Now that the weather is finally decent occasionally for riding I’ve started to put a little into getting my motorcycle up and running a bit better.
Here’s what I got last weekend:
Rear Seat back/luggage holder
New seat
New chain tensioners
New left engine side cover (near the left foot)
Plenty of stuff to clean the bike with
I had a little issue mid last week before I did this. I was riding near Fenway and my left chain tensioner for some reason broke. The allowed the axel to move, the chain went slack and popped off. In the process it broke some metal off near the front sprocket. I replaced the tensioners and left panel that broke a bit and its good to go again.
I just ordered a few new parts:
New clutch plates
Front and Rear sprockets
New chain
New air filter
I still need to do and get a few more things though:
Carb rebuild kit (the carbs aren’t bad, but could be better I’m sure)
Top end gasket
A complete valve job. I don’t think I can do this myself unfortunately.
Repaint the gas tank
New exhaust (I’ve found some Harley ones I’m going to try to fit on there but I’m open to ideas)
I’d also really like to figure how to make the front brake more powerful. I’ve heard replacing the lines with kevlar/metal ones should help a lot but I’m unsure.
I’m hoping to figure out how to build a DIY HUD system for my motorcycle helmet. It seems that one company did make some of them at one point, but no longer. It is definitely feasible to put a HUD system in a helmet and the Air Force/Navy have been doing this for some time.
Why?
I’d prefer to never have to look down at the handlebars to know some basic things about my riding. I’d ideally show:
Speed
Tach (RPMs)
Gear
Compass Direction
High/low beam indication and left/right turn signal indicators
Engine temperature
Factors:
Sounds difficult, but I think we’re in luck for a lot of things according to the Wikipedia, but there’s some setbacks too:
field of vision — I need to focus the display at around 10 feet out to infinity. This part shouldn’t be too hard, but seems to require some type of lens-like area to help focus it.
eyebox —the eyebox is generally where your head/eye must be to see the image. Luckily the area of variability inside the helmet is almost zero. My helmet is tight and my eyes don’t move around in there.
luminance/contrast — Doing this automatically might be a little tricky, but I’m already imagining that I could automatically adjust it relatively easily with some basic logic or even an analog circuit.
display accuracy — Since I won’t be displaying information (at least at first) about things around me, and just the status of the bike, this doesn’t matter too much.
installation — I have to work with the bike itself. This might be a bit tricky. The electronics on the bike are for lights and ignition only. There’s no ‘logic’ on the bike and everything is manual since its from 1979.
How?
I’m honestly not sure where to start. It seems like having a semi-transparent/semi-reflective surface on a small area inside my helmet which is reflecting back a mini OLED screen would be the best. Some of the hardest stuff I think will be integration with the bike. The bike integration is one of the hardest parts probably because the bike is so old and analog.
I’ll probably have to wear a small backpack with a netbook (or at least the guts) in it, or embed it inside a saddleback or in the bike itself. The computer will connect to the bike likely via an Arduino. I’m hoping to get to the point that I can use purely an Arduino and have no laptop. The Arduino will have a lot of sensors hooked to its inputs from the bike (turn sensors, temperature and a digital compass). It will run from a small regulated split from the power on the bike itself with a battery backup.
Hoping to hack some Apple Magsafe style connectors to give me the ability to easily split away from the bike in case I move off of it or fall, because there will need to be a cable from the helmet. Also ideally I could control it via voice commands, but these rarely work well and would definitely require a netbook or OLPC in/with the bike to make it work.
Got ideas? I’ll definitely document the work and I’m open to suggestions. Comments below!
In late August Sarah sent me a Craigslist posting that detailed a 1979 Honda CM400T motorcycle for only $400 in working condition. I had recently given up a 1981 Honda 750CBK that my father and I had worked on a bit over the years in an attempt to get it restored- yet had never completed and I had never rode.
I hopped on the opportunity immediately and drove over that evening to pick up the bike. We got it into the back of my Chevy 1500 pickup truck and took it home.
It should be noted that I had little to no riding experience. I can drive anything with four wheels, from a BMW to a 24″ U-Haul with little issue, and I’ve rode jetskis, scooters, dirtbikes and snow-mobiles. Yet I had never been the operator of an actual on-road motorcycle.
Outside Sprout Labs five of us lifted it off the truck since we didn’t have a suitable ramp. The first time starting it was a bit of a trick and I can’t quite remember what I was doing wrong. Probably forgot to put it in the ‘start’ position or something. I know that I did flood it badly, to the degree that at one point it spat a large amount of (what I believe was) gasoline onto the pavement. Yet, I did manage to walk/wheel it home.
The bike was in pretty good shape. The seat needed a new cover, and there were small bits of rust in various places, but nothing that appeared to go through the frame. After that first night, it started fairly easily always and gave me few issues.
Getting a permit was rather easy but the entire process was rather tedious. Massachusetts recently put in massive budget cuts to their RMV (what the rest of the union calls a DMV) and many branches had been closed. For whatever reason I was stupid enough to go to the Watertown branch which is filled with some of the most incompetent people in the world. Not a single person there deserves their job in my opinion- but that is another story. Over the course of several hours I managed to weave through the bureaucracy of paperwork, changing requirements, taking a number, workers taking lunch in the middle of helping you, rudeness and waiting.
Sarah let me borrow her 3/4 helmet from her 50-cc Scooter for initial driving. YouTube videos came in handy for remembering a few tricks, like proper shifting and braking.
My first day out I left the house and set down Massachusetts Ave toward Arlington. Before I even hit Arlington a man in his 50′s pulled up beside me on a sport bike and offered me the advice that I should get gloves as soon as humanly possible and that there was a shop up the road.
I stopped in there and made purchase of the gloves. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d be back there a good bit.
I set back on my path and kept riding. I was nervous. The bike was hard to get into neutral and even harder occasionally to get out. I kept stalling like I was a 16 year old learning to drive a stick again and cars behind me were nervewracking and impatient while I tried to get it started.
I turned around shortly after and went home. My thumbs and hands hurt from the clutch and I was not used to the wind in my face at 45mph. Overall, not a bad first ride.
My second day out, well that’s a story for another day. But it involves Route 2, my bike smoking and the realization that I needed a full faced helmet. Also I should delve into my thoughts on riding overall and the freedom that a motorcycle provides. And pictures. We need pictures.
