I received in the mail (ebay) a reproduction of the wiring harness for Marlen. I hope to have lots of pictures of the process of replacing the wiring harness but first I will have to make room in the garage. There are lots of bug parts lying around.
Its been a real long time since I added anything to this blog and with good reason. I’ve been working on another project. A ’69 Beetle rebuild. Because of that I don’t have my jacks or room to work on Marlin. However, once I get the engine back in the bug I will be able to install new tires and switch out the petcock for a new high flow petcock.
Things to do
I’ve been ridding Marlin pretty regularly now (despite being unlicensed) I don’t go very far but I’m still getting pretty comfortable and starting to notice a lot of little things that are a part of the ride. Something I’ve noticed in the past few days occurs at under 20mph and it goes a little something like this.
bump, bump
bump, bump
bump, bump
I’m pretty sure I know what it is. You see Marlin sat on flat tires for who knows how many years and now I think at those low speeds there’s just not enough force on the tires to round them out properly. It never seems to end. Now I just need to figure out why between 30 and 45 mph the front end wobbles and bounces unless I’m accelerating.
Its been a while but I forgot to mention the new flasher unit on Marlin. When I had the front taken apart working on the wheels I replaced the flasher unit. The old unit would buzz and make a clicking sound when the switch was flipped. I figured that was a bad sign. I got a new two terminal 12v flasher unit and hooked it up. Then I flipped the switch to the right and the right turn light started to blink. Cool. Then I flipped the switch to the left and the dash board lights started to blink. That struck me as a little odd. Because of this peculiarity I busted out the wiring schematics and started to try to trace wires. That was pretty pointless. There were extra wires on the terminal block that shouldn’t have been there and other wires went to the wrong terminals. Now my plan is to open up the dash and the terminal block and start tracing all the wires from the ignition switch to the lights and try to revers the problem.
Well there not really new. Actually there pretty old but now they look good. From my last post you know I got the wheels off the bike and prepared myself to clean the rims. I was planing to wire brush them and knowing that would take forever. Then I had the idea that I could sand blast them. But now I needed to find a sand blaster. Enter my friend the farmer. I called him up and yes in deed he has a sand blaster. So I went over on Monday, I was going to do this since Sam took two days of vaca. We took the tires off and the inside of the rims were in very good condition when considering the outsides.
Cleaned Wheels
This was great news as I would not have to remove and replace the spoke band. With the wheels ready I got started. It was fun finding the three valves, air in ,
Paint Rig
air out, and sand out, on the SB but once I was able to get sand to come out of the nozzle the wheels cleaned up almost instantly.
Next was paint. I had purchased rim paint and was ready to go. I set the wheels up on the jack stand so I could spin them and get a good even coat. Three coats later I let them cure over night.
I went back to Kens on Tuesday and we put the tires back on the rims. Yeah!!! But now I have the problem of balancing them. After all these aren’t tractor tires. So I took them up the local, and only, Honda dealership. to get them balanced. Long story short they don’t have spoke weights and the sick ons will ruin the paint.
Painted Rims
The Harley steelership wanted $30 per wheel to balance them with spoke weights. I then had an idea. I took some lead solder balanced the tires on the same jack stands that I used for painting. Then seamed to balance out pretty well.
I finally got my own 7/16 allen socket and can now take the wheels off of Marlen. This has allowed me to start the process of cleaning up the rims. I plan to take them and sandblast the rust and chrome off then just paint then. There not original wheels and new one would cost over $500. Since I have no money for that and a can of paint works a lot better. So here’s picture for your entertainment. My Hillbilly Bike.
Hillbilly Bike
I said in my last post that I wanted to get the rims off of Marlin. Well that didn’t happen. Sam left the country on work so that meant no one to watch the kid. Normally this is not a problem when working on the bike. The kid runs around in his walker in the garage. But I thought with having an 800 lbs. motorcycle off the ground and rust and chrome dust in the air it would be best to not have an infant in the immediate area.
Before I put up any after photos I want to do some work on the rims. They are shot. The chrome that used to be on the rims has sloughed off leaving only rusty rims. I figure that since there already after market rims I will simply paint them. I’ve got lots of rust and loose chrome to remove first, but I’m planing to get started on it this week end.
Naval jelly, 0000 steel wool, 800, 1500 sand paper, chrome and Aluminum polish, Simple Green and lots of elbow grease. This is what it takes to try to reverse 30 years of neglect. Unfortunately it can’t all be removed but I’m giving it my best.
As I’ve mentioned before there has been an oil leak in the rear cylinder, there is low compression and clouds of smoke coming out of the crank case breather. Then I started to ride it. At first there was a seven mile gas run then daily jaunts to practice. Apparently actually being used is good for an engine because it is no longer smoking. There is still a wonderful whiff of smoke and oil when it first starts but no visible clouds 🙂