I bought a wreck of a bike a few months ago, the idea being to fill in time and resurrect the bike. I haven't had anything to do with bikes since I sold my Bonny almost 20 years ago. I have PsA, which affects my hands, arms and feet terribly so, I'll never be able to ride it. It's a lifetime project so I'll probably never even finish it, keeps me off the streets at night though.
The lower case was badly damaged, looked like the chain had come of, in the process it tore half the gearbox drum bearing housing off and also removed a good section of the top case of. I sourced a new, second hand one and blasted it along with the top end. The cases were then painted and I set about sticking it back together again.
Carbs and taps were in a terrible condition so I also blasted them and put a new seal kit through them. The advance mechanism backplate had the bob weight pins set at an odd angle, each angle different. I turned up a new backplate from Delrin only to discover the reason for the angled pins: the through rod, which goes through the cam, is too short and the backing plate to thick so the bob weight heels miss the slots on the trogh rod. No real problem, I just skimmed a few mms off the face of the backplate and all works well now. The backing plate is secured in place by a thin, recessed, castelated nut which proved difficult to remove. Once it was off I made a four pronged spanner for re-assembly.
The alternator proved a little stubborn to remove so I made up a puller, cutting an 18 x 1.5 thread on the lathe. Worked well with the rotor coming off in a few turns. Sidecovers, rocker covers, carb tops and bottoms, cam chain adjuster, dipstick, starter motor ends and a few other bits and pieces were cleaned up and polished.
Handlebar switchblocks were a mess so I blasted them, polished them, replaced a few cables and stuck them back together. I've also mounted a temporary ignition circuit together to start the engine when I'm ready. Original rectifier was stuffed so I replaced it with a $3, three phase unit from China. Solenoid was also stuffed so I also replaced it with a cheap unit from China. Parts prices for the XS/TX650s are ridiculous so, where possible, I've made parts myself or replaced them with parts from other manufacturers or China. Budget build, no point in spending big dollars on a bike Ii can never ride and probably will never finish.
I'm polishing the fork sliders at the moment. BZike came with mags and the original wheels so I decided on using the original spoked wheels. I polished the hubs only to find the rs too badly damaged to use again so I'll probably be using the mags unless I can find a couple of ally rims in good nick for a good price.
The engine has two oil filters one in the sump and another in the right hand sidecover. I cleaned up the latter and replaced it but, the sump filter was cactus. ?I discovered the sump filter was going to cost a small filter so have decided to make up an alternative using a spin on filter, just haven't worked out how to do it yet. I'll probably tap through the upper case and remote mount the filter housing in front of the engine.