I have started to tear my 79 down and redo all the things that were not done last time. I will be learning how to do body work and paint. I have read on here about pulling the engine tranny out the left side of the bike. I am going to drain the fluids and start the disconnecting process this week. Can someone PLEASE tell me the best way to tag everything. This is goin to be a long winter project and I need to make sure evrything remains tagged properly for reinstallation in late winter early spring. This will be the first time I will have had the engine off the frame. It is going to be one heck of a learning experience. I am going to be taking the heads and jugs off, Nothing else on the motor. I thought about splitting the cases and having the places that were shoddily welded redone properly but with limited funds and space I am quickly deciding against it. I would love to do it right but was told getting the cases rewelded properly is exspensive. Thank you all for your help in starting this project off correctly.

 

Chances are ,its not 'correct' but I can tell you how I kept track of things.

I cleaned the ends of the wires so I could see the color, took pictures of the connections with my phone. Then pulled the wires from that particular connection and labeled them with masking tape as to what they were conneced to. Such as ignition, front right turn, etc. There were some wires that I cut, but I knew I was going to be building a new harness. An example of this is, I took a pic of my regulator connetions, snipped off the ring terminals without disonnecting them from the regulator leaving enough wire to see what color went to what tab, pulled the 3 wires free and taped and labeled them.

Something I wish I would have done with the oil lines(I got them mixed up and had to post for help)

Go to the hardware store and get different colored electrical tape. Put the same colored tape at both ends of the line. Ex., green at the tank and green on the same line at the engine connection. Then take pics of the connection with the tape in place. Then remove the line.

As for actually removing the motor from the chassis, I believe Pinion wrote somewhere on here(not sure what thread) that if the jugs are going to be pulled, do it before removing the engine, to reduce weight and back strain. And somewhere Mick said somehing about laying the bike on its left side and pulling the frame off of the engine. I'll be pulling the motor on my new one soon so I am curious about this as well.
Pinion?
Mick?
The last one was a sight to see. Ever hear a phrase involving a monkey and a football? :-D

Anyways good luck and have fun with it! The guys on here are very knowledgable and very helpful. Without their help, I would probably still be struggling with a pile of parts, but I got to take mine for a ride! I am proof that with their help, ANYONE can do it.

 

I just spent about 13 hours this weekend tearing down my 75' to bare bones. Here's some hints.

1. Get a digital camera and take pictures of everything many times over. Shoot at every area of the bike, shoot up at things, down, from under and over. Shoot every wire connection, every hose connection, and stop every 15 to 20 min and shoot pics of what you have removed and the area you removed it from. I have taken apart many projects when working as a car mechanic and learned that pictures DO tell a thousand tales.

2. You can go to an aircraft supply place in your town and buy a whole passel of these little bags with labels built on to store bolts and write what they went to. An alternate plan would be a box of baggies (several sizes) and some post-it-notes in the bag explaining what they are.

3. When you take a bolt off to remove a part, put the bolt or screw back on that part once it's off. If you remove a bolt with all kinds of spacers, etc. then put the washers, spacers, nuts back on the bolt in the same order that they came off.

4. The more books you have on maintenance, the better off you are.

5. If you are really unsure, then write a diary of what you removed and how you did it. Bag all the parts and put a number slip in the bag. Number the diary entry and reference that on the number slip.

6. Write on the parts. Left side, right side. Front, rear, top, bottom. Etc... I wrote on my front fork lowers, rear fender struts, etc. to identify similar looking parts. Eventually that will get wiped off but for now its there and when I go to rebuild or clean those parts, I can tag them more appropriately.

7. Don't know where you get them, but I've seen these little 2" tags with string on them. Buy a bunch and tie to everything with the info needed written on.

8. The auto parts stores sells these number stickers. You peel tem off and tape to a part. Use that to mark beginning and ending points of wires and write them down in a log book.

Finally, in case I haven't mentioned it... TAKE PICTURES!

Hope it helps.