Hello everyone & welcome back! It’s time for just a few more pictures of this little project TS185 I’ve been working on but first let me talk to you a little about the banner ad above. I have applied for one of these grants and I only have until June the 19th 2015 to reach the required number of votes. If you have a couple of minutes of time & a Facebook account could you please go vote for me? It would be greatly appreciated.
As mentioned last time this motorcycle is more of a restomod than a proper TS185 restoration and one of the things that I have always wanted to try out was putting a set of BMX bicycle platform pedals on a motorcycle. So out came the reciprocating saw some scrap metal & the welder.
As I mentioned the last time I was changing the color so here it is just a plain old machinery gray from a Duplicolor spray can.
Added the shop logo to the number plates
Of course there were some new parts installed, missing bolts replaced & a few leaks stopped while I was at it.
Some hard lessons were learned such as don’t install the clutch release arm upside down and that cheap enamel clear really doesn’t spray well in 100 degree temperatures. There are still a few odds & ends that need doing but it is mostly done. Now I just need the upholstery shop to have my seat ready this week! I also think the new pedals are fantastic looking but I do have to be careful when using the kick starter.
One advantage to doing all of this was having time to sort out the various electrical bodges that previous owners had inflicted on this poor machine. It now has a fully functional key switch, brake & taillights, a battery, fuse etc. Of course it still starts easily & runs like a top!
This old motorcycle is finally making it’s way back into one piece. It has new tires, wheel bearings, brake shoes, tapered roller steering head bearings, and anything else it needed to make it safe & reliable. Surprisingly enough even after 34 years of being beaten like a government mule, the engine & transmission are still in very good functional condition. This makes my life a lot easier.
Lets start with a quick look at the rear wheel & brake linkage before I started.
Yes I know I need my head examined for riding it for so long in this condition, but it was still a lot of fun!
I had to replace the brake rod, adjuster and the lever. The rod & its hardware are new old stock parts, & the lever was simply adapted from a junked motorcycle.
This is the exact same brake pedal that is shown in the picture above. I straightened it with a torch, hammer & anvil, before cutting the end off of an old dirtbike footpeg and welding it to the brake lever.
I had to buy an entire extra used carburetor to get a couple of parts that are no longer available separately, and I’m still waiting on my throttle cable to arrive from England so for now the carb is just sitting here until I receive the cable.
While waiting on some other parts it was time to start some body work.
Have I mentioned anywhere in this series just how incredibly nasty this thing was? Check out the red clay mud dried to the bottom of this tank.
The side covers are decent used parts that only required minor work to repair, but the tank itself is actually requiring a fair amount of body work to make look good.
It’s so tempting just to throw money at a project like this, and to a certain extent I have done that with the mechanical & safety bits. Since this is the 2o Foot Restoration the appearance of the machine will be handled in the most economical way possible, with a few cans of Duplicolor spray enamel. So many of the parts needed for this bike are either unavailable or priced beyond what I feel like spending on it, this is actually going to be a resto-mod more than a restoration. Plus the blue has to go, I want a tougher more subdued look for my trail bike so the color will be changed. No I’m not going to tell you yet, keep checking back (or just scroll down & subscribe) o see what it winds up looking like!
When I posted this morning this was the picture of my stopping point last night.
The engine was still sitting on the bench looking like this.
and most of the small parts hadn’t been touched yet & most of them had a thick coating of baked on red clay mud. But with the aid of my beautiful assistant I was able to get it back together this far.
It’s been a long time since I have pulled a hard weekend thrash on any vehicle like this, the fact that I didn’t have to push so hard was part of the challenge for me. When I was younger I spent may a weekend or late night wrenching non stop just to be able to get back to work on Monday, and it’s really nice not to be in that situation any more. It’s also nice to know that I can still pull it off if I have to.
So far so good, now of to order the rest of the parts that I didn’t anticipate needing! Appearance wise this might be a 20 foot restoration but all of the mechanical bits will be in 100% working order!
Finally started the repairs & upgrades to the old TS185. It was in dire need of new steering head bearings and brakes. A set of matching dual sport tires wouldn’t hurt either, along with a thousand other little things. So the day before yesterday I pulled it all the way down to a bare frame.
This is not going to be a show quality restoration by any stretch of the imagination. You may have noticed that the title of this post is The 20 Foot Restoration. If you’ve never heard that term before it describes a vehicle that looks really good from a distance of 20 feet or more, but when you get up close you can still see the dings & other imperfections.
If the skid plate had been removable I probably would have left the engine in the frame for all of this as it runs excellent. But the skid plate is an integral part of the frame, and the area between it and the engine was packed with a mixture of red clay mud & two stroke oil. Plus there was some damage to repair.
After getting it cleaned up reasonably well, I took some body hammers to it, straightened it up some, and the welded all of the broken bits back together. Then I hit it with the wire brush & sandblaster before shooting a coat of rattle can primer.
All of the frame bits & pieces are painted with some some cheap spray on truck bed liner, while parts such as the shock bodies etc. are being done in brake caliper paint. I disassembled the shocks & dropped the springs into a bucket of metal rescue to soak overnight. they’re not perfect but they look a lot better.
After 2 days of hard work this was my stopping point last night, this morning I am going out to detail the engine as much as I can without actually taking it apart. and will continue the reassembly of this poor old thing.
It’s time for another Project wAmmo CM400 update. Let’s start with my confession that I lost interest in the project for a little while and was really short on time for it. Had some issues with getting the frame sandblasted so I wound up bringing it back home and hit the frame with some paint remover and went over it with my little hand held sandblaster before coating it with spray on truck bed liner. Did the same thing for the tank before brazing up a couple of damaged spots on it and sealing it with Caswell Epoxy Gas Tank Sealer. I also wound up replacing the fork because I was unable to identify the one that was on it to get the proper repair parts so I replaced it, and installed a set of tapered roller steering head bearings for good measure.
I got the modified Harley solo seat covered in olive drab Cordura fabric to match the overall theme planned for the bike.
Even though the engine would start and run okay, compression on the right cylinder was consistently 50 psi less than the left cylinder. Even after adjusting the valves (click here for the proper procedure) which didn’t help, and putting some oil in the cylinder to see if it would come back up temporarily indicating worn rings, the right side was still 50 psi lower than the left side so I went ahead and pulled the engine apart for a top end overhaul.
The problem turned out to be that the oil rings were frozen to the piston and the gaps were aligned on the top 2 rings preventing them from sealing. The downside to this bike originally being such an artistically created “natural” ratbike is that it was incredibly nasty. Here I am soda blasting the cylinder to clean it. Yes that is the cheap hand held sandblaster
and it works just fine with blasting soda, so if you’re on a budget & just need to clean a few small parts without damaging them the way sandblasting can try this. Just do not hit any gasket mating surfaces with the soda.
Once everything was cleaned & honed I taped off the mating surfaces so that I could spray on some Duplicolor cast iron gray engine paint.
The original clutch cover will be replaced with this good used one and since I was not splitting the cases for a full overhaul I sealed up the bottom half of the engine with duct tape so that I could degrease it and remove the existing paint.
Since the head needed a good clean up, it became the subject of a head service tutorial that you can read by clicking here. The next picture is of the original pistons with new rings ready for the cylinder to be re-installed. The blocks of wood held the pistons up and level while beautiful assistant slid the cylinder slowly into place while I compressed the rings.
This looks a lot better than the before picture doesn’t it? Once I got the head back on it was time to line up the timing marks for the crankshaft & camshaft as shown below and put the camshaft back in.
Afterwards it was just a matter of putting the rest of the parts back on and torquing everything down properly. Don’t forget to fill the oil pockets under the cam lobes with oil before putting the rocker box cover back on.
The engine is now ready to reinstall, I am going to leave the rotor cover off until later, ditto for the new clutch cover.
Now the engine is sitting back in the frame. The intake spigots are new replacements for the damaged originals.
I like puzzles
Now its time to sort out the wiring harness. Sometimes it is easier to start from scratch but for right now I am going to attempt to reuse at least some portions of the factory harness.
Normally on a custom motorcycle one would attempt to hide such parts as the regulator rectifier but since I am going for a post apocalyptic paramilitary look on this machine it is bolted to the side of the rear fender out in plain sight.
Once I get the wiring sorted out and get the wheels back on it’ll be time top restore this set of CV carbs. I will probably do an in depth post on that process when the time comes.
D.I.Y. motorcycle head service is possible for the home mechanic at times, under the right circumstances. Of course if you are one of those fortunate individuals who happens to have a fully equipped machine shop and know how to use it you can do anything. But for the ordinary person restoring an older motorcycle or atv that wants to save a buck or two it is still possible to do an acceptable job provided certain conditions are met.
My patient for this job will be the CM400 that I used for the valve adjustment tutorial a couple of weeks ago. After adjusting the valves and putting oil in the cylinders it still had about a 45-50 psi difference in compression from the left to right sides so I pulled it apart for a top end overhaul. It turns out that the right cylinder had oil rings that were stuck from sitting and that the gaps were aligned on the other two rings.
Before disassembling it, I cleaned the head fairly well and removed the carbon from the combustion chambers. This makes handling the parts much nicer and inspection much easier. No matter what method you use to remove the carbon do not allow any type of abrasive or wire brush or scraper to contact the flat sealing surface of the head. Yes I know you may have to use some type of scraper to remove the gasket residue from the head but be very careful not to scratch or gouge it in any way. I actually used soda blasting to clean this head but made sure not to hit the mating surfaces with it.
Now I must make a couple of quick disclaimers here. First there are some defects that if discovered during the inspection process that will mean you need to take your head to a machine shop to be repaired anyway. Second, unless you own a set ball micrometers to check them with, you will basically be guessing that the valve guides are okay based on the condition of the valve stems. Chances are that if like me, you are working on something old but with relatively low mileage they are okay BUT it is not guaranteed and excessively worn valve guides can cause oil consumption & smoking even with new seals. Third, this is not the high performance option, if you are building a hotrod and looking to squeeze every last drop of performance out of it you can then I suggest you contact a reputable high performance machine shop for a good 5 angle valve job and new valve guides. This is to get your old heap running as good as possible for the least amount of dough you can spend. The fourth and last disclaimer is to always put safety first in the shop. You will be dealing with strong springs under compression. There is a chance that a tool could slip releasing a spring to go flying out at high speed and hit you or to pinch your fingers between the spring & the tool. Only use a good quality valve spring compressor
in good condition, make sure you read the instructions that come with it, & wear some eye protection too.
Even so there are some specialty tools you will need to get if you do not have them. In the picture above at the bottom center the thing with the two suction cups on it is a valve lapper with 2 tubes of grinding compound one coarse & one fine. Moving clockwise around the head are the valve spring compressor, a caliper dial or digital whatever you have, a light rubber or plastic hammer just in case something needs a tiny bit of extra persuasion, a micrometer (if you don’t know how to read a micrometer you can either learn how or just buy a digital one.) Next item to the right is a pick up magnet and a flat screwdriver, a few pertinent pages photocopied from the service manual and a new gasket set with valve seals. If you want to learn to use a micrometer watch the 2 videos below.
Set your valve spring compressor into place over the first valve you wish to remove and turn the compression screw inward until the spring is compress enough that the valve keepers either fall out or you can reach in with a magnetized screwdriver and pull them out.
It is very important that you keep your valves, springs, & other parts together so that they can be reinstalled in the same opening from which you removed them. This is especially critical for the valves as they wear into their valve guides and seats as the engine is operating. If any of the valves do not come out, or if removal is difficult you may have a bent or seized valve, put everything back together and find a good machinist. The cure for a damaged valve requires replacing the valve & seat as a unit. The valve guide drivers and reamers required for this job are really a bit much to purchase & learn to use for just one head.
Once you get all the valves out give the head a good visual inspection looking for anything that looks galled, burnt, or cracked
Be sure you check inside the ports to especially around the valve guides. Next check the valve seats which are the hardened steel inserts around the outside of the large holes in the combustion chamber. If any of valve seats 0r guides are burnt, badly scored or pitted , have cracks in them or easily visible excess wear then you need to put it back together & take it to a competent machinist
If all looks good make sure the head is not warped beyond acceptable limits. for this you’ll need a good straight edge and a feeler gauge in whatever size your service manual specifies
Place the straightedge firmly across the head in several locations and try to insert the feeler gauge between it and the heads gasket mating surface. If it goes between the two anywhere then a machinist will need to shave the head to level it back out.
Now it’s time to grab the micrometer and check the diameter of every valve stem in several places up & around each one. If any of them are worn beyond the service limit, chances are the valve guides are shot too and this is no longer a normal do it yourself job. Double check them for straightness at this time also,
After that get a caliper and measure the extended length of all of your valve springs. Replace any that do not fall into the specified range for your motorcycle.
Once the inspection process is complete and you are satisfied that all of your parts are in good condition & can be reused go ahead & clean the valves & guides thoroughly. Most of the time you can just scrub the intake valves clean in the parts washer, but the exhaust valves usually have a hardened scale stuck to them so I use a brass wire brush to clean them with. For the valve guides I use a gun cleaning brush, but any small round brush with plastic or brass bristles that fits through them will do. I try to avoid using brushes with steel or stainless steel bristles on parts like these because I only want to remove the grease, carbon, and scale without affecting the base metal.
Pick out whichever valve you want to start with and put a small amount of valve grinding compound around the head of the valve on the surface that contacts the valve seat in the head, and place that valve back into the hole that it was originally removed from. Grab the valve lapping tool & stick one of the suction cups on it to the valve like this and then rotate it back & forth to clean the mating surface. The most efficient way to do this is to hold the lapping stick between your palms and pretend you are trying to start a fire with it. Stop occasionally to check on your progress and replenish the lapping compound if needed. I use a coarse compound to start with & then switch to fine grit, but it is possible to make do with just the fine grit if that is what you have.
Stop and inspect rather frequently, you are not trying the grind the entire surface of the valve & seat flat. What you want is a uniform,well polished shiny ring all the way around the valve & seat at the point where the two meet. Once you have that, to keep polishing is just putting unnecessary wear on your engine parts. It should only take you a few minutes per valve to accomplish this, so keep going until you have all of the valves done.
With all of the valves lapped you now need to wash them and the head again and completely remove all of the valve grinding compound so that it doesn’t make its way into your freshly overhauled engine and grind up parts that don’t need it. Then open up your gasket set and find the valve seals. I have the seals for this engine laid out above.
The two larger one are for the exhaust valves and the four smaller ones are for the intake valves.
Once you have all of the seals into place it is time to start reinstalling the valves remembering to put each valve back into the hole that you removed it from to start with. First push the valve back into the hole.
It should go in smoothly, make sure that it doesn’t push the new seal off of the valve guide. Put the matching valve spring(s) and retainer back into place over the valve stem.
You will have to carefully hold the retainer while you put the valve spring compressor into place to compress the valve spring(s).
Compress the springs until you can see the grooves for the valve keepers well enough to reinstall the keepers.
Put a thick coat of grease on each retainer to stick it to the valve stem when you put it into place.
If at all possible use a pair of tweezers or needle nose pliers to put the keepers on the valve stem. If you find that you must use your fingers to get them both into place be extremely careful and make sure that the compressor is securely clamped and not going to suddenly pop loose and crush your fingers while you are positioning the keepers. You have been warned.
When you have the keepers in place on the valve stem then slowly unscrew the clamping screw and if necessary keep the springs and retainer straight as you release the pressure. Remember if your compressor has a release handle on it like mine does, do not use it to clamp & release the valve springs. Always use the clamp screw. The release handle is there to allow you to move it from one valve to another without having to fully unscrew the clamp every time. When you have fully released the pressure & moved the clamp your vale should look like the picture below with both keepers trapped securely between the retainer & the valve holding the whole lot securely together.
Repeat these steps until all of your valves are securely reinstalled in the head.
I have tried to be as honest as possible with you about the possible pitfalls and risks of D.I.Y. motorcycle head service, but if you are willing to take your time, check everything carefully, and work in a meticulous fashion there’s no reason that you cannot give it a shot. Just be willing to take the risk of trying on your next restoration or overhaul and you’ll find yourself having that much more satisfaction with your handiwork once the engine is up and running.
Of course since I want this one to look as good as it works I covered up all of the mating surfaces & plugged all the ports before spraying my favorite ceramic filled engine paint on it. If you need tools and supplies just visit my webstore’s tool sections and search for what you need. If you can’t find something there let me know & I will point you in the right direction even if it means sending you to someone else.
Today I’m going to show you how to perform a Honda CM400 valve adjustment. This basic procedure covers 1978-81 CM & CB400T Honda twins. This engine is from a 1980 CM400. Please refer to a proper CB/CM400 service manual to verify the exact procedures & specifications for your motorcycle. I will give the valve lash & misc. other tune up specs at the bottom of the page.
Gather up the tools you will need along with a copy of the appropriate service manual. Please note that it is not necessary to remove the engine from the motorcycle to perform this procedure, I already have this engine out so that I could do some some fabrication work & painting to the frame. This is the long delayed Project wAmmo bobber that I should have finished months ago, but now I am back on it with a vengeance. You will need to remove the fuel tank, gear shifter, and whatever other parts are necessary so that you can remove the valve cover & the left side crankcase cover. Once all of that is done then remove both sparkplugs.
After you remove the spark plugs, switch sockets & turn the engine in the direction indicated by the arrow on the alternator rotor. The big rusty flywheel looking thingy you see in these pictures for those of you who have never seen one before. This one had to have some of the rust sanded off so that I could see the markings on it.
Turn the engine and watch for the intake valve rocker arm on the side you are adjusting to move down and then back up. These little Honda twins have a 3 valve per cylinder layout with 2 intake valves & 1 exhaust valve per cylinder.
Once the intake rocker arm returns to the top continue to turn the engine slowly and line up the next “T” mark on the flywheel with the pointer on the engine case, as it comes around. If the exhaust rocker arm starts to move you have gone to far & must circle the engine all the way back around & start over. Do not turn the engine backwards to get to the timing mark if you miss it.
Then verify that the piston is indeed at top dead center. On this engine it is fairly easy to do just by looking into the spark plug hole.
With the piston at top dead center for the cylinder you are adjusting both the intake & exhaust valves should a little bit of play in them unless the engine has severe wear or improper maintenance that has caused valve recession which will close up the gap. Too much lash is also detrimental to your engines performance and will cause your engine to tap very loudly. Too little lash will eventually lead to a burned valve if it doesn’t close completely.
Loosen up the lock nut for whichever adjuster you choose to start with, here I am starting on the exhaust side.
Then insert the proper size feeler gauge, loosening the adjuster with a flat screwdriver if needed.
Then carefully tighten the adjuster screw & lock nut until the feeler gauge is able to be removed & re-inserted with just a little bit of drag, but the next size larger feeler gauge should not fit. It will be necessary to hold the adjuster screw with the screwdriver as shown below while you are tightening the lock nut. Be sure to recheck your lash after you tighten down the lock nut for good, sometimes you may have to readjust to compensate for the adjustment screw moving when you torque the lock nuts.
Once you have all of the valves adjusted properly replace the engine covers being sure to inspect & replace all gaskets & seals as needed.
Valve lash and some miscellaneous tune up specs are below:
I went prospecting for rusty gold again. Brought home a couple of early 80’s Suzukis.
One is an RM 80 condition unknown, some parts missing, in fact I am not even sure what year it is. This one is truly a junkyard dog and it is for sale right now as is where is, to the first person willing to give me $50
The second one is a 1980 Suzuki TS185. It’s rough but will start and idle.
I really like the headlight assembly.
There are plenty of interesting crusty bits on this one.
Overall this old cycle is not the worst I I have ever tried to restore. At this point my plan is for a basic restomod as a woods bike, but if too many of the parts needed for that are not available, it may become a “brat style” custom scrambler.
Just thought I’d share what’s going on around the barn a little bit. Getting the fender, seat and battery box figured out now means that it is time for the real work to begin.
A few days ago I dropped the engine out but since then most of my spare time has been spent elbows deep in the severely damaged engine of some guys atv. Today I caught a little break since I have to order more parts for the Brute Force, it gave me a chance to finish tearing this one down to a bare frame.
Now the previous owner of this fine mosheen was a true rat biker and whenever he felt the need to attach something else to it that could not be tied or glued on he resorted to that favorite motorcycling custom trick of using self drilling screws to tack shit to his motorcycle. So I spent a couple of hours brazing up small holes in the frame, before it was time to break out the angle grinder and safety glasses and remove all of the unwanted tabs from this frame.
Some of the tabs were saved and will be reused on this and other projects, but most of them were tossed into the scrap bin to be recycled. Now its time to soak it down with oven cleaner and get it completely clean so I can do a little more welding then clean it all up and prep for paint.
By the way, I have been documenting the crankshaft replacement of the Kawasaki Brute Force 750 and will be posting a ton of pictures in the days to come so stick around.
When I last posted the last picture was of sheet of plastic with my cardboard pattern lying on it. After tracing around it with a marker I used my bandsaw and a Dremel to cut it out to shape. Be certain when cutting plastic with any high speed rotary tool the you use either a saw blade or the router attachment. Do not under any circumstances try to use a metal cutoff wheel for plastic and of course always wear eye protection.
This next step involves extremely high heat, possible hot metal & molten plastic. It is your responsibility to take all reasonable precautions to see that you don’t get hurt.
The first piece to get bent is the lower brace. It will get reshaped even more later but for now let’s just bend it to a nice 90 degree angle. First you clamp it into a vise sandwiched between a couple of metal angles and start heating it.
When it gets warm it will bend very easily. To get a really good square corner take a slab of wood or another piece of metal and press down on the corner and hold it for a minute as it cools.
After this I bent the tabs in for the sides. These tabs my not really be necessary but I like the security of having large bonding surfaces to hold parts like this together, especially in a high vibration environment like a motorcycle.
Bending the sides up to form the box takes a little more thought. If you have enough equipment and desire absolute perfection you should carefully clamp each corner to be folded and follow the procedures shown above. In the interest of time and since this motorcycle is going to be another deliberate neo-rat, I simply heated the plastic along the bend lines until it was bendable and then used two blocks of wood to form it to shape. Hey it works for me.
Before moving on to the next step you will need to test the fit and make sure that your battery fits properly. At this point you can reheat the plastic and adjust things somewhat, once you glue everything together it’s not so easy
When you glue it together be sure to use plenty of ABS cement. Do not use any other type of cement with ABS plastic.
One of the nicer things about working with ABS is that the cement is very thick and you can use it as a gap filler to seal off cracks and imperfections and then sand it down after it all dries.
Here is a quick shot of it in the frame with the bottom brace glued into place. At this point the battery box is pretty well done except for sanding and painting.
The next steps for Project Wammo is going to be a complete teardown to the bare frame to finish removing all the unwanted tabs & finish up the welding. Then it’ll go back together as a roller with new bearings, fork seals, brakes, tires, etc. Then it will be time to freshen up the engine & paint the sucker. Stick around & enjoy the fun.
. I also wound up replacing the fork because I was unable to identify the one that was on it to get the proper repair parts so I replaced it, and installed a set of tapered roller 
for good measure.
Welcome to the Asylum 