Aussie 1100's new life

[Troyskie]

whoops, buggered the post, here are the other pics of lining up the muffler

[Troyskie]

And this is the little temporary bracket made to hook onto the muffler attachment..

[Troyskie]

These little brackets are only temporary, and this weekend I'll make up some better ones in stainless that will have two connections to the footpeg bracket and one to hold the muffler. This will make the mounting more rigid.
Anyway, we had to send the whole lot down to 'Frenchies' or City Mufflers here in Nowra to have the mid pipes modified.
Sterling work! One join with two angles, waaay beyond my ability to weld, plus they moved the centre stand bumper to fit as well.....
As you can see from the last end view photo I've some final tweeking to get the mufflers to sit exactly, and the LHS has rolled over slightly. This will be the work for the weekend..

[Troyskie]

Finally a pic of her with her new pipes...I really like the sound. Jury is out on loud (i.e. wife & kids), I left very early this morning & she/they will let me know how stealthy it is... But the bike now has a deeper throatier rumble without the crackly pitch I had with the 4:1. This is not the stealth mode I intended, but much nicer bass.
Down side is that these mufflers poke out further back than I'd like. I think it will grow on me, but if it doesn't I'll start another topic.

Well everyone, this is almost the end of my first FJOwners project.
Obviously there are going to be more and more mods, repairs etc.
I'll go and tally up the bill and post up the costs as a conclusion to finalise the whole project. I don't think it will come out cheap as I've paid a very good mechanic to do most of the spanner turning in the early stages, but we'll see...
Troy.

[Pat Conlon]

Troy, that is a beauty...you should be proud. Don't tally the costs, just enjoy that machine.

It's all about progress, not perfection and you've done well.

Kudos

[Mark Olson]

Never add up the costs , it is better not to know.

[movenon]

Definitely better not to know.  Think of it as therapy...   
George

[Troyskie]

Thanks fellas, however SWMBO was pretty happy I came in under budget  (this can be found at the beginning of the post...), not massively under budget, but 'happy wife, happy life'.
Now I'm riding her to work each day I'm picking up some old issues I last dealt with in the late 80's & early 90's. These have been very well covered on the forum so I'll not labour it now, but the summary is, fooling with tyre pressures and mushy front end..
Yes I know the AD is mostly the culprit, but for now I'm going to get the most from what she is & see if I can shrink that chicken strip a bit.
'Smooth is fast' as was recently posted
Up side is the 4:2 seems to have had some effect on the whole engine-drive set up. I had a quick discussion with my 'guy', leading with the obvious back-pressure idea. He feels it is likely the case as well. So, it seems the 4:2 system makes the engine/gears/power connection feel much tighter and, strangely given she's 31 years old now, like a new bike. She is jetted to original specs, so that is likely part of it.
I'm booked for a Dyno run today, & we'll see how many of her horses have slipped out of the harness. Given an even loss of 10psi of each cylinder on the original compression check, I'm not expecting her to be very close to the original 100.

[Troyskie]

Dyno had to wait, looks like that will happen on Monday or Tuesday, needed to work in Perth. Here are the new brackets, first is the flat cut & holes. I'm using a 3x30mm stainless flat bar. Drill press set to slow. Cuts 10mm holes nicely. Using WD40 as cutting fluid. First pic...

[Troyskie]

next is first fit, I'll round the ends of the FB.

[Troyskie]

Not obvious in last photo but the swing arm is going to touch the mufflers, and the FB needs a couple of dog legs to mount properly.. bending and taking stress out of the exhaust system...final shape, after about 5 x fit & remove...this also allows me to move the muffler mount straps further back so the system is not cantilevered as far forward. Two big shifters and an off-set vice allow me to shape the bracket and put in some chord.

[Troyskie]

both sides are now done, pattern from LHS did not match RHS, as the axel shaft nut and thread protrude further. I loosened the exhaust connectors into the muffler and collector then balanced the distance either side to match. Exhaust guy who made the mid pipes showed me the measurement short-cuts, these are height off the ground (now the new centre stand keeps her standing nice and straight makes a huge difference), and distance between muffler edges to centre of wheel. Very simple, but I'm sure I'd have made it far more complicated

[Troyskie]

whoops, here's the pic..

[Troyskie]

And from the top...Once off the centre stand and with SWMBO on bike for some ballast, swing arm and nut clears both sides by 5 & 15m respectively. difference is the extra length of the nut and thread on RHS. My measurements were not as tight as normal so the above might be a little out, but balance measures are good.

[Troyskie]

Decided I'll paint the new exhaust brackets black so the cast aluminium footpeg brackets stay centre stage. Once done I'll do the before/after pics to show the difference.
Dyno run is on for this week, I'll post the results. We should see if the 65k's is real or wound around.
I'm not likely to make much change based on the dyno results (as I'm not chasing horsepower) and slightly rich (which I suspect) is better in my opinion than lean in an air-cooled motor (I mean slightly, not real rich like an old Holden). The dyno is just to see what she's got left, now she's set up factory spec after 31 years.
I'll wind up the project after the dyno run & move to new posts.
Things left to do on other posts:
Paint engine, frame, tank & ducktail.
Re-chrome tank cap, this will likely entail a lot of pain (as I've gathered from some other posts).
Polish fork bottoms & other bits.
Fix mushy front end (although I think I've sorted that by fooling with the pre-load, AD setting, and tyre pressures).
I expect the tank will give me some grief as there is a lot of shite living in there, mostly rust. I'll be pursuing a complete tank probably, but hopefully not. I'm keen to give the home grown galvanic cleaning/plating method a real try  (mentioned earlier this year in some other posts).
Then some gadgets & other bits and pieces.
Lastly I'll try and get my bro to join and post his FJ story. He's the guy who got me into FJs in the first place. Last check he has almost 600k's on his bike (original crank!!!), admittedly a few of those are mine, but he has a wonderful story & if I can get his tech lazy arse to the keyboard it will be well worth a read (I'm not a secretary he can type his own crap! ).