1973 400 CR

Yup, TLC and money. A little progress tonight. Man, as hard as I tried, I just scratched the $#@& out of that frame. Even had towels and tape everywhere. Oh well, it's a racer, right? RIGHT? Here are a few quick ones before I covered her up for bed.



I mentioned before that the cases' engine mount pads were all buggerd up. I filed them flat again, and in that process
moved the entire engine 3mm to the left side. I'll do the same when building the rear wheel and it looks like that will
allow the chain to clear those fat Ohlins springs. In this shot you can just barely see the 3mm spacers inside the right
rear engine mount. It's SNUG in that cradle now, with nice metal to metal mounting points, important for good ignition
function and low vibration.



Engine plates were blasted with fine glass media then scrubbed with oil. They have several blems that don't come through in the photos, but they still look good. I used stainless bolts for the engine mounts, but I'm not happy with them. They seem a bit stretchy, and the plating is galling and the threads got sticky in just a few on/off cycles as I got the engine placed. Will have to look into this.

Nice work, don't you hate scratching new paint...happens everytime

did you powder coat the frame.i hope you do it or you going to scratch the frame in no time.

Looks great, keep up the good work!

This time I used paint and, although its beautiful, it's already showing that its not gonna be nearly as durable as the powdered ones I've built. Went with paint this time cuz I wanted as close a match as possible to that awesome Husky silver. Thought about trying the powder mentioned in another thread here but the frame was going to Vintage Husky for his mod so I just had him paint it while it was there. He did a good job I think it's just a repaint thing. View attachment 30377

ok i understand.looks great

A little progress on the engine.



And the hubs are back from the blaster and all painted up. Let's do some wheels...

Did the front first. Almost forgot that the inner and outer brake side spokes have a slightly different head angle.



The first spoke.



Took only 15 minutes to loose lace the front because it's a very standard pattern.



Rear took about 45 minutes cuz I had to check and re-check that I was doing the "husky odd" pattern correctly.



That was the easy part. Now I have to center and true. Yuck.

years ago I had a front rim self destruct with a heap of spokes coming loose and the wheel touching the forks on both sides. I snugged everything back up and rode flat out down this road and then tightened the loose ones and in 15 mins she was straight again and was fun to do.

Glad its u lacing them up/truing. I hate that task.

its just practice, i lace mines no big deal.

Are they new spokes or replated? I've been tossing around the idea of replating my spokes myself...I have more time than money.

Sorry, I just saw they are new.

Yes, new. Mine were SO bad I just gave up. Spent way too long trying to get them to loosen up and finally went nuts with the die-grinder and chopped those suckers up! Sparks were flying and it gave a nice sense of revenge!



Note to anyone doing a resto: Take more pics of the icky stuff before you take it apart. I hardly have any shots of just how bad the wheels were.

Luckily I have 2 duplicate wheels for pattern verification when I lace up the DLS hub to the new rim with the Buchanan spoke set I got for it. Once again need to find the time...

Save one of those old wheels and mount it on the wall. You can spin it and have your own wheel of fortune. Prob now you feel like you spent a fortune! Yet all your time in it. Very nice work and keep going!

you have to do that on the first place and no wasting time trying to pull out those suckers.

I do have a duplicate, and that was the plan. But then I found that the MK/ML manual has very detailed re-lacing instructions and I just followed those. When was the last time you saw a bike manual that showed you how to disassemble and re-assemble the wheels!?!?

The workmanship is excellent!

Nice build......73 400cr, awesome bike. When it comes to looks I prefer paint over PC. Paint leaves the character of the frame intact that's noticeable from the factory. My experience with PC is that it covers to much of the welds and other small imperfections, not to mention the Serial number. If I were to build a rider that was going to get a lot of time on it then PC would be my first choice.

Can't wait to see more......