I managed to escape ze Germans ahead of schedule and was happy to find new goodies from Mr. postman. After a little tinkering in the garage, the yokes are back on. The black paint ended up being okay but not perfect. It has a bit of a Hammerite type of feel to it. Well then again I’ve never really (successfully) painted anything in my life, so this will do for now. The handlebar and risers do a good job at hiding the okay job so as far as I’m concerned, it’s sorted. Oh yes, I replaced the top yoke, with the black one I got from Probolt. While spraying the yokes, I also sprayed the frame caps and can hanger washers. All the shiny parts are disappearing little by little.

I also put on the forks. Several times, forgetting the headlight bracket on both sides when putting them together. So now it’s well rehearsed for when I need to do it next time. The forgetting part at least. I was thinking about replacing the pinch bolts, but decided to Dremel the old ones with steel brushes. I sometimes get carried away with things and am desperately trying to avoid it this year. It’s damn near the engine would be in pieces on my workbench now. I’m glad it’s not.

My old LED mini-indicators were getting a bit shoddy. The left hand side was functioning with only 50% of it’s diodes. I’m sure Q (thanks for the clocks, they look beautiful!!!!) could have nursed it back to life, but it was a case of bin and replace for me. The newer ones are bigger than the old ones, which I don’t like. They also only came in carbon look, which I don’t like. So they will most probably be replaced and relocated to the bin sooner or later too. What I do like is the HID headlight I installed. Switching from halogen to HID is clearly as impressive on motorbikes as in cave diving. Except that in cave diving we use LED lights nowadays.

So in the end it looks super bright and the cold color temperature is sweet compared to the warm halogen. I’ll get some pics done when I end up putting the front together and secure the ballast. All my zip-ties were rubbish, so I’ll have to pick up some of those before continuing the project. Any tips, Matt? Oh and thanks for doing your yokes in black and posting pics, I totally copied the idea.

 

Another thing that needs to be addressed is the small pilot light that needs to be replaced with a daylight color LED. I can probably cut out the boot from the old one, but I need to figure out how to wire the LED. It doesn’t have any wires, just a stem and I don’t know what type it is. Will have a look later.