Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => Off Topic Subjects => Topic started by: dakazman on Thursday,October 11, 2018, 10:33:09 AM
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She surprised my wife and I ,
A 1982 Honda XL 500 R , her first bike. Funny thing is she has trouble starting it, kickstarter...
It’ A high compression engine and has a unique start sequence.
More fun for me .
Dakazman
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Pretty girl! It looks like she's taking after her dad with her wheeled interests! Is she helping you with your car?
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She adds her opinions on my cars and drives the vette which is a stick and has a 60 lb clutch.
She also works as a tattoo artist full time and paints large murals for local businesses.
Teaching the granddaughter how to dismount and take a bow. Lol.
Dakazman
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She's going to cause her parents a lot of trouble! :)
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Nice looking bikes and offspring D-man, you're a lucky dude. I agree with BDA, grand daughter is going to be a heart breaker. :beerchug:
Tom
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Thanks guys.
Dave
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The 80s vintage Honda XL is an awesome bike. I prefer the 250 cc for trail riding, though I had a 185 cc as my first vehicle, which a thrashed mercilessly and it kept coming back for more. Very rider friendly bikes. With the 500 cc thumper there is no such thing as being in the wrong gear. This one looks to be excellent condition. Very cool.
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Bainford,
She was estatic today when she finally kicked it over throwing her weight on it . It just passed N.Y. state vehicle inspection in July. I don’t know what lead her to purchase it though . I would have selected a 125 cc . And definitely newer so I wouldn’t have to work on it as much.
I don’t complain. Wife has me trained. . So I got the fix it , make it safe as possible look.
I just wished she got a jet ski instead.
Dakazman
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I’m at full tear down mode after going after an oil leak in the decompression head, motor needs to be removed to change . Once in there , more surprises... crack in cylinder liner, non existent valve seals
And a small crack in the head in the intake valves port area. Luckily I found a complete cylinder with piston. While waiting she decided to make it her own . So this will get interesting.😀
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We have been moving along, striped and primed all painted pieces and painted the frame. Glad to get that done so I can start reassembling. Temps in the mid 70s with no humidity so I also did the touch up painting on the Europa engine cover after storing it upside down when wet.
It’s nice to have someone make decisions, research and buy parts. Most importantly , run for parts and supplies.
Dakazman
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Another deep paint job from the D-man!! :beerchug: Your "little girl" should be ecstatic!
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Thanks again ,BDA .
Beautiful weather so finished painting all of the frame components. I will be reassembling the bike tomorrow. Maybe... my 39th anniversary is coming up on the 23 and birthdays for my wife and I.
Dakazman
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More deep black!
Happy anniversary and happy birthday to you and Mrs. D-man!!! :beerchug:
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Thank BDA,
Some good memories.😀
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Is that the youngest daughter?
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Oh no that’s the youngest granddaughter. Lol , the youngest is 25 with the motorcycle.
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Back to work on the Honda . Learned how to repair gouges in the plastic fenders and will get back to you on that soon. Back to a roller. Some smaller parts trickling in until then semi stalled. A little more work on the gas tank and it will be another black mirror.
Dakazman
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Nice pics of that bike. When will the next installment on the progress on the black mirror that is your Europa?
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BDA,
That will be under ,”painting again “. I Purchased another gallon of clear and prepping the finish
for the final clearcoat . 😀. I need to make some space in garage by completing the dirt bike project, putting up Christmas lights and helping some neighbors . I think my honey-do list must be near the ending . Today I scheduled the rebuilding of the engine, I’ll see how that goes.
Dakazman
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Good luck with the engine!
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When it’s for your Daughter, and when it’s a Classic you tend to take to the why not.
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Pretty!
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Part and pieces coming together and now it’s resembling a motorcycle. I learned how to refinish plastic. For those of you with bikes don’t believe some of the YouTube videos. I also added some new LED turn signals and straightened the handlebars. Got caught snoozing also ... lol . But I had a helper so wth... Hope you like the pictures.
Merry Christmas,
Dakazman
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Brummm brummm!!
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Well , making progress with this CLassic 37 year old. Headlight lamp from Japan arrived. NLA in the states. A modification is available on line for an led replacement, I stuck to original. Fuel tank painted
My normal black but still waiting for the decals from China. Engine completed except for some helicoil inserts on the decompression head.
Dakazman
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You are getting quite the trademark with your Gloss Black. Holy cow, like a mirror everytime. That color is a labor of love for sure! Good work as was mentioned on IG the fin detail looks fantastic too.
Ross
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Thanks Rosco,
I had some paint leftover hence the frame and tank color. The red was a bit to much. The picture was taken on an overcast day 60degrees f was a little different than 80 that I normally paint at . It only took 4oz of cooler and 4oz of clear . Final clar will be when I get the Honda tank emblems from China.
More parts , the turn signal/horn housing came in today from the 🇬🇧 UK. Thus becoming a international build.
Dakazman
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It’s been a struggle but I finally reinstalled the engine. Garage is clearing out.
I also had some time to get away from the wife’s honey do list 😀👍👍👍. Waiting on some tires and a second coat of clear coat paint but need to apply decals on tank.
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Looking good! When do you get back to work on your Europa?
edit: I may have spoken too soon because I see you're putting down a clear coat in another thread!
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BDA, just as I was answering you your edit came up. Today is supposed to be great for painting, however i have not finished sanding the surface by hand so not to scratch the finish.
Dakazman
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dakazman...Small world!
First, the bike looks great. It just so happens that my older brother Dan is a bike resto wizzard too! and is finishing a 64 Ducati Diana 250 for his daughter. Between my younger brother Vic and myself we have always been into sports cars, but Dan was the two wheel dude. At present he has 10 vintage and classic rides in his collection,all reworked from the ground up.
They include: 3 Ducati's...250,450,750...2BSA...500,650...MV Agusta 750, BMW 750 touring...2 Triumph's and a special edition Steve McQueen T120...A Laverda 750 and Honda 750 are in progress.
It's good to see your hard work will finally be realized...Safe journeys!
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I hope Dan has gotten the opportunity to visit the museum at Barber Motorsports Park (https://www.barbermuseum.org/plan-a-visit/museum-hours/) which is the largest motorcycle museum in the world. The museum is mostly motorcycles but it also has "the world’s most extensive collection of Lotus cars." I've posted pictures of them in the LOG-37 section of the Gallery. It also has several other significant cars such as one of Dan Gurney's Indy cars (as well as Gurney's motorcycle, the Alligator). I confess that I am not much of a motorcycle guy (but I am a big fan of the Britten V1000), but I enjoy looking at the motorcycles a lot more than I thought I would because you can see all of it. Speaking of the Britten, they have one of those too!
If you're similarly afflicted by the Britten and haven't heard the story, this video is about an hour you should really like: https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/britten-backyard-visionary-1993
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Hi Lou , Dan has quite a collection, I hope his daughter helps him as much as my daughter does. Running to the store and running down parts and tooling online takes time. My daughter now knows the difference between metric and standard helicoil inserts , studs , bolts , seals and most important elbow grease.
Replacing the original tires this week so that’s the end of parts needed.
BDA, I started the video and fast forwarded a bit but will watch. Daytona has a few events going on now and next week , thinking of running up there to enter the pit area.
Dakazman
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Don't take this the wrong way but I'm really warning up to your daughter! Knows about helicoils studs, and bolts ... you've taught her well! My congratulations to both of you!
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Stumbled upon this place in Carmel Valley CA a last summer. Great collection: http://www.mototalbott.com/
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I haven’t got much to offer in terms of custom bikes, but I did make a custom rider once. My former employer SRI International and Yamaha teamed up to build “Motobot”, a motorcycle riding robot. The challenge was to build a robot that would drive a non-customized, stock motorcycle, and beat Moto GP champion Valentino Rossi around a race track. We never beat Rossi (of course, he has supernatural bike pilot skills) but we broke a bunch of records and furthered the science of autonomous vehicles. The pic below is our unveiling at the Tokyo Motor Show 16 months ago. We had a fantastic team of robotics engineers working on this. My contribution was designing the robotic hands that actuate the throttle, clutch and front brake. At the start of the project we received 3 crates, each with a brand new Yamaha R1M inside. We could (and did) crash two, as long as one survived for TMS. More about the project here: https://global.yamaha-motor.com/showroom/motobot/index.html
Tom
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Now that is a very cool project! I’m impressed Surfguitar58. I watched all the videos, amazing technology. You just never know the skills of forum participants.
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Ditto to what certified said . Amazing people and stories here at this site .
The tires came in from a friend of my daughter and I got the job to remove and replace them 🥴. Oh what fun. Yes, they have tubes also.
Painted clear atop the decals on tank today and it turned out pretty nicely.
Dakazman
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Finishing up a few loose ends, working from some shoddy maintenance manuals written for dual cycles with some badly needed addendums for a 500 XL500R. Adding the new oil tomorrow and a few other tweaks to carb and decompression setup. Maybe get a good initial start. It would be my first bike re-Build.
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Ready to start, Sunday when she has time to record the event.
Added the oil and kicked it to prime the oil pump. Hopefully all the new parts will cooperate .
Still I’ll be holding my breath with both fingers crossed and a big smile when it starts.
Dakazman
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Video of it running required! Then you can be everyone’s hero :trophy:
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Looks like it just came off the showroom floor D'man! Nice work!
Is artist daughter going to embellish the tank with an airbrush tattoo?
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Lol surf , I don’t know what she has planned for it . I suggested sell it and it something that she can get parts for. If you have Instagram lookup “the_toracle” and against the grain ratios.
Certified, absolutely a video just the burn off of all the lube . I need to run it for 15 minutes and then set the timing chain tensioner while running. Still I’m very very nervous.
Dakazman
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Well what I thought was going to be a washout due to rain , it suddenly cleared up and we tried to start. Fuel - good, spark - good . Compression- good , choke out, playing with it it would not set and one item NLA. Charged up battery which was down to 10 % . Once at 80% I jumped on with a set of steel tip heavy work boots ,2nd kick ...success. Video on Instagram , Christine.Kaczmarek.71
Ordered a New battery . Why did it die , gas petcock turned off . 😐. So a Hero dad for now. 🤪
Dakazman
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Congrats hero Dad! Don’t have Instagram so can watch but I’m playing vroom vroom in my mind :beerchug:
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Great going Hero Dad! Sure wish I could get all my nieces and nephews into something more interesting than video games.
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D'mam, the hero dad! :beerchug:
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You tube link.. don’t laugh it’s a first.
https://youtu.be/WYmwSC0vsp0
Dakazman
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And so now you're a video star! :BEER3:
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Sounds good. Great to see all the excitement down there. Money to be made with videos!
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Maybe just maybe I’ll talk my daughter into trading in her bike for something newer.
These look great!
Dakazman
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I’d buy an electric bike instead.....
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Certified, those are super fast. Yes I’m a fan and I hope it catches on.
Dave
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After repairing kick stand and replacing battery we had a leap forward.
https://youtu.be/lDOtReLJ4Cs
It’s nice to get a smile once in a while!
Dakazman