Itchy Boots goes Vintage

Gaoler said:
a lot of the bs deleted and a couple o'three redundancies added.
The guy who built that bike is a genius
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I don't see anything really special about the bike other than freshening it up and doing common mods that anyone might do before going on a long-distance ride:
  • Customized pedal placement, seat padding, add handlebar risers - all good.
  • Delete the nanny switches - I like that. Not sure I'd have deleted the starter relay -- the start switch on the bars looks like a $2 Aliexpress kill switch, I guess we'll see how long it can take starter current.
  • Change the wiring harness to a simpler one off a 70's XT? Nope. 40 year old wires might work -- but I'm not riding one around the world. The harness on that bike is simple as dirt, I'd make a bulletproof harness using tinned/copper marine wire.
  • Delete the fuel pump? That's a dumb idea, I didn't understand. Old Mikuni membrane pumps are not dependable, but a modern $20 pump used on virtually every snowmobile and ATV's is a direct swap and dependable.
  • Hot swap CDI - good idea. I'd just keep a spare CDI in my toolbag, they are very reliable.
  • Hot swap regulators? Nope. Like the wiring harness I'd upgrade the 40 year old 13A stator to a modern 30A, then replace the 30-year-old Yamaha regulator with modern Mosfet type. Then mount the regulator where it will cool properly - not under the seat.
 
I thought it was great too. His logic made sense to me with his experience in this type of travel. He eliminated many parts and extras that may fail and easily repaired along the road. I guess the true test will be with the bike hits the road. I think the lack of some sort of fuel gauge was a bit worrisome.
 
It's a nice enough bike but it could be so much better if some of the parts were from this millennium.

The guy building the bike is too obsessed with vintage "quality". Just because it's old and simple doesn't always mean it's more functional or reliable.

A 40+ year old Ohlins shock? Sure, it's been rebuilt but come on, suspension tech has come a long way since the early 80's.

And did you hear how to access the gas that'll be stranded in the tank wings? Just take the tank off and somehow ride with it raised 5cm off it's mounts in order to get the last 10% of the fuel in the tank. Or pour the gas into a water bottle, stick a hose in it and feed the carb that way? Really? 🤪

I really hope the guy gives Noraly a master list of all of the parts on the bike. Otherwise she has no chance of figuring out which random 80's Yamaha part she needs to order when some of these ancient components break in the middle of nowhere.
 
Sunday Rider said:
I thought it was great too. His logic made sense to me with his experience in this type of travel. He eliminated many parts and extras that may fail and easily repaired along the road. I guess the true test will be with the bike hits the road. I think the lack of some sort of fuel gauge was a bit worrisome.
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I also found the part about the fuel as little worrying. I would think that being in the middle of nowhere or middle of the word you would want to know how much fuel you have.

Since the bike is pieced together from a variety of models and years, I would think that Noraly will get a cheat sheet of which part is from which bike. Just in case she is in the wild and needs to source a replacement part.
 
'Guy even eliminated the gauge cluster... Citing her GPS would have a speedo anyway.
I wonder... Depending on jurisdiction, wouldn't a working speedo at least be necessary to register or otherwise license the bike as road worthy?
 
Sunday Rider said:
I thought it was great too. His logic made sense to me with his experience in this type of travel. He eliminated many parts and extras that may fail and easily repaired along the road. I guess the true test will be with the bike hits the road. I think the lack of some sort of fuel gauge was a bit worrisome.
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German design? Sounds good, lets go, Prost! We can see how it works when we get reports back from the field.

That bike has a 5l reserve and should get around 25km/l - that's 125km to find fuel. The problem is he deleted the fuel pump so when that thing hits the reserve level, there's no way to get at that fuel. He also deleted the ODO, so using the trip meter to compute range will depend on the dashboard she creates on her nav-tablet.
KLR Junkie said:
It's a nice enough bike but it could be so much better if some of the parts were from this millennium.

The guy building the bike is too obsessed with vintage "quality". Just because it's old and simple doesn't always mean it's more functional or reliable.

A 40+ year old Ohlins shock? Sure, it's been rebuilt but come on, suspension tech has come a long way since the early 80's.

And did you hear how to access the gas that'll be stranded in the tank wings? Just take the tank off and somehow ride with it raised 5cm off it's mounts in order to get the last 10% of the fuel in the tank. Or pour the gas into a water bottle, stick a hose in it and feed the carb that way? Really? 🤪

I really hope the guy gives Noraly a master list of all of the parts on the bike. Otherwise she has no chance of figuring out which random 80's Yamaha part she needs to order when some of these ancient components break in the middle of nowhere.
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Not just the shock - how about the 80's era stator, regulator, and salvaged wiring harness - OOF! I'd have addressed that as a priority.

The nice thing about old Yamahas if they had a very high degree of interchangeability in parts - if I recall, pre '07 KLRs used Yamaha's XT600 stator, regulator and CDI. The backwoods mechanics will figure that out.

The gastank reserve thing is fixed by replacing the 80s era fuel pump with a modern ATV pump -- $25 upgrade.
 
Mad Mike said:
Delete the fuel pump? That's a dumb idea, I didn't understand. Old Mikuni membrane pumps are not dependable, but a modern $20 pump used on virtually every snowmobile and ATV's is a direct swap and dependable.
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We run stand alone Mikuni fuel pumps on the sleds that are run via crankcase pressure/vacuum. Are these the pumps of which you speak?
If so how are the new pumps different? Maybe I should be upgrading the sled.
 
I totally agree with questioning of speedo and fuel pump removal, but in general I see this as an interesting concept bike or/and an experiment. Now, I will definitely watch her new season to see how this bike will hold and perform and what changes/repairs will be done if needed. Love it already

P.S. If it was me Id just get a new same Honda and based on all the experience I’d buld it up to a supermachine with all weak points replaced/upgraded/enforced. Plus tons of spares packed or ready to be shipped anywhere she is.
 
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timtune said:
We run stand alone Mikuni fuel pumps on the sleds that are run via crankcase pressure/vacuum. Are these the pumps of which you speak?
If so how are the new pumps different? Maybe I should be upgrading the sled.
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Yes they are. There are only a few adv motorcycles that used them, they were needed to get fuel from the lower tips of their giant 30l tanks. Those parts of the tank hang below the carbs.

I’ve had a couple of bikes with those pumps, the diaphragms stretch and or crack, when that happens, they don’t pump and the carbs starve. It happened to my DR750 this summer, I suspect ethanol ia also problem for them.

The newer ATV/snowmobile pumps have vitron seals, they tolerate ethanol.
 
Wingboy said:
Marketing! She's good at it. It's not all about the best bike. Creating controversy creates more views and likes. That's how she makes money.
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100% nail hit on head.

Similar reason Whistlindiesel or whoever that guys name is destroyed a Cybertruck by doing insane **** with it a few weeks ago. The stuff he did with it is plain crazy and has no basis in any sort of reality of normal use, but it sure did get a zillion hits on YouTube and will pay for that cybertuck several times over in revenue.
 
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I am old school and want to see this bike take a beating and come out without anything major happening.
Forgot on my "80 Honda 400 twin, there is no gas gauge or tachometer, don't think it even has a fuel pump, just gravity feed (could be wrong).
Wonder if she will take it for a shakedown ride. It will be interesting to see her go from a modern bike to this. She will probably have so many more gadgets to make up for it. Always interesting to watch every now and then. I wish they were only 10 minute highlight videos.
 
There were not a lot of gadgets on the 250 and 300 Hondas. The motors pretty much bulletproof...hers started even after being dumped upside down in an African river....took a while and bit of work but it did start.
I assume her new ride is Fi? Ah wait ...she has a choke so no.
 
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