Project Virago

Have also decided now is a good time to sort the main loom out as well





the loom is in a fairly good condition apart from the few items already found, but, it ran under the frame on top of the engine



so will be re-wrapping it in spiral wrap and running it along the spine of the frame and then down the front right hand side of the the neck and through the forks, this will tidy it up and stop it getting fried on top of the cylinder heads.







Had a very pleasant surprise tonight, Dave ( Mr Intruder ) was at our house when I arrived back from work, his first long distance drive I think, had a good chat and laugh then took him for a tour round the garage, made my night  .

Wow thats a heck of a job youve got to do with the wiring, I admire your skills   

PS i made a silly mistake myself tonight with Dave ( Mr Intruder ), just presumed he was going to be in and popped over there & guess what, he was at yours.    Really pleased he has took his first drive out on his own cause I know before this he has only tried riding the bike for a a short to make sure he still felt comfy & in control. Just spoke to Nikkita his daughter and he is now home so alls well. Takes some bottle that to take control again after what he has been through and still going through

PPS sounds very interesting with the battery experiments   

An extraordinary project with excellent vision, most inspirational.

Followed Mr Intruders journey for some time due to my work, undoubtedly a rather focused man with inner strength.

The bike is going to be amazing when finished due to the detailed way in which you are attacking everything, with no stone left unturned. I like the tank you showed me yesterday, that may get put on. It and will definitely suit the Cafe Racer look you are going for and has nice lines. By the way Ken recovering from a my injury is very strange, wouldn't dream of turning a key today but I am very cautious, once on the bike & once in the car was enough for me . At least I know I can still do it but the amount of time healing is taking is cracking me up but I will get there.

Oooh...we need piccies of the tank now!!!

Yes sounds interesting we need to see or all our Christmases will be incomplete just wondering about that,  

I think the melting of the connecting block was due to the dirty connection inside it creating a high resistance and heat, don,t want to spoil any ones Christmas    so, if you look on page 2 of this thread the tank on my flat  track style bike is the same one off an old AR50 Kawasaki, also looking through you tube and found this track I think suits this column.

One last thing for me to say   "MERRY CHRISTMAS" to everyone on the forum, welcome to all our new members and have a prosperous and great time, all the best Doc Cox.

                                                                      

                                              

                                                                                               

Sorry Nigel but I cant find it and I took ages looking, was it a game like wheres wally   

Go to page two and it is after the photo of Wally 

Hope you all had a good Christmas and received the presents you wanted, finished work early today and decided the time was right to do a bit more to the wiring,    this was fun and games trying to get all the connectors through a small hole between the frame and the rear cylinder head,





finally succeeded with a bit of pushing and shoving and found one of the connectors I wanted to check, these are brass inline crimps that have a habit of corroding badly but as they are hidden in the loom you don,t see them until a fault crops up with the electrics and then it can be a real pain, the ones in this loom look ok. this is probably because this bike came from America and hasn,t seen any road salt but will be chopping them out and redoing them as a soldered joint with heat shrink to protect them




The next photo is the wiring from under the seat that needs a good tidy up




next shot is the corroded main power wire and after splitting the loom found it connected to a decidedly non Yamaha looking fuse



feeling quite pleased with todays progress   hopefully get some more done tomorrow, just leaves me to wish you a Happy New Year, have fun and take care regards Doc Cox  

That is one seriously scary looking rats nest of wiring, that would freak me out in a big way.   

Private joke
Also wishing you and your most lovely sugar plumb fairy a wonderful 2014, don't get to stressed out with your wiring & take your grumbling in doors or your sugar plumb fairy will start the dance of the nutcracker.  

Thanks Dave and the same to you and all your family, did return your text but not sure if it went, don,t worry, no grumblings here this is the sort of work I love and the more tricky it gets the more determined I am to work it out  , will have to start calling Jan Tinkerbell from now on , PS. when you get a video call, don,t put the phone to your ear,   Love to your great family Nigel and Tinkerbell x

Doc Cox wrote:

PS. when you get a video call, don,t put the phone to your ear,  

Who me?  

Mr Intruder wrote:

That is one seriously scary looking rats nest of wiring, that would freak me out in a big way.   

   

Doc Good luck sorting that mess out.      

Just come back in from the garage, been carrying on with the inline crimp tidy up, if you do wiring any time I would highly recommend a set of these wire strippers, really well made and roughly £15.00 from Maplins,





and what a joy it is now when I have finished everything just to leave it  and know it will be in the same place when I get home tomorrow,  

Got a set of those & use them regular, must be a joy to have an area to store & work on your bikes again Nigel.

I see some other motorcycles lurking in the background :)

If I remember right Doc bought 2 viragos

Thats right Crash,     the one in the back corner is the Virago that will be getting more radical treatment to it,  .

Can't wait for results.

I'd love to have a spare one to mess about with...
If the business goes well I probably will end up with one..I'd love to try myself with fabricating/metalworking.

I was very lucky Marcin and managed to buy these two just before Christmas last year both at very reasonable prices,

Finally got round to some more work on the wiring today, on the first photo is one of the crimps and you can see the corrosion on the wire




Then pulled one of the coil connectors apart to clean up the inside of the spade connectors, carefully prised it apart with a srewdriver and used the flat file behind it to remove the corrosion from the inside,





Here is the connector back together with a spirap covering instead of the messy old electrical tape



In this shot you can see the spirap winding more clearly,



Here this is feed from the main loom to the coils, again more grotty insulation, so a complete strip and clean up later plus the spirap ...





While doing the wiring decided to remove the rear subframe to give it a clean up and remove some unnecessary brackets, but thats another (wet) day project.

dontchya just love a sparky at his job!  

You are clearly going at this project with admirable zest & no stone will be left unturned. Having seen the bike and what your up against simply because of your enthusiasm for it to be fully refurbished from all angles, respect must come your way. It would be to easy to just quickly do what was necessary to get her on the road and ride her. However that way would simply give you a bike to ride but this way you know you will potentially have a bike that is not just as good as it was when new but better because you will know it inside out and improved her.
When you first got the two bikes I didn't really hear what you were saying so to speak but I can clearly hear you now. This bike will be wonderful when you have completed it when your various ideas have been realised with it. However at least when you actually start the other Virago which you have and really radicalise it you will be in a really good place of knowledge due to this one which you are treating in a careful & considerate way.
 

I'd like to echo what Mr Intruder says   Plus it saves me a load of typing  

Good call, that's one for the memory bank. Wait till someone says something I want to say. 

Thanks Guys, well back in the garage again today, sorting out the wiring that runs down the spine of the frame and cleaning up the associated connectors, was using the trusty Dremell to get rid of the surface corrosion which wasn,t too bad when you think of the bikes age,



this is one of the coil connectors,



This was just another one I chose as an example,


this is the connector after clean up, these will be filled with vasaline before reconnecting, and now a bit of simple magic, now you see the wiring


and now you don,t

after tidying the wire so it now runs along the top of the frame things seem to be coming back together, had to space the CDI unit up by three washers just enough so it wouldn,t crush the wiring, also very handy having the other Virago as I can use it to check the other ones wiring siting, well, take all of you out there, regards to all, Doc Cox E-MC2.

That is so much tidier, nice job so far.  

Nice job   that spirap seems good stuff.

Looking good Nigel,you are doing a cracking job.

Glad you like the thread, half the fun for me is building the bike and seeing what new ideas for improvement there are, yes Simbo spirap is excellent material, have been using it fir many years now, first came across it when I was in the Air Force, ( much cheaper then) and it comes in quite a few sizes,  go onto Ebay and look for Spiral Wrap, buy some and you will never look back, you will realise what a deprived life you had led up until then, just like my friends daughter, I was nearly going nearly going to call social in, do you realise she is 16 and had never had a chip butty until last year when I introduced her to them, neglect I call it,  

I'm 33 and I never had a chip butty    

Marcin you lead such a secluded life, do you get out during daylight now?      

Not really

Blimey Marcin    33 and never had a chip butty,     bear with me and will organise a chip butty and red cross parcel... :moed:

Had a good find on ebay the other day, have been looking for exhausts to modify to fit the bike and came up with this for a good price,came of an older model Harley and will be fine after a bit of cutting and shutting,






Popped in to see Dave today, as usual had a good chat and a laugh, plus an excellent cup of tea, thanks Margaret, showed him the exhaust and he said it would look good on the bike, have done rough fit but, I think the rear box looks too big for the bike, ( "Would look good on the Intruder Dave)  just had a thought, we were all discussing the new V twin from Yamaha a couple of weeks ago and the general consensus was that no one was very keen on it, while driving through Worcestershire saw one outside the local Yamaha dealers finished in satin black, In my opinion this was a good looking bike, unfortunately couldn,t stop to get a photo,

I will repeat myself Doc, That 2 into 1 would look bloody fabulous. Loved your idea of having it ceramic coated and it would sound great.

That don't look like its fits are have I missed something completely. Love the muffler   

That looks good Doc & I can see where you are coming from re cut n shut on the pipes as it looks like it sticks out too far under the rest's but I can guess it'll sound most excellent dude!  

Thanks to all you guys for the backing and comments, did some surgery to the Ebay exhaust today to get it ready for cutting,





As the song goes " The first cut is the deepest "




Pipes seperated, only took two cuts with the grinder and a bit of twisting, they look as if they were a heat shrink fit inside the exhaust, 




Here is one of the pipes roughly mounted to give a rough view of what the system will look like, using the standard Virago pipe for the front and the idea is to blend the two pipes into each other instead of having a "Y" piece joining them.






When working on the bike I use the magnet out of an old microwave to hold the tools I am using as so often things get put down, accidently kicked or just blend into the background, helps quite a bit.




 
                                                                               

Ah! The industrial Dremel lol Excellent tools and every household should have one, Can't wait to see this exhaust fitted, Especially if your having it coated Black Ceramic? (I'm Interested in this finish) Good tip with the Magnet Doc    Funny thing is? I thought how's he stuck that Magnet to an Aluminium swing arm? lol good old silver paint  

Yes, the Dremel, a really versatile tool, especially handy when cleaning up small electrical contacts, yes Sim, that,s a not very well applied coat of silver paint, have  another swinging arm to be blasted and coated plus a rear subframe that needs a few bits grinding off and fitting, sorry folks made a mistake with the photos, here is the one of the pipes dummy rigged on the engine, the brown thing on the left is a hammer handle I was holding it on with




There will be a slight imbalance with the exhaust flow as the Harley pipe is a larger bore than the Virago although they look the same, internally the Virago has a smaller bore pipe running through it, but, this is really is for cosmetic looks as the larger pipes look beefier , the large bore pipes are more usefull in the upper rev range where most people rarely go (Apart from Dave!!) the latest  V twin from Yamaha has the smaller bore pipes but also has a heat shield that doesn,t make them so obvious,

looks like you have it sussed Doc!  

Doc Cox wrote:

the large bore pipes are more usefull in the upper rev range where most people rarely go (Apart from Dave!!)

    Allegedly.   

Great idea with the magnet Doc, if hindsight was applicable I could of saved many many hours looking for mislaid tools, bolts and other bits if I had used such a common sense approach.
This really is going to be a very personal yet well thought out bit of machinery. Your idea of cutting & shutting two exhaust pipes and running them into a single muffler will look good. The idea of ceramic coating the pipes will give you a one off & beautiful system. Not many people when changing pipes will go to as much work as you are prepared to do with cutting & shutting plus reshaping & adding length to pipes from another model so as to fit their bike.
The enthusiasm that you show with what you are doing and the way in which your attacking this project is admirable. Having just got back from yours just now after a visit with the wife to visit you and your lovely wife Jan, I had to get on here and tap away on the keyboard. The bike is looking great and the way that you are prepared to take your time and get everything right the first time is great. Can't wait for the day of reckoning when you start to ride her. Somehow I got a feeling that even when she is finished she will still be generating idea's that will scream at you to get them done, so the bike will never be finished in that respect.

O now I get it, I couldn't work out how they were gonna fit on the bike, I never thought about cut extend and shut + reweld and ceramic coating them all together       
Wow one off designer pipes now that will be cool what muffler will you use if you are planning a 2 into 1. have you got one in mind and what do you have planned for that, I bet it will have to be modified and improved from what it already is in some way  

Thanks Dave, ( OK. Alledgedly ). Was great to have you and Margaret visit, you and your family are always welcome , and thank you for the flowers and chocolates for Jan, she was really chuffed, Crash, if you look back at the earlier exhaust photos you will see one that looks like a long megaphone type, this is the one I will be using, yes, you are right it will be modified slightly !!! Will be also using the Harley exhaust valve and the electric servo it came with rigged up to a simple switch operation on the handlebar switch assemblies,

O man this is sounding more and more like a really cool build all the time. That will look cool with the megaphone pipe, the ceramic coating on the pipes is really a cool idea. Darn site better than wrapping them and will be a great finish for personally designed and built pipes. Out of curiosity will they be black or do you have another colour scheme in mind or is it to early to think of the finishing touches?