My C10's Resurrection

[MetrickMetal]

Hi all.

Well, I’ve gotten got quite a bit done on the C10, and I try to do something to it each day if time permits, but I had stopped working on it for awhile while I finished up converting my 07 Bandit 1250S into a naked A model, as well as keeping my custom motorcycle parts business going, but I’ve started back in working on the Connie last week as I want to get it ready for this coming summer. 

The bike got a couple of good initial good cleanings with S100, but there are a few more areas that I need to hit and concentrate on, but overall all it was more than clean enough to start working on.

Here is a list of things that I have modified and serviced so far.

Cropped the rear fender and made a new aluminum license plate mount

Cut the passenger grab rails off, and left the rear rack portion to which I attached
some powder coated aluminum bungee spools to, as well as set of bungee spools for the forward grab rail frame mounting holes.

Removed the stock coolant recovery tank, and mounted a Ninja 250 recovery tank where the EVAP canister resided using custom aluminum mounting brackets I made that attach to the upper right foot peg mounting bolt, and one of the 6mm threaded holes that mounted the EVAP control valve to the frame, and it’s very secure

Removed the PAIR system, and made a set of billet block off plates which I powder coated semi-gloss black.

Removed the shifter linkage and inspected it, cleaned and lubed it and installed a set
of black Delrin thrust washers in place of the stock steel washers for now, and it’s all still nice and tight right now, but more upgrades coming when it needs it down the road.

Cleaned and flushed out the clutch and brake systems.

Changed the engine oil and filter, and the rear drive oil

Cleaned out all of the varnish and very slight amount of rust out of the gas tank using BB’s and lacquer thinner which worked great.

Made a custom aluminum block off plate for the PAIR system air supply hose outlet on the front of the air box.

I finally got the carbs removed last week and I’m starting on boiling them out and rebuilding them and get them installed back on the bike. I tried doing a search on recommended jetting, but I couldn’t really find anything. The bike is a CA model and currently has #130 main jets and #35 pilot jets installed, so I wanted to know what the factory main jet size is for non CA C10’s   

The next thing I need to buy is a battery and then work at getting it started up. If everything appears to be fine with the motor which I’m pretty sure it will be, I’m going to spring for the stick coil kit and then move on to doing a complete service on the front forks and the steering stem as on of the fork seals is leaking, and then go through and clean, inspect and grease the rear suspension and swing arm as well, followed by a new set of tires. Then the only other thing I need to do is to buy a new windshield for it. The after I ride it for awhile, I’ll start looking at other things I want to make for it, or change, and one of them will be a custom billet rear rack plate.

I’m going to take some pictures of some of the mods I’ve done and post them up in the next couple of days. 

[Steve in Sunny Fla]

non ca bikes have 125 mains. hTH, steve

[2fast]

"I finally got the carbs removed last week and I’m starting on boiling them out and rebuilding them and get them installed back on the bike."

You really boiling em out??

What kind of parts do you make?  edit to add....nevermind, I just noticed your web site link and took a look.

[MetrickMetal]

"I finally got the carbs removed last week and I’m starting on boiling them out and rebuilding them and get them installed back on the bike."

You really boiing em out??

What kind of parts do you make?  edit to add....nevermind, I just noticed your web site link and took a look.

Boiling out the carbs is an old term I've used which means soaking the carbs in a can of Berryman Chem-Dip carb cleaner. 

[MetrickMetal]

non ca bikes have 125 mains. hTH, steve

Thanks Steve,

And after doing some more searches I had found that the jet info I was looking for was in the service manual. 

[redzgrider]

Gary Murphy has factory Keihin #120s at a good price (and interestingly, no other main jets...) -- many a carburetor article notes that mains are often over rich to compensate for pilot and part throttle being over lean. I'm running the 120s now, and while I haven't been on a dyno (ever, saddly), it certainly doesn't feel the least bit too lean.
http://www.murphskits.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_94&products_id=258

[MetrickMetal]

Gary Murphy has factory Keihin #120s at a good price (and interestingly, no other main jets...) -- many a carburetor article notes that mains are often over rich to compensate for pilot and part throttle being over lean. I'm running the 120s now, and while I haven't been on a dyno (ever, saddly), it certainly doesn't feel the least bit too lean.
http://www.murphskits.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_94&products_id=258

Thanks.

Thanks.

I had already put together a list of all the parts for the carbs I needed, and added the #120 jets to the list which I'll be ordering up shortly from Murph's, as there are a few more items I think I need to add to the list. 

I decided that I'm going to design up an adjustable aluminum cover of some type for one side the air box inlet to use to use for tuning purposes once I get it back together instead of plugging the inlet up with foam rubber, and I'm going to try and make it so that it's easily adjusted. I pulled the air box out this morning and I'm going to start fooling around with it today.

I've got two carbs cleaned as of yesterday, and I've got the 3rd one soaking today, I'll be taking some pictures later today of some of the mods I've already done and posting them up. 
 

[MetrickMetal]

Here's a few pics of some of the mods I've done to the bike. I'm going to do a valve clearance inspection sometime this week and get that out of the way, as well as start designing up an adjustable block off plate for the air box inlet. 

Custom air box plugs that I machined up.




Ninja 250 coolant recovery tank mounted with custom aluminum mounting brackets I made, and it's all plumbed back up to the cooling system.


PAIR block off plates that I machined up.


Passenger grab rails cut off and the brackets machined to accept some custom aluminum bungee spools. these were some I had lying around from another bike I had them on, but I'm going to be making some news ones shortly as they both need to stick out a little farther, but I definitely think it looks a lot better with the grab rails removed.




Cropped rear fender with custom license plate mounting bracket I made. I need to get a black license plate trim ring for it to finish it off.




Its nice to have a large unused area inside to store all the bodywork.
.

[F-106]

OUTSTANDING WORK!! Can not wait to see it all done. Nice job!!

[MetrickMetal]

OUTSTANDING WORK!! Can not wait to see it all done. Nice job!!

Thanks, and I can't wait to see it all done myself.

The bike was given to me, and I'm figuring that I'll have around $1000 in it to get everything back in tip top shape, and all of the body work is in really good shape, so if it ends up running great, I can ride ride the crap out of it and not have to worry about anything happening to it. I also contacted my insurance company and they said that adding it to my existing policy with the same amount of full coverage won't increase my premuims, but actually lower it a few bucks per year.   

[MetrickMetal]

Well I bored over the time between Christmas and New Years, so here are the latest mods to the Connie for Christmas.

I had been eyeballing the front rider peg brackets and rear passenger peg/muffler hanger brackets and thinking that they would a lot better if they were black. So I pulled them off and after smoothing out all of the casting lines, I powder coated them semi-gloss black.

I also decided to remove ear for the foot pegs from the rear passenger peg/muffler hanger brackets. So after cutting the ears off close to the top of the boss with my band saw, I bolted them to a plate and then I machined the remaining portion of the boss down flush to the rest of the surface of the bracket, but in doing so I broke into an area of porosity on both brackets, and both in the exact same location just next to the existing hole that is already cast into the back side of the brackets which was also exposed when I milled the bosses down flush, and this is sometimes what happens when machining a cast aluminum part.

I tried machining out the small areas of porosity by milling in some shallow ball mill grooves on each side of the hole which would look good after the brackets were powder coated, but it did not get rid of the porosity marks and at that point I did not want to machine the grooves any deeper. So I machined up two 1/8” aluminum cover plates that are held on with a 5mm screw that screws into a stepped threaded shoulder nut that fits into the hole on the back side of the brackets, and they don’t look to bad, and they cover up both the hole and the small areas of porosity.     

The hole is centered on the boss for the peg mounting ears, and I had already planned on using it for mounting the passenger pegs back on if I ever wanted to, using a bolt on billet foot peg adapter mount to accept the stock peg just like I make and sell for another bike I make parts for, and for which I have done on other bikes I have owned.





I also decided while I had the foot peg brackets off to clean them up that I decided to remove the nasty looking casting lines from the brake lever as well, and give it a full smoothing and polishing. I also wanted to remove the mechanical brake light switch, as I have never been a fan of them, so I remembered that I had a custom hydraulic brake light switch adapter that I made from another bike I owned that still worked great, so it got installed with a double banjo bolt, and it uses a common automotive hydraulic brake light switch which can be purchased at any auto parts store. I also made up a custom polished aluminum press in plug to fill in the mounting hole for the stock brake light switch.












 
I also reworked my license plate mount that I had made, as even though it looked better than stock after the first go round, I was still not quite happy with the way it looked, as it still did not lay parallel to the surface on the back of the fender. So to get the license plate to lay parallel to the back of the fender I had to do what I planned to originally, which was to cut out the stock angled mounting area on the rear fender. So to cut out the area I used my handheld propane torch to heat up an old Exacto knife chisel blade I use for just such purposes, to melt and cut around that section on the fender. After cleaning up the cutout, I machined up a 3’ x 6” x 1/8” thick support plate to fit on the back side of the fender to cover up the cutout, and to also act as a stiffener for the fender.

After I drilled the new mounting through the fender using the holes in the back up plate as a guide, I drilled and countersunk two new holes in the 1/8” aluminum backing plate I had already made to line up with the holes in the backup plate, and spaced the backing off of the fender with two 1 ¼” dia x ½” wide black Delrin spacers. Now the license plate sits parallel to the back of the fender and look a lot better and with the stiffener in place the fender it very solid now. Now all I need to finish it off is a black license plate trim ring which I'll buy the next time I go over to Cycle Gear. 

[Steve in Sunny Fla]

looking good! Steve

[Boomer]

I'd love to park my 1989 170k mile C10 next to yours.
It would make yours look SPECTACULAR!

Mine has been neglected, crashed, neglected some more, and is on it's 2nd swingarm (rust) and 3rd set of fork tubes.
Keep up the good work. It's nice to see that someone loves their bike.
Me, i just love riding mine. 

[F-106]

Great detail work!! can not wait to see this bike done!! NICE JOB

[MetrickMetal]

Great detail work!! can not wait to see this bike done!! NICE JOB

Thanks.

Now that I've got the carbs cleaned up, I need to finish up my list of parts I have to order from Murph's, and then I can work on getting it running. 

[RFH87_Connie]

That's looking really good.  I'm restoring my dad's bike myself.  It has quite a few upgrades and details.  Your tag mount looks good, the black frame will make it nice.  I picked up some tag bolts that have an LED built into them so the bike will be legal in VA.  They look pretty slick.  They're about as big as the eraser on a pencil.  I also painted all of the silver bits black including the diff.  I did the foot rest part of the pegs black also.  I think it makes the bike look better, perhaps a little more modern.  If you haven't did anything to the forks (if you need to clean them up), you might consider painting them black also.  I used spray-on Rhino-liner and they came out really well.  The wheels are black also.  Matter of fact, the entire bike is black and debadged with a shorty windshield.  I need to buff some plastics and do the carbs before it comes back together.  Winter sucks with no heat in the garage.

[MetrickMetal]

Well, my older sister just gave me and my brother each a check for $1000 as her way of saying thanks for all the help we given her, and I really didn't want to accept it, but she insisted that we do.

So this will just about pay for everything I need to buy to finish up the Connie. So next week I start ordering up the parts I need.

So now with this and getting the bike for free, I'll be in it for only about $500 out of my pocket total.

 

[RFH87_Connie]

All of your pictures seem to have disappeared in the previous posts.

[MetrickMetal]

All of your pictures seem to have disappeared in the previous posts.

I had some problems with my Photobucket account, but the pictures are all back. 

[CRocker]

Nice work!