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.

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.