Never Weld Your Own Handlebars

Late in the day, I finished wiring up my bike. Jeesh! did the original wiring system make 0 sense. For the life of me, I can't understand why one wouldn't just make everything run with a single positive wire and designate all the metal parts of the bike as ground. So after a lot of rewiring and reconfiguring to fit new smaller bundles (though higher gauge wire actually) nicely hidden behind the tank and frame, I wanted to go for a spin.  The problem was I didn't have a set of handlebars, as I had chopped my original ones to mock-up how I wanted new ones to look.  The mock-ups were just tack welded together and I knew they didn't have enough strength to ride safely.  After searching around my brothers box of bike parts without finding any suitable bars I elected to just squirt some more weld on the temp ones and give it a spin.  I drove the bike about and it seemed ok, after darting through the Presidio quickly, I headed home.  The next morning I got up early to go for a real spin, and decided to quickly file down the ugly welds I had made the night before. They cleaned up quick and looked ok, so I headed of across the Golden Gate bridge and out on the 101.  It was my first time getting the bike, and really any motorcycle, up to highway speeds and it felt fine, except the wind was a bit unnerving across the bridge and I felt uneasy getting buffeted around.
I exited the 101, onto highway 1 and wound my way down to Muir Beach to get some cornering action.  I stopped at an overlook just after Muir Beach and snapped this photo of Icarus.

After enjoying the view I decided it was time to head home, this had been a great ride.  I jumped onto the bike and standing with quite a lot of my weight on the handlebars, I bounced the bike out of excitement. To my absolute horror, the bike emitted a nosy CRACK, and my right hand dropped a few inches.  I looked down and felt that soul sinking feeling as I inspected my now cracked weld and subsequent dangling throttle and handbrake. The whole of the right handlebar was now attached by a thin burr of weld on the underside of tubing.  Fortunately, I had placed a little piece of metal scrap inside of the handbar tubing to hold the rig together while I welded it. This, with the remaining millimeter of remaining weld, held the bar in place just enough that I could still turn the handlebars... gently.  As I thought about options while sitting on the winged bike, I decided to do a light ride around the overlook to see if Icarus was still navigable.  It seemed like the bike could still be ridden if I was ever so cautious not to put more than a feather's weight of pressure on the right handlebar.

I decided to go for it, and headed back to the city at a snails pace, riding on the shoulder occasionally.  I limped the bike back into Sausalito, and just happened to ride by a garage where I saw a few mechanics at work.  I swung in and walked over to ask if anyone had a pipe clamp or perhaps a welder so I could get the bike home.  The asian mechanic I was talking to started backing away from the obvious death trap I was riding, and repeated in a cliché accent "No no no. Not safe, can't help." I tried to explain that I knew it wasn't safe, but he literally slammed the shop door in my face.

I finished the ride back, making the toll on the bridge then getting safely onto the side roads by the Presidio. Despite the cool spring air, I was drenched in sweat from the nerve-racking ride.  I parked the bike, and rested the broken handle bar on the tank. As I stepped back from Icarus, the irony of the name dawned on me. I am only glad I was able to learn this lesson without injury.  Back to the shop with Icarus for a new right wing.

Electrical Nightmares

When I bought the bike, the owner had put an inline switch to the low beam headlight so it could be switched off durring the day to save battery (from earlier posts: the stator wouldn't charge the battery).  As I was putting things back together, and trying to clean things up. I decided to do away with the ugly indicator box between my two gauges.  I decided it was important to keep the indicators though so I went hunting for a discrete place to hide the parts.  I knew there was room under the fuse box, so I sat down and did some thinking about how I could stash it al there.  I had already removed the old fuses and replaced it with a custom fuse setup that allowed the typical easy to find blade fuses, so there was plenty of space under here now.

I ordered up a bunch of LEDs and consulted the wiring diagram, to solder up a new design.  On a small project board from RadioShack, I rebuilt the light box with a few resistors to match the specs of the original box and not burn out my LEDs.  While I had the whole unit apart, I also powder coated the hardware with the matching white of the tank and fenders. (picture to come)

Everything looked nice but there was an odd gap between the gauges, so with the help of TechShop and my brother who had taken the water jet class, I designed a new bracket that had mounts exactly where I needed them and got a perfect fitting piece.  I'll try and post a picture of the finished set up in the next day or two.

Stator in and Frame out for Paint

The new stator and CDI shipped quickly, and as soon as I had them, I began installing them in the bike. Now an expert with the engine, having had it appart and cleaned, this went quickly.  The only trouble I got into was my decision to liberally grease each new stainless steel bolt before replacing it. This was a blunder I would only experience later on.

It was now time to begin putting things back together. since I had the bike basically down to the frame, I decided to go the distance and stripp it all the way down.  I took the frame to a powder coating facility in Oakland, who did the full stripp and powder for $80, it would have been more expensive, but I supplied my own powder.  When I picked up the frame it was a beautiful Settlers Gold, and the company did an amazing job evenly coating it and masking off the important parts.  

I decided to do the fancy work myself, ad took off the fenders and tank, then sand blasted them down at Tech Shop.  The old paint came off easily, and I quickly had raw metal to work with.  Paranoid about letting rust get in there, I tried to do the whole job in one day.  I cut the fenders down to get a little more agressive look, and taped them off with some green heat resistant tape.

In the spray booth, I then liberally applied a coat of white powder, then off to the oven to bake.  With the white on, and the piece still warm, I reverse taped what I had done and sprayed on a glossy cream.  

My first attempt didn't work well, as a good amount of the powder bled into the surrounding white, but my second attempt I was more diligent with my application and it went on smoothly.

In retrospect, it would have been significantly easier to just powder the whole thing white and spray on the detailing.  This method was far more labor-intense and having tried this subsequently, the difference is not noticeable.  

Seat Design

With the bike stripped down and the engine out, and with nothing to do but wait for new parts, I decided to start customizing a little.  I searched the web for a bit for ideas, and found a bike similar to what I was hoping to build, posted on Pipe Burn.  I dropped this image into photoshop and edited up this:

Following this virtual modification, I went for the seat.  Removing the former cover and drawing the new shape on the old foam.  From this sketch, I cut the foam on a band saw, I shaped a rough version.

Using an angle grinder with one of the wheels with staggered sand paper, I shaped the corners and details I was looking for.

Finally, I cut the seat pan down to match the new shape of the seat.  This resulted in the pan not having any structural components anymore, so I ended up scrapping the part all together and just fabricating a new part from some 16 g sheet steel. This is the old pan after I cut it down:

For the new pan from scratch, I put mocked the shape up with some card board, then laid it flat on my steel.  I then cut this shape out with a bandsaw and made the contour bends on the edge of my bench with a few clamps holding the pan in place.  The pan was still a bit wobbly, so I took it over to the english wheel and with some channel rollers, put a nice channel through the flat parts of the pan, adding a lot of rigidity and strength.  I then lined the pan up to the bike and marked exactly where I would need to add tabs for clipping/screwing it down to the frame.  Since I planned on mounting my taillight to the seat, I welded a tab at the back.  Lastly a line of holes drilled around the outside perimeter for some rivits to hold down the vinyl finished off the build.  

A shot of the seat pan being fitted:

Down to the Stator

With the engine out of Icarus, I removed all the necessary bolts to get down to the stator.  I was careful to mark all bolts with tape so I could put it back together properly. In the process, I spilled oil and coolant everywhere, and made an absolute mess.  Each part I took off I cleaned throughly in Simple Green and prepped to be ready to go back on bike.  The stator was remarkably easy to get down to once the rear engine cover was off.  There were obvious parts of it where the plastic wire covering was chipped away and it was contacting the engine block.  One area in particular had a wire that was pinched between the block and the stator body.  These spots ground out the stator and prevent the bike from putting out the voltage necessary for running and charging the battery.   The new stator and CDI I planned on putting in the bike allowed me to remove the extra piece below, which looked remarkably like the Iron Man energy source the Arc Reactor.

With the stator out, I put in my order for a new Ingitech unit and a rebuilt stator from Custom Rewind. I also ordered a full seal replacement kit.  

I returned to the bike and began cleaning out the carbs to restore them.  To my surprise, under the grime on the outside, the carb interiors were remarkably clean! My intent was to remove the air box and install cone filters, so I also got the old jets out and put in new ones.  I put in new 90 and 120 jets, and replaced seals throughout the carb.  

While cleaning the carbs, I decided to use some compressed air to blow out areas I couldn't get to. I hadn't removed a small rubber plug that gets squished down when the carb top is on, and with the first jet of compressed air, this little stopper ejected at light speed and shot across the shop, never to be found again.  After hunting the internet to find a replacement for this little guy, I discovered that many people have made this mistake before me and have used Bic pen butts to temporarily replace the lost part.  Since I had ample time while the stator shipped, I went ahead and ordered a few new ones that one of the forum users recommended.  

The rebound spring for the butterfly valve on my carbs was wired in place instead of fitting around the post where it is intended to sit.  To fix this hack repair, I took some string and threaded it past the post and around the hooked end of the spring.  Pulling and wiggling, with great effort I managed to pop it back in place, which gave the valve significantly more torque when returning to the throttle off position. 

Naming the Beast and Starting the Rebuild.

 After riding the bik for a week, I discovered that the battery issue and electrical problems generally resulted in the bike dying before I made it to my destination.  After numerous sweat inducing roll starts around the hills of SF, I decided it was time to get into this monster and fix it.  On my way to Tech Shop to start my project, the bike died halfway up Gough and I rolled to a stop on a side street.  Stepping off, I began running next to the bike to roll start it.  Next to the busy street, I was rushing and let the bike lean a little too far past it's balance point.  Unable to right the teetering moto, I let it drop for the first time.  Standing there looking at the overturned bike was like looking down at a dead beloved pet; I was starting to get attached to this ugly monster.  On my way to the shop I realized that the bikes inability to make a successful trip was like Icarus, getting too close to the sun, and never making it to his destination, and thus my ride had it's new name.  

My first mission was to remove the fairing and excess plastic.  Shortly after, I soon found myself disassembling the entire beast, to get things down to where I could actually fix this mysterious stator, that I now understood as the electrical heart of Icarus.  Having unbolted the engine, I turned to brute strength to get it off it's mounts where it had faithfully hung for 30 years.    It didn't come easily, but eventually separated, and the remainder of the bike sat gutted on it's center stand.  In 5 hours I had taken my running bike and created a mess of parts and bolts, that with luck, would go back together.

I jokingly climbed under my bike where the engine was and simulated a 1 Noah power bike. With the engine out, I began reading up on the steps I needed to take to get down to the stator.  

As originally purchased, it was a machine designed for cruising around costal roads. I showed up to buy it, cash in hand, having never ridden a motorcycle in my entire life.  The add divulged that it might need a new stator (a mystery part to me at the time) but that it ran nicely once started.  I asked the gentleman selling it to ride around so I could hear it, then bought it on the spot for slightly less then he was asking as I clearly needed to fix a few electrical bugs.  He tossed in 3 helmets and a padded jacket so my brother wouldn't kill himself riding back to Tech Shop.  Our parting words were "Thanks, oh... first gear is down, right?" I'm sure he was terrified that we were going to immediately destroy the bike and likely ourselves.