Ah. I was just curious as my Two Brothers Exhaust was cut down by the previous owner. I love the sound of it!

 

I'm anxious to get this thing mounted, and install the new wheel bearings so I can get back on the road!!

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid-50's here, with Sunday in the low to mid-60's!! And, with the snow dissipated enough already to allow riding, temps like that will dry out even the edges of the lanes on the highways and streets, where the plowed piles are melting... I just have to be cautious of the stinkin' sand patches!

 

I got the muffler re-packed and reassembled - it's just under 1.5 lb. lighter than before, and a heck of a lot better looking.
I tried it both with stainless screws, and black screws, and decided to go with the black.



Mounted it to the bike, and started it up - it's much louder than before, but it's tolerable... the nice thing about the startup, is that it's been 2 weeks since the bike ran, and it was 20º F, yet she fired up immediately, with only the tiniest bit of choke.



With the amount that I shortened the exhaust, I knew there was a possibility that the mounting “strap” of the muffler, might end up right at the edge of the nameplate, or worse, overlap it – I knew this was going to be likely, so when a mock fitting showed that the strap would indeed go over the nameplate, I had two options:

(1) I can order a shorter, more square-shaped nameplate, drill new holes and rivet it on, so that that the new plate will re-use the rear-most rivet hole, and after filling in the existing rivet holes at the front, I could cover that blemish with the mounting strap, or...

(2) I could craft a mounting "relocation" bracket, so that the mounting strap is in the "ideal" location, and to that, I bolt the bracket I make, and then mount the other end of this bracket to the exhaust hanger.

I chose both , meaning I will order a different nameplate, and rivet it on, so I can mount it "normally", but in the meantime, I found a very thin, flexible piece of scrap steel, laying around the garage, and fabricated a bracket with which to secure the exhaust... now that I pointed that out, look at the picture, and something will now seem "off"!

 

It looks excellent, all your hard work has clearly paid off.

 

Thanks Steven... closer examination reveals the muffler's imperfections, but as I mentioned before, it's far better than how it started, not to mention the old packing was shot anyway!

The muffler is about 1 1/2 pound lighter, and of course louder, but not so loud that I cringe when it starts, and start looking all around for angry neighbors, or cops eager to give a noise violation citation - heck, it's still only HALF as loud as 99% of the HD's that go roaring up and down my street!

Because of how much I had to beat the crap out of the header-end of the mid-pipe, to get it off initially, it's not sealing completely at it's connection with the header, there is a very slight leak there, but it's not horrible - I'll come up with a solution to that by next weekend.


I was both disappointed, and pleased, when I pulled the rear wheel, to find that when I rotated the bearing centers around, they all felt fine! Usually, when one is going out, and making noise, it is quite obvious which one it is, after just rolling the center around with your finger, but not this time.
The only one that felt like it might have a slight "catch" in it, was the unit in the sprocket carrier, and since I still had a spare, good, OEM bearing for that, I installed it, and went ahead and replaced that seal, though it wasn't really in horrible shape either.

I took it for a run, and the noise in the back end is gone, but now with the exhaust shorter, I found that top-end is even more underfueled, which isn't a surprise, but lower and middle ranges pull very well.
I also noted that my clip-ons could go forward a bit, and the clutch lever needed to go down just a smidge, for the ride to be more comfortable on my wrists, and, I was reminded of the shift rod rubbing on the kickstand bolts, after swithching to GP shift, making it a little harder to find neutral.
I adjusted the clip-ons and clutch lever, and ground down the heads on the kickstand bolts a little, making shifting and finding neutral a lot easier.

So all that's left to do on the street bike, is:

(1) Address the small exhaust leak at the mid-pipe/header connection.
(2) Possibly acquire a different nameplate for the muffler, so I can mount it "properly", without my little offset bracket.
(3) Acquire another black F2 front rim, so I can mount black rims on both bikes, with the reds used for rain tires.
(4) Paint the front fender black.
(5) Up the main jets, and then adjust the other circuits accordingly, once I've found the best main jet size.
(6) Eventually - braided stainless lines for the front brakes.

None of these things, with the exception of the exhaust leak and fueling issues, are at all urgent, so when they get done, they get done, and from here on, I'll be trying to get my focus back to the race bike.

 

On the way home for lunch today, I called and left a message with the merchant from whom I puchased the Zero Gravity double-bubble windscreen, as I ordered it last Thursday, and had still received no shipping notification - checking the order status on their site showed it as "Processing".

To my surprise, when I got home for lunch, there was the box on the porch.

 

My exhaust also leaks here the downpipes meet the end can, I use a little c clamp to try and make a seal but it still leaks slightly. I did try buying an OEM gasket but it was too big, the exhaust wouldn't fit over the top of it.

The screen looks lovely! How's the quality? I'm still awaiting delivery for my Hong Kong bargain.

 

Well, that was one of the reasons I went ahead and spent the money on a Zero Gravity, their quality is top notch - probably the best you can get... I can't wait to start getting things done with that bike, and get the new screen mounted and the bodywork back on!

 

Time to get focused on the race bike for a bit...

Since a Graves fairing stay, and Koso guages are probably not happening this season, and since I had to take the plastic gauge surround for the street bike, I needed to come up with a solution for the instruments, meaning, that without the black surround, the clear lens isn't hold on to the guage set - the screws go from behind the cluster, through the clear lens, and into the black plastic piece.

I used some small screws and washers, with nylon insert nuts on the other side of some of those screws, and small wingnuts, for the spots where I couldn't get a socket arount the nuts - this way, in both cases, the nuts won't work loose with vibration.





In this pic I circled the locations of the locknuts/wingnuts, in yellow. In green, are the bulbs/wiring that were no longer needed. The one in red is another unneeded bulb and wires, where I put the rubber insert back in, as this one is for the side stand indicator, which sits in the tach and I wanted to keep moisture out, so the guage won't fog... it's not an issue with the other indicators I removed.



I stripped the wires for the indicators no longer needed, all the way to the plugs, and retaped the harness, just to stip as much unnecessary items, and their weight, as possible... I'm chasing grams here, but that's the name of the game, at this point.

I also stripped the wires for the headlight, horn, front signals, re-taped the front harness, and removed the signal flasher, as well as doing the same thing at the rear, with the signals and tail/stop lights.

 

Take some pics of the new windscreen mounted if you don't mind. Curious on how it looks mounted up. Project is moving along nicely for sure.