Saturday, June 27, 2009

thumbs up! first shakedown!

Okay, just a limp across town to a friend's afternoon barbecue, but still a real enough ride to shake it through some gears and attempt a stoppie or two (that 320mm brembo works). Still, Sarah was happy for me to have reached this point and insisted on some pictures. Well it's been 2,1/2 years. Through open heart surgery, 2 moves, shlepping parts here and there. Countless hours pondering, sketching, rebuilding, pondering more...

...And now that I'm back home, I see so much more to do. 3 miles of loose wiring needing to be trimmed out of the situation, suspension is totally out of whack, I think I ran out of clearance under the fender in back and scuffed the pipe and made an unnatural sound with the back of the license plate on a bump...but still...Face in the helmet says it all.



A little back yard burnout


Spent the morning wiring all the signal lighting gear in place. Man, I went through so many failed crimp connectors. Good thing I bought 3x more than I needed. It was good practice, I'll be revisiting this all at some point for the tacho. Dad turned me onto this coiled plastic stuff that really bundles up your loom nice and you can see it below. Since I had the harness all apart trying to figure out the turn signal logic, I took some time to clean off all that gooey tape that had been resident with the spiders since before polyps were even a twinkle in Ronald Reagan's colon.


Also took some time to affix some adhesive insulation under the tank just for a little more peace of mind

3 comments :

  1. Like you know you should!! My suspension is whacked out too. I need fork seals and oil, and to figure out the best way to have the rear raised and rebuild the XR shock with a longer reservoir hose.

    How's the seat height relative to the foot peg height? I know I could use some footpeg lowering with my current situation. Longer front forks mean the rear has to be raised. Once I do that to a sufficient level, I can't thicken the seat to make the pegs further away. Only thing left to do is lower the pegs.

    Anyway, I'm happy to see you riding. Nice boots!

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  2. thanks! definitely gonna save up for some 1980's style Highpoint MX boots here at some point. Fullgrain leather with the stailess steel shin plate, black. Still made by Alpinestars, I believe!

    My saddle height seems okay. least of my worries right now. I think ride height is not right. still too smooshy in the rear.

    That's right you put an XR650L front end on that your ride...the stock shock i think is probably garbage on these things...

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  3. Either way, crap shock or nice shock, we've both altered our rising rate or progression by changing our link length, and I was thinking of going with a longer shock instead of the link, nd maybe you alos should go with a shorter shock instead of the link, too. That's my next suspension mission.

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