In my last post I mentioned that the lights were flickering when the bike was running. Well, I put a voltmeter to the battery to see how well it was charging. It seemed ok at first. Charging a to a bit over 13 volts at idle. But when I’d rev it up the voltage dropped. It’s supposed to climb till it gets between 14 and 15, then stay there. That probably explains why cruising at higher speeds it seems to run rough. I tested the regulator/rectifier and it tested bad so I found a new one one ebay and ordered it. It cost $100! Ouch. It was $215 at the dealer though. Anyway I got it the other day, installed it, tested it still won’t charge. Son of a ……

I haven’t done much on the bike in the last couple of days but I did finish up a couple of things. Primarily Jessica finished repairing the airbox so I was able to put it on the bike and put the gas tank back on. I also replaced a missing bolt for one of the foot pegs. I hadn’t known it was missing untill I rode the bike and when I tried to apply the rear brake the entire peg assembly moved. Scary. The bike is starting to look like a real bike again now that it has a front end, brakes and gas tank. I had it running last night. It sounds pretty good but the lights on the gauge pod aren’t working properly and the tail light was flickering. I’m not too surprised at the gauge lights, that whole wiring harness at the front of the bike has been hacked up by the previous owner. It should be fun getting that sorted out.

The forks finally arrived the other day so I was able to do some work on the bike. I finally have it back on two wheels. It has been hanging in the air now for the last couple of weeks. As mentioned in my previous post I removed the front end to replace the fork seals and discovered one of the forks was badly bent. I found a good deal on a set from a 99 CBR900RR so I ordered them. This bike is a Frankenstein. It has parts from all three generations of the 900RR now. Anyway, it might not stay on two wheels for long. After installing the forks and clip-ons and getting it back on the ground I discovered I had routed the throttle cables incorrectly. Doh! I don’t know if I will have to lift the bike, remove the clip-on assembly and re-route it or disconnect the cables from the carb and re-route them. Either will be a pain in the ass. I really wanted to get it together enough so I could take it for a ride tonight and see how it ran, but that’s just not going to happen now. I’m getting close though.

As stated in my previous post I refinished my upper triple tree in satin black Gun-Kote, but I did a poor job. Last night I attempted to fix it. I masked off the bad areas, sand blasted them and sprayed them. Problem was I was worried of a distinct line where the tape was so I removed the tape so I could blend it in. Then I realized the Honda logo I left uncoated was exposed. So I decided to attempt to fill in the logo itself while leaving the surrounding area silver. To do that I sprayed it, then wiped off the high areas with alcohol. But while doing that I also smeared the freshly sprayed gun-kote every where else. So it became a cycle of spray and wipe, spray and wipe. The other issue was the finish is baked on but the longer it bakes the duller the color. So to minimize the difference between the first coat and second I baked it at a lower temp. There are distinctly glossy areas and less glossy areas now. I evened it out a bit with polishing but it is still evident.

I’m a bit disapointed with how it came out but it is still the nicest looking part on the bike. So it will do for now.

I got a fair bit of work done on the bike over the weekend. Nothing real substantial but lots of little things. We got a new air filter and gasket and installed it. A previous owner had removed the gasket, filled the gap with a thickly insulated wire and screwed foam air filters into the air box. The problem was one of the screws went through the foam and tore it up. It was poorly done and not sealed very well. So I have a stock filter back on there now.

After getting the airbox back on and everything I had to take it off again when I reallized I had to swap out the throttle cables. I was hoping to disconnect them from the grip end and use my old cables but it seemed like it would actually be easier to use my new ones and disconnect them at the carbs. So I got those on, though they still need adjusting. I will adjust them later, when the grips are in there proper position and all.

While the airbox was out again Jessica repaired a broken mounting tab on it.

I removed the front brake lines, caliper (only one was on the bike when I got it) and fluid reservoir. I have new ones to put on when I get the forks and wheel back on.

At this point I’m not too worried about making things look real nice, but since a previous owner had drilled two big holes in the upper triple tree and I just happened to have a nice extra one, I decided to gun kote it satin black. I did it last night. It mostly looks good except for one side that didn’t get good coverage at all. I will have to sand blast that area and re-coat it. Hopefully it comes out ok, the color changes the longer you bake it so the first coat might end up looking dull, while the newly sprayed area is nice and shiny. We will see.

I have a badly beat up upper fairing I got cheap. It was used for racing so the headlight hole had a piece of ABS riveted over it. I removed the ABS and checked to see how my new 99 headlight fit. There is one tab broken on the headlight and one of the bolt inserts in the fairing is missing, so only the two bottom bolts will be able to be used. I will get some bolts and see how it holds. If it seems ok I’m not going to worry about it for now. I will eventually get a new upper any way.

Hopefully the forks arrive today or tomorrow. Most of the rest of what I have to do is waiting on those.

I wish I had some pics to post. Not much exciting to take pics of now anyway. When I get the new forks on and it starts looking like a motorcycle again I will post some.

It feels like I got a lot of work done on the bike yesterday but it doesn’t look like it. Our water softener went out the other day and leaked water into the living room, under the wood floor so we had a plumber over to replace it. So I HAD to stay home and work on the bike. I was going to try to fix up some of the body work. One of my mid fairings was broken in several places and plastic welded back together. I started sanding it and removing the vinyl, but then thought maybe I should keep my eye out for a cheap replacement that isn’t so badly damaged because that wasn’t fun at all. So I moved on to some other pieces and removed all the stickers. Then realized these aren’t the pieces I plan to use. DOH! These came with the bike and are aftermarket. If they line up with the upper I’m using then maybe I can put them on at first to protect stuff while Jessica is riding around on it.

I sand blasted the upper triple tree. The previous owner had drilled holes in it so he could mount risers (using craftsmen sockets) and drag bars. Thankfully, I had a spare in a box of parts I got off ebay. I bought this box of parts only needing a couple, but the price was so cheap. I keep finding other parts that I can use. It also has some front calipers that are in much better shape than the others I was going to put on. Very nice. Anyway, back to the triple tree. It was in good shape but they have this boring brushed aluminum finish. I decided since I am gun koting some parts soon anyway, I will finish it in satin black gun kote, but leave the little Honda logo silver. Simple, subtle and gives the bike a little something extra.

The biggest accomplishment was in the tail wiring. There was a jumble of wires back there. I think at some poing there was some aftermarket turn signals on the bike so a turn signal module was sloppily spliced in. My friend John had given me some stock turn signals. The rears had had the wires cut though. But not just cut, cut about 1/2″ from the end of the wire, on the inside of the turn signal. Why the heck did you do that John? So I disassembled them, spliced in some wire, put them back together and got them wired up. After stealing some bulbs from my Fiero and hooking up my new switch housing I verified they worked. Sweet! Then I went to work stripping out all the unnecessary wiring back there and cleaned up the splices. Tail wiring is complete!

The other thing I did yesterday was spend too much on parts. After removing the forks the other day so we could replace the oil seals we discovered one was bent. We also discovered what a P.I.T.A. it is to replace the seals. Between having someone replace seals and straighten the one fork, we would be spending $120 plus tax. I found some used ones for sale from a 99 CBR900RR for $125 shipped. So I ordered them along with some other parts, front brake reservoir (mounting tab broken on mine), Headlight assembly (so I can put 99 body work on my 93), fairing brackets and mirrors. I needed a headlight and fairings anyway, so why not go with the more desireable 99 style? Unfortunately I already bought a 95 headlight, but got a smokin deal on some 99 fairings. The only issue is the 99 fairing bracket mounts to the gas tank mounts and the gas tank mounts differently than the 93. So I will have to drill and tap the frame and who knows what else. I’d prefer to get a later year gas tank but Jessica is getting frustrated with me spending all this money on a bike she is probably going to drop anyway.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I will have a positive update when the parts come in.

I tried working on the bike more last night. The idea was to at least replace the seals on one of the forks, if not both. After washing the 1/4″ of grime off them it was obvious that one of them was bent. Bummer. So now we are going to try to find a place that can straighten them and replace the seals. I really wasn’t looking forward to doing that myself anyway.

I took a couple of pics. I will post them later today.

This weekend was actually a bit productive. Up till now I have mostly been collecting parts for the bike. This weekend I managed to get a bit of work done on it though. My friend Anthony came over Saturday and helped me sync the carbs. They were off by quite a bit. I’m really hoping that is what caused it to run poorly on the freeway. Anthony had come over to help again Sunday but I had been distracted working on one of my other projects. By the time he got there I was tired, frustrated and sun burned and ready to quit for the day. Later in the evening I got enthused to work on the bike more so with Jessica’s help I disassembled the front end and removed the redneck handle bar setup. A previous owner had removed the clip-on handlebars, drilled holes in the triple trees and with the assistance of a couple of craftsman sockets bolted on some risers and drag bars. So I removed all that so I could put it back to stock setup. Tonight I will work on replacing the forks seals. They both had blown and the entire front end, brakes, wheel etc are covered in grease. And the forks don’t rebound. That’s not good. Jessica said she’d help me replace the seals. Should be fun, I have a cool wife.

I managed to get the tail light installed last night. What a mess! I thought I was going to have to deal with the hacked up wiring harness on the bike, but the tail light wiring was fine. The new light I got however was another story. It’s supposed to be three wires, but it was a bundle of spaghetti. There’s some module type thing wired in there that I can only assume is for turn signals. I just left it disconnected for now but I will probably have to deal with it when I get turn signals. There was also a couple of wires that were cut off, preventing the brake light from working. So I had to do a bit of splicing and soldering but it works now so I’m happy.