The Paso Project - Page 2



Since there were just so many things that I had to look into correcting, if one thing got too tedious, or I ran into an obstacle, I could jump on another aspect of the bike. With the instrument cluster off of the bike, I decided to clean the contacts for the bulbs. I used a Dremel with a hard-nylon brush to clean the contacts on the bulb holders, and for the circuit board contacts, I used an ink pen erasor (they are more abrasive than a pencil erasor). Here, you can see one that I cleaned on the left, and the dirty and corroded one on the right...

[Corrosion on the dash light contacts. Cleaned contacts on the left....dirty one on the right]

I just couldn't get my camera to focus on the instrument panel connector contacts, but, even blurred, you can see the difference between the oxidized contacts and then after I cleaned them with the ink erasor.

[Comparison of the corrosion on the instrument panel connector, before and after cleaning with the eraser]

While trying to clean up the wiring under the seat, I ran into more messed up wiring, such as these rigged up grounds....

[Why run a new ground wire when you can just use connectors?]

And this broken ignition module ground wire...

[I have no idea if this was broken before or after I started messing with all this wiring mess.]

While working on that wiring, I ended up cutting and splicing some extensions on the wires from the stator (alternator). The 4"-6" from the voltage regulator were dirty and corroded, and the insulation was hard, discolored, and brittle. I had some wire of the same gauge and color as the original, so they came out fairly well. I had to redo some ground wires, clean the contact surface on the frame for the grounds, reroute some wires, correct the wiring on the voltage regulator, and I even discovered that, along the ignition systems (separate for each the horizontal and vertical cylinders), the pickup coils and ignition coils were switched to where the horizontal pickup was trying to fire the vertical spark plug and vise versa. Here's what the wiring is looking like, now.

[This looks much cleaner than the way it looked when we first got the bike.]


Vicki and I traced the the majority of the wires on the bike, with special attention to detail for the ignition and charging systems, so things are really looking pretty good....including the fact that the kill-switch is wired correctly, so the bike will run when in the "ON" position instead of the "OFF" position as the previous owner stated you had to have it on (and I still don't understand how it was wired to do that).

Now, we are just waiting for the exhaust retaining ring to come in from ProItalia, and some gaskets and small parts to come in from my local dealer. Then, the next major project will be to remove the carbs, clean and inspect them, and swap the intake runners. I may get the chance to try to start this thing in the next month or so.....we'll just have to wait and see.





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