it doesn't always work out.
I've just spent this afternoon painting the front mudguard. I got as far as the filler primer over etch primer, and it all started crazing through. Turns out someone else has painted it before, oops. Sanding and more primer was the wrong choice. So after that I reached for the acetone, and I would have photographed the sticky gooey melted mess that I created, except my hands, and pretty much everything else in this part of the world were stuck to everything else with yeuch. You'll just have to imagine it.
Tomorrow is another day 

Well that was a lot less painful than I was expecting:



I decided, in the spirit of Lockdown and 'Dig For Victory' (during WWII us homebird brits planted carrots a lot, apparently it helped defeat Hitler. Since then, during every national emergency, we have encouraged ourselves to return to that wartime mindset - the 'Spirit of the Blitz' - apparently, being terrified and cold in a dark and uncomfortable bomb shelter, listening to a rain of shells destroying everything familiar in your world, including the carrots, is a Good Thing, especially if you sing. I digress) ...to upholster my own seat. Having tried, and always failed before, I wasn't holding out too much hope. Mind you, the fumes from the contact adhesive are always something to look forward to.

I was surprised because it was really easy, and even looks good (squinting, naturally). The foam is 20mm adhesive-backed high-density closed cell stuff. It sticks by itself to the fibreglass seat base and trims easily to the outline shape with a craft knife. Next up was a covering of suede (I'm allowed to use it - I lived through the 1970s) stuck on top of the foam with spray adhesive. The first photo is the next stage, and the only thing that took a bit of care - trimming the edges so's they fold over neatly. Nothing was pulled too tight (which I think is the trick) and the edges were stuck down with more contact adhesive. With a bit of patience it looks fairly neat. Kids' stuff, astonishing. And no, comfort was not part of the design, I'd be better off sat on a naan bread.

My lounge (living) room has thick, orange wall-to-wall carpeting, and the kitchen bench tops (countertops in 'Merkun) are also orange, so I stand in sympathy with you on suede and the '70s.

Two Wheels Better wrote:My lounge (living) room has thick, orange wall-to-wall carpeting, and the kitchen bench tops (countertops in 'Merkun) are also orange, so I stand in sympathy with you on suede and the '70s.

Totally inspired now. Tomorrow I’ll start whittling an avocado bathroom suite.

tinyspuds wrote:

Two Wheels Better wrote:My lounge (living) room has thick, orange wall-to-wall carpeting, and the kitchen bench tops (countertops in 'Merkun) are also orange, so I stand in sympathy with you on suede and the '70s.

Totally inspired now. Tomorrow I’ll start whittling an avocado bathroom suite.

Ah, got that covered, as the stove top and wall-inset oven are both avo in colour. The dark wood panelling in the dining room sets the mood, too. We have a lava lamp buried in a cupboard somewhere, I'm certain of it.

Love it. One of the great things about the sixth, seventh, and onwards decades is the total liberation of 
NOT            GIVING             A                SH**.

And avocado wasn't that bad, really.

chris846 wrote:Love it. One of the great things about the sixth, seventh, and onwards decades is the total liberation of 
NOT            GIVING             A                SH**.

And avocado wasn't that bad, really.

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' aliiiiiiii-ve.

ARGHHHHH NOOOOO-OOWWWW-OWWWW

Last house we had in Victoria, kitchen had lime green bench tops and orange tiles. And the wife really loved it.
Regards Martin.

Don't forget orange and brown Hurculon upholstery in huge plaid patterns.

And Psychedelic print or gold and red flock wallpaper.

chris846 wrote:Well that was a lot less painful than I was expecting:

P*** taking aside, that looks really good.

Well I assembled the bodywork onto the bike, and it all looked very blue. Sorry no photos. Maybe some rethinking to do.

Anyway, Things To Do In Lockdown #492:

Any other destroyers of rubber clutch boots will recognise this photo, titled 'Oops, Not Again'.


So I carried out a long standing promise to myself, and made one of these:


Which goes here, to protect a bike from its forgetful owner:

Neat!

Things to do in lockdown when you're bored #63(b):

Make a ridiculously over the top bracket, which might not even be necessary.

Forum member Tborosak had a problem with his tail unit.

Which is the same as the one I'm using. It's very solid, but also quite heavy and, as Tborosak discovered, the quality of the bond between the upper and lower halves is a bit of an unknown quantity. It is designed to be supported on the metal spar that bridges the top rails of the OE frame beneath the seat, near the catch, and it is pre-drilled with two holes for this purpose. Oddly enough, the OE metal spar went the way of all things on the K75k, but I did reproduce the two mounting holes in it, in these welded on tabs. That way I could mount the tail unit using the OE mounting holes, that aren't there...sort of.


The Mk1 version just had two M6 rubber bobbins in the holes (like the standard battery tray mountings) with the tail unit fastened on top of them. After Tborosak's misfortune I decided to provide some, more rearward support, especially since the tail unit would be loaded with the number plate & rear light (and probs some cheese and pickle sandwiches should this bleedin' bike ever be capable of taking me far enough away from home to merit a roadside snack)

Anyway, the challenge was to provide this additional, rearward support without doing the obvious and sticking a visible extension on the rear of the frame - I wanted to keep things clean looking. So I opened up the two holes in the tail unit, and fitted these two doohickeys:


- which mount rigidly to the frame tabs, but have rubber bungs slid over them to support and isolate the tail unit. Then I made this to bolt onto it:


The idea being that, the cantilevered bracket is rigid with the frame as it needs to be so that it doesn't just wobble uselessly, but the tail unit is still rubber isolated from it, which I'm guessing is necessary to avoid vibration damage.


All I need to do now is measure the thickness of a cheese and pickle sandwich, for the custom holder that can sit on top of the bracket inside the tail unit!

As I mentioned, it all looks very blue. I daren't post a photo with the tank installed as well - it might start a loo-roll type panic that there is no blue left in the world!



Might paint the front circle-with-a-bite-missing in yellow, with the border to align with the edge of the perspex nosecone (something to do in lockdown when etc. etc.)

Hey I've just noticed that my (okay Suzi's) t-shirt is the same colour!

What does that mean!

chris846 wrote:Hey I've just noticed that my (okay Suzi's) t-shirt is the same colour!

What does that mean!

Somebody's trying to score some points?

Well it wasn't me!

There's nothing wrong with our Suzi, and they're not wrinkles, they're laughter lines.

She laughs a lot.

...

Getting close now, another day or so's wiring and
....I'll be reaching for the fire extinguisher!

And whilst I'm on the topic of laughter lines, this is a conversation that allegedly, actually took place:

 (George Melly): Mick, what are all those lines on your face?

 They're laughter lines, George.

 Nothing's that funny Mick.

A little known fact about wiring looms:

If, you decide to graft all 14 separate wires from the main loom directly into the loom supplied with the cheapo oohbay instruments of doom, you might decide to use shrinkwrap to insulate the soldered connections. You might also decide to overwrap this junction with loom tape for added protection. If you do this, and you don't allow sufficient time for the shrinkwrap to harden, then the tightly-bound loom tape might, just might, be enough to force some of the soldered joints to short circuit with each other through the soft shrinkwrap.

Now, if two of those joints happen to be the brake light circuit (sending a 12v 'on' signal to the instruments so's I can have a telltale repeater light) and the tacho signal wire from coil 1, then things get very interesting. Very very interesting:

Firstly, the brake light and rear position light will illuminate, despite the absence of the lighting fuse. Spooky. The position light will be at half intensity, owing to 12v feeding back through the dual filament bulb. If you have, separately misunderstood the function of a canbus-sourced front brake switch (it closes when the level is released, doh) then you might also be mightily entertained by the brake light dimming when you pull the lever. 

That's nothing though. Pressing the starter button (by mistake as it happens) causes coil 1 to go live. This feeds 12v through the short, into the brake light circuit (brake light on, remember), then through the dual filament stop/tail bulb into the parking light circuit. But wait, these parking lights are wired to be permanently on, so that same back-feeding 12v doesn't stop there, oh no, it carries on back through the load shed relay and ends up holding the LS relay permanently on. In other words, you can't switch the dammned bike off any more.


Interesting. Solving that one was better then taking a deep breath after a (minor) bout of coronavirus, better than a fresh cold pint after a long day's slog, better than a really productive visit to the loo, better then.....

"And here endeth today's lesson in never soldering joints so that they are parallel to each other in the loom. Always stagger them, ladies and gentlemen, even if it means feeding them a little rubbing alcohol to help them along".

chris846 wrote:A little known fact about wiring looms:

Very impressed you sorted all of that out. I am pretty sure I would have started it on fire and laughed as the possessed machine burned.

Personally I have become a big fan of adding plugs rather then soldering things together. There are some very nice weather proof plugs available with different pin counts. It can be a bonus sometimes to have an extra place for a future circuit as well.

Possessed? I'll say.


Today's Christine challenge is to redo the joins and check that I haven't fried the ignition module. Next I'm going to start acting all obsessed and strange and start wearing a leather jacket....oh hang on.

Sigmund Freud,would have a coronary with you lot.Ijust have belly ache with 
laughter keep it up(as they say in the limp mode clinics)

I'm not trying to be funny.
This is my life.

An amazing one for sure  and a natural wit as well

Dunno which thread you're following 

Anyway, sigh of relief. After putting all the painted bits on the bike, I think I overwhelmed myself with blue and I had to take it to bits again to stop the panic. 
Dipping its nose in yellow paint seems to have done the trick. I'm okay with this:


I think the Blauvogel thing might need a second thought though.

Here's shrinkwrapgeddon:

The capacitor is part of the filter for the tacho signal. Good news is that the ignition module coil output stage is indeed capable of powering the entire bike! So, nothing fried (so far)

The thing sparks when it cranks, so just the FI circuit & fuel delivery to check through, and then.....!

I love the way Alamy and Getty slap copyright over images they can't possibly own. The best one I've come across so far was Alamy and Getty both claiming copyright on the same photograph that quite clearly said 'Copyright Boeing Corporation' on it.

Glad to see you get this sorted Chris!  Had it been me, somebody, maybe eventually, would have found me lying dead beside the bike from an aneurysm after experiencing my own short circuit with not being able to figure out what was wrong.  Looking forward to seeing this project come to life soon!

chris846 wrote:Dunno which thread you're following 

Anyway, sigh of relief. After putting all the painted bits on the bike, I think I overwhelmed myself with blue and I had to take it to bits again to stop the panic. 
Dipping its nose in yellow paint seems to have done the trick. I'm okay with this:


I think the Blauvogel thing might need a second thought though.

Perhaps it could be renamed Class 37?

Bill

Golly Bill, that's brilliant - where did you pull that memory from?

Starting to show signs of electrical life....

Looks like electrical death on the wall behind you...

chris846 wrote:Golly Bill, that's brilliant - where did you pull that memory from?

Just Wikipedia, but I've been trying to track down an earlier livery version in OO scale, so I've seen lots of pictures of them.

Bill

chris846 wrote:Starting to show signs of electrical life....

What are those headlights (besides some scary eyeballs when not enclosed in the fairing)?

I -think- they're off a 250 Aprillia. I bought them for the Madass and made the ally & nylon housings. The plan was to stack them one above the other, but I ended up using a single headlight. They were left overs, as were the forks & calipers, the wheels, the AFM, the...

Anyway, today the thing ran. I was going to video the attempt, just so's the explosion/my last moments on earth, would be captured for posterity - and so's you chap(esse)s on this forum could have a laugh, of course.

But, I was persuaded to sling some fuel in the tank by a visiting pal, and bravado/lack of planned approach took over. I'd already checked for a spark, and so we went ahead and just pinned the starter in our trademark spirit of hopelessly optimistic buffoonery. Fired on first press, no kidding, after just enough cranking to pressurise the fuel.

It ran well enough to merit the Carbtune once it had warmed up. That's when the buffoon in me took over. Once I'd had a twiddle of the Do Not Touch Screws, and evened things up a bit, I couldn't get tickover down unless I assisted the butterflies to Really Close, with my thumb. No amount of ever more wayward twiddling could solve things, which was a shame, because everything else seemed to be hunky dory (no petrol puddles, oil puddles, coolant puddles - not even a sniff from the oil/water pump telltale).

An hour later I discovered that the TPS, still on its assembly-guessed setting, was too clockwise and preventing the throttles from shutting completely. Doh Doh Doh and Doh again. 

"Sometimes I'm not really Suzi Quatro."


The mating of an old Suzuki 4WD banger and a shiny new Audi?

 Who you callin' an Old Banger!

Cripes Now I am seeing double.

chris846 wrote: Who you callin' an Old Banger!

Holy Mackerel!  That's Suzy Soul!?  Looks like she's done a lot of hard miles since I saw the Pleasure Seekers in 1968.  That was a smoking hot band in more ways than one.  Two of the  girls in the band went on stage in mini skirts without panties. 

Sorted you text editor now hahah!

"Holy Mackerel!  That's Suzy Soul!?"
Well you didn't think it was me did you?

I mean, sometimes I think it's me, but that's different.

Anyway, this 'I'm just a buffoon but, hey, it turned out pretty smart huh?' thing. Not real eh? Yeah? well check this out:

Two days ago I abandoned my careful, take-your-time-before-firing-it-up approach at about the ninetyfive percent stage. Included in the five percent was the oil pressure warning light. Yes indeed, read on.

Today I got the throttles balanced perfect, I mean, perfect. Those Carbtune mercury rods were like synchronized swimmers. Brass bypass screws screwed shut so's it's just testing the Do Not Touch screws - perfect. Bypass screws opened exactly one turn each - perfect. Pickup from a closed throttle - perfect. Keep snapping that throttle open cos it's perfect.

Then I calmed myself and set too on the five percent. I installed a temporary warning light instead of the oil pressure logo'd warning light that hasn't arrived from Chinese China yet, and, 

NO OIL PRESSURE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

Nope, nothing. This thing has been running for about ten to fifteen minutes in total, okay twenty minutes probs. Whip off the cam cover and nope, nothing oil-looking in there, nu-thing. There was a bit of comfort in the lack of any evident wear on the lobes, but I was still, just, sad. Deep down sad.

Thinks, did I remember to put that little always-falls-out gear back in the oil pump before assembly? Did I fit the oil pickup properly. Did I...

OH NO, I DIDN'T FIT AN OIL FILTER WHEN I REBUILT THE ENGINE!

No I didn't. No I doo dah didn't. Didn't have one to hand back then, and firing the thing up was....hey, the frame isn't even built yet.
So yep, the oil filter cover screws were only finger tight. Yep the oil that's running out is clap cold cos' it's been in the sump and nowhere else all along. Yep, I can fit my hand right up inside that hole where the filter should be. Yep, you are one complete.....I can't think of anything in nature bad enough, I really can't. At the age of fifty eight I've transcended every stupid motorbike thing I've ever done, and that's a long list, of strong contenders.

At that point things get easy, because there's no way things can go lower, nope. So I fitted a filter, tipped the oil back in, and fired that sorry old baby right back up again. 

Runs fine.

Oil pressure light (what a great idea!) goes out the instant it fires, and that's with thin warm oil. No knocks, no rattles. Still going to whip the big end and mains caps off for a peek though.
The bike seems fine.
I'm still stupid though.

Nope, haven't committed that one. I try to make it very difficult to do so by leaving filler caps off etc. as they're always on my pre-first-start checklist. Closest I've got is filling the sump with the filter plate off. I doubt you've done much if any damage, Chris, if you assembled everything with the usual layer of grease.

chris846 wrote:
At the age of fifty eight I've transcended every stupid motorbike thing I've ever done, and that's a long list, of strong contenders.

Mate. I will never ever forget that hard cold punch myself in the head lump in the pit of my stomach the day I finished the top end rebuild of my XS650 and excitedly ran the engine before noticing the little flag I’d tied to the oil filler cap to remind me I’d emptied the poor old bugger.
At least you have the skills to identify and remedy any issues, plus the undeclared income from the Suzy Quattro body double gig .

Cheers guys, I do genuinely feel better. Thanks.

Your honesty is shameful, hope you dodged a bullet.