Good News / Bad News

I've been talking to the body shop this week, and all week long they've been telling me that my parts will be done by Friday.

Since I was going to be out and about today (my day off), I called them to see if I could swing by and pick up my stuff.

They said "We'll call you back in 15 minutes".

3 hours later - "Um, the guy that quoted you the cost was way wrong.  We needed to strip everything down to bare metal, and there was some obvious body damage that we will need to take care of.".

I told them I would come over and take a look.

We looked at the dent on the gas tank, and a dent that I never knew about on the rear fender.  Plus - a dent on the taillight/license plate holder.

Yikes.  Good thing we took it down to bare metal.

Wait, there's more:

"We don't want to use regular car primer on this one.  We want to use a self etching aircraft primer.   It's better for the restoration".

OK.

"Oh, and did you want the underside of the fenders done?  They are pretty rusty.".

Yes.  This is a full restoration.

"Wow - that's like double work".

OK - so what?

"Well, it's going to be more than the $700 we quoted you".

OK - how much.

"Why don't we say $1100?".

Deal.

So, it'll be another week, but at least it will be something I'm happy with.

I took them some pictures of the original paint scheme.  Hopefully that keeps them from screwing up the repaint.

Probably not.

At least it's close by.

5 second update

Called the body shop today.  All parts are sanded/cleaned up.  Painting is happening right now.  Should get parts by Friday.

And yes - I will post pics.

Activity Alert

I realize I've been bad at working on the Bul.  Small progress to announce though.  A few weeks ago, I got out to the garage and messed with the shfiter.  Got the small cover off of the shift fork, and jiggled it around until I could get the bike back in neutral.  Still not sure what the problem is, but I may have to let that sit until later.

This weekend, I started by taking all of the "tin" out of the garage.

And down to the body shop.  Their paint guy is out until Monday, but they'll give me a call with an estimate.  I'm going to stay with the stock paint scheme, blue and silver - and I'm going to have the seat back painted the same scheme as the tank.  I think that will look great.  I was able to find the original PPG paint colors - Crystal Silver Metallic (DAR 34926) and Cadet Blue Metallic (DBU 5414), and I gave those numbers to the paint shop.  

With all of the tin gone, I decided to work on the harness.  But first - I had to sit down with my diagram and Google Translate in order to see what goes where

The easy thing to do would have been to just run the harness externally to the frame.  But that wouldn't look nearly as nice.  So - it took a bit, but I was able to thread most of the harness back through the frame.

The only bit I couldn't get quite right was the part that goes down the frame to the brake light switch.  But I was able to get it pretty close to the frame with black tie wraps, so maybe it's not going to be too noticeable.  

I also attached the coil and a relay for my new turn signals.  It came from a kit to retrofit a 6 volt Model-T, so it should work for my wimpy 6 volt bike electrical system.  

 I also attached the throttle cable.  At first, I didn't understand why it didn't seem to be working right, but then I realized that the part that attaches to the needle in the carb had gotten some light corrosion on it, and was stuck inside the barrel.  Out it came, cleaned up and a light coat of oil.  Routed the cable through the triple tree and alongside the harness on the crossbar of the frame down to the carb.  It looks good and seems to work OK.

After all of that - it was time for some of this.

Ahhhhh.  And stand back and admire my handiwork.  

I see it breathing fire in 2013.....

A non-zero answer

I haven't worked on the bul since September!  Sheesh.  I wish I had a good excuse.  I don't.  I've been lazy.  With the 3rd car back - it's really hard to get out to the garage and do work, since I have to move so much stuff around.  But, I'm tired of looking at it in pieces, and I'm afraid that I'll start losing parts.  So, I'll try to do little stuff again.

Today's little stuff was getting the cover back on the clutch plates and shifter.  I had some Yamabond 4 left over from when I did the valve cover gasket on the BMW330i.  Basically, it's a lot like form-a-gasket, but better.  I used small amounts of it on both the case and the clutch cover, to both hold the paper gasket in place and fill in any areas in case of warpage.

While I had the case cover off, I gave it a light polish with metal polish and a buffing head in the drill, as well as colored in the "Bultaco" emblem with Krylon paint marker.

After about 30 minutes of work, here's what it looked like.

I've also been noticing a small drip underneath the bike every so often, so I checked that out as well.  There was a crappy paper/rubber gasket on the transmission oil drain.  Suckage.   I dug into the parts box, and found a copper crush washer that was the same size.  I put that on the oil drain bolt and tightened it up nice.  That should stop that leak.  I also re-installed clutch drain plug, and luckily the new aftermarket one I ordered came with an aluminum crush washer.  I hope this stops all of the leakage around the bottom end that I used to have.

Finally, I dug the shifter out of the box of things that were chrome plated ages ago, and reattached it to the bike.  Maybe next weekend I'll fill the transmission and clutch up and see if there are any leaks.  Hopefully not.

The cylinder is back on the case

I started today looking at a 1984 BMW K100 on craigslist.  The owner got the bike from his brother, who is overseas.  It doesn't run, because it hasn't been started in a year.  The fairing is scraped up from the bike being dropped.  It's a mess.  It looks like a really neat cafe' project.

I showed my wife.  She said, "You never wear the motorcycle coat I got you.".

I said "Well - my motorcycle is in pieces".

She said - "Why don't you handle that?".

Enough said.

So, I went out to the garage and started working on the bike.  The shop manual I found says "Put the piston in a 100 degree F oil bath.  Then, insert the wrist pin.".

Lit my grill outside (we're not gonna repeat that oven event), and put the piston in with 1/2 a bottle of mobil 1 that I had laying around.  Let it sit for awhile, and then took it all in the garage.  Tried to start the wrist pin and "zoop" - it went all the way in!  Oh jeez.

It took me awhile, but I was able to beat it out.  Good grief.

Tried it two more time, and it never slipped right in like the first time.  The last time, I literally beat it in with a deadblow hammer while holding it.  What a circus.

Got the end clips in easily, so it's together.  Then I had to stab the cylinder.  I was going to use a hose clamp as a ring compressor, but it was too much of a hassle.  I ended up just compressing it with my thumbnail while sliding the cylinder on with one hand.  But it's on, and it fits perfect.

Torqued the base of the cylinder down, and loosely put the head on.  I'll torque it later.

Then - I put the motor on the frame (still cleaning up the mounting bolts.   While I had that together, I also put the chain on.

It's really starting to look like a motorcycle!

The carb is just sitting on there loose as well, so nothing can get in the intake.

But - even though it's made progress, there's so much more to do.

Steve - I worked on it

I haven't been able to get out to the garage for awhile.  Since I got the triple tree back.  But, I did a few things.

I installed the headlight bucket, and just stuffed all the wiring in there.  It is far from complete.  I also got a small bag to hang on the front fork to hold some tools and stuff.

Today, I adjusted the front brake cable and installed it.

I had to test it though, so I rolled the bike down the driveway a few times and tested the front brakes.  Pretty cool.  I need to get to work and get the motor back together.

Back on Two Wheels

For a nice Father's day post - back on two wheels.

My wife was gracious enough to help hold the bottoms of the front forks while I installed the front wheel.  Happy Father's Day indeed!

For comparison, here's what it looked like about 6 months ago:

Of course, the seat is just sitting on the frame, and the tank still needs to go out for paint, but I'm moving in the right direction.