I broke my first bolt, lost my first bolt (found), and stripped my first screw. Now I'm cooking with gas. This is going to be fun. I changed the oil filter and it was a real pain. Starter is next, I hope I don't die.
Got the oil drained, and thanks to Harry Moses I know where the oil filter is. First thing I did when I got my first TX (April 2005) was to start trying to find the maintenance parts. I managed to get one from Germany on eBay, and am I glad I did. A week ago I drained the oil from the oil tank and it was black. I couldn't get the bottom plug out so I just refilled with some fresh oil and ran the bike a little. Just trips around town. Last sunday I got both plugs off and the oil was all black again. I'm happy though, because now I can start the flushing process. Out goes the old (probably 30+ years old) oil filter and in goes the NOS oil filter from Germany. That'll be the simplest way to start cleaning the system. It's my hope that we get enough people together through the process of the next month or so to get the oil filter conversion parts milled so we can all have fresh oil at a fraction of a NOS part on eBay.
This part would kill my girlfriend if she read it. After seeing all these original TX's on the owners page, I'm feeling guilty about wanting to chop mine up a little. Or maybe I'm thinking that my changes just won't improve the bike any. There's a little thought, in the back of my mind, to keep the bike original. Probably won't happen, but when I pull up next to Harry Moses or Paul Rogers one day, I'll feel a little second class I'm sure just because of how nice their bikes are in pictures. I guess I'll just have to take that chance eh?
A tip for first time TX oil changers. Loosen the crank case oil drain plug when the motor is cold, then tighten it hand tight. THEN run the bike 'til warm. If you try to loosen it after the bike is warm it might expand and be very difficult to get off potentially resulting in a busted knuckle. Here's my story - I tried (see below) to change the oil, but got a good old fashioned cut on the knuckle trying to change the oil. I went out today with a longer wrench and the crank case plug was only on hand tight. I mean, I spun it off by hand. Good information to know, that's why I have small puddles of oil everywhere on my driveway. I'm currently following the above instructions coupled with those in the manual, and hopefully I'll be able to flush out some of the gunk that's in there. Wish me luck!
Okay - the electric starter pretty much just makes a whirring sound at this point. 90% of the time it's kick start only. Half of the time the bike just wants to buck me over the handlebars. So, I've got a new direction in my revival of this bike. I thought the functionality was satisfactory to start with the pretty parts, but it's not, so I'm going to get functional things working first.
I thought I'd do the easy parts first - the maintenance stuff. I have a new oil filter so I thought I'd give that a shot. The manual I have just tells you to drain the oil, put the caps on, and refill it. Not very helpful when you're trying to figure out where the drain plug is. So I got the drain plug off the oil tank, no sweat, and oil ran out all over my frame into the oil pan. It looked like it hadn't been changed in 33 years (and 25,000 miles) it was that ugly. Then I knocked my wrist and half my arm trying to get the crankcase drain plug off. It wouldn't budge, and since I was bleeding, I did the justification thing and said to myself, "well, I'll drain a couple quarts, put fresh oil in, and clean the whole system later. I'm not going to waste a $40 oil filter unless I can clean out all the muck." Anyone have any ideas on how to get the crankcase drain plug out? Secondly, how does one clean the muck out of the oiling system? I mean, it needs to be FLUSHED. There was 1/8" of goo at the bottom of the oil tank.
So once I figure those 2 things out, I'll do that. hopefully that'll clear up some of the other issues. That and some lubrication of the other parts. Then I've got some brakes to attend to. I'd also like to rid myself of the rattling clutch handle and get it adjusted right.
I'm going to re-do the exhaust too. I'm just going to run straight pipes out the back painted grill black. The universal pipes I have are noisy anyway, hardly fit, and because of some shoddy workmanship on my part are uneven if you look at them from the back. I'm going to head to the local muffler shop and ask them to bend a "U" in the middle of an 8' pipe and cut them right where I need them. I think I can get a metal blade for my miter saw.
Thought I'd drop in for a little update. Now that April is here in WI we can park one of our cars on the street. That means the project bike gets a little spot on the driveway behind the fence. Time for disassembly! I took the seat off the parts bike and am working out the details of how to get a pattern from the cover. Good time to tell you that in my mind the purchase of tools does not count in the total build tally of a project. I took a half day off from work on Friday and went and bought myself some tools before the IRS gets all the rest of my money for taxes.
Back to the seat. I got myself a lacing pony and some practice pieces of leather so I can get my stitching and lacing skills up to snuff before I put them to use on something I'm going to want to sit on. My plan for the seat is to turn the original cover (ripped) inside out and make some paper patterns from it. I'll trace those to the leather I bought, cut it out and do the tooling I'm planning on the top piece. I'll dye the pieces a color I deem appropriate - antique medium brown on the top (where the tooling is) and natural on the sides. Once I've done that, it's time for stitching. I'll hand stitch the pieces together with a saddle stitch (the strongest stitch) then lace directly over that mostly for design/style.
The lacing stitch I'm going to use is called a double whipstitch. The idea behind this is to lace the two pieces together in a circle, skipping every other hole from one side of the seat to the other, then turning around with the same piece of lacing and hit all the skipped holes in the other direction. This gives you a nice "X" pattern all the way around and technically, if one of the laces breaks, there's an unrelated piece of lace still holding the seat together. In my case, I'll also have the saddle stitching holding the whole thing together too. Overengineered, maybe. You won't see the saddle stitch much because it will be partly covered up by the lacing. I'm planning on using kangaroo lace for the lacing.
Once I've determined if I need to replace the foam, and carved it to the correct shape(if needed) I'll install the cover, fasten it down and give it a generous application of Pecard leather dressing. Once that's dry and ready to test, I'll bolt it on the working bike and the other seat (it's in GREAT shape) will go up on eBay for the highest bidder.
Keep checking back here to get a preview of what I'm going to be selling on eBay as time goes by. That way you'll get a heads up on your competition. I plan to sell the majority of a complete bike as I restore pieces and install them on the working bike. Included in this list (down the road) will be a couple carbs, handlebars, tins, you name it. As I said, the seat's first - and I'll give you a heads up when new parts are ready for sale.
Snow's gone, and Mike is chugging right along on his project, so I thought I'd give you a little update on mine.
I was feeling a little overwhelmed a couple days ago. I've been exercising some pretty serious self control for some reason when it comes to spending a little cash on my motorcycle. So I sat down and came up with the restoration plan. Since I've got 2 bikes, one running and one not running, I'm going to take the parts off the non-running one, restore them, and place them on the running bike. That way I can continue to ride and break down the other bike at the same time. Not as glamourous as a Discovery Channel show, but WAY more practical and fun for me. So the first few things I'm going to deal with are the handle bars, the tank and side covers and the seat. I've made a few purchases recently that I'll detail below:
Clubman Bars - These have an upside down U-shape to them through the neck clamps. They don't fit around the fork leg ends so they have to sit forward or rearward of the forks. I'll make them work somehow. Got them from Old Bike Barn.
HOK Paint - I've been practicing all these custom painting techniques for a year or more now - and I started thinking that it was a shame that I would build a project like this bike and paint it all one solid color. I want more than that. So I started thinking about how I would do a heavy metal flake and mix a couple really retro colors. I really like the orange on the '73 - so there's one. Then I'm digging around the web and run up on the Roland Sands website. He's got a bike called "The HardWay" and I really dig the paint scheme. So from just a glance at the colors I sat down with my HOK paint chip book and came up with some similar ones. I just doubled the cost of my paint job, but at this point I've only purchased paint in quantities enough to experiment on some test panels. All in good fun. Ordered from HOKPaint in 4 oz. sizes.
Leather - Ran into a sale at Tandy Leather on economy grade leather. It's got a few range marks but it will be workable considering that I plan on tooling it, and that it's going on a motorcyle that might see some rain. I'm not a professional bike builder and I doubt that I'm going to "show" my bike - I'm going to ride it. If I ever make a show bike, I may do things differently. In this case, I'm trying to make a nice bike that I can ride all Spring, Summer, and Fall.
I've had a couple requests for updates on this project, so I decided to run out and take a couple pictures of my bikes so you could see why there's not much progress happening. Those are in the right sidebar. I took the '73 for a ride on Saturday March 11th, one day before mother nature dumped 20+ inches of snow on my hometown. It was cold enough that I'm sure it was the reason for the cold I got for the next 3 days. But if you like to ride like me, you'll understand: It was worth every minute.
I've ordered the Z-bend Clubman Bars that I told you I was going to - a couple weeks ago. Just got a confirmation email that they're coming UPS next week, so that's something to look forward to. I'm suspecting that will drop the controls down about 6 inches total.
I'm getting closer to picking a color for the bike, frame and accent parts. I'm thinking that I'm going to use AutoAir colors (water-based) so I can do the majority of the painting in my basement without worrying about an explosion. And I can get started earlier. The color is called "Sparklescent Mango" and I'll probably top that off with "Hot Rod Sparkle Gold" to get a yellower tone and a more sparkley 70's finish.
I'm re-doing the seat too. I'm not sure if I'm going to to a cafe style rounded tail section, or just suggest one with different color leather. I've been reading an article I found online about how Paul Cox does his seats, and though I think it would be a fun project to lace the seat rather than just stitch it, I think stitching it will fit better with the overall look and feel of the bike I'm trying to build. If I go with the mango paint, I'm probably going to dye the leather a mahogany color. Previously I was going to paint the bike House of Kolor sunrise pearl, with gold leafing and maroon pinstriping, and if that ends up being the case, the seat will be a more carmel color. Either way, the leather will be tooled. I just don't know what I'm going to do design-wise with that yet.
The '73 runs, and I'll be working on getting a couple of sound files for that one up here, by request. I'd like to put one up of it running, so you can hear it, but I'd also like to put one up of how it sounds when I'm trying to start it on a cold day so I can get your feedback about what may or may not be wrong with that sound. But not right away, I don't even want to sit on it in this weather. Too depressing.
On April 15th, 2005 I bought a 1973 Yamaha TX 750. The previous owner had lost the title, but had all the paperwork to apply for a replacement filled out (mostly) and paid for. I filled out the rest of the blanks on the paperwork and submitted the replacement title application.
I'm a big fan of the old cafe racer style bikes. After doing a little research on this model, I realized that they're not easy to find, or find parts for. Either way, the price was right, so I bought it.
The previous owner received the replacement title, and after several months of trying to contact him (and spending some money on new and replacement parts for the bike) I decided to circumvent the situation that presented itself to me. I'd look for another TX750 with a title, and combine the parts from the 2 bikes to make a single bike.
I got my wish in October when I bid on and won a titled 1974 TX on eBay. Now I've got 2 bikes, a title and a license plate. Let the games begin!
I like the look of black rims and hubs with chrome spokes. Wheels = shoes on a living thing, and to me that's what this bike is. That was the whole story until I got an email from Harry Moses talking about how the head gasket on his TX was leaking and oil and gas were spraying on his shoes. Well, nothing wrong with a double meaning unless I end up with black shoes myself.
So there's the first plan - to paint the rims and hubs black and replace the old spokes with nice chromed spokes - the more shine the better as far as I'm concerned
One of the most noticeable differences between a stock cruiser like the TX and a cafe style bike is the handlebar position. The stock bars will be replaced with clubman style bars with a 3 inch drop. That's about 6 inches total drop from the stock riding position, but a whole new feel when you're on the road. Found the ones I want at AirTech Streamlining.
The TX has, by today's standards, ridiculous lighting. I like the look of the round headlight for a naked bike, but the tail light and signals need an update. A Cat eye tail light will fit the bill for me, and I'll be searching for just the right cat eye signals and mirrors that fit the style/price standard that I'm looking for.
There are quite a few things I'd like to do to this bike including something interesting with the exhaust, making the whole bike lighter to improve performance and some other creative details that I think will set this bike off. As a result, I'm in the midst of a welding class, have videos for carbon fiber work, and have been practicing my leather work on occasion through the last summer. I want it to be nothing less than gorgeous when I'm done. I'm sure many of you understand!
| 1973 TX750 | $400.00 |
| 1974 TX750 | $325.00 |
| Headlight Ears | $19.99 |
| Mufflers | $93.98 |
| NOS Oil Filter | $35.50 |
| Throttle Cable | $18.49 |
| Carb Rebuild Kits | $37.50 |
| z-bend cafe bars | $48.80 |
| HOK paint | $80.65 |
| seat leather | $38.87 |
| Shift lever | $33.25 |
| Running Total | $1132.03 |
Additionally, you'll find images of the bikes and the progress of the project here in the form of thumbnails. Just click on them to get a larger view and hit your back button to return here.
