This weekend was primarily spent stripping the 650 of useful bits. I took some parts off that people here expressed a need for and grabbed anything else that looked like I might need it in the future. Now I have questions about compatibility:
Can the turn signal/horn/high and low beam switch be used from a 81' 650 on my 79' 850? There is 12+ wires coming out of the 850 switch and only 9 or 10 coming out of the 650. It appears the connectors are different as well. Which doesn't leave me feeling too hopeful.
I don't like the exhaust on my 850 and am looking to swap it out with something else. The current muffler/end exhaust is some random bit someone welded on there. I noted the pretty looking pipes on my 650 and as you can see in the photo it appears at least the latter part of the exhaust are from a 1100. Do you guys think welding that on my 850 would give it anywhere near the stock back pressure? Good idea/bad idea? It seems to me it can't be much worse than what is on there now.
I bought the bike with a fiber cafe seat on it. Which when pulled off was found to be covering the fact that the PO has chopped off the frame, right behind the rear shocks The rest of the weekend has been spent fabricating a rear hoop, reinforcing the rear shock mounts. I finished all the fabricating off the bike, it's all welded together. It just needs to be finally fitted and welded onto the frame.
Oh come on!
On a different front, while working on the project this weekend I realized I had yet to try the kick start on the bike. I figured such a fine mechanism shouldn't just be going to waste. I better do the right thing and test it out. Upon doing so I realized that it was very easy to kick over. To the point where I questioned if I had pulled the spark plugs or something else funky. This was not the case. Following that I preformed a compression test. The results are as follows.
1-90
2-85
3- Could not for the life of me get the gauge to thread into this one. It always felt cross threaded and I have not been brave enough to have it meet my friend Mr. Leverage just yet.
4-120
Granted all of these readings were preformed with a cold engine, carbs and exhaust on and I have yet to set the valves. The service limit is 100.... How worried should I be? Is it being "easy" to kick over even vaguely indicative of a problem?
Also I have my parts 650 that I would like to check the compression on but alas the threads on the spark plugs are different than my gauge. NAPA didn't have the fitting, any suggestions for hunting one down?
Thanks for reading, till next time ride safe.
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