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Pushed the starter button this afternoon and the TX roared into life, very loudly with those pipes. So, the single points cam works beautifully. PMA conversion works well as does the dual output coil, cable splitter, remote filter, cooler and ignition wiring. It's running a little lean at the moment due to the pods and exhaust, so I'll have to rejet before syncing. Very happy chappy.

 

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If you've set the float level in your carbs and want to check the actual fuel level , you'll need to access the float bowl. Most bike carbs have a plug on the bottom for emptying the fuel. If you have a spare plug, mount it in your lathe chuck and drill a suitable size hole through it. Don't have a lathe? Too easy mount the plug in the bench drill chuck and a drill underneath in a drill vice, or something similar and drill a hole through the plug. Don't have a bench drill? Too easy, mount the plug in your hand drill and the drill in a vice and drill through. Do not place a drill bit in the drill and drill through the plug, the hole will not go through centrally. If you want an accurate size hole, always use a pilot close to the finish size hole first, yes, even with very small holes. You'll need to either use a centre drill or centre pop the plug first. Then find a barb to plug in the hole, drill the through hole using the same method. For a leak proof join you'll need a barb10mm bigger than the hole. For example a 4.5 mm drill is actually somewhere around 4.34mm and drills a hole around 4.5mm or slightly smaller using pilot first, so you'll need a barb around .10mm bigger. You can turn it down on a lathe, or, turn to size using a drill and file.

 

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Synced the carbs and checked the PMA today. Bike runs beautifully now, idles nicely, revs cleanly, no spitting or hesitation. PMA/reg/rect output is 14.6 volts, so happy with that as well. Timing is spot on on both cylinders, so the single points cam also works well and the filter and cooler deliver a good oil supply with no leaks. Fancy that, all the engine mods worked as planned! This is my homemade manometer I use for syncing, super easy to use, gives a good, stable reading.

Now it's back to cycle parts. I was going to spoke the wheels next, but can't get any stainless spokes for the rear wheel, so I'll have to work on something else: I've been thinking of hunting around for a clagged 650 motor, I'm missing working on motors already.

 

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I nutted out a simplified schematic for the TX last night and did a little work on it today. Rather than one harness, I decided on two, one for lights and one for ignition and charging. Five wires for the lights run up the left side of the backbone for lights, another three run up a harness on the right for ignition. I've included some earth cabling in the harness rather than just depending on earthing through the frame.

Once I've routed all the cables to their destinations, I'll zip tie them then wrap the harness removing the zips as I go. Having one harness for ignition and charging circuits and another for lighting simplifies fault faulting and cuts down on the number of colours needed in the harnesses.

I've ordered some stainless spokes, should be here this week. Can only get front spokes at the moment for some reason, seems to be a shortage on rears. As soon as they arrive I'll repolish the hub and rims and spoke it up.

 

[Lesblank]

Looking good and great idea of two circuits to assist further repairs.

 

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Well, if I do a good job, repairs won't be an issue.

 

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Speedo/tacho/voltmeter bracket made up today. I'll be adding a few LEDs later on for oil, indicators and so on.

 

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Started the TX up again to check the tacho and voltmeter. I had intentions of checking the timing on each cylinder, unfortunately, the POS timing light refused to play. Not to worry, max voltage from the PMA was 14.5 and the bike idles nicely at around 1250 RPM. I placed the camera behind the bike to record the exhaust. Camera doesn't do it justice though, it's very loud and emits a nice burble.

 

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A spoking tragedy: I bought some stainless front wheel spokes from a well known supplier in Sydney and laced the wheel together only to find there was around 3mm of thread visible between nipple and hub on every spoke. I complained to the supplier but all I got for my trouble was a few abusive texts and emails. Fortunately he didn't have any spokes for the rear wheel in stock, so I bought some from Heidens. The supplier offered a picture of a wheel he had spoked by a 'professional' spoker. Same thing, visible thread on every spoke. Both the seller and the 'professional' spoker were adamant that this is normal and perfectly acceptable. I've been spoking bicycle and motorbike wheels for 50 years, this is the first time I've come across this. Simply unprofessional and unacceptable in my opinion. The picture shows the visible thread, and when the stainless spoke is placed alongside a stock spoke, you can see there is just too much thread.

 

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Now compare the front wheel with the rear, the rear being spoked with spokes from a different supplier. No thread visible on any of the spokes, as it should be.

 

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I have some VM round slides coming next week. I've read the cable interferes with the petcock, standard fare is to tilt the carbs inwards at the top to fix the problem, but, that's a bit too rough for my liking, so to circumvent the problem I made up these two 20mm spacers. Hopefully, these should move the carbs back enough so the cables clear the petcocks.

 

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Appears, I'm wasting my time posting here, absolutely no interest in a classic Yamaha on a Yamaha forum. So, I bid you farewell, I won't bore you any further.

 

[Lesblank]

Sorry you see it like that. You posts were read 849 times, folks were looking. I commented a few times. I would like to see you continue to post updates.

 

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Some billet chain adjuster I machined up.

 

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A couple of headlight brackets I made, plus some pics iof the fabrication process.

 

[Lesblank]

Looking good. Nice work. Are you putting a protective finish, clear coat, on them to protect the finish?

 

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Looking good. Nice work. Are you putting a protective finish, clear coat, on them to protect the finish?

Nope, waste of time. paints don't stick too well to glossy surfaces, they yellow and come off in patches. a lot of work then to clean them up.

 

[Lesblank]

Nope, waste of time. paints don't stick too well to glossy surfaces, they yellow and come off in patches. a lot of work then to clean them up.

Totally agree, I was hopeful you weren't. It's like the front forks, they can be polished to a nice shine and is easy to take care of after that. Here's the last set of forks I did. Manufacturers always wants to put coating on them.

Before

After

 

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If you can find an anodiser who does bright dipping, that's worth a go. They use bright dipping for torch reflectors and other aluminium finishes that requires a very shiny finish.

 

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I bought a couple of VM34 carbs to replace the BS38s. Unfortunately the BS carb diaphragms started developing lot of little holes, far to many to patch. I priced diaphragms in Oz, $140 each, damned if I was going to pay that. JBM in the US have diaphragms for $19, but they're not posting to Oz, so that settled it.

The VMs arrived and came with a cable and two manifolds. I fitted them only to find the cable interferes with the petrol tap, the common fix for this is to angle the charts over, not this little black duck! Anyway I contacted the seller who stated it was a very rare problem, 3 in 500. Googling revealed a different story, it's quite common due to not all XS650s not being the same.

So, I decided to turn up a couple of longer manifolds to site the carbs behind the fuel taps. I first spun up a 40mm spigot with a lip, next I turned up a 25mm plate and pressed the spigot in place. It turned out excellent so I made another exactly the same.

The manifolds site the carbs 10mm behind the tap, but the tap outlet spigot was right in the middle of the carb cable. Easily fixed, I swapped the taps, right to left and left to right which placed the spigot at the front of the tap, thus missing the cable altogether.

Quite a neat fix which looks pretty good. Armchair experts like to harp on about longer manifolds changing the torque and power outputs, but really it makes no difference. Only a dyno could pick up any difference and that would hardly register any difference at all.