Hello all,

I haven't posted on here much but I have been a long time lurker. Up till last year I really didn't know much about the Savage/S40/LS650 but with the help of this site I have become very familiar with this little bike. I must admit that what had me looking at the S40 was the the very first RYCA conversion I had seen which was done by member "RpNSht". As soon as I saw his bike I knew that I wanted one. Long story short, I started my search early this spring and this is what I bought on April 27th:







Yes, windshield, saddlebags and all the fixins that would need to be taken off  in order to make it leaner and meaner.   Bike is an 06, has 3,300 miles, very clean and two previous owners. It looks like it was very well taken care of, it runs pretty good, does have a gnarly back fire ...........and is exactly what I wanted.  
A few minutes after I got it in the garage:





Lighter and Better  

More to come.............

So while I was waiting for the RYCA parts to come in I decided to keep myself busy.
The first things I tackled were the mirror mounts. I planned on running bar end mirrors so no need to things sticking out unused.
This is what Mr. Grinder and I started with:


I was hoping that the perch would have a blind hole for the mirror mount and that simply grinding it off would reveal a smooth surface but that is not the case........oh well


So to close the hole and keep things smooth and seamless, I decided to use a bolt to plug the hole...but how do you make it so the bolt doesn't move?? Loktite is an answer but I was afraid that baking the part during the powder process might weaken the bond and later come undone. A beer later, I figured that I'd use a bolt of the same diameter but different thread pitch and just "strip the threads". So I got this:



By this time I started using Mr. File and Mr. Sand paper. The intent wasn't to polish the piece as the powered coat will smooth things out.

So I continued to blow the bike apart for more preparation:

YEY!




The parts blanket getting full

LANCER wrote on 07/31/13 at 13:30:44:


You are supposed to work under a tree in the front yard. How else will you learn the "joy" of hunting little bitty rusty fasteners in grass, sand and gravel?

Electrical:

I wanted to run a very clean and efficient wiring / electrical system. That to me means no cutting things off just because I am eliminating a switch. What I wound up doing is actually pulling the entire harness apart and eliminating entire circuits. To some people this may seem like a hard job but if you take your time it really is not. The electrical system on these bikes if very simple and if you have the service manual it is even easier. The hardest part to me was un-taping the harness to expose the wires.



So the first thing was to eliminate the entire Decompression Solenoid along with the Solenoid Module and all of its wiring and connectors. To do this, and still be able to start the bike, you have to solder the power wire that would normally go in to the module to the rest of the starter system circuit, but again it is very easy once you see it in front of you, eliminating this system also eliminates one of the two 20Amp fuses in the system, this can be repurposed for a phone charger or GPS???? I didn't do anything with it .

This is the thing I wanted to eliminate,


with a little work you wind up to this:


Then this:


But I think it is much cleaner and in the end you pull out complete circuits that you do not need.

Decomp Circuit:


Side stand switch and circuit:


END RESULT Much cleaner and simpler.

You are well on your way - the fitting of parts takes a good bit of time but is very rewarding as it starts to look like a bike again.

One other thing that I copied from Rpnsht was the top triple, I didn't want to have the holes from the handlebar isolators left in so a little machining and care took care of them....

One thing to note, if anyone cares, is the triple is made of the main piece and two small collars that are pressed in to it from the top to form the isolator mounting area for the handle bars. Those collars can be pressed out, here is what I mean, top of triple with top collars pressed out:





And done:

I still wanted to mount the gauges in the same location so the plugs that were used to fill the holes had blind holes drilled on the bottom and tapped to 10mm



Also, to have a belt and suspenders approach to the triple, a small roll pin was drilled and pressed on the bottom through each plug. Sorry for the blurry pic but the black dot is the roll pin that goes through the plug, it is drilled in the remaining lip on the bottom of what used to be the isolator hole. The picture tells the story.

The only way to make a bike nice and clean is to take care of the little things, what I mean by that.........Powder Coat!!! I live very close to, what I consider to be a very good powder coating and ceramic coating facility---------QC Coatings. A bunch of cool guys whom love anything automotive, if you live in Michigan and want something done right, I cannot recommend these guys enough.
I dropped off 13 pieces:
The switch control housings (4 individual pieces)
Front hub
Rear Hub
Clutch Perch
Clutch lever
Brake Lever
Frame
Swing arm
Upper and lower tripples



This is what came out.....Black and shiny