Migoto returns! Brakes, carbs, and electrical maintenance

The K3 made an appearance over memorial day. She came back to have a new starter solenoid installed and because of a squealing noise coming from the front wheel, and bearing grease everywhere.
It turns out that water and cable lube had run down into the speedo drive and made a mess all over the wheel. That was a simple fix; just remove wheel/disc/speedo drive, wipe clean, and replace grease. I also took the time to clean the speedo cable with kerosene and re-lube. While I had the kerosene out I cleaned and re-lubed the drive chain as well.
The squeal was the result of a bad rotor. I swapped it for another one and all was well.
Then the new starter solenoid went on (with some different mounting hardware than the original) and the bike looked good to go.

This took all of about 2 hours to diagnose and repair, but I had all day off so I of course had a bad case of "while I'm in there."
I pulled and cleaned out the new petcock. There was a bit of rust in it from the tank but nothing too bad.
After this, I decided to take it for a test run to see if the new rotor was good to go. There was a problem though, the bike would NOT start. Actually it wouldn't even turn on. After checking everything I could I finally determined the ignition cylinder must be faulty. I pulled it and sure enough it was melted: completely fried. So I cut the wiring harness of of it and made a new "key" from the old wires by splicing the black to red and brown/white to brown, thereby emulating the ignition cylinder's "on" position when it is plugged in.

Not a key in the traditional sense, but it works.

In order to make the new "key" easily accessible I had to relocate the harness plug, so off came the tank and headlight, out came the coils and the front of the wiring harness. I wish I had taken pictures of the whole process but I was on a roll, it was hot, and I didn't want to halt progress. The sooner I finished, the sooner I could take refuge from the heat.

After relocating everything I figured I'd shorten up the spark plug wires a bit since they were a touch long. I removed the NGK resistor caps and wire sleeve to reveal... electrical tape? Fuck, electrical tape on spark plug wires is not a good sign.

Sure enough the wires had an additional foot of wire spliced onto each of them. I have no idea why, but I'm glad it's taken care of. The downside however, is that the bike now has an AWESOMELY powerful ignition spark. Why is this a problem? Well...

After a test ride that spark plug was looking a bit roasted. Meaning that the bike is running a touch rich. Hooray awesome ignition, boo poor carburetion.

Luckily main jet changes on the Keihin CR29 specials are stupidly easy. Remove the float bowl drain plug and boom, there are your main jets peeking out at you.

Not so luckily, for some reason I have 2 sets of #120 mains and no #125, #128, or #130 jets. I have no idea what happened to them, but I only had #110 and of course #120's which were already in there.

Oh well, I had to let her go home like this. She was running strong and there's no lean condition at all above 1/4 throttle. Even up to 1/2 throttle the plugs looked fine. 3/4-full throttle was where it was an issue with being overly lean but the owner has been instructed to take her easy until she returns next week for an oil change.

Migoto, it's time to leave the nest.

The K3 made it's trek home last night. I'm sure it'll be back for some touch-ups (and decals), in the near future. In the meantime it'll be tearin' up the streets.

Decals & Indecision

The neverending quest for good decals continues.
Here's some more ideas, I'm still undecided on what I like.

The wing will of course wrap over top of tank.

Edit 5/12: added more.

Edit 5/17: So after all that... I think we're gonna settle for something like this.

More K3 paint progress

Updates for the sake of updates. Spraying on the K3 is done but I still need to sort out the decals.
Here's how the bike currently looks:

Yeah there's paint on the gas-cap, and yes it was purposeful. Well, not so much on purpose as I'm too lazy to mask this part. It's chrome and paint remover will wipe it right off. In the meantime It will keep glare down.
Currently I'm trying to illustrate some decals to go on the tank. I have no idea what I'm doing so any recommendations are welcome and encouraged (please help me).
Here's some rough sketches of what I've been considering so far:

Update 5/11:
I taped the lines of the tank and took some pics to help me draw some decals.

Shock Disassembly

Sobriety is overrated.
If it weren't for that half bottle of liquid courage I would never have attempted to use wire ties as spring compressors. Instead I would have just rented the proper tool the next day. However, I was drunk, impatient, and had a stroke of genius. Here's the result.

Remember kids, don't try this at home (even though it worked REALLY well).

This post brought to you by Mount Gay Rum.

Keihin CR's on the 1973 CB750

The title pretty much says it all.
While I wait on new float bowl gaskets for the K3's carbs, I decided to throw on my Keihin CR29's with 115 main jets.
The exhaust is the aforementioned Cycle-X Super Sidewinder, that was a pain to install.



I think this setup sounds awesome. It's just too bad I sound really stupid and the camera doesn't do the exhaust any justice.

More painting - CB750 tank and XS650 teaser shots

I came back from Texas to find the weather here in VA had warmed up significantly.

Last couple days were perfect temperatures for painting so I decided to take advantage of the nice weather.

I started (re)painting Joey's K3 CB750 tank and finished up Tommy's XS650 motor. Here's a couple teaser shots:

First coat of metallic cast iron went on really thick (and kind of runny).
I'll be sanding it all even before the second coat.

The paint area as it sits currently.
That's the XS650 left engine cover in the way back there.

Decals for the fuel tank and sidecovers.
I'm still considering something else instead.

Oh yeah, they're REFLECTIVE vinyl. Pretty cool right?

Custom mixed a gold/bronze-ish metallic
engine enamel for the YAMAHA inlay.

It's really hard to properly photograph the metallic paint.
So here's some more pics.

It looks slightly more gold in person. 

This is the side engine cover before.
It's funny how just a slight difference can really make the motor  pop.

There's more to come very soon. I'll be posting the other side of the XS motor as well as the final product of the K3's gas tank and matching sidecovers in the near future.