Rubbed down the first layer of body clag on the rear fender and applied the second layer. I hope that will do it.

While waiting for that to harden, I proceeded to fit the rear brake pedal assembly.  Bit of a fiddly job with the brake switch hook, it goes through a very tiny space between the swingarm and the engine.  Barely enough room to pass it through.

Will need to touch up the chassis paint in various places as it got scratched in the process,but no biggie. 

Fitted a temp ground between rear lamp and one of the inducator brackets ( appears to be aftermarket and grounds through the fender, just two wires) Don't like that idea, I will solder a dedicated ground onto the bulb holder.

Time to try the lights...



Yup.  Light switch on. Tail lamp lit.

Tried front brake.  Yup brake light lit.  Tried rear brake.  Yup brake light lit.

Its just that soddin body clag and paint now.

I have made the first attempt after several strong arabica bean based beverages...


Brake lever assembly fitted and connected.  Brake switch hook was a bitch.  Needs some touch up work now.
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Quality Control Inspector keeping a close eye on the job to ensure no shortcuts.  I have three on my case...



Tail light lit.


Both tail light and brake light lit together.  Aftermarket lamp unit is not exactly sparkling quality.  I think I will rewire it with the correct wire colours and make it a bit more fit for purpose.






 

Rubbed second layer and applied superglue to fill the tiny imperfections.  Rubbed that down and it feels ok.  There are still some small imperfections but a few layers of primer and flatting down should see to those.  If not, they are hidden by the seat anyway.

Took it to spray some white primer on and had one of those sinking feeling moments.  Picked up the 3/4 can of primer, shook it up, pressed the button and a lacklustre squirt came out.  Cleaned nozzle, tried again with same result.  Tried a nozzle I knew was fine.  Same result.  For some reason the can has lost most of its pressure. 

Another can will appear on wednesday.

Turned my attention to the aftermarket rear lamp unit.  It had red and blue wires, the blue being the brakelight and the red being the tailight. Ground is through the fender itself.
Odd choice.  The tailight feed on the bike is blue / white and the brakelight is green/ yellow.  I looked at my stock of wire. 
I had green/white which is close enough to green/ yellow for someone else not to get mixed up in the future.  Besides, the white will yellow with age.
No blue/ white but had the blue already on the tail lamp.  A quick snip, swap over and solder and we now have colours that are not confusing.  When I tested the lights previously I had them reversed.  I put blue to blue. The tail lamp was operated by the brake switches and the brakelamp by the light switch.  
I also soldered a dedicated ground wire to the bulbholder.  Relying on a ground through painted parts is a very poor, penny pinching way of saving 50 pence by the manufacturer in my book.
There is a ground provided from the loom for just that dedicated ground.

Rear fender rubbed down.  Gawd how I hate it...


Tailight fitted to as close to orginal wiring colours as I can get with what I had to hand.  Easy enough to be able to plug them in confidently, knowing it is correct.  Dedicated ground fitted, plugged in and working.

Well it is back together.  Of course it will never be done, there are always teething troubles and niggles that you feel could be done better.
Case in point; headlamp main beam and blue repeater light are suddenly not working.  Simple fix, the yellow wire from the hi lo switch must have got tugged and disconnected from their common junction when I put the reflector back in.  It is the only possible cause, unless the switch itself suddenly went faulty, which is doubtful.

It is what I said it would be from the outset, a 46 year old bike that has been preserved to last another 46 years.  It will not be my problem then.  Number of running roadworthy examples in the UK just went up to 26.
It will never be and was never intended to be a show bike.  It is a long way from perfect, the paint is laughable; just not worth putting the money into it.  It would cost three times what the bike is worth to make it a show standard bike that unfortunately was never desireable enough to actually have a chance of winning.

I hope everyone found it a most entertaining thread and more importantly, to encourage some out there to have a go themselves. 
It is not an easy task restoring an almost 50 year old bike with long obsolete parts.  It does not matter who you are, you could be a senior yamaha development engineer, and you will still have problems and have to find solutions, but one step at a time....  I hope this thread prepared you for them.

Arrival at start of august 2023


Xmas 2023.














 

Well done! 

I appreciate your story with all the twists and turns. Thank you..
Now what’s next? (:
Sneezles61

I am gathering parts to rebuild the 175 engine. 

At the moment though, I need to do a bit of work around the house and gardens. It has reached one of those times when it needs some major renovations that seem to come around every 10 years or so.  That is the reason for the DT100 Xmas deadline.  Last week we had landscape gardeners in, dumping  20 tonnes of rubble into the garden pond and another 10 tonnes of gravel to level it out.  It is just a bare expanse of gravel at the moment.

As for the 100, I am waiting for a dating certificate so I can register it for the road on an age related number.

When I start the 175 engine out, I will resurrect the devil bike thread.

I appreciate your journaling of the trials you have found on your journey. I have a 73 MX250 that I have been working on in the past, and have had so many setbacks, including the disappearing posts that took away for a while what I have done to date at that time. Well the posts were resurrected but my journaling has not been able to catch up. The whole process has been very difficult, and to try to get everything posted that has happened since the posts came back and my crappy memory, is another frustration of the project.

I still plan to carry on with the journaling, simply need to take time to do so. Your posts are an encouragement.

Thanks again,
Jack

Tinkicker fabulous job on your bike!! Can’t wait to see what’s next.   

Nothing unfortunately.  I have run out of room to store them.

Yes, well done, great read!
Keep it up for the crew please.

cliff