1984 Katana 7/11

[Tim Tom]

Damn, I get away from GSR for a bit, decide to pop back in and see whats new, and Pete has himself a Katana project! Good on ya mate! I'm sure you'll get it all put back together in no time.

 

[Guest]

Hahaha look out Tim Tom is back! Good to see you back here mate, was wondering where you'd been! And no GS? What gives there??

 

[Tim Tom]

Hahaha look out Tim Tom is back! Good to see you back here mate, was wondering where you'd been! And no GS? What gives there??

Well I moved from NJ to California and sold all the bikes before the move. Bought a house out here and the wife gives me the green light to buy a brand new bike... I had to act quick before she changed her mind, so I phoned up the Ducati dealer and bought myself a Scrambler. Which I must say is a pretty awesome bike, perfect for exploring the mountains and desert out here. But nothing ever breaks on it, and I don't have anything to fix in the garage anymore. Since we have a 1 dog = 1 motorcycle policy, I still have room for two more bikes... I'm thinking a GS1000 would be the perfect stablemate to my Duc. So that got me on here poking around and seeing what's new in GS land. All things considered though I'm doing pretty damn well! Certainly have nothing to complain about.

 

[dorkburger]

Tim, welcome back!

 

[Tim Tom]

Thank you! It's good to be back.

 

[Guest]

Ah good stuff! I did take note of the Ducati Scrambler when they released it, looked like a fun machine! I still like the Triumph version though

Glad to hear things are going well though and yeah you gotta get another project for sure!

And Happy New Year!!

 

[Guest]

Enjoying this build Pete, and you're only up the road from me by the look of it. How's the engine prognosis coming on?

 

[Guest]

Cheers mate, nice to have you along for the ride!

I haven't gotten back to the engine yet, concentrating on trying to get a roller sorted to start with. I've gotta organise to get the crankshaft looked at so gotta wait 'til the Chrissy/New Year stuff is all over first so not too far away I hope.

I have at least got the shed mostly done, just some quad and a bit of paint to finish up. Much brighter with the white walls/ceiling now!

 

[Guest]

Went out for a ride yesterday monring and popped in to see one of the fellas on the way home as he had some control blocks for me.

I've already wiring figured out the wiring so I can incorporate these into my wiring diagram.

Really happy with these control blocks too, minimal on the right one to leave plenty of room for a throttle and master cylinder and everything headlight related on the left block to keep the wiring from having to run between the left and right control blocks.



Oh, yeah... I haven't been twiddling my thumbs either! Haven't been able to do much actual work on the Kat but I've been nutting out the wiring harness so I'm still at least getting somewhere. Once the first draft is done I'll chuck up a picture. First version is just the logical wiring, no connectors or grouping stuff together etc. Once I know it's a solid design I'll get it layed out more appropriately for where stuff will actually end up which will help me finalise colours etc.

Also, obviously this depends somewhat on what carbs I end up running, but a generic push/pull throttle like this should do the job right? Not buying right now, just making sure I know what to look for when the time comes.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Motion-P...256230?hash=item20f6e68626:g:xIgAAMXQlgtTAkpZ

 

[Guest]

While I really want to get in the garage and get started on the battery tray etc. it's just been too damn hot even with the fan going so I've just focussed on designing the harness for now. Really keen to get things moving though!

Here's the very ugly and messy first draft of the harness with no consideration given to placement, connectors, using the least number of wires, etc. The colours are a mix of stock, what's attached to the various devices, and what I thought would be sensible moving forwards. There are some non-stock components in there of course.

I'm hoping to take this and produce the next version which should be closer to how it'll be laid out on the bike and have connectors etc.

I won't finalise it yet of course until such time as I have the roller ready to wire up.

I also need to add a legend with all the bits and pieces identified although most should be pretty obvious.

 

[John Kat]

If you are planning a complete rewire why not go with the Moto Gadget m-Unit device?
http://motogadget.com/en/electrics/...m-unit-digit-tastersteuerung-u-sicherung.html
Many examples on Youtube

 

[posplayr]

Pete,
You schematic looks to be in good shape and perhaps you are not quite done, but I'll point out a couple of recommendations.

Basically you seem to have left an extra wire on the red coming from the R/R. You need to make sure the battery is completely fused (except for teh starter solenoid).

The second is the much ballyhooed SPG. It minimizes the voltage drops between the Battery and the R/R by keeping battery charging currents separate from all the rest. At least as close as you can get before they all have to come together to return to the R/R(-).

I guess I should ask; You going with a Series R/R?

 

[posplayr]

If you are planning a complete rewire why not go with the Moto Gadget m-Unit device?
http://motogadget.com/en/electrics/...m-unit-digit-tastersteuerung-u-sicherung.html
Many examples on Youtube

There might be price concerns for such a Gadget, and there are other options.

 

[Guest]

John, the Motogadget stuff is very cool but way too expensive for my budget. Also, I'm trying to stick with things available locally so if something does go awry I won't be off the road for weeks on end waiting for parts.

Jim, the diagram is actually a little misleading there and is hard to see on the exported JPG I've uploaded, but those red wires down there aren't joined. The battery to starter solenoid is a cross over not a join so yes, all connections to the battery are definitely fused. That should be clearer in the next revision that I'll start on shortly as it will hopefully reflect more of where the components will physically lay in relation to each other.

As for the single point ground, yep definitely doing that. My intention is that main black wire running from the battery and to chassis ground is a larger gauge wire and forms a single ground backbone for the entire harness and all components ground back to it. The exceptions of course are things like the oil pressure switch, starter solenoid, and starter motor that are all earthed via mounting bolts or the motor itself.

The battery, fuse box, etc. will be in the centre of the bike in the tray under the seat so that should help make that nice and easy to accomplish.

And yes, definitely planning for a SH775 on this as well! Loving the one on the 450 so I'll be continuing that on with the Kat.

I did also fix a couple of minor issues on the diagram pointed out by the KA folk... the starter button now will not function without the kill switch being on, and I added the missing ground lead for the horn switch.

And here's what I'm plodding along with at present... the tail light.

I'm using two pieces of the 2.5mm aluminium sheet I have shaped to the tail light lense:



The one on top is smaller to locate the stock rubber sealing strip:



Nowhere near done yet but generally fits ok:



I need to finish filing them down, make some support posts for the tail light lense mounts, and drill/tap some M4 holes for some long stainless screws I have here.

Once I get the LED strip it will mount to the aluminium with some standoffs to try to get it the same height as the stock bulb so it's not recessed too far under the tail piece.

I'm not putting a license plate light in there, I'll use bolts with LED's built in to mount the plate instead which gives me more flexibility with the rear guard and license plate mount etc.

The one thing I can't decide on right now is whether I use hollow aluminium tube for the standoffs and the long M4 screws I have, or if I use some solid rod I have instead and drill and tap both ends. One end to screw it to the aluminium plate, the other end to screw the lense to. I'm leaning towards the solid rod at the moment as I can use that to hold the two aluminium plates together instead of riveting them as I was initially thinking. As long as I make sure each end is cut nice and square so the posts stand at 90 degrees to the plate I should be good.

 

[Guest]

I couldn't figure a suitable way to keep them clamped securely together while moving them around to drill the various holes etc. so the safest thing I could think of was two rivets towards the centre out of the way of where I anticipate any of the mounting holes needing to be.

I did smooth all the edges of the top plate before doing this as that would be somewhat impossible once it was attached.



Still need to finish some filing on the outer plate yet but it's slow going and tedious as I don't want to file that 1/2mm too much that makes me have to start from scratch again.

Next step I can use the stock tail light assembly to work out where the lense mounting holes need to be and the length of the posts.

And I finally got notice my back ordered parts from Mick Hone have been sent, so I must get the steering head bearings installed on the weekend so when the parts arrive I can look at assembling the roller again.

 

[ged]

Looking good Pete, you have got some skills there young fellow...............

You will be getting a new tail light cover?

 

[Weasel]

Great project and good work so far.

 

[Guest]

GED, cheers! And yep, new tail light lense for sure! I was given that one for free but it's quite cloudy with a few cracks and the reflector mandated by the you know who doesn't stay in place so I will definitely need to replace it when I get to that point. For now it works to make the new assembly.

And cheers Weasel, nice to have you along!

 

[Guest]

I really wanted to get the steering head bearing on the lower triple clamp this weekend so I could start re-assembling the roller when the bits arrive from Mick Hone but unfortunately I just ran out of time.

I did however get most of the compressor room in the shed sorted, just need to make a door for it which will open vertically and double as a work bench.

Unfortunately this photo highlights the slight lean of the shed and also the one wonky bit where we ran over the formwork for the concrete and lifted one corner up... hence the shim under bottom piece of pine. Basically it's essential to have the doorway as close to a perfectly squared rectangle as possible.

I'll run some left over bits of MDF/melamine and quad up the sides and across the bottom to make it look a bit neater and I hope to get a strip of foam rubber for the compressor to sit on to stop it vibrating directly on the concrete. Also need to cut a breather hole up towards to the top.

 

[Guest]

This is getting extremely frustrating... just can't seem to get back to the Kat at the moment. The biggest issue is that while the shed remains unfinished, the workbench in the garage is cluttered with all the stuff that should be in the shed, so I have no room to move to cut the posts for the tail light assembly nor start cutting the aluminium for the battery tray etc.

I did at least get to Oz LED on Monday avo' to pick up the tail light.

At least the shed is very close now, really just need to get some peg board and shelving up to be able to un-clutter the garage and make the shed useable.

Compressor room door was done on the weekend:



And yesterday we managed to almost finish it up to double as a workbench. Just need to figure a method to hold the legs against the door while it's shutting so they don't drop on the compressor (apologies for the blur):



So damn close!!!