December 28th ride, a Buell, Ural, Chop and a Victory.

We have had some unseasonably warm weather in Northern Virginia.  There are days of 60 and 70 degree weather surrounded by days of 30 and 40s.  So we had to take advantage of today being in the high 50s.

Deuce and Jenny were going to ride the FXR but the starter was acting up and then staying engaged.  Deuce tried the CB750 and it started up and ran but then the plugs fowled.  So here we see a slightly frustrated Deuce on the back of the Buell to go get the Ural.

Off they go to Phil's to get the Ural!

We rode out to Remington on the back roads and stopped at this little store.  Kevin and his son joined us for the ride on his Victory.  We were an interesting looking bunch with the different style bikes we had.

Deuce and Jenny are rebuilding the carb for her Mustang.  They have it apart and getting the years of funk out of it by boiling it and blowing it out.

Boiled carb, it's what's for dinner!

Phil had a small nail in his rear wheel so he spooned it off while Chris supervised.

Tube is patched but when a 6 year old girl tells you to patch it with a santa sticker, you put a santa sticker on it!

After Christmas shop time

Phil got the shovel together and pulled it off the long term lift.  Opened the front master cylinder and the brake fluid had turned to sand it seemed.  Deuce found good use of an old pizza box to shield him when he blew it out.  Pushed clean fluid through the lines and the dual front brakes work fine.

Deuce's son got a new skate board for Christmas so the kids put it together with a little help from us.

Phil attempted to kick the shovel and it kicked back twice.

We busted out the TIG and did some practice welds because we have zero experience on the TIG.  Deuce feels confident enough to TIG some bungs into the Virago tank for a visible fuel gauge.

Chris made some progress on the VMAX today.  Got the stem and sleeve pressed into the lower clamp.

Chris got the donor front end on the frame.

Next stop is the frame jig to work the downtubes and get it welded back up.

Chris had this novelty helmet in his stash, you know someone had to put it on!

The Virago is on the ground after a ton of work.  Upholster the seat and finish the tank and it wheely time!!

Productive Sunday

The day started out by finishing up the VMAX sleeve to attach the new front end to the VMAX neck tube.  We made this on the lathe and it fit perfectly.  We made this out of the donor stem because it was aluminum and had the exact outer diameter for the donor triple clamps.

Chris and Phil pressed the sleeve into the triple clamp.


Here is the bottom clamp with the sleeve pressed in.  Deuce and Chris pressed the VMAX stem into the bottom clamp with a snap ring so everything stays together.  Now Chris can install the newer sport front end onto the VMAX frame utilizing the original size bearings.

Deuce sanded down the Virago tank and prepped it for some "notes" and clear.  More to come on this one.

Chris finally found a bike that was his size!!  Rode around and jumped a stump in the yard for a little while.

The tank looks great on the Virago, it is coming together nicely.  Phil got the Shovel started and let it run for a while, it sounded great!

Yamaha Virago Timing Chain Tensioner Adjust

We wanted to check that the automatic timing chain tensioner was working properly because the chain seemed too tight.  The first step is to drink a PBR...to make a small tool of course.  Cut a small piece that is the width of the slit in the top of the housing that will lock the slotted tensioner in place when reinstalling it into the motor.

Deuce ran the tensioner shaft back into the housing and held kept it from expanding with the vice.

Take your custom tensioner tool and lock the tensioner screw in place.

Reinstall the entire assembly back into the motor.  Remove the locking tool and the tensioner will spring out towards the chain guide and apply the appropriate pressure. 

Virago exhaust

The Virago has been an ongoing project in the shop for nearly a year now. We have it mostly back together. Once we hear the engine fire it was time to put an exhaust on it. The original style of the bike is cruiser and the exhaust was fittin of a cruiser. However with a more aggressive street fighter image we wanted to do a modern 2 into 1 setup. After digging through the rafters we came up with a super trap header and pipe off a sportster.

In order to keep the over all length down to an acceptable distance we had to join the rear pipe at the muffler. A quick blow through with the plasma cutter.

Getting it all im place for a clean mock up prior to tacking it in place

After welding on the pipe and the new bracket we decided to it would look better with some header wrap. There are two important items needed when wrapping a pipe. 1. bucket of warm water to soak the wrap in 2. big fat friend to hold the counter weight of the stretch

 

Chris and Phil jumped and and put it all back together.

I am pleased with the way it came out however I will admit it doesn't run for shit now! It is back to adjusting the Carb.

The shop gets a lathe

Phil and I have had mill lathe fever for the past few months. Not sure what exactly we need these tools for but once you have a desire for a tool it is hard to not talk and day dream about it. After countless days on craigslist and other classified Phil found the perfect deal. There are a lot of lathes to be had but most of them were out of our price range. This one was had the perfect combination of age, soul, distance from us and price. 

The guy pictured is Ralph.  He was a really good dude. He had done so many different jobs in his life and was a wealth of cool stories. His shop was riddled with years of projects gone by. The piles of trim cut off stacked to the side or the bins of hand made tools were evident that this man was a maker and his hands had formed many unique items over the years.

Like all of us Ralph was getting older and looking to downsize. After an hour drive down to Richmond, Phil and Ralph were busy disassembling the lathe. The lath had been in place for the better part of 30 years.  

Back at the shop we had make the difficut dicision of where to put this beast. Initially it was decided to put it upstaire since it is a tool that will not get used daily. However it's beauty validated it placement in sight.

I am not sure what any of these things are used for but with it already being 100 years old, I figure I have some time to learn each of them.

A bag of screws later and these peices have a new home

We have no idea how to use this beast but no better way to get aquaited with a lady then to dive right in.

For starter we tested the maching by turning down a square stock of brass then experimented with the knurling tool. This thing is AWESOME!

So there she sits. Like a old friend that has made it's way into a new home. We are very happy to have here and look forward to maintaining her for her stay with us. With a machine like this it is fun to think of all the places it has been and all the items that have been created on it. This one machine could have been the heartbeat of a compnay 100 years ago or the bread winner for a family. Either way we will keep her safely until she moves on.

Shortening a clutch cable

We needed to shorten the Virago clutch cable because the adjuster couldn't take out enough.  We marked our cable and accounted for the length that would go through the cable end once driller out.  We took out .6 inches in total.

Deuce cut the cable using the cutoff tool, our thinking was that the cable would fray less this way than if we used dikes.

This is what remains and we cut off the remaining cable.

Measured the diameter of the cable and drilled a hole the same size.

Put a piece of sheet metal on the hot plate and heated everything up.  Once the cable and end we hot enough, solder flowed through everything and made it one piece.

Chris finished it off by filing the cable end smooth.  We reinstalled it and it worked perfectly.