Its Happening Today - Born Free 4

I can't be there, but you know who can....



BOOM!!!! Ride it out. Born Free.

Be Back Monday.....ish.

Rode to Deus

Rode out a while back with my buddy Adam (he's got a nifty blog called Steam of Unconsciousness.  Just, you know, a casual sunny day ride.  Bopped in to Venice for a minute.  It was nice.  Riding down to the Street Chopper/Wes White shingdig tomorrow.  Maybe I'll remember to take some pics.

Loser Machine

Went to the Loser Machine Sample Sale last Friday mornin'.  Good times, good people, good clothes.  Pretty funny, when I got there I saw a ton of people walking out with bags and bags of clothes and I thought, "Holy crap, there are a ton of people here.  Am I gonna have to wait in line to get in?!?"  I turned a corner and there I saw it, a ton of people waiting in a line as long as Splash Mountains' at Disneyland.  I thought, "Seriously, who knew?"  But then I soon realized, oh wait, seems Obey is having their sample sale at the same time and the same place and that long ole line if for them.  I looked to the right and there in all its glory was the Loser Machine sample sale.  I am happy to report, I walked right in.  Even bought myself a tank top.  On my way out I chatted with the Born Free peeps.  Ah yes, Good Times!

Been Slow, Bike Good

Its been a bit slow around here (at least in terms of the bike, cause other than that it seems I have been busy as hell).  Here are some sweet pics of The Good Times with the new sissy bar on.  More posts to come.

New Sissy Bar

I needed a new sissy bar for the summer trips and opted for a classy little number (read affordable) that works.  Yes I would love to get a 30"-er but they are pretty spendy and look a bit obnoxious just riding a round town.  Although I will say they do work well to pack up all you stuff.  But as it stands his bad boy will have to work.

Internally Wiring the Bars Pt. 2

So when I left it last time, I had finally had some late night success so the next morning it was back to work.  I still had the throttle side to deal with, wiring, master cylinder and throttle.

This time things went so much easier because of what I learned the previous night.  So right off the bat I cut off the wire cover.

This way the wire covering won't bunch up in the 90 degree bend

Tied up the guitar string around the bundle of wires.  This time I knew to divide the wires in to bundles of 3 wires.

And this time, super simple, out comes the wires not as big of a deal this time round

It was at this point that Christa Jayne brought me some delicious breakfast.  I was so surprised and stoked!!!!!  It seriously made my morning!  Two eggs sunny side up on toast, too good!!!

 As soon as I was done with breakfast I wired up the other 3 wire bundle and slide the wrap over and just like that the bars are internally wired!!!!!!!


















Now I mocked up the bars in the bike just to check it out

Now that the bars are mocked up it was time to wire everything back up to make sure it works


















Then was the moment of truth, I turned the key and pressed the started button....she fired right up!!!!!  I checked all the electronics and everything seemed good except the hi/low beam.  After wiring the first time I accidentally mis-wired the hi low beam of the head light but that was a quick and easy rewire.  From there as you can see, thumbs up..all was good in the proverbial hood.

Front End Electrical

So first things first, I had to disconnect all the front end electronics going to the control pods on the handlebars.  They are routed eternally and then they go into the headlight bucket and connect to the deutcsh connectors there.  So I opened up the headlight and disconnected the wires there first.  Then I pulled them out of the bucket and disconnected them from the bars.  The clutch side was easy, but removing the throttle side is a bit trickier because in preparation for the new bars I have to remove the throttle as well...

See the throttle housing and the control pod are one and the same so removing the pod means removing the throttle so I opened it up

Removed the cables (was sure not to lose the brass ferrule on each one)

And off comes the throttle sleeve.  As you can see I had to use the headstock of my bass as a make shift holder for the master cylinder/front brake

Taped off what was what so I would remember

Then I removed the bars and we are ready to begin drilling out the holes on the bars to ready them for internally wiring.

Getting ready for Workin'

I have been tracking my new bars and stuff and it looks like it is coming tomorrow so in preparation of the new bars I did some work to get the front end ready.  Plus I like to go through stuff once before hand (take it apart and put it back together again) that way I know how it all works and no surprises.  Also it allows me to figure stuff out before so when I am actually doing the work, I don't get stuck...which I can't stand.

Go those bars coming and the single speedo housing from a fellow CC member.  Thinking about starting a build thread on CC as well or at least writing a How-To about removing signals.