My '84 500AE MX Project

I actually bought a nice chunky 520 chain ages ago, even before I got I started stripping it, a big heavy X-ring gold chain which I thought would be perfect, now when I am ready to put it on, it won't fit through the chain guide (sign #1), so I thought, ok I'll just run it without the chain guide but then I heard this sound while turning the back wheel - turns out it's so fat that the inside pins rub on the side casing (sign #2).......

bottom line is the bugger is too big........ do Caterpillar dozers use a chain, I think I got one .....

i have heard of people having problems with clearance issues, something i havent ran into. probably another reason im afraid to swap brands

is your c/s sprocket on backwards? the raised lip side go's in towards the motor??

I completely forgot to check this, will have another look - thx mate

Things may have moved on since 78, but the largest chain I can use is the DID heavy duty, not o-ring. The width just causes too many clearance issues.

Almost complete now and it's nice to have it mostly together (I had parts spread all over the place....and it's funny, now that it actually looks like a bike and not a bucket of parts, the Mrs. has kind of come around and actually likes it


I need to shorten the stinger a little to make the FMF spark arrestor sit a bit closer back towards the seat

I'm glad it's not as black as I feared it might be, pretty happy with the colour choice.

Tried putting the white side covers on and now they look too much like an after thought and now I'm not sure about using them.......what do you think? Maybe the smaller '81/'83 black sidies would work better.

now to what is fast becoming a regular thing about my posts, here's todays 'help I'm stuck again' section.....

You might recognise that I'm using one of Andy's exhaust pipes and as he warns, due to potential slight design differences, the pipes might need some minor tweaking.....and it looks like mine does so please have a look and recommend away !!!


I got my little chunk of rubber with a bolt out each end bit, which is meant to join these 2 brackets, but as you can see, they don't line up. And there is basically no give in the pipe at all as it is literally milimetres (1 maybe 2) from hitting the front frame downtube.......

and with the '83 tank & seat combo, to bolt the front of the tank to the frame has the bottom seam of the tank resting on the pipe......

Is this the kind of thing that some intentional dents bashed into the pipe will fix ?

hay how did you mount those fat bars?

Have a look at post 5 in this thread and the 3rd picture shows the fat bar mounts that I used (I'll see if I can find the brand and model and get back to you with that tomorrow).

The mounting bolt was considerably fatter than the holes in the metal sleeves that sit inside the rubber cones on the top triple clamp yoke so I had to bore them out a bit. The sleeves were of course a bit thinner then but ultimately, with the rubber cones fitting tight around the outside of the metal sleeve and then very tightly into the top triple clamp, it aint going anywhere.

I went through a few variations to get to this solution - first was the purchase of the straight Husky mounts that Andy sells and with some other 3rd party fat bar adaptor/riser things but was never happy with the number of fittings it had become........my initial goal was risers as I am so tall, so the final solution only uses one fitting, which has loads of extra height in it and only required a minor mod

And more importantly, a mod that I could actually do myself

Hey I found them (still had the link saved in my browser history):

http://pitposse.com/ouraunoemmot.html

and as I said, you need to bore out the metal sleeve just a bit to make the chunky mounting bolts fit

Have you got the tank mounting crescent under the back of the fuel tank? It looks like the tank is sat a bit too low at the rear....

Consider having the bracket off the pipe and re-positioning it using the rubber bobbin in between...

Bike is looking good

Andy

Thanks Andy, yeah I will check the position of the rubber crescent, it's probably not quite back far enough.....

OK thanks for the tip re pipe, I'll look into that......

Agree that the white panels look odd, but black panels might be too much albeit better than the white. Or white panels with white fenders?

thanks man, yeah I did think of that too.......really like the black guards though.....

need to think this one out some more........

No decompressor for starting ?

No mate.....

Maybe Get some other colour on the tank? Some white or yellow to pick up from the sidepanels ???

a white numberplate may be enough to use the sidepanels. of course having number backgrounds on the panels will tame them a bit. bike is looking unique and tasteful!

White mudguards, white side panels. Just my thoughts. It is looking stunning though and you will love the auto bit

Maybe play around with some different color back grounds on the number plate? and they do make a o ring chain for vintage bikes its narrower by d.i.d. I have one on my 79 and its gold too.