Concepts in Helmet Stickers

I need some vinyl stickers like this.

Breather gear one tooth adjustment

Yes, the oil misting out the crankcase is still giving all kinds of problems. I had heard about moving the breather gear by one tooth, but I wanted to know more about it. I asked S&S about it their on Facebook page. They were very helpful and initially told me their gears were timed to work correctly without an adjustment. A gentlemen named X-Glide Scott(I believe he works for S&S) chimed in and said the early ones were timed differently. The late ones have a "T" mark earlier ones have a line. Thinking that I had an earlier one from that description, I asked for pictures of the later ones and where the mark lines up with the screen. Again the folks at S&S were very helpful and showed me these pictures of their breather gears.




Even with all my picture taking I do, I didn't have a picture of my breather gear to compare against the S&S pictures. So I pulled the pushrods, ignition, camcover, and then the breather gear. Worth the effort, my screen doesn't line up with the timing mark like the S&S late model breather gears.


This is the "normal" line up.


I need the screen to line up with mark on the cam so one tooth counterclockwise.

It seemed to better, but ....


still misting.

800 Vulcan won't start

It's not the sidestand switch.

So here's the troubleshoot.

First check the battery voltage. It should be 12.5 or more. Then check that the positive and negative connection are clean and tight on the battery. Check that the ground wire is not broken and is connect good and tight to the engine block.

Now watch the battery voltage when you hit the button if it drops off then it's a battery problem.

See if the starter is bad, by checking the stud on top of it. It should have ~12.5v of power when you hit the button. If it's hot and the nothing spins then get a starter motor.

If it's not hot start here.

Here's a the hot side of the starter circuit.

Battery, Main Fuse, Ignition(key) switch. (Those are good if you have lights working.)

Ignition Fuse in fuse box.(maybe blown?)

Cut-off Switch by throttle(may be bad or turned off)(Being off has called a wrecker or two before.)

Starter Button(maybe bad)

Relay in junction box(sticking or bad connection)



The ground side of this relay comes from either the neutral switch or clutch switch.

No neutral light with the bike in neutral, switch or connection.

If it starts with clutch pulled or in neutral, but not the other, you can figure it out.

If the junction relay is working, it feeds a hot to another relay with the main fuse. Check that relay it feeds the starter motor.

Custom Foot Brake Backing Plate

I'm going to fix this peg to match the clutch side.


It needs to be right about here, so I need a new backing plate for this.


Take it all apart.






This bolt got loose at some point before I owned this bike. The sides are not parallel and it's pretty much a bandaged together junk anyway.


I traced a template to keep notes on.



Lots of reverse engineering going on.



And here are my notes.


I used DraftSight to make a drawing. This is the original plate layout. The properly scaled .pdf is here.


This is what I figured the first mock-up would look like. Again .pdf here. I had planned to move the master cylinder and lever mounts(digitally) up and back to match the new peg location, but the location of the frame tab made that not possible. I might have done all this with a transfer punch and skipped the cadwork, but I didn't know until I drew it.


Here is my print out and cardboard for my first build.


About three layers of this cardboard matches the thickness of my aluminum plate.


I glued up two of these to play with. I know I need a spacer, too. So I got those glued up as well.


Good thing I made two I screwed this up by cutting on the wrong line.


Cardboard mock-up.


I think I need to move the back line forward about an 1/8 of an inch to clear the pipes.


Here's my final drawing and the .pdf is here.


Time to get to real business.


I used some layout dye to be able to mark the outline in case my template comes off in the middle of working.


Rubber cement should hold the template to the metal, but I'm just guessing and would call it experimental at this point.


I center marked the holes on the drawing.


So center punching the holes is super easy.


Ready to make some chips.


Sawzall works pretty, but I still need a bandsaw.


Now to drill the spacer.



I went to check out my hole spacing on the bike and of course, I left too much material around the holes.


Second cut and my hole spacing looks good.


Now to put a paper copy of the plate on the spacer see if it fits. The plate as drawn clears the pipes, but the nut on the back for the pegmount won't.


So I tried the metal spacer, a cardboard spacer, and my original cardboard plate.


That clears everything and actually the extra spacer pulls the peg mount out to about the right width to match the other side.



I heard canning wax will help with the saw, but I'm not sure.


I just transfer punched my second spacer.



Looks good.


I drilled the plate and everything works together so far.


It all mounts and clears.




Finish the remaining holes in the plate.


Check the master cylinder holes and they fit.


I like the peg mount hole.



Lever hole is good, too.


Nut for the lever clears everything.


Hack off everything that doesn't look like a backing plate.


To the belt and disk sander with everything.



I bolted the spacers together and hacked them down and sanded them pretty.


The paper and rubber cement worked and peeled right off when I was done. I would call that a success.



New bolts from Ace Hardware.


On up with it. The brake lever is now too low, but a longer plunger will make it work.


I got a longer bolt.


Cut off the head and rounded the tip.


Works.


The lever is bit forward. The heel of my boot want to come over the peg when I go full on braking. I'll try it this way for a while and I have another piece of aluminum if I need a new lever.


It will be better with some powdercoat, too.