It's getting close....

We treated the bike to a brand new, Ballistic Lithium-Ion battery.  These will be the wave of the future, and maybe power motorcycles (widespread) in the future.  For now, they provide amazing power with little weight in a tiny package.

It fits nicely under the rear seat hump.  Out of the way, and protected from the elements.  It has plenty of "juice" to turn over the big pistons on our twin.

The tank cap was installed, and test-fitted into place.  Thankfully we had no fuel to run through it, as we forgot to install the petcock on the left hand side!!!  That would have meant a nasty spill on the floor.  

It`s nearly complete -- still some details to sort, but we should have those complete by the next session!  Mr. S has gone to grab another lottery licence, and the raffle should start shortly.  More details to follow.

Fluids

Another successful Kids Cafe session saw us do some work on the "lifeblood" of any machine, the fluids.  Step one was the bleed the front brake system.  The rear is a mechanical drum brake, so the front needed some new DOT4 fluid.

The finishing touch was to reinstall the resevoir cover.  Now the CXCafe has a more powerful front master cylinder, uprated front caliper from a CB900, and a new lightweight EBC front brake rotor, along with the red stainless brake line and new fittings from Venhill.  The front caliper itself was also rebuilt with new seals as well.  As good (better!) than new.

Next the rear driveshaft got new gearbox oil.  Transcanada Motorsports hooked us up with some new fluid.  Oil and lubrication technology has come a long way since 1979.  We used a plastic syringe to add the 5.7 oz as specified in the manual.  And we only spilled a little bit.  We also broke out the grease gun to lubricate the gears -- easy peasy with the zerk fitting easily accessed on the swingarm.

As you can tell, "red" is the color of choice.  The headlight bezel was painted and clearcoated, and reinstalled, hiding the wiring from view.

Finally the seat hump was fitted as well.  We need to install the new lithium-ion battery under the hump (we've dug up an old KTM dirtbike battery box to hold it in place).  The seat slides into place nicely.  What's left are a few more details before we can fit the tank and start it up again!

Help from Venhill

We needed a custom-length front brake hose for the upgraded brakes on the cxcafe... Mr. S has dealt with Venhill for a number of years with his race bikes.  An order went in for a front line and banjo fittings, as well as an update/request for support for our project.  Sure enough, they shipped one of their lines to our specs with no cost for postage.  Every bit helps!  Thanks Venhill!  Check out the link to their North American distributor to the right.