Page 5 of 8

Re: 251LC

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:42 am
by kpke
Those things look great Jon. Fantastic work. From what you started with it's almost unbelievable.

Thanks again for sharing.

Re: 251LC

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 6:18 pm
by JonW
Thanks mate.

Re: 251LC

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:37 am
by L.B
Fkn waffle gaskets....i never knew.
Cans n baffles turned out awsome Jon.

Re: 251LC

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 8:47 am
by JonW
Thanks mate!

Re: 251LC

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:20 am
by Off Road
Hey Jon, you are a magician.
You can take beat up old parts and turn them into shiny new looking parts, right before our eyes.

The cans look great. Well done.

Re: 251LC

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 3:31 am
by JonW
Thanks Steve, yes it's like the magic of TV on those resto shows, One minute the thing is broken and trashed yet 40mins later its perfect... behind the scenes it takes a little longer, but hey such is life :)

Re: 251LC

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:11 am
by JonW
Had a few things arrive of note this week:

1, a Tourmax LC petcock. There has been a bunch of chatter on the forums that these are actually from the same manufacturer as OEM. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but considering it really does look and feel just like the OEM and is made in Japan, well... That does seem to be about right. So I bought one.

2, a NOS headlight bezel. I have one that I need to rechrome (Thanks Rob!) but this one came up at about the price of new chrome so I leapt on it. The parts gathering continues apace...

Image

Re: 251LC

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:41 am
by hondaror
That's really impressive Jon. They were really beat up. There is hope for my ratty F2 cans. Great work.

Re: 251LC

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 3:16 am
by JonW
Thanks mate, Im not saying it was easy, but it is possible... :)

Re: 251LC

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:35 pm
by JonW
The perils of selling stuff you’ve refurbished...

I had a bit of a ‘mare yesterday. I sold a set of my refurbished left and right switch gear to a chap the UK. So, before I wrapped them up I did a final test and while the right was perfect I had an issue with the left side, the indicators don’t work.... Wtf? Worked well when built I thought, so what’s up?

I pulled the LH block apart, everything looked ok.

Tried to strip actual flasher switch mech to see what was going on inside the slider parts and one of the 3 wires just fell off! What?! Twisted it a bit more and one more came off. Must have been dry solder joints. Damn.

Ok, at this point I decide that I’m not sending this switch block to my buyer. Instead I’m going to send the one I earmarked for this build that has always been perfect and still functions like new. To be 100% sure, I retested it and its fine. Phew.

But... I was still keen to work out what was wrong and fix it. I now needed a switch for this bike bike of course...

Fully disassemble the rest of the wires/switches/plates from the housing so I can get to this and repair it.

Clean up switch mech and solder back on. Works, but feels gritty, even when cleaned up. The slider parts were a bit worn and I think that’s the issue. Decide to fit better switch parts from spares (Thanks Evan for those you sent me mate!).

Soldered a whole new one on and it now works perfectly and feels fine. Cool.

Assemble switches and wires back into housing, fit all the plates and screws. All good? No....

Main beam flash switch (FWIW this switch is not present on Canadian models for some reason!) now feels all loose. Found the bracket thats holds this to the housing is held to the switch parts with a single simple press pin! Cheapo yamaha. Sigh. Try various fixes but in end settle for a self tapper as there is room for the head in where this fits into the housing. Wish Yamaha had used one instead of a pin at the start...

Screw the locater screw for the plate for this switch into the housing and... head snaps off! WTF?!

Drill it out and eventually fit a very slightly larger self tapper with a small head that fitted the bracket without drilling.

Ok now? No, the inds will only indicate right if ive indicated left previously. Resets every time key goes off. Wtf?!?!?

Finally work out that there is a thin ‘wing’ of brass and it’s been very slightly bent, probably while getting to the indicator wiring in all the soldering and messing about. The indicator switch needs this as a connection but apparently only needs it once every key cycle... Gently bent that so it again contacts the lever when indicating and finally it’s all good. Phew.

While i'm not sending my buyer this switch block, I truly believe that this one will be fine now but I don’t want to sell it with so many changes. I’d rather use this one myself, I know what’s been done to it if it has an issue etc.

Yes, before you ask.... a couple of times I did wonder if I should just bin this unit and buy myself a new one. But then I’d already blasted, powdercoated and decal’d the housings, re-zincd and bought new parts as needed, plus I'd already come this far so may as well keep going... I wouldn't let it beat me! LOL!

Silver lining? Well... The bonus of the nightmare is that I’ve learnt a huge amount about these switches! LOL!

Re: 251LC

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:49 pm
by JonW
Maybe I should move my builds to another forum, this one is very slow these days :(

Anyway, I carry on... Today I did the job that you all knew would happen. I rebuilt the dash again...

This time with new tacho and temp dials - from Simon5 (on the forums) Kateannwells (on ebay) I should add that these are a very nice product, Thanks Simon! I also fitted brand new needles for speedo and tacho from Yuniparts, they are the same as the XT500 and available on ebay. I also repainted the temp needle a colour that was closer to the needles, it's not quite as close as the pic (below) suggests, but is much better than I had it before with only the high vis paint, it needed toning down.

Removing and reusing the needle stop is always a pain with these, but I got it done. Yamaha seem to stake these on the back side to balloon the end slightly. In the end I ground it down and put some glue on the back. I think it will hold, but its not an exact science of course.

Getting the old needles off was a pain as ever with these. The tacho needle came off and left the brass part behind. I did wonder about reusing it and so gently bent it a little to straighten it, only a few mm... and snap! Bugger... as we say here in Aus. The speedo fought me as well, this time it left the black plastic and the brass part behind, damn! Pushing both new needles on was really hard work too, I had to use my plastic assembly hammer in the end. wow... wont want to get these off again, but they wont fall off when riding at least I guess!

Put it all back together and took this pic:

Image

Arghhh! It wasn't until I was sat back in the house at my laptop looking at the photo that I could see there was a bit of cleaning oil that had come up one of the screw threads and was spreading out across the dial. This was residue from cleaning the workings and it's worked its way up onto the dial up through the thread. Grr... Live n learn as ever. I should have blown out the mech before building it back up. :smt012

Of course, as youve read before so you know what I am like... I felt that I'd already come this far.... so, back to the shed and I pulled it all apart again and cleaned off the oil with wax and grease remover... luckily that took all the oil off and left the dial like, er new again! phew!

So.... yes.... Im finally happy with these... :smt023

Just need the 2 missing rubbers and this dash is done :smt041

Re: 251LC

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:23 am
by Ardee
Nice work there Jon they look great! Were you in danger of breaking the needles or pins? Is this very delicate work?

As a new guy here I am not very active as I am a watch and learn type of person. I really enjoy watching the progress of your build and look for your posts daily.... so your not wasting your time. Just seems like your all lone in cyberspace some times :smt023
Post away!!!!
Ken

Re: 251LC

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:28 am
by JonW
Hi Ken, Thanks mate! Good to know I have a reader :)

Well The old needles got totally trashed to be honest, and the pin wasnt much fun wither. Ive updated the above post with an explanation In the hopes of keeping the salient points in one place, let me know if you want to know more.

Re: 251LC

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:23 pm
by two-stroke-brit
top notch work as always.
you have more patience than i.
mark

Re: 251LC

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:41 pm
by JonW
Haha, Thanks Mark. Yeah, it's a fiddly job at the best of times, not made better when you screw up and need to redo it of course. But hey we're all only human and hopefully people can learn from my mistakes :)