Attn. Motorcycle dudes....

I love seeing everyone project rides.  If can help anyone out give me a shout. 

When you go for your piston and rings don't forget to check your crank bearings, odds are the engine siezed to lack of oil/over heating.  Often the bearings don't get checked properly for clearance or scoring. 

You can't use to much assembly lube when putting it all together.

 Wrist pin retaining clips, I like the ones that are tri rings, they can be a pain to put in, but they never come out, once installed.

 What ever you do, don't RTV silicone the case halves together, gas and oil will break it down, and it breaks apart and ends up in your oil screen restricting oil flow or worse lodges some where in the motor in of those tiny passages.  Indian shellac between the cases works well and is old school.  There is other stuff that works well too.

If you have open ball bearings anywhere, consider replacing them with a sealed bearing, it will take a moment to get the proper measurement: Inside diameter of where ther bearing is going, depth of the bearing, and outside diameter of the surface of the that the bearing will ride on.  While you may never see a true conversion for it, it can be done if you know those measurements and go to a bearing house or contact one online.

Painting/Powdercoating frames is great, and looks good, but make sure you keep spots that are used for the chassis ground clean of coating or you will be in electrical hell trying to figure out why your electrical system is wonky,  Ideally I like to use bolts and or nuts on any threaded surface, if you don't I hope you have a good tap and die set to clean it all up afterwards.  Keep that in mind.  Some powdercoaters do not do a lot of motorcycle frames and just blast away, some do and cover those items, find one that does, and cover them your self as extra protection.  a few dollars in nuts and bolts is cheaper than tap and dies.

Fuel tankls, many old tanks need to be retreated.  Remove that aluminum petcok or watch it disolve (don't ask me how I know this one).  Kreem kits do a great job of putting a coating in an old tank and run about $20 so. 

Fuel Lines:  just replace them with high quality fuel line.  cheap line will fail when you least want it too.  I watched a guys bike go up in flames when the cheapo fuel line sprung a leak, the line was less than a year old, but was bargin basement stuff.  The fuel hit the hot exhaust and shortly thereafter ignited.  SO much for the bike.

Vents: every bike has crank vent, older bikes vented to the atmosphere or to the carburator/air filter, don't block it off and run it, or you will be doing a top end rebuild shortly there after.  The suction created internally will suck a gasket or more to the point that an oil leak will occur, and to get to it you will have to due a top end gasket replacement.

Fork oil:  this one is going to be funny, many of the early Japenesse bikes used fish oil as a form of fork oil, that olkd honda may have that so if it stinks to high heaven, you know why!  A good substitue after you get new seals, is dextron tranny fluid... replace the crush washer at the bottom of the fork on the drain screw.

Brake fluid:  Dot 3 and 4 are paint eaters, cover you painted parts when bleeding or working on brakes.  DOT 5 is paint safe.  DOT 3/4 and 5 are not, I say again are not interchangeable!

Mechanical regulators: can be a bit of a pain to adjust, make sure all surfaces are clean and have good feeler gagues, and lot os fopatients and agood meter, well charged battery and good grounds before you start.ption to go solid state do so, you hairline will appreciate it!

Tripping a fuse, try this out, save a an old headlight that has a low beam burned out and the high beam still works.  Make a pair of leads to the high beam side of the headlamp, add a set of butt connectors that will fit in your fuse position, small blade style works well.  Now when you have a circuit that keeps blowing fuses, place the light in its place, the light will glow really bright, but should not burn out, point the bulb at a wall. Now follow the schematic for that circuit from point to point and disconnet  or by pass the items on the circuit until the bulkb dims down.  WHen the bulb dims, you have found the area of the circuit that is bad, now you can fix that area without going crazy looking for it. 

Adding water to a motorcycle can be a challenge, not really, here is an easy one.  Use an old palstic mustard bottle to add watter to you motorcycle battery. It is the right size for keeping your distilled water in and topping off your battery when it needs it.

I hope these tips are useful!

Kevin,

   All great tips!  Just located a set of pistons/rings yesterday & they should hopefully get here today.  Taking the cylinder in to get it bored over as soon as the UPS package get's here.  Pistons & rings for these older Jap. bikes are getting a little harder to come by.  Happened to stuble across a reasonably price set of NOS .75 oversized along with the rings for my "good" motor ('64).  My '63 is still seized but I am not really all that concerned with that motor at the moment.  It will come free when it comes free.  I want to do a big bore kit on that motor anyways!  It will become my "hot sneaker" 305 

   Still undecided if I want to P/C the frame or paint it.  P/C is way more limited on color options but will last a LIFETIME.  Same may happen with the fenders & other "painted" parts.

   Thinking about having the spokes on the wheels P/C'd & polish the outer ring for a fun look.  The spokes & outer ring are steel but the unner hub is aluminum along with the hum brake mech.

Bill

Bill,

Before you unlace those wheels, take lots of pics of the spokes.   Some of the Jap bikes have intresting cross spoke lacing, and can be downright diabolical to relace.  Take note if it is a cross three (three spokes on one side crossing one spoke on the other) or a cross four, or some weird combo.  weird combo's were not that uncommon for those years.  Also take note to see if it is equal length spoke  or unequals, unequals will play with your head for days.  Ideally I love a cross four pattern, by far the easiest of wheels to lace and true as everything is the same on both sides.

Clean the snot out of your wheel, rust has most likely set in the wheel and neets a good cleaning/bead blasting.

Tires and Chains:  My .02 cents, by the best you can get...within reason.  No sense getting a tsubaki drag racing chain if a simple o-ring chain will ge the job done. Sprockets: stay with stell, aluminum ones are for racing, and wear out fast.  Tires:  it cost money to have Motorcycle tires on, so buy the best you can afford that will last a long time versus some off brand Kendo or Cheng Sheng tire.   Those last brands will make a tread pattern exactly the same as a major brand name, but the side walls look they were made from old wal-mart bags, and don't hold up well.

Brake pads:  They're a lot of companies making pads, some good, some not so good.  Remember it is your life it will be stopping.  I personnally love SBS brake pads and have great luck with them, as they do very well in the rain/wet condtions, but everyone has their preferences.

Axles:  I like to use anti sieze on axles, this is what I was taught at MMI and it has always served me well.  Mind you this crap once it gets on something will get on everything else it comes in contact with.

Black Paint: Best color for getting a bike painted, When I worked for an HD dealership back in the day, Black outsold everything by an ungodly number.  I used to go around neighborhoods when I was Paramedic and buy old bikes and rebuild them. I went ot one Body shop and would leave my tank and fenders their and have them shot in black, but only when they where shooting somehting else in black. This would cut my cost down dramtically.  I never had to waitlonger than a week or two for my parts, and I never had to pay ful price for a paint job.

Don't know if you are getting spark or fuel to the cylinder, break out a timing light and hook to a cylinder and turn the motor over.  If the light is flashing you are getting spark, no need to pull the plug yet.

A normal battery charges around 13 volts +/- 1/2 volt.  Anything below that is going to head me towards the stator, anything over that is sending me towards the rectifier.  Not always but this is one of those 90% rules.

Haen't checked the motor for spark or electrical related issues yet.  The bike was in full running condition when it was parked back in 1967 (to my understanding).  I just pulled the head for the "fun" of it to check & see how the piston looked.  Found that it was near it's life end @ .50 oversize.  Rings looked great.  Guess I could have pulled the sleeves, re-sleaved & bored to the .50 again but it was less expensive to take it to .75 over & put in new pistons/rings.  Doesn;t appear to have oil leaks but I got a full gasket set just in case.  Going to ultrasonically clean the carbs & rebuild shortly.  The bike is down to bare frame.  Really thinking about taking it back to the stock black frame.

May just live with a little pitting in the chrome rather than re-chrome.  Chome is very costly to have done these days.  Not a huge fan of "chrome" looking bikes.  If I had my way, I would go with the black chrome or no chrome at all.

Some of the powdercoating can make something that is very close to chrome, or you can go in any direction.  If the header is in good shape  and not to badly rusted having it ceramic coated may be one thing to think of.  GOt a shop here in San Carlos that is very reasonable.  Keeps your pipe a lot cooler, which in turn keeps that exhaust valve cooler as well.

I had a vintage new condition- slight rust- Kerker pipe- ceramic coated black satin to match how it would have been new in the 80's...it came out very nice..i did have to go back once ,the first time they left boogers and drips...the second time the owner of the shop made sure it was tits...this was in salinas...it held up great...through some heat cycles for the six months till I sold the bike...180.00 but it was full pipe though
I would paint a frame before doing a powder coat just cause of the cost and touch up factor...I think PJ-1 frame spray enamel is what many kz resto guys use to do a home job that lasts..have not used it yet but plan to do my 900 with it after the bracing and welding is done...

I need you boys to come over here and motivate me to get working on my bike.... Not as challenging as your 'restore' project; just need to stop my #1 carb from dumping fuel.....

and maybe help me tune my Trail 70

I had the same problem with my #1 carb.  The float needle was cockeyed and didn't allow the valve to fully close.  I removed a tiny piece of debris and its all good now. 

Relatively easy job. 

Moto tech day @ glen's?  I need to replace fork seals/bushings. 

I need you boys to come over here and motivate me to get working on my bike.... Not as challenging as your 'restore' project; just need to stop my #1 carb from dumping fuel.....

and maybe help me tune my Trail 70

You're all welcome to come play on my bikes

I might have to get out my Honda Mini Trail 50's as well!

I'd suggest a carb kit if you haven't done that in a while.  The new gas plays hell on older carb's.

That ceramic coating doesn't look too bad.  Might look into that further.  Luckily my frame needs no modifications so P/C it wouldn't be a big issue.  Already custom made wooden plugs for the head & rear swing pivots to keep blasing debris & paint out.  I can just re-tap the other holes later as needed.  Honda uses a minimal # of thread sizes on their old bikes.

I have cleaned and re-built the card twice; think it might be the vacuum diaphram.... $70 for a piece of rubber..

I'm down for a moto-day at my place.... it that what its gonna take to get my bikes on the road...

I've got 2 Trail 70s; own I jack'd up the kick starter pedal (inside the gearbox) and the other I had rebuilt, just have not had the time (too lazy, un-motivated) to get it tuned.....

Help (actually, motivation) is greatly appreciated...

I need you boys to come over here and motivate me to get working on my bike.... Not as challenging as your 'restore' project; just need to stop my #1 carb from dumping fuel.....

and maybe help me tune my Trail 70

you didn't say if this was a newer or older triumph, so here goes:
Dumping fuel, now that sounds like a stuck float.  Here is a couple of things you can try on the easy side that may fix that. One, add some fuel treatment to it, keep the petcock closed at all times, (unless it is a vacume operated petcock).  Now take a hammer with a wooden hammer shaft and use the shaft to tap the carb lightly, key word being lightly, and see if it jars the float /float needle free.  if that does problem fixed.

If not fixed:  Drain fuel bowl if possible into a catch basin,  if it is accesible use either a very short #2 phillips stubby or an offset #2 to remove the 4 screws holding the bowl to the carb.  Keep in mind these things are made of soft metal and may not come out easily (many times it is easier to remove the carb).  Once bowl is removed, watch for the gasket, it will fall somewhere where you can't find it or you will pinch it later and the shop will not have a replacement.  The float will have a small pin going through it, depending on howit is designed, that pin will also go through a needle.  Before you remove the pin, make note of how everything comes apart first, then place one hand under the everything to catch the parts that will fall (and they fall into the dark abysss of the garage floor).  Remove pin carefully, catch falling float and needle.

Check to see if float is full of fuel, if it is get a replacement one don't go anyfurther the float is bad.  Check to see that the rubber tip on the float is serviceable, is it still soft and flexible or hard and brittle.  If hard and brittle replace it.  Needles and seats can cause a lot of problems and if they are bad in one carb, odds are they are bad in all of them.


Now would be a good time to pull the slow speed and intermittent speed jets and spray them with carb cleaner...because you can.
Reinstall everything in reverse order.  Before putting the bowl on check to see if the bowl bowl Lifts properly.  Some people will take a small carton, or bowl put a piece of small gauge wire through the holes in the float, and let the float hang in the bowl/carton/can and slowly fill it with water/gas? or water fluid you have to see if th efloat actually rises like it should.

Once the pin is in see if the float and needle work properly  by moving it with your finger.  If it does you should be okay for final reassembly of the bowl.


Once assebled try pulling the number one plug and see if that fixes the problem if it dumpoing fuel.  ALso never leave your bike parked with petcock in the on position, as fule pressure can lif the needle and allow fuel to pass through  and casue what is refered to as "hydrostactically locking" the motor.

Could be Vac. related.  Check eBay for the part?  I found a few places with vintage NOS parts that are well priced.

Kevin,

   He has Hona Trail 70's

does it have a float bowl assembly? #1 cause of overflow problems..let me ask my guru..easy fix probably