous happens, I'll let you know about it.

Speedo

When I bought Nixon, the rear tire had a substantial groove cut into the side of it, probably from rubbing against the fender when misaligned. I tried to buy a new tire this summer, but all of the suppliers were out, so I have been riding around on it. On my way home from work last Friday, it finally gave out. The tire split in the groove about a 1/4 of the way around the tire. Luckily, it has an inner tube so it did not blow and I was able to get home.....slowly. Oh yes, and the speedometer cable broke that day.

Since I can't ride it until I get a new tire, I decided to go ahead and disassemble the front end and clean it up. I somehow managed to get the frame balanced on a block of wood so I could get the front and rear wheels off. I also took the gauges off. I'm starting with the speedometer. It was kind of rattling around in the housing. It turns out that the two screws on the back that hold it tight to the housing were missing. I found two screws in my dad's box-o-screws that would work. The paint on the gauges is faded and chipped with lots of ugly touch-up paint so I started sanding them to get ready to repaint them. I noticed the metal underneath was bright shiny steel. So, I ended up sanding all of the paint off and polishing the steel. I figure if I don't like it, I can always paint them. I finished the speedometer last night after about 2 hours of sand paper, steel wool and metal polish. Now it is the tachometer's turn to get buffed.

It's a Start

It has been too cold here to ride lately so I've been doing a little work on Nixon. I'm in the process of repairing the damage I did to the stock exhaust system I did when I tried to take it apart to clean it. I had to cut off a broken bolt and drill it out. I will have to get a new one welded in. I also tried to get one of the heat shield bolts out but have not yet succeeded.

When I bought the bike, the starter button that should have been in the right hand control housing was missing. A previous owner had wired up a cheap radio shack switch under the seat to activate the electric starter. I bought a new button and spring, but when I took the control apart, I realized that there was also a bracket in the housing that was missing. They don't sell that part separately, so I would have to buy a whole new control. Instead, I figured I would put my engineering talents to use and make one. When I was putting the new handlebars on, I took the bracket from the horn button on the left hand control and used it to figure out what the one for the starter button would have to look like. I made a paper template. Last night I used some aluminum sheet I got from a friend who is building an airplane to make a new bracket. I used my dremel tool to cut out the shape and then bent it into the proper form. I actually had to make three because the first two broke when I tried to bend them.

I got the button and bracket installed and reconnected the correct wires at the battery and tried it out. It worked! However, when I tried to put the control housing back on the bars, it wouldn't go on. I realized that all of the wires come out of the bars right where the bracket was. When it wasn't there, they had room. Now they hit the bracket. As I tried moving the wires around the wire to the starter button contact broke off.

I ended up grinding a good amount off of the bracket to try and clear the wires. I also had to solder the wire back onto the contact. After a lot of pushing and twisting, I managed to get the control back on and tightened down. I think the bracket is pushing on the wires, but there isn't much I can do about it. The new starter button works so I removed the old one from under the seat. Woohoo! That only took 2 1/2 hours.