Better?

...yes

After shooting an interview with Chris I had a couple of hours to spend on the old Honda. My tires came in last week and I need to get the wheels to the shop on Monday if I'm going to get them back anytime soon. Seems that the shop will be closed starting Thursday to go to the races, and I can't fault them for that.

So I pulled the wheels and while time-consuming, everything went pretty well. The hardest part was jacking up the bike so it could sit on the center-stand w/o wheels (the engine cradle is interesting, it's not the same height on both sides. After about 30 minutes I had both wheels free and set them aside for a little scrubbing before I hand them over.

While doing this I was also applying another coat of primer to the tank. I picked up some sanding sponge which worked awesome on the first coat, but I was a little thin in a few spots so a second pass is necessary. This is a nice task to do when a break occurs in another, like pulling these wheels.

Back in the garage I turn my attention to the electrical problems I've been having and in particular, the brake light. Seems it would turn on with the ignition, but it wouldn't change when the brakes were applied, and every once in awhile I'd blow the fuse (there is only one), so something was up.



I picked up a nice little 15a circuit breaker so I could troubleshoot this without going through boxes of fuses (I also replaced the old-fashioned fuse holder with a new "blade" style fuse). The circuit breaker fit good enough, but for the street I'll have to use a real fuse so it fits in the holder better. I also picked up some "bullet" wiring connectors for the tail light so I can easily swap things around. I followed the wiring diagram but I had a feeling that maybe something wasn't connected up right.

...that feeling turned out to be correct.

After a few minutes with the multimeter, I was able to determine that what I thought was the ground was the switched lead to make the brake light brighter. Swapping these around, suddenly the brake light functioned properly (with the foot brake at least, the handle bar switch is another story) so I crimped on the bullet connectors and closed up the tail light.

Then I spent another 15 minutes or so crimping closed ends on all of the various non-connected wires I have after I removed the handle bar controls and turn signals. In the long run I'll be ripping all this out and re-wiring the bike but for now I'm just trying to close up possible shorts.



Back to the tank for another coat, and then back to the garage to clean up those wheels.

I don't have a shot of the wheels after spending some time working on them with the old Brillo, but the results are pretty amazing. If I get a chance I'll snap one before I hand them off but most likely the next time I'll have the camera out there will be when I'm re-mounting the wheels, fresh rubber and all.