Piston arrived yesterday!

After a long wait for the guy from eBay to ship the piston (he forgot) I finally got it. I hope the machinist can punch out the cylinder quickly so I can get back on schedule. I'll also have him cut new valve seats while he's at it. I've already smoothed out the ports a bit. Nothing radical, no re-shaping just cutting down some of the casting seams and texture.

I also got the tapered bearings installed today. I'll need to order some new fork tubes from Mike's XS asap so I can re-build the forks.

The hubs and rims are at the powder coater and new spokes will be ordered shortly from Buchanan's. I've decided that Black rims and hubs will look pretty nice with chrome spokes! Hmmm pretty nice? or just plain SEXY!

Order from Thumperstuff

I just got off the phone with Mark Apland out at Thumperstuff in rainy Washington state. He's putting together a nice care package for me to finish building the engine. I pulled off the the covers and other than a few small anomalies ( cracked oil filter cover and a chewed up thrust washer on the starter assembly) the innards look pretty good. the bearings are tight and so is the rod. Thank God, I really hate splitting the cases! I'll rinse out the old oil sludge with some solvent and send off the barrel and head to the machinist for boring and re-cutting the valve seats.

It looks like I'll need to order some spokes from Buchanan's too. I need to match the front chrome spokes to the rear. I'll be powder coating the hubs and rims black. I just need to get off my ass and pull the rear hub out of the old rim.

First fitting of the body work

Test fitting the seat and tank with the new brackets and soon to be modified rear fender.

Still waiting to get my hubs powder coated, the tripple trees from my storage space and some new fork tubes. The look is there though. still need to make some decisions about the paint on the tank. It's an alloy Manx Norton style tank, but has a few dents in it (I think) I came painted like this. I don't want to have a Norton logo on the Yamaha. I'll likely strip it down soon and asses the dents to make up my mind n the paint.

Now, what the hell am I gonna do about a header and meggaphone?

First blood!

Be careful expanding springs, when they come back, the have some power! I had a spring recoil into my hand while installing the kickstand. not a lot of pain because the spring hook went all the way past my nerves, through my skin and into the sub-dermal fat.