Screwdrivers

As a reaction to the recommendation from the Classic Honda Racing blog, I ordered a couple of original Honda Tools.

My Honda dealer did not recognize the given parts number KL1696 as a Honda parts number... But when I got it, the number was there.

In my Honda Tool Catalog from 1969 the parts no's are:
07776-99961 Cross Head Driver No2
07776-99962 Cross Head Driver No3

What I finally ended up ordering were:
07603-0050101 "driver no.2"
07603-0050201 "driver no.3"

When I picked them up the seller told me that I was the first customer in, at least, 6 years that had placed an order for original Honda tools...

Chemistry 2012

The original zink plating experiment has evolved. To get the right chemicals (mainly the zink brightener) I surrended and bought them from Caswell.
I'm in the process of building the essential zinkplating rig at the moment. My intention was to start today but I did not have enough copper wires to complete it, maybe tomorrow.

This far I have made the rig for zinkplating the fork springs for the Fleetwood front fork (except the main zink anodes). In the picture below, at least the center anode...

Dechromed

1/3 of the way. A lot of parts that have been dechromed.

Some are going to be rechromed and some are going to be zink-plated. I will have to decide, depending on the quality of the goods and how much elbow grease I want to put in.

Antenna

After the second digital reciever broke in a couple of years I started to suspect that a too weak signal from my home made antenna caused the reciever to work "hard" (nothing that I know about electronics supports that assumtion but anyway).

Home made antenna, ver 1.0

Just a coax cable. I removed the shielding 40cm from the outer end.

Started a project building a fractal antenna from bits and pieces.
Studied the channel frequencies to find a good average lengt (for the channels I mostly watch) for the antenna.



Home made antenna, ver 2.0


It works (and why would it not). Maybe I should take a more scientific approach and measure if there is a noticable improvement in signal strenght? Maybe later.

If there is any ver 2.x it will probably have a backplane...

EDIT: Checking the signal strenght and picture quality: Very good 98/98% for Channels 23 & 42 (490/642MHz), good 80/96% for Channel 50 (706MHz) and not so good 45/50% for channel 56 (754MHz). At least it's a big improvement compaired to the earlier antenna.

Did it again

This time working on the frame. Started thinking about other things while hammering ...

The major misshap was not hitting myself on the thumb. The problem was the damage caused by the cold chisel richosheting in the shop afterwards.

Cheap battery

Today one of the battery packs for my cordless drill went for lunch and never came back.

Luckily for me I have a stash of cheap replacement batteries for a cheapo cordless drill for these avents, just in case.

Instead of buying expensive replacement packs I make a quite simple opereration of changing the cells.









Replaced and soldered, not the prettiest soldering but it works.

D.I.D it!

One time only...


The cold weather only had one positive aspect, the rims did not get hot to handle.
On the other hand this probably affected the function of the polishing compund in a negative way. I'll have to do it all ove again with a finer coumpound later.

Anyway, I made some short cuts by not grinding with fine grit paper, that shows. But on the other hand they are old rims, full of nicks and dents. You have to draw the line somewhere...

Doldrums

Due to my lack of stamina and cramps in my grindig hand I have limited the visits in the shed to one hour a day. My thumb is numb...

This is one of the resons why the rims aren't ready yet. The factor that I'll have to do the last polishing outdoors might slow things down too, it's -5 degres Celsius at the moment, it's dark and the wind is over 10m/s. Maybe tomorrow.

Cirtic acid

I think it's a very good home remedy for the average Joe's workshop. Not a very strong acid and very easy to get, just 'borrow' from the kitchen.

I have now used it for zink plating, refurbishing of Amal carbs for my Norton and lately a rusty camshaft.

I just had to try it, but because of the New Years party and other things I forgot...
Anyway after a couple of days I removed the camshaft from the acid. And this is how it looked before polishing the surfaces.



I just put one end in the acid, this is how the other end looks like.

New Rods

Because of the storm last night and the following power failure, there has not been much action in the shed today.

At least the car still had some power so I went and bought new connecting rods for one engine.

Rims

Today I started all over again, the crack in the rim was not welded through so it had to be re-done.
At the same time I had all the largest nicks filled in.


The front rim also welded but not grinded.

There where two large holes for rim locks that I did not want.
Below, welded and grinded using small file and sand paper. One small spot in the weld...


Hopefully the rims will turn out as good as the Borrani rim that I polished several years ago. Still have not had any use for the wheel.


And if I dont find anything else to do, there are more rims waiting

Chemistry 101

Sooner than later I'll buy an DIY electroplating set, Caswell for example.
But I thought I should try it myself first...

Using an old coffee brewer, Citric acid, Zinc sheet metal and a modified battery charger (made it a constant 1 amp source).

I started with a spacer to the rear wheel.


The result.

Well a rather thick coating on the outside, nothng on the inside. Don't think I could have done much better with a "semi pofessional set" - or could I?



And after some brushing

Time Capsule

Went to my local parts dealer to buy a couple of spoke sets for my CB125 project.
The guy behind the counter told me that they had opened "the door, you know" and found a camshaft for a CB450.
"The Door" is the door to a room in the cellar that supposedly was shut in the mid 70:s when the room was flooded or at least water damaged, and never opend until late 2011.

Probably why the camshaft was rusty.

The camshaft is a bit interesting since I guess it's the same model (or similar) to those which was used in the Precision Machining 450 in the early 70:s, described in an article in Cycle World on Honda (1968-1971 edition as I remember it)

Most complicated

piece I have made in my lathe, this far, is the new stopper out of aluminium, for my drill (instead of the old plastic one).

Painted, sort of...

... because when I checked the spray can, afterwards, it was engine paint.

Electrix

Searched the shed for a CB125 alternator, the first rotor I found looked like this.



What might have happended to that? It also looks like someone have been riding the bike for some time after that happened. Maybe it's the cause of this or the result?

Finally found a good one but the configuration of the stator did not match my Worshop Manual. Later found the matching wiring diagram in a CB125B6 manual. Anyway it's a 6V alternator and a flash light probably would be better.



If the magnets are good, I think I'll try to modify it and see if I could get more power.

Nothing much

Mostly grinding and some latheing. Started with the CB125 brake shield, had to add some JB weld (metal glue) in the imperfections from the welding. Hopefully I can finish that tomorrow.

Also I have had a CB500T oil filter part laying in the shop, for a wery long time. Thougt the condition was so bad that I just could not lathe it down, as I usually do...
Made a new bronze bushing. Had it been a CB450 part it most centainly had gone in the trash bin, since I have got several NOS ones ...


After that I thought I could spend some elbow grease on the modified CL77 lower legs that eventually will go on the CR450 project that has been resting for some years.
The lower fork legs has been modified with new fender mounts and new brake mount for a 4ls drum brake. This is what they looked like after welding.



I also made new bushings for the CB125 rear swing. The oringinal ones were so rusted that I had major trouble dismanling the damn thing. Had to soak it in oil for a couple of weeks.

Finally some action

Today I got, at least, something done.
At the same time I got the lower front fork legs welded I had the original clutch cover repaired. (Ok, I've done some grinding on the fork legs too, more about that later)

Why?
Because using one of the spare covers I've got, would be too easy!

The basic grinding is done, tested for leaks and now I just have to sand it some more, spray wash primer, maybe some bondo and ...

Flowchart

My projects need some WD-40, according to the flowchart...

Gone fishing

Went fishing last week, no luck with the sea trouts.
At least we had a lot of beer and some steaks to put on the grill.