Saturday, August 18, 2012

Bars and taps

The handlebars on the bike were extremely narrow. I guess that would be fine but I didn't like how cramped they felt. And when you were at full lock to the left your hand couldn't be on the brake or it'd get smashed. Not good.

We picked up a pair of Monster bars. One for the Cagiva and one for the 860GT. The 860 had the same problem, someone put bars on it that were narrowed. I had read somewhere that early Monster bars work great and so far they have. For one thing the chrome bars were very inexpensive. They came from Monster Parts and are only $39. Apparently the Monster controls are located with pegs or screws or something as these bars have small holes in a couple places.

As you can see at full lock to the right there is plenty of room for the lever and reservoir. Ok, plenty might be an exaggeration but there is enough.

As I said the other side is now usable at full lock. I will replace the master cylinder at some point to match the clutch side. This will work for now. I need to take another look at the cable and wiring routing but it seems that it will be fine. And then I'll add the bar end mirrors. But that can wait until after I get it running properly.

 I think I mentioned I was halted in my adventures by a leaking petcock. We sourced a pair of petcocks from Eurotrash Jambalaya. They are single taps so no crossover unless I put some T's in the lines. Since they have reserves on each side it should be fine. For some reason dual outlet taps are not very common?

I got the pair for a Bevel. For some reason the front carb tap faces forward and the rear to the rear. I'll have to rotate the inlet banjo and loop the line to the front.

I'll now at least get the bike started again and keep trying to figure out why it races. I've also got vacuum gauges so I can get the carbs synced properly. And the weather is suppose to finally come down from the triple digits and that will make working in the garage a little more pleasant.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Fuse Panel Update

As pointed out by Izaak on the Alazzurra Yahoo Group there is a much simpler solution.

Universal 4-way ATC fuse block with 4 separate circuits.

This is a "plug and play" with no re-wiring required. Since I won't be building a new wiring harness for the Alazzurra (yet) I'll go with one of these too.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Replacement Fuse Panel


The stock fuse panel uses some archaic ceramic fuses. They are notorious for not making a great connection and the ease at which you can remove them bears this out. On the panel the far left fuse is the main power.


The main power starts at the alternator, goes to the voltage regulator, to starter solenoid, then to the battery. From the battery it comes to this fuse then to the general relay. From the general relay it changes to the brown wire you see at the top of the fuse panel. This is your switched power.


This is a simple fuse panel with a ground block. I may switch this out for a 4 fuse panel without the ground block as the Alazzurra grounds to the frame. For a custom harness I'd bring as many grounds as I could to the ground block.

I made a pigtail with a round connector at one end to fit onto the power block and a spade connector on the other. It will fit in the stock brown wire connector. Having the extra connection isn't idea but it retains the stock wiring connector and I don't cut into the harness.

Then I'll move the three wires to the new fuse block. The first one is the turn signals and brake lights. The next one is horn and the last one goes to the handlebar switch.

I'll also add a separate 25 amp inline fuse to the main power. The other fuses will be 8-10 amps.