The fuel pump.
After spending what seemed like forever pulling apart old bike, I had reached that point where it seemed like every piece opened or removed just served to give me even more of an insight into just how unexpectedly bad it all was. It’s not that I expected anything on a bike it’s age to be good but It seemed I had reached my limit on bad news for the project. Below are just some examples of the state of it.
This is the lowest point I think for anyone having a go at a project like this. You now have a more complete idea of what needs to be done, which should be a plus, but it’s a bigger list than was originally anticipated and for someone inexperienced like me there are a few problems that I as yet haven’t a solution for, which adds up to a big, possibly huge minus.
Also there has already been an investment for the project in the original bike, and now all that is left to represent that investment is a bunch of assorted ironmongery in buckets and some vaguely motorbike looking parts lying around the shed. And while my confidence to have a go is still there I do wonder at times if this one might be too far gone and so too costly for me to get a working bike out of.
In the face of this I decided to focus on some little bit. Something to get started with that could be finished soon enough, just so I could have some little win. And that part I decided was to be the fuel pump.
The above picture is of the fuel pump which came with the bike. I happened to notice it seemed a bit ill fitting and wedged in and that’s because the above pump isn’t the right pump for the bike. It’s the right make and is physically similar but the pipes are in the wrong place and pointed in the wrong direction hence being wedged in like it was. However, as luck would have it I was negotiating with a guy for a rear fender part that I needed when I spotted amongst other things a fuel pump that looked right for the bike, so it ended up amongst the bits I snagged in the deal.
I was hoping that would be that, just a bit of a clean up for this new/old pump and away we go, but when I opened it up I discovered it was in poor enough state.
The diaphragm was dry and weak looking, the body under the rubber mounting ring was badly rusted and the electrical ground connection was on the outside which I just saw as a weakness, especially when I knew it could be inside the head like on the pump I already had. (In the interests of being accurate with the info it does appear that the electrical ground was indeed on the outside of the pump on the 1985 Honda VT700c Shadow so this was not an error on anyone’s part).
That all said, it was the right pump for the bike as can be seen in the below pic (on my really tidy bench). The pipes are out the side of the pump body and pointed in a different direction to the one I had. So I decided I would try to make a good one out of the two.
Although the actuator end of the pump looked very similar there is a difference in that the new one (which I didn’t want to use (see above)) has a black plastic disc and a metal disc between the actuator body and the rubber diaphragm and the one I had just had the metal disc. I have no idea if it’s important or what it’s purpose is but because of the construction of the actuator it didn’t look to be something that could be separated from it’s home so I just made sure I had corresponding shorter screws for both sides of the joint on the actuator I was going to use.
I stripped off the plastic cap and the mounting rubber to be cleaned up separately and I fitted the unwanted pump housing to the bottom to serve as protection for the diaphragm so that I could mask off and paint it with rattle can Hammerite smooth black (magic in a can 🙂 )
I also painted the pump end cap.
The top plastic cap, rubbers and pump body where given a good clean and inspection and thankfully under the heavy layer of grime and build up, the parts where in good nick and they came up well albeit after a good bit of time and effort.
Once assembled with all stainless fixings it all looks really rather well I think.
And so I have a little victory with a little part, but it’s easily enough to put off the doubts and get me believing (possibly unrealistically) that the rest of the bike could be finished off just as well.
BTW The original wouldn’t have been all black of course but this is in keeping with Bikerbabes request that the bike be black as much as possible and besides, I’m not there yet with electro plating bike parts, I can only take on a certain amount of new stuff at a time. LOL