Tearing into Déjà Vu

Time to really tear into this 02. It needs some basic maintenance(that's been neglected) and some inspections, plus a few parts swapped out or just removed altogether. It's a bit overwhelming to think of all the major and minor things that need to be done. Last time, I did everything a little at a time over several years; now I know what works and what is just dumb. I figure I will work left-side to right-side then back to front, so I can do everything in an organized fashion and not get off track and forget something.

Wow! There's not a rat's nest of wires under the seat. That's just weird.


I don't need this bell on it.


I'll put that up here with the bell that came on the last bike I bought.


The bike is running stock bars, but the levers felt like they were located all wrong when I rode it home. The stock bars have hole to line up the control boxes with a pin and dimple to line up the clamp split for the lever/mirror perches. Sure enough, the front brake was all wrong.


Here's the dimple to line the brake side clamp up with.


The clutch lever was goofy, too, but this dimple isn't right and for some reason there's not a pin and hole for the control box either. That's weird, but I just aligned everything on the left to match up with the stuff on the right. Everything feels much better now. There's a reasonable chance of ape hangers eventually, but that's way done on the list for now.


Well this is kind of a bummer, I was hoping that the chrome covers on the sidecovers would be easily removed, but there are three holes in the side cover to hold the chrome cover on. I'll put these up for sale, but I'll need to get stock replacements for them, too.


Neato, a dirt dauber nest under the right cover.


Same drilled holes of course.


I don't need this accent piece.


This bike has 11.5 inch Progressive 412s on it. Normally that would be a bonus, but I was hoping to keep this bike at the stock 12.5 ride height, because I have really scraped the frame and floorboards a bunch on my other 11.5 inch Vulcan 1500.


I had to pull the left floorboard to get behind the left engine. The feelers on the floorboards have never rubbed the ground. Clearly the previous owners were not aggressive riders at all.


Now the left cover can come off.


I wonder which of these covers is going back on? The one with the black inner will go on and the chrome inner will be up for sale.


Here's the start of the recent alternator problem on my 03. A little oil seems to creep it's way out of the alternator and up the wire and then make a mess.


I think I will be proactive this time. A good thorough coating of liquid tape on the exposed parts of the plug couldn't hurt anything.


Let that set up and do a few more coats.


The background on this part. The 1500's have a rectifier/regulator mounted under the swingarm. There is no reason for this other than covering the ugly stock muffler "goat's belly" with an equally ugly rectifier/regulator. Then MaKaw will even sell you a chrome piece to draw more attention to the ugliness. This bracket comes with the Vance and Hines Straight Shots and lets you hide it a bit better. In my opinion, it is still not the best option.


It's so easy to put the regulator out front with the other regulator.


There's even a nice spot with perfectly spaced and threaded holes for it. Now, if I can find a stock bracket, I will fit a HD teardrop toolbox under the swingarm.


The chrome swingarm cover is already dented from hitting the passenger peg mount and rusting. What a worthless piece of chrome.


That's rust not dirt.


Man, I'm glad I only needed to ride 40 miles homes. That's a bald 12 year old stock rear tire right there.


I want to flush the clutch line and I thought about covering the tank to protect the paint from the DOT 4. But I'm going to need the tank off to work on the carb next, so I just went ahead pulled the tank completely off.


Yep, the at DOT 4 is 12 years old and looks like Coca-Cola.


Flush and bleed the line and call it a day.