Hello from Middle Tennessee!

[RedBaron]

Well, I did get most of that back end done. I have all these little labeled freezer bags full of parts to clean. The zip lock kind. If I run out of room on the Garage shelves I can store them in the freezer under the vegetables, nobody will disturb them.


...below, I've just pulled off the slightly scuffed (one must wonder how it got so scuffed) TCI box and am about to check the service manual "exploded views" before I grab something that might explode.

[RedBaron]

It was a Sunday again and time for the Baron tear down session. I look forward to this each week, I place my laptop on the workbench and run a movie or documentary on Netflix and simply enjoy a relaxing unrushed tool time with the bike. This Sunday, all wires and electronics are off. The harness is in great shape but I see I need to spend a long afternoon cleaning each connector, actually maybe two or three afternoons, it's dirty and there are a lot of connections and I also need to replace the fuse box with what many of you have done, with a blade fuse box.

I'm going to pull the radiator next which is in very fine shape with bright green water and no mangled fins, almost as good as new along with a almost new looking radiator cap, wonder of wonders. Since I'm going to get her wet when I drain the coolant, I installed the rebuilt starter to keep water out of the lower end, but before doing that I peered in to the lower end with a flashlight and it looks like someone mowed the grass up close as I see a few blades of grass in there and I'll be cleaning it out just as soon as I pull the engine and wash it and then open it up. I can't wait for that and I am optimistic she will be a good engine, any modern water cooled engine with only 10k miles should be barely broken in as long as it was not abused...and that green coolant leads me to believe the best is yet to come.

RB

[Re-Vision]

I agree that 10K miles isn't very much, but most of us don't ride a bike like a car. I'm a lot harder on a bike because they're so much more fun.    BDC

[QBS]

Red, you've definately got the right attitude and an excellent plan.

[Tiger]

Red, you've definately got the right attitude and an excellent plan.

:) 100% agree...Keep up the good work and you will reap the rewards 8)

                      8) ....... TIGER ....... 8)

[RedBaron]

Well, I'm tooling on a quiet Saturday afternoon, netflix on and the radiator on my old black and decker workmate stand, there while I pull off the remaining hoses and the fan assembly which naturally left me with the top center bolt siezed and broken off. I'm excited about that in a good way cause now I have an excuse to go and get some more tools to drill and extract the bolt remains cleanly and even maybe, if I'm lucky, the threads are screwed up in the process and I get to cut my first set of threads. I knew this was going to be loads of fun!

For your enjoyment and/or amusement, here is the Baron as I found her in a back yard Last July dented and rusty tank, cracked fender, ripped seat, bent left handlebar and missing starter  but the bonus of recently cut grass in her lower end where oil should have been...

...notice some previous owner, or the neighbor's kid, has already saved me much time by removing the carbs and leaving them on the seat for me. I do understand removing them is not exactly an easy task the first time so clearly this was added value to me.

[RedBaron]

I have a nos tank, clean and rust free. So, naturally I want to keep it that way. There are two ways to do that, coat the tank or keep water out of the fuel system.

I've studied the POR15 website. It suggests coating the tank is a "last resort" rather than the first. I suspect this is because the coating process does have risk. Being a last resort, it suggests one should first keep impurities out of the entire fuel system rather than relying on coating the tank to protect it from not keeping impurities out of the entire fuel system.

It is also clear, to me, that there is some risk to coating a new tank in that you could do something wrong and screw a perfectly great and virgin tank up with coating material that constantly leaks into your fuel and slowly fouls up your carbs periodically over time, not to say this is happening on all applications, but I suppose one does introduce the risk when one should actually, with a new tank (or old), keep water out of the fuel system entirely by keeping it full of fuel and using a stablizer when storing the bike and running it monthly over the winter to keep "gremlins" out.

This is my chosen approach with the Baron, for what it is worth, and I'm very happy with it.

RB

[Brian Moffet]

This is my chosen approach with the Baron, for what it is worth, and I'm very happy with it.

For what it is worth, I also have a unlined tank.  It is the original tank that came with the bike in 1983, and since then the bike has been garaged and ridden fairly regularly (I use it to commute to work pretty much every day).  There are no signs of rust in the tank.

Others will have different stories, but I suspect my bike is one of the few that did not go into "long-term storage" behind a shed or something along those lines.

Brian

[Tiger]

... keep water out of the fuel system entirely by keeping it full of fuel and using a stablizer when storing the bike and running it monthly over the winter to keep "gremlins" out.

This is my chosen approach with the Baron, for what it is worth, and I'm very happy with it.

For what it is worth, I also have a unlined tank.

:) DITTO....and DITTO 8)

8) ....... TIGER ....... 8)

[YellowJacket!]

IMHO, with the humidity here in TN and the variation in temps, I would go ahead and line it.  I too had a NOS tank that I wanted to keep as nice as possible for a very long time so I coated it.  The problem is, you only get one chance to do it and you really need to do it right the first time, so patience, preparation, and a bit more patience is paramount.

On the other hand, it's a lot easier to coat a brand new tank than it is to strip, clean and coat a used tank.

just my 0.0175 cents...   ;D

David

[Raj1988]

the NON yamaha ignition model is likely the ignitec one which is the replacement of choice in Europe... if it runs leave it alone :)

[RedBaron]

I'm two months over due to pull the engine and start the teardown, inspection and rebuild. I'm taking the engine out now and have already run into a frozen rear muffler clamp so I've elected to go out of sequence and drop the engine hoping the back header will slip out as indicated in the OEM shop manual. Crossing my fingers cause everytime I have to ad lib it seems to tear parts up and cost more money.

[VFan]

I'm still waiting for the day that I read a "Hello from Utah" post.

VFan