MKL's 1973 R75/5 LWB Toaster
A Work In Progress - The R75/5 on 8-5-03
Removal of Fuel Tank, Front Fender, Bing Carbs, and Exhaust System: The sheetmetal is all off now. The fuel tank’s petcocks were full of red speckles, which I assume is the old inner-lining, and should be redone. One of the petcocks was missing a filter grid. The front fender came off without any problem. The exhaust system also came off without any problem – I just dabbed a small amount of penetrating oil near the finned header nuts, and off they came without much effort. However, the right head’s exhaust threads are looking pretty sad. I will check with the dealer if they are bad enough to warrant repair – likely not, but they’re showing their wear. The carbs came off also, again with no problem. I checked the jets per Clymer and everything matches stock numbers. I did not mess with any adjustment screws, and don’t plan to at this time.
I now have the frame, motor, final drive / swingarm & rear wheel, front end, and headlight assembly. The associated wiring is still there as well. Here are some issues, from rear to front…
1) Part of my restoration idea is to repaint the frame, though this time the same color as the sheetmetal. The fd / swingarm takes a lot of abuse and gets dirty fast, and I was thinking about chroming it as I saw on a site I discovered http://www.postaldave.com/restore/cleaning.html I contacted Dave this morning to ask if chroming presented any issues (especially with the mating surfaces).
2) Taking the motor out of the frame looks to be tight clearance. I guess I need to remove the plastic air intake thing on top of the block to gain more space, and then just wiggle it out somehow. The Clymer manual makes it sound like a 2 man job, and mentions removing the jugs / head /valve covers, which I would rather not do. I wonder if one can remove it without taking it apart…
3) I did the “sticktion” tests on the front end as per Duane’s site, but am still of the opinion that the front end needs a rebuild. The seals are very old. I also want to remove the turn signals, but their brackets seem to serve a purpose near the tree. I will have to look into this further – haven’t studied the front end yet.
4) Headlight assembly has all sorts of massive cabling going into it. I’m afraid of what I will find inside, as I am extremely bad at anything which involves electrical work. Nevertheless, it needs to be taken apart, if only for the speedo / tach rebuild.
Finally, we have the seat issue. I was devastated to find out that Corbin does not make the Gunfighter for the LWB model, so I searched and found an alternative (same $300 price) at Eurotech, except the Eurotech model was vinyl instead of leather, and plastic basepan instead of metal. I also discovered that Sargent can use my existing horrible pillow two-up (with a metal pan, though) and make me a custom Gunfighter style seat, with leather and my colors of choice, for about $300. Hmmmm….. Also of note on the seat issue is that Duane’s /6 seat mod shows a subframe which is different from mine – I have a thin bar going across where Duane shows a much broader bar – his mod would be much tougher to do on my subframe, but I’ll look into it further.