About : Making cables yourself (A tip Fred Hill posted on the micapeak mailinglist)

Hi Brent, best thing is, buy a new one, dog-leg and all. If you can´t find
or can´t afford a new cable, you CAN replace the nipple on the old one. The
nipples that were part of the cable are cast-in-place shitmetal and can´t be
salvaged, so make a replacement nipple from brass rod. Drill it through to
just to slip over the cable. then drill it maybe 1/3rd the way through about
3/16" or 1/4" diameter. Check if the cable got shorter by breaking off with
the nipple or did it slip out through? Shorten the outer to suit if needful.
Now make sure all the parts are back on the cable in the right order. Thread
the cable wire through the nipple, spread out the cable end like a teeny
tiny chimney-sweep´s brush and pull the spread end down into the big part of
the hole you made in the replacement nipple. Then solder the cable end in
place, use a bernz torch, lots of heat, lots of flux, one of those induction
solder guns won´t cut it. It´ll look all globby when you´ve done, clean up
with a file or VERY carefully use a grinder.
Fred Hill, S´toon.

> While cleaning my Clutch lever.........the nipple on the end of the
> cable feel in half,
> I tried one of those srew on nipples`s after cutting the remainder of the
> old one off.
> No good so tied soldering the sucker in, still not strong enough.!
>
> I need a new cable......but how do you replace the dog leg cromb
elbow
> on to the new cable? or do I need to buy a YAMAHA part.(with elbow) ?
>
> Brent Thornton XS650SH81. Ps it could have been worst and broke on
the
> road.:)
>

About : Annealing (A tip Fred Hill posted on the micapeak mailinglist)

> More on annealing from my paleontologist / geologist / polymer-
> composite scientist brother Bob Denton................

Dear Sherlock, I just read Mycroft´s annealing monograph and to my limited
understanding of the matter he is absolutely correct on the theories
involved and I salute his understanding of the subject.
This leads to the question of: If "annealing" is a mis-applied
scientific term, what then is Freddie really doing to those copper and
aluminum parts with his oxy-acetylene torch and his pail of water?
Copper: I´ll bet commercial copper ain´t 100% pure so it´s nobility is
bastardized to start with. Copper certainly gets work-hardened; I torch used
copper seals etc. to a dull red which seems to remove the work hardening.
Whether they air-cool or are quenched seems to make no difference to the
subsequent hardness but I quench because I am impatient and because
quenching pops the oxide off so they look nice.
Aluminum: Most "aluminum" sheet is some sort of alloy and you usually don´t
know which one. Used "as is" it ends to crack when attempting to make a
right angle bend in it. Most aluminum alloys can be heat treated by using a
torch and a wooden match stick. Heat the part until your match stick leaves
a charcoal smear on it´s surface ( that´s ~451F according to Ray Bradbury)
then let it air cool. You have then about an hour to work with the part
until it "remembers" how hard it used to be and reverts; takes longer if you
freeze it.
At Bristol Aeroplane Co. they used to keep the "annealed" duralumin rivets
in the deepfreeze to stop them reverting. You had to sign for them and the
stores guy would chase you down an hour later and snatch back the unused
ones.
Fred Hill, S´toon.

About : drilling brake discs (tips from several people)

Fred Hill wrote

Bryan, 168 holes will turn the disc into lace unless they´re too small to
work anyway. Four 10mm or 3/8" holes will completely span the disc radial
dimension. A simple pattern would be to run 4 holes from each spoke in the
disc at a 45 degree angle or an maybe in an arc such that no hole breaks
into another but the path of the edge of each as they move across the pad
just touches the path of the edge of the next . Advise your cousin use low
speed, high drill pressure and lots of coolant; the disc is made from really
tough material.
Fred Hill, S´toon.

Dick Brewster wrote

The swept pattern of the holes should overlap so the pads are completely
swept by holes 3 or more times per rotor revolution. Don´t drill holes so
close together or so close to the edge that you risk breaking the disk.
Don´t get so carried away with making holes that you remove too much of the
mass of the disk.

Other than that, it´s a styling exercise, have at it.

Dick

Skylab wrote


Use your imagination, but try to keep this in mind. Sure you are trying to
gain weight savings, but most important is sweeping crud and water from the
pads. I use a 30 degree rotation, then drill alternately 3 holes and two
holes in different spheres to effect a thorough sweep of the pad. Chamfer
every hole.

All the three holes are in the same alingment of spheres (circles), and the
two holes are spaced between them. I created a drawing below to clarify.



....o
...o
..o
.o
o

Skylab



In a message dated 5/6/01 7:25:38 PM EST, xstwinster@mindspring.com writes:

<< Do not chamfer the holes. The sharp edge will help keep the disc clean. >>

I beg to differ. There is no way the hole will be a "clean" cut, it will have
protrusion into the disc plane surface, tearing the brake pads up!! The hole
itself will keep the disc clean.

Skylab

Bob Scogin wrote


> Thanks everybody for all the advice on this. SL, I
> thought the holes were supposed to stay sharp in order
> to better cut away any crud getting stuck in the pad?
> If they should be chamfered, how much? I imagine just
> barely, yes?
> Thanks
> Bryan

I´ve drilled a zillion of ´em over the past 20+ years and I don´t chamfer
them. I do, however, use a 90 deg countersink the deburr the hole edge.
Bob Scogin
Slidell,La. USA

Mike Davis wrote


The following is from the now famous article by Joe Menton, Better known as
the "Menton Mods".
(this was lifted from the www.650central.com site)

BRAKES: Yamaha brakes are among the best in production today; they are
fitted with rigid calipers and have a solid feel that gives the rider
excellent control. However, they can be improved. The disks themselves are
rather heavy (the heaviest in the industry), and Yamaha´s disc material
leads to galling. Small pieces of the disc material are torn loose and imbed
themselves in the brake pad. These imbedded particles then act as cutting
tools that gouge grooves in the disc and reduce its effectiveness as a
braking surface. There is a simple solution to this problem: drilling the
disc. If the disc is drilled in such a manner that the entire surface of the
pad is swept by holes, the metal particles are carried away, and galling
will never take place. In fact, galled disc drilled in this manner will
polish up and work much better than it did before being drilled. The holes
should be left somewhat sharp at their edges - not so sharp that you might
cut your finger on them, but sharp. Specialists II will drill Yamaha discs
with a 168-hole pattern that will do the job for $40. There is nothing you
can do that will improve your Yamaha´s brakes as much as this drilling
operation. The holes will not improve wet braking much, if at all, but they
will greatly improve the effectiveness of your bike´s brakes.

Mike Davis

My disc was drilled almost 20 years ago, were not chamfered, and work
fine,

Disc has never been turned, I have only replaced the pads once, recently,
because they were rattling badly at idle. Drove me crazy!
The holes may have been deburred with one of those little hand held
deburring tools. But they were not chamfered. You can still feel the edge of
the holes.

Mike Davis

Michael "Mercury" Morse wrote

Dave Sentz wrote:
>I have a question about something I read on your exellent web site about
>drilling brake discs. I think you said that if the disc is drilled with
holes the
>same diameter as the disc thickness, that brake area would be increased
>or something like that. And I´m close on this? I don´t quite follow that
and
>was wondering if you could elucidate.

That´s radiating area.
Disc lightening--drilling vs. thinning: both will reduce mass and therefore heat
sink capability. Some pluses for drilling: If the holes drilled are smaller in
diameter than the thickness of the disc, surface area is increased. With the
right pattern, potential for warpage is decreased. Holes or slots with give
the gas bubble created someplace to dissipate. Finally, the thicker disc allows
the pads to sit deeper in the caliper, minimizing cocking and enhancing retraction.
The down side is that it is very difficult and usually impossible to drill a pattern that
will sweep the entire face of the pad, creating uneven pad and disc wear. Thinned
discs need

Econobiker sent this out to the Micapeak list. I decided to mirror the high resolution version of these as an archive, for easy of download to those that want all the schematics anyway. Enjoy. I cropped the pics to save space. No information was lost, no bikes were harmed in the process. This is the link to the zip-archive . If someone wants thumbnails, go to the original briefcase Econo set up.

Latest news: Bob Bertaut cleaned up these images even further and thumnailed them. See this page .



I scanned the electical diagrams from all of the Yamaha OEM mechanic manuals
and the cool full color early edition Clymer diagrams.Clymer later editions
cheaped out with black and white and deleted the performance upgrade
chapter - liability you know and the fact that the suppliers all went away
as the XS650 became a used bike but was not a cool vintage bike. Note that
there are no 1976C and 1979F diagrams (even though I have manuals listing
the bikes) but the 1975B and 1978E(late) would serve as the diagrams for
these bikes. Also the 1982SJ/1983SK diagram was a little weak to begin with
but hopefully you can read it. The Clymers only cover up to ´81 but have a
1976C diagram listed. The colors in the Clymer diagrams match the colors
that should exist on the wires including the two color wires. One good
thing, both Yamaha & Clymers, is that the most later diagrams have the
plastic connectors drawn in approximately the same shape that they are in
the real world.

I have named the diagrams as the year and model with some having a second
version of the diagram or a multiple page (diagram, wirecodes, extra
component diagram). The Clymers are all prefixed with "cly".



http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/econobiker2



Please, if you want all the diagrams try to wait a couple of days before
mass downloading them so everyone can have a look. Hopefully we won´t have
any problems with crashing downloads or album that I set up. It took a
quite a while to post the scans to the album from a 56k (49k actual)
connection!!!!! These are very large files. The smallest one is around
176KB up to about 450kb. I had to scan to big files to get the resolution
of the tiny wire lines and color codes. Sorry but you have to figure out
how to print them to paper size yourself. Click through to full size
version by viewing the thumbnail then screen size then click on the screen
size to view the huge version. I would think you would want to "save as" on
this version.

I also threw in the XS650 engine stand as a bonus but I think some of the
dimensions may be too small.

econobiker
Nashville, TN
"just say yesssssss to another
XSsssssssssss.........................................650, that is."

On a quest for information about the OW72 head, I came across this beautiful piece of engeneering.
A 4 gear transmission. The small gear on the left is just for the kickstarter mechanism.
Some parts missing - a fork was bent, or a bearing broken, can´t remember exactly.