Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
TX650 build. I bought a TX650 around six months ago. In terrible condition: Guards are bent and buckled, frame rusted, all fasteners siezed up from rust, wheels badly oxidised, motor not going and a big chunk of the upper crankcase gone. On strip down I found more damage to the shifter drum bearing housing so the cases were beyond repair. Every nut and bolt was binned as well as the seat, exhaust, centre stand and a few other bits and pieces that were beyond repair.
I bought a second hand set of cases, bead blasted them, along with head, barrel, rocker cover and painted them silver. Sidecovers, valve covers, breather box, starter ends, cam chain adjuster, dipstick and carb floatbowls and top hats were all blasted and polished. The barrel was re bored and I bought new pistons, rings, gudgeons, cam chain and advance unit, along with a few other incidental bits and valves re seated. Starter gear spring was re shaped and new gaskets and seals were fitted. Along the way I built a bench top engine stand, later on I built a wheeled stand with battery carrier and ignition circuit I cobbled together using a Honda solenoid, a $4 three phase rectifier, an AGM battery and some Bosch condensers off ebay, the original regulator was ok, so I cleaned it up and mounted that.
After priming the engine using a cordless drill, the engine started on first press of the start button, making a deafening noise through the shorty exhausts. I fabricated a manometer from acrylic tubes, neoprene and wood and synced the carbs. Motor went nicely, but, I didn't like the silver colour, so I stripped it down again, blasted the paint off and painted the motor cases black. Replaced the gaskets and put the motor back together again.
Whilst waiting for bits to arrive I ground the lever marks from the rims and polished them up. Mounted the hubs on the lathe, cut away the fin bridges, trued the hubs up and then polished them. I also polished the top triple tree, lower sliders, brake junction unit and stripped and cleaned the brake calipers. To improve suspension I drilled a couple of extra holes in the fork inner tubes.
I've beaten up a couple of frame sidecovers from 1.5mm aluminium and polished them, but, I'm thinking of replacing them with just flat 3mm flat ally. All excess tabs were removed: Seat hinge tabs, side cover tabs, cable guides and I smoothed some of the welds and brackets.
I suffer badly from rheumatoid arthritis, so my arms have withered, my fingers don't bend anymore so I can only manage a couple of hours work each day. I'm having my finger joints replaced shortly (hips and big toe joints already replaced) so hopefully, My fingers will be more usefull after the surgery.
I'll never be able to ride the bike due to the RA, but I enjoy building things in my workshop.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
Some pics of parts I polished up, using a nylon fibre wheel, sisal and cloth mops and different grades of cohmpound. Polishing is difficult for me as my don't bend much anymore, I've lost most of the muscle in my hands, forearms and upper arms and it is quite painful, so I loop rope around my neck, attach the part and use my abdomen and hands to manipulate the part to be polished. The rims were badly pitted, oxidised and had numerous gauging marks from tyre levers. I used a nulon fibre wheel to clean up the dame and then polished them. The hubs weren't much better! I mounted them on the lathe, removed the casting bridges, trued up the flanges, smoothed the pitting then polished them using mops and compound.
Needless to say, this all takes a lot of time as I can only work for an hour or so before the pain becomes unmanageable, requiring lengthy recouperation times. But, here's what I've managed to do on the polishing front.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
More shiny bits. The side covers and tapped covers were previously chromed, so I had to remove the remnants of the chrome and polish the aluminium underneath.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
Along the way, I made up a few tools: A rotor puller for the rotor, a castellated nut spanner for the advance unit and a manometer. The first manometer was made from two pieces of wood, four chair stoppers, a length of plastic tube, two 35mm acrylic tubes and some allthread to tie it all together. It worked fine, but I wasn't satisfied with it so I made another using four new wooden tops and bottoms and neoprene gaskets.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
Lower cases had all casting marks smoothed, engine number was ground off and original number re stamped. Here's some pics of parts I blasted, carbs and taps with beads , engine cases, barrel, head and rocker cover with garnet. Carbs and taps had new gaskets, seals, jets and washers put through them and engine parts were painted silver.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
Switch blocks were in terrible condition also, so I stripped them down, soldered new wires on the boards, bead blasted them and polished the outer cases.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
The clutch pressure plate has six JIS headed screws compressing springs on the pressure plate. Of course no one has JIS screwdrivers, using philips heads instead, destroying the JIS heads. I cut the threaded section off, chucked the screw bodies, faced the heads flat, bored them with a 6mm hole, cut six allen heads to size and inserted them in the pressure plate screw bodies.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
The bike has two filters, one in the sump and a second in the clutch cover. The sump filter has a tendency to be holed on the gearbox corner, so I beat up a thin aluminium cover to protect the area.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
The front and rear engine mounts are pretty bland being 6mm painted steel, so I shaped new ones from 10mm aluminium plate, drilled holes to match and polished them. I also bought some stainless 10mm bolts, cut to length and polished them along with dome and nyloc nuts. A little bling!
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
Mudguards were a mess, bent and buckled and rusted. The rear guards had two large dents beaten into each side between front and rear mounts for some reason. I pulled out the panel hammer and dollies, made up a Delrin hammer and set to work straightening the guard. Managed to get the guard pretty straight buT couldn't access the inside of the rolled edges to remove the creases, they'll require bogging before paint. There were also multiple dings around the tail light mount area so I flattened the area with the panel hammer.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
That is some fantastic restoration work, my compliments.
I know what you're saying about the RA, my mother had it, started when she was mid 20's, knuckles replaced on both hands, numerous surgeries for her feet and shoulders, She was taking so many pills it looked like a bag of jelly beans was spilled when she'd lay them all out. He worst problem was she gave up moving, obviously something you haven't :-). Now at 64 I've got knuckles starting to go, wrists and knees, it sucks.
Keep up the good work......and posting...................Mike
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
These Are a couple of sidecovers I beat up from 1.5mm aluminium. I welded new tabs to the frame and mounted the covers in rubber grommets using positive stop aluminium nuts I machined up on the lathe. I later polished them to see how they looked.
Re: Bringing a 74 TX650 back to life, with a few mods.
Finally finished the seat off. Re did the front mounts for a neater look and angled the spigot and spigot seat so the seat clears the frame tubes. The rear mounts consist of a rubber grommet mounted in the seat cowl either side. I spun up two ally positive stop inserts which sit in the grommets and a 6mm bolt is inserted each side and screwed into the two tabs I welded to the frame.
Reply
WeldingWeb Apprentice
DavidR8 liked this post
Master Welder
got 1. 20$ on a drag race?