Let's see what happens with this...

So, I had a little time on saturday to do some inventory and cleaning.

I have the right hand carb body, and what looks like the jets and needle and most of the other parts for the left side, just not the body. jlearning1, if I get a full set I can probly send you what I have, maybe you can do something with it.

I'm also missing the clocks, the lock washers for the carbs (I'll just pick some up at the hardware store) the throttle, the grips, the forward controls, and the spacer for the rear wheel.

Can anyone measure for me the length that the spacer is supposed to be? My rear wheel has the drum brake. I'm guessing they were originally steel. Any reason why aluminum wouldn't work?
 
Al might work. dont quote me tho. i believe the caliper bracket on my rear disc is Al, but thats beefy. if you give me a measurement i can get you one spun outta stainless. i have access to a lathe.
 
Hello Crashcourse. First of all THANKS for checking. I can use a full set or the left side carb, but Ill take anything you have and see if I can make something work out.

Thanks Again
 
volcomskater77 said:
Al might work. dont quote me tho. i believe the caliper bracket on my rear disc is Al, but thats beefy. if you give me a measurement i can get you one spun outta stainless. i have access to a lathe.
Click to expand...

I could make it out of anything, really. Steel is cheaper anyway. And we've got lathes here at school, so if someone can tell me how long it is I can make anything I need.
 
Soooo...It's been a while since I started this thing. My project for school didn't work out how I wanted: the other guys thought a whole suspension would be too much work for the scope of the project. So I spent the last year or so looking for a monoshock swingarm and shock, which I found. (Swingarm from and xs400 maxim and shock off a 250 ninja).

I'm still working on it, very slowly. Lately progress has been much faster, thanks to moving into an apartment with an actual garage. Thanks to ratrodder and ebay I have a set of (hopefully) working carbs. The PO left a mess of chopped wiring harness that I've been sorting through for the past couple of weeks, and this last saturday I got nice fat sparks, but didn't have enough time to hook up a gas tank and try to start it; that will have to wait for next week. I still have some cleanup work to get these wires into a semblance of order, but here's how I had it to work on.

bike_wiring.jpg
 
sometimes, Its easier just to rewire from the begining than trying to sort out old and brittle wires. At least then you have the advantage of the latest materials.

keep it up, your doing great so far. :thumbsup:
 
I plan on building a new harness with new wire and connectors before I put the whole bike together, but for now I'm using what I've got.
 
Yeah very nice work on the virago, looks pro and real trick me likey, I think I got half a chubby by the second photo :bike:
 
there's a similar thing done on an xs400.

I posted it in this forum somewhere and the owner did pop in a say hello
 
It starts! A bit of starting fluid and it roars to life. The carbs still need some work to get it to run on gasoline, but I expected that to be the case.

In another vein, I started making the swingarm bushings today. I got one done and I think I'll have time tomorrow for the other.
 
Had some more time over the weekend. Got the right cylinder running on gasoline, left is still dead. Has great spark, so I took the carbs back off to find what passage was still clogged. But I ran out of time and the next test will have to wait for another day.

As far as the suspension goes, I didn't like where the mono-shock was going to mount, so I'm double checking my calculations to see how much I can change the mounting point. Hopefully I can find a solution that gives good behavior (compared to stock) and still has a convenient mounting point for the shock.
 
Finally found the last vestiges of debris in the carburetor, runs like a champ on both cylinders now. Now to get the gas tank sorted out - its full of rust and has a bunch of bad bondo on the sides where the PO tried to obscure the badge mounts.
 
I remember seeing that a few years ago. Part of me says that would be a great way to go, but the other part says I don't want to put it down so low where it could be easily damaged. A third part asks how likely it is I'll ever high-center this thing so why worry?
 
I considered this solution but thought that the design (from a purely knee-jerk reaction point of view) lacked elegance. I'm not suggesting I'm the king of elegance, but a clean design is what I strive for and succeed at only after most people say I'm wasting my time. But if it works, it works and there's many paths to tread.
 
crashcourse said:
Finally found the last vestiges of debris in the carburetor, runs like a champ on both cylinders now. Now to get the gas tank sorted out - its full of rust and has a bunch of bad bondo on the sides where the PO tried to obscure the badge mounts.
Click to expand...

I told you those carbs where nasty when i sent them :D i'm glad you finally got it to come to life. I'm getting ready to start a build thread of my own so I'll probably be on the forum a little more keep up the good work it'll be fun to follow
 
Yeah, you gave me fair warning, but they work now. They might need re-jetting but I'll wait until I have the rest of my intake/exhaust system really nailed down. I'll keep an eye out for your thread.

Thanks again for the carbs, this wouldn't have gotten off the ground without them!
 

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