Austin Cafe Racer Blood, Sweat, Tears and Grease
Categories: cafe racer

I took the bike out for a relatively long ride this morning around campus and developed some hand fatigue from squeezing the clutch lever too much. I can genuinely say the fatigue is not from the Clubman bars. I love the bars and can’t see why so many people complain about them so much. They are quite comfortable. I attributed the hand fatigue from from the old clutch cable. Luckily, I already had a brand new Motion Pro clutch cable sitting in my studio. I hadn’t thought I needed to replace it, but this morning my cramped hand muscles sealed the deal. IMG_4378.JPG

Old cable.

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Nothing really wrong with it, I just think replacing it will help with my hand fatigue. If it doesn’t I’ll have to maybe get a modern adjustable clutch lever.

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A simple process really. The only snag I encountered was the bit on the clutch end of the cable was slightly larger than the original.

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I filed down the upper portion where the bit meets the cable, just enough to thin it down so it could slide into the lower lever slot.

Everything else worked fine. The new cable feels a little better, but not significantly different. I’l eBay the old cable this week.

Categories: cafe racer

After several weeks of trying to get my LED turn signals to work, I finally succeeded this past weekend. The problem I was having was the signals weren’t blinking. The controls would activate them correctly, but they just stayed lit, no blinky blinky.

I tried using an LED relay from Harrison Specialties. It didn’t work.

I tried replacing the stock thermal flasher with an electronic one. Still no blinky.

I returned the electronic flasher for another. Nope.

I finally decided to buy a ELFR-1 from customled.com and still nothing.

It dawned on me that my problem had nothing to do with the flasher or relay, it most likely was my wiring in the headlight bucket.

So, I decided to take it apart and put it back together again.

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I cut every wire. I cut for two reasons:

1. I wanted to shorten the wires to make a little more room in the bucket. The excess length was from installing the clubman bars.

2. I wanted to replace the bullet ends.

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My process began with stripping the thick black plastic harness, then cutting around 6 to 7 inches off each wire. Oh, I decided to remove the turn signal buzzer also. Now I wonder if removing it contributed to my LED signals working.

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All wired up with new bullet connectors. I also cleaned the ground connections.

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Custom LED electronic flasher relay ELFR-1.

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Two prong. Plug and play. Red on flasher goes to black on the bike. Black on flasher goes to grey on bike.

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My new ELFR-1 sitting nice and cozy in the stock rubber mount. My new front signals, also LED, should arrive by the end of the week. I’ll take some video of all the signals on friday. I’ll post soon.