Still Working on that Damn Fork -- Also my custom wiring harness

I figured since I have my fork completely apart I should do absolutely everything to it now before I put it back together so I don't have to go back and do this all over again! The front fork has been a real bitch and every little thing is an obstacle.

My front axle was a little rusty and also felt like it wasn't rolling at optimal rolling resistance. So I had to take the front axle assembly apart from the swing arm. I also want to polish the swing arm so it looks real shiny and the best way to do that is if it is completely apart. I need to do this now because getting the swing arm bare again would be a real pain in the ass.

Here's a pic of what I was dealing with. It looks like it should be straightforward, it was not.

This is the back of the front axle and the first "bolt" you have to get off. This is really just a dust cover. You need about a size 23 metric wrench or a 7/8 in US. I had been spraying this thing several times in liquid wrench and I finally put the swing arm in a vice (with a towel wrapped around the teeth) put the socket wrench in and gave it a good whack with a rubber mallet.

Underneath this another bolt that actually holds the axle and bearings in place. To get this bolt loose you have to put the hub back on. When you put the hub back on one of the bolts for the lug nuts on the tire will line up with the hole on the swing arm for the brake pivot. If you've gotten this far then you should know what I am talking about.
From there you can take a thick screwdriver and put it between the holes to hold the drum, and thus the axle, from spinning. Yes, you need to mount the drum with the woodruff key, castelated nut, and pin in place. Use your old ones. Then, again the vice, socket wrench, and the rubber mallet.

Underneath are the bearings. To get the bearings out you need a blind bearing removal tool. I don't have one, but the Harley guy that is doing my paint job does. He's pulling these out for me now. That should be the end of my swing arm and thus front fork issues.







I did have another issue with corrosion on my front damper mounting bolt on the swing arm. Seen here:

As you can see the bolt is pretty rusty. That metal sleeve covering the bolt is actually a part of the front damper. It should not have come off when I took the damper off. I took a hydraulic press and applied some pressure and the bolt popped out once the rust "weld" was broken. I did soak this bolt in evapo-rust overnight and I was able to get rid of a lot of the rust. The sleeve then just popped off. The interesting thing is that I had a new sleeve in the packet of bolts I received and I am not so sure the sleeve was a part of the front damper, we'll find out when I get the new damper later this week.

Evapo-rust has been great btw. I have soaked all sorts of odds and ends here and there and it has done a wonderful job. I highly recommend you use it on things like your throttle tube, shift tube, really hard to find bolts and pieces.

Now back to the wiring harness! Now that I think more about it I don't think MikeH's electrical idea is the best way to go. You lose the color coding if you are doing anything beyond the most basic electrical outline and his system doesn't really take into account all the branches off the main wiring harness trunk. When I first started this I didn't think I would make my own harness because I thought I would be able to buy one that would work well as I have noted below. My big mistake was not taking measurements of the sections before I took mine apart to figure out where the wires were going and what they were doing. So now I have no measurements of the different sections. I did measure the individual wires when I had it apart so I could order replacement wires. I was smart enough to not just throw away my old harness.

If you pull your harness out take the following measurements before you even start fiddling.
1. Ignition switch to horn junction (where the wires to the horn will pop out to go to the horn)
2. Horn junction to horn
3. Horn junction to gas tank junction (where all the grounds are bundled together and also where the other junctions take off from)
4. Gas tank junction to rear brake pedal
5. Gas tank junction to stator and Ducati ignition
6. Gas tank junction to regulator (I have mine in left cowl)
7. Gas tank junction to rear brake

These measurements will come in very handy when you start building your wiring harness as you can put it together and do the shrink wrapping beforehand. Now I have to wait to get the body back and then take my measurements and do the shrink wrapping later. BTW check out waytekwire.com for some good prices on double wall shrink wrap. I would recommend buying the following lengths, widths and amounts:
1. 1 4' length of 1". This stuff shrinks 3/1
2. 5-6 4' lenghts of 1/2"

At my head tube I have a grand total of 9 wires coming towards the headset. 3 of those are for an LED rear blinker system I am going to install. Because they will be LED they should not draw significantly from my lighting system and should work quite well. I am going to install them much later but for now I want to install the wiring.

Because I am using mostly marine grade wiring, the wires are thicker than the stock wiring. I decided to break up the wire bundles as they get pulled up through the headset. Here is how I have arranged them:
1. One group wrapped in 1/2" tubing will be the 3 blinker wires, all 18g.
2. Second group is the wires going to the horn (2) and one of the 16g wires, thus 2 18g and 1 16g in that bundle, also in 1/2" tubing. This is purple, red, and I believe green.
3. Third group is the ground 18g wire and the 18g rear brake light wire with the other 16g wire, so same as the second group with 1/2" tubing. This should be yellow, black, and orange.

Thus I will have 3 bundles coming down to the horn junction from the headset. From here the harness becomes one big bundle and takes all the wires together from the horn junction to the gas tank junction. This will all get wrapped up in 1" tubing. This is the longest section for the harness and the main "trunk."

Under the gas tank I have five branches.

1. Two 18g wires going to the rear brake pedal. Red and blue
2. Two 16g wires and 1 18g ground wire going to the stator/cdi. Green, blue and black
3. 3 16g wires to the regulator (one of those is a 16g black grounding wire) and 1 18 wire for my future turn signal blinker. Black, yellow, blue, and white
4. 3 18g wires going to my rear brake. Black, orange, blue
4. 2 turn signal wires these will actually be separate but I am not doing anything with them right now so I am just going to bundle them up. brown and pink

Here is what this all looks like now while I am waiting to make sure the measurements are good when I finally get the body back:

You can see the three branches for the headset on the left. Then you'll see the three wires going to the horn, the horn junction. Next is the long thick trunk. Finally on the right side are the 5 branches coming from the gas tank junction. I have them coiled up just because it was easier to work with that way. It sure is pretty with all those colors.

I haven't done the shrink wrapping yet but I am hoping what I ordered will work. If it doesn't I'll let you know, but this should be the layout I use. I'll also take some measurements with some slack for mistakes so you have an idea of how to put one together yourself.

In regards to the blinkers it's more of an experiment and I wanted to use different colors so things don't get too mixed up. Marine west didn't have anymore colors so I went to my local audio store and they had way more colors to chose from, just not marine grade. That's ok because like I said it's an experiment and I won't be heart broken if it doesn't work or fails later. So now I have pink, brown, and white for the turn signals added to my wiring diagram listed in my previous post.

Body work is making progress so hopefully next week I'll actually get started.