my cafe bike project......

[HardDrive]

For god sake, stop posting in this thread. Its going to make me do something $$$ that will pish off the wife.

[ERH]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

For god sake, stop posting in this thread. Its going to make me do something $$$ that will pish off the wife.

She might like a new Thuxton.




Ed

[bell]

just checked out my charging system, at first i wasn't getting the full 60+volts a/c from the stator, replaced all the connectors on the factory plug and waalaa.....working fine, which is good cause that's a $250 part
so it's charging fine but the battery is weak so i ordered a battery and some tires today.......
next will be to readjust/sinc the carbs, if i can't get it to run better i'll order a carb rebuild kit....

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by bell

just checked out my charging system, at first i wasn't getting the full 60+volts a/c from the stator, replaced all the connectors on the factory plug and waalaa.....working fine, which is good cause that's a $250 part
so it's charging fine but the battery is weak so i ordered a battery and some tires today.......
next will be to readjust/sinc the carbs, if i can't get it to run better i'll order a carb rebuild kit....

Check your pilot jets....if it has modern gas in it that is 6 months or older, the tiny low speed jets may be plugged and that would make it run like crap except for high rpm.

[bell]

wheels are off, dropping them off at a local ktm shop tomorrow (i've heard of very good service at this place), the tires should be in on thursday morning.
going to pull the carbs this week and check the jets, etc, if anything is questionable i'll order the rebuild kits
more to come.....

[holtjv]

Originally Posted by bell

...
lose the passenger pegs (they are also a muffler bracket so i'll fab up something)

Should be easy to do. If not one of the bonnie/thrux vendors sells a set that looks great but costs a lot..think it's triumphperformanceusa or bellacorse.

Jack

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by bell

wheels are off, dropping them off at a local ktm shop tomorrow (i've heard of very good service at this place), the tires should be in on thursday morning.
going to pull the carbs this week and check the jets, etc, if anything is questionable i'll order the rebuild kits
more to come.....

A few things about bike carbs just in case you don't know.

Many mid 70's or so and later bikes have the carbs linked together with brackets and choke mechanisms, vent tubes etc. and are typically removed all together as a unit rather than one at a time. Once the whole shooting match is shoehorned out of the bike, the jets, and floats can be serviced without disassembling the carbs from one another. Also, these newer carbs have an upper vacuum type chamber that contains a delicate rubber diaphragm. If you intend to squirt the carb passages with carb cleaner after removing the main and pilot jets,, you will want to carefully take the top covers and slide out the diaphragms and throttle slides prior to spraying the carb bodies (carefully noting how they come apart), as some carb spray cleaners can damage the thin diaphragms.

I simply use four plastic marked bins to keep the parts separate for each carb (I also usually scribe the carb bodies so I do not get confused later about which side is #1 and which side is #4).

[teamfee3]

A BMW R69S based Rennsport tribute bike built by Perry Bushong who built less than a dozen of these. This one is for sale in the $35K range at Bob's BMW in MD.











You can go the German route.

[bell]

that R69S is rad.....

thanks tim, good info

the stock air filter is crap.....so i'm thinking of losing the stock airbox in favor of individual small filters, any experience with these?

i was eyeing up the rear section today when i removed my wheels, fiberglass panel for sure, just need to figure out the tail-light.......people are stupid in florida so i want to make sure it's very visible and easy to distinguish....

[SLO-BOB]

Originally Posted by bell

the stock air filter is crap.....so i'm thinking of losing the stock airbox in favor of individual small filters, any experience with these?

Unless you change the pipes and jets, you want to keep the stock airfilters. Those little filters will change your airflow and likely lean the bike out too much. If you're referring to the Ebay chrome ones, they're ****e. K&Ns are better quality but you'll have to change the jetting and for little to no improvement in power. Often less power in fact.

[bell]

more good info, thanks

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by bell

that R69S is rad.....

thanks tim, good info

the stock air filter is crap.....so i'm thinking of losing the stock airbox in favor of individual small filters, any experience with these?

i was eyeing up the rear section today when i removed my wheels, fiberglass panel for sure, just need to figure out the tail-light.......people are stupid in florida so i want to make sure it's very visible and easy to distinguish....

Only suggestion for the tail light is to look on ebay at the wide varieties of aftermarket lights. I think I will end up building my own from scratch on my project as nothing out there really fits my situation.

Slo-Bob makes a good point about the jetting changes that a non-stock air intake might require. Sometimes stuff like that can be a pain to get dialed in if you screw with it.

[bell]

just ordered a clubman handle bar......
dropping wheels off tomorrow, new tires should be on by thursday......
will be getting the carbs off by the weekend to check them out.......

and thinking of a color combo........maybe flat military green and black........

[holtjv]

Def drop the airbox--you'll get in the neighborhood of 5bhp increase. Most of the rats use uni's or k&ns for individ filters. You'll have to upjet your mains and maybe pilots but it will be worth it to hear the roar at WOT.

I'll bet 70% of the mods done on triumphs are airbox deletes. The vendors sell kits that include the jets, battery box holder, and carb brace. I just cut around mine enough to put in the filters and left the rest there.

Jack

[Dueller]

Originally Posted by bell

just ordered a clubman handle bar......
dropping wheels off tomorrow, new tires should be on by thursday......
will be getting the carbs off by the weekend to check them out.......

and thinking of a color combo........maybe flat military green and black........

CArpy only builds Honda CB's but some good ideas:

http://www.cb750cafe.com/

[SLO-BOB]

Maybe you have already been to this site, but I would do a search and inquire before "cutting" anything.

http://vjmog.com/forum-27.html

I understand the concept of increasing airflow, but you just can't compare a Japanese 4 to a British twin, let alone do the same mods. The Brits were notoriously under tuned, while the Japanese engineers (I don't think Triumph ever had engineers - just mechanics )spent a lot of time matching the fuel delivery to the exhaust and all points in between. As we often say on the tech forum here, do you really think you can do better than the engineers?

I remember back in the day I had a stock GS1100E. A friend the same bike, but tossed on the Kerkers and ditched the airbox - no carb work unfortunately. Definitely made more noise. It was nice because I could tell how far behind me he was in a race.

[holtjv]

Originally Posted by SLO-BOB

Maybe you have already been to this site, but I would do a search and inquire before "cutting" anything.

http://vjmog.com/forum-27.html

I understand the concept of increasing airflow, but you just can't compare a Japanese 4 to a British twin, let alone do the same mods. The Brits were notoriously under tuned, while the Japanese engineers (I don't think Triumph ever had engineers - just mechanics )spent a lot of time matching the fuel delivery to the exhaust and all points in between. As we often say on the tech forum here, do you really think you can do better than the engineers?

I remember back in the day I had a stock GS1100E. A friend the same bike, but tossed on the Kerkers and ditched the airbox - no carb work unfortunately. Definitely made more noise. It was nice because I could tell how far behind me he was in a race.

Sounds like good advice to me. Glad you chimed in!

I think that the question about doing better than engineers should be looked at differently though. No, there's no way I'm smarter than a japanese engineer or even a Triumph mechanic (I think you're dead-on here, which is why they are easy to mod). And yet the engineers are quite obv not given free reign, right? They have to engineer within constraints a lot of us do not; cost, environmental, fuel consumption, etc. I'll bet I've put $1k more into my bike, which translates into about what, $400 in wholesale parts and maybe $100 in factory labor (if that). I have about another $500-1k for suspension components needed.

[jhynesrockmtn]

the stock air filter is crap.....so i'm thinking of losing the stock airbox in favor of individual small filters, any experience with these?

Heed the advice given here. I had a 75 CB400SS for a while. The PO had put K&N filter pods on without jetting and pipe changes and leaned it out too much. It ran like crap and broke up at higher RPM's. The motor was still ok but the compression on the inside cylinders was lower than the outside where they get better airflow. The lean mixture had overheated things. The mechanic who did the tune found a stock setup and put it back on. He told me those filter pods were intended for race set ups and can do serious damage on a street bike unless everything is set up appropriately.

[Eric 951]

Originally Posted by bell

just ordered a clubman handle bar......
dropping wheels off tomorrow, new tires should be on by thursday......
will be getting the carbs off by the weekend to check them out.......

and thinking of a color combo........maybe flat military green and black........

Bell,

Here is my buddy's '81 GS750 which he just finished painting this week and assembling last night.--This will give you an idea of what the green/black combo will look like. The screen is from a Kawasaki and the headlight itself is from an old CB. He has a total of 900.00 into this bike--including the purchase price not bad at all.

[bell]

good stuff......that green is too shiny for me though

i'm picking up my wheels tomorrow, once i get the bars i'll have a better idea of what direction the color will go though.....

so far i'm at about $860 total, with the new tires/battery/bars/purchase price