Whew....busy day today. Got rolling pretty early and off to town (16 miles) to pick up fuel filters, fuel lines, some replacement bolts, and a part for my Wife's car. (Broken visor mount)
I'd made arrangements to look at a small MC trailer. As I got close to home I spotted the trailer at a "for sale by owner" lot down the street from my house. The trailer was listed dirt cheap ($300.00) so I was very interested. I knew it would not sit on the lot for more than a day at the ridiculously low asking price. I had the seller pull it to my house so I could line it up to the sidecar rig to see how feasible it be to attach. Needless to say, I am now the owner of a MC trailer:
("click" on photos to enlarge)
The frame is real simple and most of the trailer consists of the fiber glass box. Has a spare tire / cooler too.
The "roof rack" is mounted backwards. The upright frame should be towards the rear?...guess not....the direction of the opening top lid requires the rack to be as mounted.....
Tires, including the spare, are new and wheel bearings replaced a few miles back. Tongue is a "swivel" set up so could be used on the Goldwing if I wanted.
Interior is upholstered and clean. Not sure how long the "Harley Davidson" mud flaps will stay....
All in all a nice little trailer. Can't beat the price, that's for sure. Not sure how well the sidecar will handle the weight. I'll rig a simple hitch to give it some road time around here to see how it handles.
Busy on the bike today too. I removed the headlight ring and "tapped out" a dent in the ring with a tiny ball peen hammer. The dent is basically gone but the chrome is still scarred. Oh well.
I hooked up the front and rear brakes which had been disconnected. The rear brake rod was bent crazily so I carefully straightened it out, then lightly lubricated all the swivel points before reassembling the rear linkages. We now have brakes.
I mounted the new rear tire / tube. The new front tire wasn't properly seated so I deflated it, cleaned the rim and re-lubed before re-inflating it. This time it seated immediately. The rim appears to spin "true", so hopefully it will drive OK.
The petcocks were cleaned up and installed with the fuel tank. The tank cap would not latch properly so a little "tweeking" was performed on the tank cap lip, which corrected the problem.
The fenders were installed, along with new rubber washers which protect the paint from being damaged from contact with the mounts.The previous owner even powder coated the under fender plate washers which mount the fenders, they were dirty and just wiped clean with hardly any effort. So far I'm not finding any surprises going over the bike. It has some flaws....a couple of "chipped" fins on the underside of the valve covers, some paint scratches, a small "ding" in the fuel tank, the "ding" in the headlight rim, etc....but these are all minor aesthetic issues which I can live with since this will be a bike to be ridden, not looked at....
I removed the 1" + spacers which were mounted under the solo seat, giving it extra height. It felt awkward to me and lowering it made a difference for the seating position.
I took a liking to the little "period" parcel rack which was amongst the spare parts so went ahead and mounted it after some scrubbing / cleaning.
I did not yet mount the luggage frame / rack for the panniers. They bolt up easily so might leave them off until I need them. The mufflers were stained and a bit dirty so scrubbed them down and cleaned them up. They are in excellent condition and are the correct "Zuena" cigar mufflers for the bike.
The rear signal light mounting bar also has a crazy bend in it. Luckily the previous owner had purchased a BMW replacement unit, which is black, rather than chrome. I prefer the black anyway, so that task will be next. I'll have to research my wiring diagrams in preparation for wiring them back in.
So...getting real close to having a driving motorcycle here. Another day of work should see it running. Once I have it running, I'll replace all fluids, reset the valve clearances, reset the points and check the timing. Unfortunately these early Bing carbs don't have vacuum ports for the carb synchronization tools I have. I'll likely have a bit of trial and error getting them set up.
I forgot how "short' the short wheel base /5's were. It looks tiny in relation to my Gold wing.
1 comment:
Wow, you've been busy! she's looking good though, I like the paint color. What do you use to clean up the mufflers?
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