'73 Aermacchi AMF Harley-Davidson 350 SX

This actually started as a DMV question in the So Calif section.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=376089

I just bought the bike. Don't know if anyone has any experience with them. But it's kind'a retro.. and kind'a cool!

What do you think?

 

Just 2116 miles from home!

34hrs on a 350 huh? Hmmmm....

Thank you! but... I'm gonna have t'think reeeeelllly hard about that trip first!!!

LOL

That really looks like a cool event though. A perfect venue to bring this bike to.

Unfortunately, I'm in the midst of remodeling a house we just bought - so I'm not even taking another vacation this year.

 

I replaced the SS pipe with an SX pipe yesterday.

Then it decided it like to idle better than run. So I have a little exploring to do to figure out what's wrong.

I also found that the exhaust pipe gets very hot. So I put a little wrap on it to keep it cool. Once I figure out what's wrong with it though, I'll get to test out my wrap-job and see if it worked.

In the meantime.. a few pictures!
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And this one is a '73.

 

And now it won't run. Grrrr....

Thought it might be that the repaired SX pipe got clogged. So I put the old pipe back on. But that did nothing.

Then I decided to check the carb for a problem. I found the rod that holds the floats was on kind of sloppy, so I fixed that. Put it back together and it wouldn't start. So I took the carb apart again, to make sure I hadn't screwed somthing up. And sure enough, I had. The little needle valve needs to go "inside" the slot on the float lever, not just rest "on top" of it. So I fixed that. Still no go.

Tried a little pyrol to encourage it to kick over... pop pop pop, varooom.... then nothing.

Grrrr..... So right now I'm at a loss for what to do.

I set the points a few days after I got the bike. It wouldn't go up a fairly steep 2mi hill here in Santa Clarita any faster than about 45mph. Come to find out, they were almost completely shut. So after resetting the gap, it would pull right on up to 60mph. Not great, but much better. So I re-checked the points. But no difference.

Oddly enough, before I swapped out the pipe and fiddled with the carb, it would idle just fine. It would only miss when you gave it any throttle. So now I'm a little confused. I feel like I must have done something. But I'm not sure what. I think it should run, unless the condenser is bad and then decided to completely die while I was fiddling with the carb. But that seems unlikely.

Any suggestions?

 

11:30 last night I decided to double-check the spark.

I fully expected to see a spark and toddle back off to bed frustrated.

But lo-and-behold.... No spark.

So maybe it was the coil or the condencer on it's journey to take a dump after all.

So now the BIG question is: Where do I get them?

It's fun to see the look on 20-something kid's faces at the parts counter when I tell them I have a Harley-Davidson 350.

They usually just look confused and ask, "A Harley what ??????? ".

 

The saga continues....

Night-before-last when I got home from work, I removed the coil and tested the high tension lead. The lead was dead. So I went to the local motorcycle shop and they told me, "Oh no.. we don't carry anything like that". "No spark-plug wires?", I asked. "Nope. That's a dealer item", they said.

Thinking... "If I ask the guy at the parts counter at H-D for a spark-plug wire for my '73 350SX, Harley-Davidson or not, he's probably gonna hit me, or fall off the back of his stool laughing". We've already gone over the "Sprint parts? You gotta be kidding..." routine once already.

So I went to the local parts store. Another waste of time, and I went back home.

I was going to just leave the stuff in the middle of the garage, nuts bolts, tank, tools and tell my wife, please be patient, I'll have it cleaned-up by this weekend. Then I decided better and started cleaning it up.

So rather than put everything away where I'd get confused about, "what goes where", I decided to just put it all back together. So just for shyites-&-giggles, I clipped a piece off the end of the high-tension lead, put it back in the coil, remounted it... turned it over and guess what? Spark!

So I put the plug in, cranked it over and Varoom Varoom!. Put the seat on and drove it around the block twice and decided to take it to work yesterday.

So yesterday it started up with a roar and I headed off to work. About a mile down the road, it decided it didn't like RPM's over about 1500 and crapped out on me again. I was able to get to work though. I only work 1.8 miles from home. But I could only go about 45mph max. That means (literally) "no throttle". I just let it idle and shift into gears 1-by-1 until I'm in 5th and it moves along okay, albeit very slow.

Very odd that it runs but only at a slow RPM. I was able to get home too without any problem. Again, just very slow.

So I took the carb off again and soaked it in carb cleaner over night to get rid of some of the corrosion inside w/o having to get aggressive to clean it. Figured that today I'd put it back together and see what I get and if it's still running bad, I'll simply replace the coil, condenser, points and see what that does.

Today, I just came up from the garage. I re-assembled the carb, put it back on the bike and the bike and found there is (once again) no spark.

So I took the tank off. Braced the sparkplug against the motor and cranked it over. Again, no spark. Then I began gently tapping the coil with a little tiny tac-hammer and lo-and-behold, after about a half-dozen taps I got SPARK!

So I think the coil is in need of replacement.

Whew!

 

So I ordered a new coil and it should be here by Wednesday.

In the meantime, I decided to try to shine-up the gas tank a little. Unfortunately, the original owner tried to touch-up the tank at one point, maybe because of a spill from gas or something, and the paint he put on did not bond very well. So when I put some compound on it, it simply turned to mud!

So now I have it sanded. It has a couple of dents, circled in red (2nd picture) and some pitting on the back that needs to be fixed.

I just sprayed some paint remover to get rid of the paint in the corners and around the filler hole. Once it's all cleaned-up, I'll patch the little dents and pitts and begin painting it with a fresh coat of black.

I have some new decals being made too. So once I get those and put them on, it'll look like new again.



...more pictures to follow soon.
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Okay....

Now the big question

Primer then bondo

-or-

Bondo then primer


What do you think?

 

First two coats...
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Thank you Wax!

And thank you for the links. I have them in my "Favorites".

If you're at all interested in these, here's another cool link: http://www.aermacchi-racing.com/

It's amazing what you can build for not a whole lot of money.

I now have 5 or 6 coats of black on the tank and a small side piece. Tomorrow I'll put about the same number of clear-coats after hitting it with the steel wool to get rid of a few dust bumps, since I don't have a proper booth.

I elevated the tank on a paint can to get the last few coats to cover going underneath, and I have a little touch-up to do on the back. But it should look very nice when I'm done.

This is the first time I've ever used a little (and I used a very small amount) of bondo to fix a dent. That stuff is a lot harder than I would have thought. Sanding it smooth is a real PITA! But I got it very close, and then luckily the paint seems to have smoothed out the rest of it. If you know where to look, you can still see where I fixed it. But you'd have to look very close.

This is a fun project for me. I hope everyone who is watching this enjoys it even a fraction as much as I do!

 

Up on a paint can.

Notice next project in background...
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Not sanded or polished. Just a few coats of clear that don't seem to want to get very hard. It's been two days since I painted it and I can still easily put a dent in it with my fingernail, so I must have done something wrong.

Oh well... Gary at Bristol has offered to paint it for me. So once I get the decals, I'll probably just take it over to him and have it done.

<sigh> It was a nice try I guess, and at least I had fun doing it!
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Coil arrived today. So tomorrow I can start driving it again! Wheeeee.....
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Yes. It's only a 350 after all...

But I wonder what would it be like with a Busa head on it ????

 

Wow, what a great story!

Back in the early 70's all of the kids where I grew-up (the woods of Mendocino County in CA) had some sort of bike. My step-brother started with a Honda 90 and then graduated to a CB 350 that I later wrecked. I started out on my dad's old Sears (Benelli) 106. Most of the kids had Honda 50's and 70's though and I couldn't really keep-up with that old clunker. But I had fun trying.

Mine is not a CRTT though. The CRTT race bikes had a short-stroke and most were 250cc although a few (a little over 500, IIRC) were 350cc. They also had a lot more HP that this one. Mine is rated at 27hp at 7200RPM, and I'm toying with the idea of either increasing the diameter of of the piston with a new sleeve, or adding a hotter cam, or maybe both.

But the truth is, I bought this bike for several reasons:

1) As a commuter that gets good MPG for going to work.
2) It was within my $2K price range (a steal in that regard, IMHO of course)
3) It's a funky old classic that is cool in a unique way, and it is essentially a "new" bike, so it's all there.
4) I can put it on the back of the Disco and take it with me camping or to my dad's.​

I had no idea that I'd tapped into a little niche community of Aermacchi enthusiasts. I never knew much about them when I was learning to ride. But it kind of makes me wonder what it would have been like if I'd seen one back in '70 or '71.

If I do decide to sell it at some point, I'll list it here first.

But... don't hold your breath!