bensalf's 4 year caferacer build

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Good on ya admitting to the mistake and the consequences. Another person will read this thread and save their valves
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yep I hope so , I think I got away lightly, especially dropping on that spare engine so easily.
luckily my "big bro" is an engineer ,and has all the machines, and he has managed to straighten the bent valves.
which I will replace in the spare engine, and rebuild it.
but at the time I did this, he was away on a 12 week cruise.
stu

 

now I got the engine built up and showing decent compression across all 4 cylinders, valves in spec-- again.
I started to polish up some of the engine covers,
here are some in various stages of polishing.

I polished these covers ,similar to the wheels, starting with 400 grit paper ,wet , then 600 ,1000, 1500, then buffing wheel with brown soap then
green soap,
I spent literally weeks doing all the covers.
cam cover completed


clutch cover done

generator and crank covers polished and painted in the lettering

covers now finished and new stainless steel allen screws obtained

stu

 

starter motor stripped and cleaned, there was still plenty of life left in the brush ,so I polished the cover an rebuilt it

cam cover donuts were pretty much done in , got new ones and fitted on bolts .


had cover bolts chromed
silver painted the 4 large ones with the fixed rubbers,

stu

 

decided to do something different with the sprocket cover.

I cut out 2 of the cast circles
here it is at bottom right, after removing paint



also cut away part of the upper plate

rounded off the edges and began sanding down


polished up the cover and red painted the cut away edges

here it is fitted at a later stage

stu

 

engine now fitted in frame, had engine plates and bolts, chromed

found these, cast ally, headlight brackets on ebay, polished and fitted.


also found some clipon, 2 piece handlebars

stu

 

woooow! very nice work

 

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woooow! very nice work
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thank you very much for your comments, I have'nt had many replies so far, its nice to get some feedback from some of the experts.
probably because its in "modifications"
this is my first xj, although I've cafe'ed some other bikes in the past.
I'm already onto my second xj600 now , but that will be in standard form.
here's a honda cx500 I did 25 years ago


stu

 

great job so far. inspiring me to go with a polished looked on my motor instead of black

 

Exceptional craftsmanship. I vote to add this to the build threads in the Information Overload Hour.

Gary H.

 

Can't believe you haven't had many comments....I'm just starting my work and though I may stay pretty close to stock there's a lot to be inspired by here and a lot of good process info. Great work.

 

Excellent idea, consider it done.

Beautiful work, I think you give Wizard and BigFitz a run for the money........

 

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Beautiful work, I think you give Wizard and BigFitz a run for the money........
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oh ,no , they're way above my league.
I only got this far ,from litening to them, and reading , (and taking heed) of all the info on here.
thank you all for your comments so far
stu

 

Thanks. I think future members will enjoy this build as much as the others. Camelman and Salty Dog's 1100's is another one of my favorites.

Gary H.

 

so-- on with the build,
and so to the er, -----carbs--------- the subject of so many posts on here.
and I can only endorse the advice in "the church of clean" and the whole 9 yards.
they were in a bit of a state, throttle shafts were seized solid.

soaked the throttle shafts in paraffin overnight, and managed to free them off.

broke the rack apart and started to strip each carb

whilst stripping the carbs down , I noticed this tiny ball bearing ,on the bench towel. I hadn't a clue where it came from, and there was no reference to it in the Haynes, or on here, you can see it here at the end of the ruler

then I found another bxgger,so I had to take a closer look at the carbs.
and this may help others working on carbs

what I found ,was that where the enrichment shaft slides through each carb, on #2 and#3 carbs, there is a tiny spring and ball ,that locates in a notch on the enrichment shaft ,to keep it in position, very lucky I found these

 

This is all looking f'ing pretty!

 

continued to strip each carb

marked up the butterflies for which way round and which way up
sprayed up the carb bodies, new throttle shaft seals obtained, cleaned all passages in each carbs,
started rebuilding carbs

wet set the floats using a plastic jug I made to fit under each carb, using a dummy tank, to fill the jug, and allow the floats to rise

sprayed up the carb brackets ,also had the middle 2 carb hats chromed, and stainless steel screws fitted all round


stu

 

Damm, you do nice work. Are you really going to ride it?

 

onto the carb to head boots, they weren't in too bad condition, but had slight cracks on the outside, but not all the way through. new ones were almost £100
and good used ones were unobtainium. so I decided to repair them, I've seen the innertube method used on here, but as I was an electrician by trade in my working days
I looked into getting some heatshrink tubing to do the job.
I got hold of some 4" tubing with 7 times shrink ratio.

 

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Are you really going to ride it?
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already have, only done about 50 miles last year before the weather turned bad.
stu

 

test, tried a piece on a scaffold pole

shrank it with blowlamp

all seemed ok . so onto the boots
cut some strips the same width as the boots ,put a pin hole in to slot over the vacuum tube.

smeared some black silicon sealant over the boot spigot and shrank the tubing on, but just enough to grip the boot.

all 4 done and blanking caps fitted to the vacuum tubes

test tried boots onto carbs, all ok

stu