83 CR500, here begineth the lesson

I made sure theres no paint inside the bolt holes through frame and engine and put a meter on it. Looks good but will revisit if the spark looks weak.

Thanks, its a 81/82 430 in the 83 500 frame. Have set timing to 2T manual and will wear MX boot for all starting attempts!!

The Austrian leg is vapour blasted and fitted. Tried afew prods and all is working as it should..



Exhaust work continues with a bracket for the top tube mount and a scallop for a plug cap/spanner.

Bikes home at last ! Cleaned off coil mount and went for a spark. Screeeeech, stiff as and painful noise through the fins. Cold seized ? NOOOO.
Well no, I'd just torqued the flywheel. Moral of todays story, don't use spring washers in the middle of a Mini 6. In fact, will junk the capheads too.
Easy fix, pie first though.

Exhausted at last !!!

The plug cap looks a little tight hopefully it wont melt, is she going to road legal. And most of all keep the pics coming.

It is a little tight, will keep an eye on it and probably replace the exhaust entirely. Have had to do a lot of mods and the original welding is terrible. When I got it there was no real option, looked at the HVA ones recently and they are good quality. It will be road legal soon I hope.
No spark now and flat battery on my meter.

No spark, waiting on advice (see main left kicker page) so did mundane stuff like oiling cables etc today. Then I made a shiny thing, now I'm going out to eat and drink too much so feeling much better than earlier but not as good as later.

come on can't wait to see her finished

this is a great documented biuld and give me great inspiration to get my 1983 xc500 looking as good , maybe after this season of vmx

Thanks, I hope it won't look this good for long. Posting helps me get motivated when things seem to be dragging.

I used to be on an R6 until I got attacked by a jigsaw. I need to be white with a fancy decal and hanging off a fork brace if one could be bought or made soon.....?

hey ol mate, we always zip tie the front brake cableto the forkcaps to prevent the cable from bowing into the wheel on compression. not such an issue with the road tyre, easily destroyed by a knobby tyre with an unplanned stoppage of frontwheel rotation! going well, onwards....

Made up some rollers for a chain guide. Preparing to start up this weekend, taking out shares in Easystart. Got to machine up chain guide and fork brace so could be on the road in a week or so !!?

Balls balls balls!! My swing arm spindle repair didn't stand up to torquing. Still, better it fails now.

Like the little fix to the kill switch, just painted my handle bars and installed new bar mounts and now kill switch doesn't work, will do the same fix.

Real bummer on the swingarm bolt. What was the "fix" you mentioned to the bolt that resulted in its failure or what as wrong with the bolt in the first place?

I couldn't get an earth either but didn't want to file the bars off. The brake cable provides the earth, will do the same the other side for a horn switch.
The swing arm spindle had a stripped thread and nut on that end but was ok the other. I drilled a nut to a tight fit and then welded it on the outside. Thought it would be ok for torsional strenghth but then when I tried to torque it up it just pulled through, didn't think of the tensile load. I can get a new one for £30 from HVA factory, can't be bothered to take it out and measure and machine. I'll just knock the old one out with the new one and hopefully disturb nothing.
Don't feel too frustrated as it has rained for the last 3 months in the UK and shows no sign of stopping. A good thing really or I would have thrown this bike together ages ago!

Step one. I also making a swing arm spindle as I'm skint, EN19T.

I'm watching this, I reckon its going to make good strong money. May be biased a touch but 83 is the best looking Husky ever produced!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350581480800?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649