Had a week off work this week and have spent a good bit of time on the project.
Some forwards progress and some backwards.
Now my carb is clean I thought I'd get on with Daves Carb Mod, found a
great place just down the road in Manchester to get the new float bowl
seal and new jets NRP motorcycle carburettor repair specialist
proper nice lads too, very helpful, the website is a bit limited but
give em a call if you need anything, I'm sure they'll be able to help.
So I was getting on with fitting the new bits and I went and dropped the
bloody slide, and as surely as toast lands butter side down, it dropped
right onto the needle an bent the end over 90 degree's, ARSE.
So a phone call to nrp, and they can supply me with a new one but its
likely to be in the region of £30 + vat, now i feel like a propper ham
fisted dim wit, fortunately they are going to be doing a carb kit for
the Dominator which includes a new needle and the kit will be cheaper
than the price of a needle, but I'll have to wait until they get the
kits in mid Jan. As the bike has no rear sub frame or forks, I figured I
can wait 6 weeks.
Tank mount sorted and happy with, this is attempt number 2, you probably wouldn't believe the number of hours I've spent just sorting this little bit, I know I can't. There's a piece for this toungue to slot into on top of the top tube. I'm going to stick rubber top and bottom to get a nice tight fit (oh er) and help stop rattles from the vibey single.
Finally got round to doing the fork seals, and while I was at it I
thought I'd have a go at lowering the forks, chopped 2 inch off the
springs and added a spacer as per the instructions I was following from
the xs650 forum.
And today I made a start on the new subframe, big learning curve here,
never done any tube bending before. The pics are of attempt number2. The
first one was just figuring out the tube bender and seeing how easy or
not the tube would bend. I tacked a bung in each end and filled the tube
with kiln dried sand in an attempt to stop the tube deforming or
rippling while being bent. On the whole it went ok, with the tube just
flattening out a little in some spots where it was in contact with the
bender I was using. I'm not 100% happy with it just yet it still needs
some tweaking, and I may even go for attempt 3 but I'm going to start
running out of tube and this is just the back end, there's the 2 seat
rails to bend up yet, plus the supports. Hoping I might get on to them
tomorrow perhaps.
Rear sub frame