I’m restoring a MK1 LeMans for a chap. He supplied me a big bore kit for it.
I now have to look at he carbs, which look pretty manky. Before I spend time sptripping them and trying to make a silk purse out of them, I thought I had best check the perceived wisdom of using the 36mm carbs with a big bore.
Does one need to up jet the stock carbs? Or does he need to spend big on 40mm carbs?
Initial tentative steps suggest that refitting the swinging arm is going to be a right royal pain? Any tips on making this easy(er) ?
On my advice the guy is not going with clip ons - it’s an age thing! The bike originally had a different top yoke, which I have powder coated. Any recommendations for handle bars that will be comfortable, but not foul the fairing? I didn’t strip the bike so I have no idea what happened to a lot of the original (to the bike) bits I’m clearly going to need to machine up some spacers to ‘replace’ the clips ons - I don’t suppose anyone on here has any dimensions to save me grief?
With regards refititing the swing arm, Put the UJ into the swing arm and offer that side up first. Try and engage it onto the gearbox spline. Don’t forget to put the rubber gator on first. Hold the other side a bit higher and it should drop down into place. If that doesn’t work, try bringing the left side up from below. It takes a good bit of fiddling.
Make sure you have the bolts that join the frame pulled back with the nuts removed.
Once it is in, screw the pivot pins in and make sure they stick out the same either side as that centralizes the swing arm.
I used Spada 1 (aka SP1000) 'bars, but the top yoke needs to have the mouldings in the top of it to take the handlebar clamps. Can’t be all smooth.
However LM1 h/bar switches, if original, have their wires go through holes into the centre of the clip-ons and come out the ends - so actually quite complicated to change - because of how they’re wired, the LM switches won’t fit onto ‘normal’ h/bars. (Unless you cut holes in them for the wires. But then they’ve also got to come out somewhere.) I ended up getting secondhand Honda Superdream 'bar switch clusters and rewiring. It was quite a job.
