Friday, Apr 25 2014 [25,724 miles]
Today I’m going to add the finishing touches needd to get the bike ready to start and hopefully ride. I’ll spend more time cleaning than wrenching.
exhaust
clean exhaust
anti-sieze
Pipes loosely installed
I put the exhaust and muffler pieces out of the way when I dismantled the bike. As I gathered them today I found them covered in four months worth of dust in addition to the road grime that existed prior to take off. I cheated and used a Porter-Cable polisher with some Mothers metal polish to make the job go a little faster.
Once the pipes and crossover were clean I applied some anti-sieze and loosely attched the parts to the bike.
muffler
dirty muffler
muffler install
With the exhaust installed I attacked the muffler with the polisher and got the dirt and stains off. The polisher doesn’t help with the road dings. I mounted the mufflers and tightened the system starting at the front of the bike and working my way back. Given my history of mufflers that fall off the bike I used some blue loctite on the muffler mounting hardware.
I also used plenty of anti-sieze around the exhaust nuts before tightening.
carburetor install
carb install
Almost ready to run
I did nothing to the carbs except bolt them back up to the bike. They were adjusted well when I took them off the bike. I did apply a touch of white lithium grease to the O-ring before screwing the top on after installing the slides. I also used new wavy washers. The old were quite flat.
final checks
top off oil
hook up battery
test ride tomorrow
The last items to do were top off the oil and hook up the battery. And clean. Anti-sieze colored hand prints and dark smudges show up very well on a white bike. I tried to get them off without adding any new marks.
The rain stopped and I could have rolled the bike off the stand and tried to start the bike. However, it was late in the afternoon and a cold beer was calling. Plus, if I run into any issues I want time to look/think before doing anything. Tomorrow.