Old bike, new Owner.

[Macguyver]

Bike Cover Part I

Well, now that I am waiting on carbs and carb parts, I have little else to do but make a cover for my bike.

I started with 2 10'x12' unfinished dimension tarps, 9 1/2' x 11 1/2' finished dimension tarps from Canadian Tire. The tarps were about $14 a piece. I started by joining the tarps together to form one large sheet of tarp material. The seam was stitched, folded over twice, then double stitched for added strength and durability.

The large tarp was then draped over the bike and folded to make a rough shape of what the final cover was to be and secured with small clamps for marking all of the folds with marker. NOTE: if you plan on doing this, make sure the cover material is upside-down at this stage so any extra marker lines will be hidden on the finished piece.

Once all lines are marked out, the tarp was unfolded and laid out on the ground, and all lines were checked to be straight, parallel, and symetrical from side to side. In the following image I used photoshop to roughly outline the marker lines on my material for illustration purposes.

[Macguyver]

Bike Cover Part II

Once the outline had been marked out, the tarp was cut, leaving about an inch around the outline marks for seams. Then quite a bit of time was spent at the sewing machine with movies on in the background to keep me from going crazy. BTW has anyone else seen "The Rise of Leslie Vernon"? Good flick.
Once the seams were stiched once to join them, the big moment, the test fitting.
This is when any alterations should be made since it is easiest at this point before anything is double stitched, cause you don't need to double stitch it, then test fit it, only to find it needs to be tucked in a bit, or let out a bit, and leave extra holes in the material and compromise it's water proofing.
Here's the test fitting pics.

[Macguyver]

Bike Cover Part III

I was happy with the test fitting results, so I went ahead and folded over the seams twice and double stitched them. This will tend to snug the cover up a bit, so make sure that the fit is a little loose so this will not make the fit too tight if you have pointy bits hanging off your bike that could tear the cover.

Once everything is double stitched, try the cover on the bike again to make sure nothing went wrong. If all went well, then you can add a reinforcement band around the bottom of the cover if you so choose, or simply fold the bottom over and stitch it to make the cover sit level.

I chose to use the grommetted side pieces I had cut off of the tarps to form a reinforcement band on my cover. I used a marker attached to a yardstick, set at 1" off of the ground to make a nice level mark all the way around the cover for use as a guide line for attaching the reinforcement.

I folded the cover over at the mark and stiched it to give it a uniform bottom, then double stitched the reinforcement band over the double layered bottom. This is good if you plan to use bungie cords to secure the cover, or if you plan to put tent stakes through the grommet holes to keep the cover down if you will be storing your bike outside during the winter to keep snow from blowing up under the cover.

The finished results:
I hope this helps, or is at least interesting reading.

[lilbilly]

That actually looks really good! What did your total $ and time come out to?

[Macguyver]

Cover summary

Thanks for saying so, I am very happy with the way it turned out.
One more thing off the list of stuff to do for the bike. Next I think will be a magnetic tank bag.

I would estimate the total cost of materials as:

2- 10'x12' Tarp @ $14 each = $28
1- Spool of decent quality thread = $3
--------------------------------------
Grand Cost Total of $31 materials

and estimate the time involved as:

Joining tarps: 1/2 hour
Initial Fitting and Marking including cutting out pattern: 1/2 hour
Initial Seaming: 1 hour
Test Fitting and Double Stitching: 2 hours
Adding on Reinforcement Band 1/2 Hour
--------------------------------------
Grand Total Time of 4 & 1/2 Hours

This is using a sewing machine to do all of the stitching, and I recommend taking your time to do the fitting and marking phase.
I did all of the sewing while watching/listening to two movies. It could likely be done faster by a pro, but I wouldn't recommend rushing any of it.

I will be taking about 1/2 hour to go over all of the seams from the outside and then the inside the following day with a good quality camping tent waterproofer. So about 5 hours total start to finish I would say.

[Guest]

Great work! I'm guessing from the proposed paint job (that shark theme will look very cool!), and the camo cover, you are either in or ex-armed forces. It's probably already been said, but your screen name is pretty apt, going by your DIY skills.
I use GUNK engine cleaner once a year, and hose it off at the coin car wash to clean the engine....works well, if the condition is not too bad to begin with. Reno Bruce had some great results restoring an old engine's appearance, using Simple Green (available at Can. Tire)....I'll be picking some up to try, once my can of Gunk is done.

Tony.

[Macguyver]

No military for me, was all set to go career, but life has a way of changing your plans on you.

As far as the DIY skills go, I do what I can with what I have. I always try to learn new skills, you never know when you might need them.

Simple Green you say... I just might have to pick some up next time I'm at CDN Tire. I'll likely post up before/after pics when I get to it.

Right now the emphasis is on getting the bike running properly, and I just checked on ebay, and I won the carb set I was after for $21.50 + an extortionary shipping rate. (Many thanks go out to ALB80-850 for letting this set get by him, thanks bud!)

Well, I think I'll sleep better knowing all of the parts I need are now on their way to me. (Plus a sweet retro Suzuki key fob to boot!)

[Macguyver]

A new appreciation

I now have a new appreciation for the Resource.

I was looking for info on rebuilding the front forks for a friends' yamaha, and the only owner's groups I could find were tiny in comparison to the GS Resource. I mean, really tiny, ~50 members!
I guess it must be something about the GS bikes, they draw good people who like to help others out when they can.

Makes me appreciate all of the great people I have found here on the GS Resource just that much more.

[sachsaca]

Great theme, P40 War Hawk. Very original thinking. Have seen a Yamaha done in the Blue Angels theme and an A10 Tank Killer also. Looks great.
Sachsaca

[Macguyver]

How did you spend your Saturday?

Well, another thing off of the list of stuff to get done.
I rebuilt the front forks on my 650 today, and OMG the color of the fork oil!
It was a dark grey with a hint 'o brown with sludge sediment in the bottom. Nasty. 3 cans of brake cleaner and a liter of acetone in combination with a lot of scrubbing to get the inside bores looking new again.

I am fairly certain it was never changed.
I am just glad the springs measured within spec so I did not need new ones.

For a bike with 40k on it, I am surprised how much was never done to it maintenance wise, and it still worked(kind of).

Oh well, just glad to get it done. Now if only my carbs would show up in the mail some time this upcoming week.

Of all the stuff I ordered off of ebay, I bet the first thing to show up will be the suzuki key fob.