THE GOOD BUCK

Last post I was saying I just had to throw the bike back together and it was all looking like a suspiciously good job. Ha! I made a total meal of it. I put the yokes on, the handlebars, clocks, fitted the forks, mudguard, brake calipers, went to fit the front wheel… No. You have to have the mudguard and calipers off to fit it. OK. Took them off, fitted the front wheel, put them back on. Steering a bit tight. Had a look and I’d routed some of my cables on the wrong side of the headstock. I tried just taking the bars off and lifting off the top yoke. Struggled for a while, then conceded defeat. Had to take everything off again, reroute the cables, then refit the yokes, bars, clocks, forks, wheel, brake calipers and front mudguard. I turned it on for a test and realised I had no headlight or indicators. Which is to say, they were there, just not working. *facepalm* Looking good (all needs polishing and wiring in) It’s like painting that one dirty door in the front room, though. The newly painted door makes the skirting board look dirty. Before you know it you’ve had to paint the whole house. I prodded some wires and rattled a few connections but I was scared I’d knackered something fundamental. Electrics fill me with fear and confusion. I’ve been putting it off, but today I rolled the bike into the shed, just to get ready for looking at the electrics. While I was there I decided to make a start. I rigged up a bulb for a tester and set to. By a process of elimination and blind luck I worked out I still had power going in, so it must be the earth. The earth in the headlight bucket was solid, which confused me. Then as I was wriggling the headlight around I got the bulb to come on. A bit more trial and error and I realised that the headlight earth runs through the brackets that hold the headlight bucket to the yoke, to the frame. The same yoke I’d just spent ages spraying. I took the headlight bracket off and ground the paint down to bare metal where they connect. That was it! Headlight again! Some more messing and I worked out how to get my indicators working again. All the yay! I’d had enough by then. I seem to be off tomorrow, so I’ll wire it up properly now I know what I’m doing. Also I’ll have to unwrap part of the loom and repair it. Like a proper moron I was careless with the angle grinder and nicked a bunch of wires! Incredible. One stupid mistake after another. To be honest, I’m so relieved to have figured out the electrical problem I can live with having to tape up some wires. I’ve managed to get some running and a cycle done. I think the statins are doing me in though. After […]

I’ve had a productive couple of days off. Yesterday I fitted the bearing race and bearing to the top of the headstock and applied clear polish to the bits I’d already painted. Today I polished the clear lacquer on the bottom yoke and got a nice glassy finish. Then noticed on one small section it was glassy over bare metal. The paint hadn’t stuck. It was only a small section so I was tempted to leave it like that, but I’m hoping once the job is done, that will be it. For the sake of another day’s delay it’s not worth years of knowing it’s a bad job. So I reprayed it and added more layers of clear. Hopefully that will have done the trick. I polished the chrome top yoke again. And polished the clear coat on the wheel and the unit that hold the handlebars down. I took the masking tape off the forks, gently sanded the crap off and fitted the decorative caps. And fitted proper connectors to the loose wires I had screwed to the frame to earth. Tomorrow I’ll gently polish the bottom yoke, sandpaper all the errant paint off the post that runs through the headstock, fit the new bearing and dustcovers, then reassamble the front end. I will be updating this with all the pictures. It is looking like a suspiciously good job though. Also today I got off my lazy arse and went for a run. I just set out to do the standard 8 miles but decided to mix it up and do a flat-out 5k in the middle. Not bad. It near killed me, but 20.36, which is 17 seconds faster than my last go. I stupidly collapsed afterwards to get my breath back, but flat-out to stop is a big trigger for the tachycardia. 20 minutes sat there, sweating buckets, waiting for it to settle. Meh. Same lesson learned in a new context. Even after an all-in run, jog off the cool down.

I’m still learning as I go with this painting lark, but I’m getting the hang of it. 90% of it is preparation, the other 10% is patience. You have to have a perfect surface to get a perfect finish. And then you have to apply very thin layers of paint many times. Also, I only found out yesterday, there are different types of clear coat. I had normal clear coat, which gives a nice shiny result when polished, but it seems there is also gloss. I’m hoping that is the final step. Here is some stuff I’ve done. It’s hard to make out detail there, but the fork stanchions are in black satin, the mudguard is in black gloss. While I had the forks off I’ve had a look at the yokes. The top yoke has polished up surprisingly well. From this To this I’ve done a few other bits. The most notable was my front wheel. The Tractor was stood for 20 years so the chrome on the rims was ruined. I painted them aluminium while I was getting it back on the road, which was an improvement, but it still looks noticeably poor. And now it’s getting stains and smudges it looks worse. I thought I’d give it a go black. Vast improvement. That’s before the clear layers and polish. The black covers a multitude of sins and will hopefully not show any further muck. I resprayed the bottom yoke, but that’s not come up so well. I’ll see what it looks like after the clear layers and polish. When I took the yokes off the bearings lifted out with my fingers. I thought that was alarming so ordered a new bearing kit while it was all apart, another job I shouldn’t have to do ever again. It turns out Harleys have the bearings loose, situated in a race which is jammed in. I checked the races. The bottom is fine but the top one has notches so I’ve knocked it out and ground it down (as per the manual) to use to drive the new one in when it arrives. Things are all going suspiciously well. I’m working tomorrow and Sunday, but as soon as my parts all arrive I can spray the clear layers then polish up the bits. Fit the new race and bearings. Refit my yoke, forks, mudguard, front wheel, and handlebars. Then jack the back wheel off the ground and sand and paint that. And take the connector apart in my headlight so I can take the headlight off and use filler to smooth it off, then respray it. Then the rear mudguard. Then the real test, the tank. I’m going to spray the one that’s on it, for now. It will give me an idea if I’m good enough, without me having to spend £340 on a new tank and another £200 on an air compressor to leak test it. I may try to spray the engine in situ as well. I […]

I did the wet sandpaper and polish on the mudguard today. As I said, I didn’t prepare it properly, I only roughed it up with coarse sandpaper before spraying, I should have used smooth to get rid of all the scratches. But even so, you have to get within a few inches to see the flaws. I’m happy with that. As long as I do the smooth sandpaper in preparation (and do several more coats of both paint and primer) I’d be happy with that for my frame. The paint before I started And after The other thing today was finding my current fitness levels over a Half distance. On Warrington Half (10 days ago) I set off too slowly then found myself with tons left in the tank at the end. I wanted to know what a good time would look like now. I set off aiming for around 7 m/m, but every mile got slower. By the end it was a battle of will just to keep going. My first mile was 7.02, my last one was 7.39, and I was battered! I casually jogged home the 2 miles after Warrington Half, I shuffled around the corner to home today. The positives are I didn’t get any chest pains this time, I did what I set out to do, I didn’t quit, I was 2 minutes faster than Warrington time, and I was within the top 10 of my Half finishes with a 1.35:56. But bloody hell! I started on the heart thing yesterday. No biscuits, low fat food, and a statin pill. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. I am fueled by fat, sugar and rage. I was so wasted after the run. It took me three meals to get any strength back and my calves are still all crampy.

The world is going straight to hell, but I’m still making progress with the Harley. So, swings and roundabouts. I rode it in to work after my last post. I noticed on the ride home the headlight beam was rubbish. It was projecting in a horizontal line just in front of the bike. I hadn’t moved the headlight, so I was worried it was non-UK spec and I’d wasted more money. I took it off again, to see if I’d fitted it wrong, but there is a groove in the headlight casing into which it can only fit one way, so it wasn’t that. While I I had it out I looked at the two loose wires on the headlight. There is a 3 pin plug that fits directly into where the standard headlight attaches, but also two wires. I ran a wire to them and to a powered line, one lights the headlight halo orange, presumably for indicators, the other lights the halo bright white. As luck would have it there was a taped off power line in the headlight already so I just ran a wire to that. Then I read up on headlight beam setting. 3.8 metres from the bulb to the wall, 50 -110mm lower than the bulb height. Marked the fence and rolled the bike to the correct distance, then just rotated the headlight up. I think that’s all set. Looks good. While I was at it I fitted the new handgrips. It’s really coming along. I did those jobs in between applying layers of paint. I was looking at a sexy new tank but it’s about £370 and I don’t need it. I thought about getting any old crappy one just to practice on, but they aren’t cheap (for something I’m going to throw away afterwards). Then I remembered that front mudguard I bought for the Bonnie. It doesn’t fit, so it was just sitting there. Perfect to practice on. I’ve taken my time and learned another good lesson. On the video the guy has a dented tank he says to use coarse sandpaper to prepare a good, grippy surface. I did that, then started spraying. In retrospect, he applied filler, then smoothed it all off with fine sandpaper. The scratches on my mudguard from the coarse sandpaper have remained visible as ridges in the paint. Lesson learned. Also I think I’ve picked up flecks of dust from drying the paint in the sun in the garden. Tomorrow I’m going to (very gently) wet sandpaper it, then polish it. The results so far certainly look good enough to respray the frame. I don’t know if it would be good enough for the tank and mudguards. My next job is to tart up the front end. There are decorative caps that sit on the dust seals on the forks (ordered) so when they arrive I’m going to take the forks off and respray the stanchions. I have some of the grey aluminum paint that’s on […]