Atari reconditioning

I've started my reconditioning today, everything going smooth till the dreaded "plastic shroud glued in place".

It's giving me attitude lol. Trying with a good hair dryer (thanks wifey) Not helping a whole lot right now.

Will post pics when I get my phone cable.

EDIT: What the... i swear i posted this in XJ Chat, could a mod move it there for me please.

 

Link to my dropbox photo dump.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/60hrsndy5hsnrxo/mx4hCntLeL

Plastic won... glass didn't... actually the glass broke before i had hardly any of the plastic free. Guess i'll have to find somewhere around here that can cut a new piece for me. It almost looks like the plastic that holds everything in, gets molded to the main unit in one step, cause it sure didn't seem "glued"

I guess i'll need those glass dimensions Fitz!

Got the metal surround all cleanedup, will have to go and get some spraybomb primer and flat black (if i don't talk myself into some other colour) paint tomorrow. Then find a clean, safe way to spray them

Also have to get epoxy and needle paint.

Look at the couple pics of the LCD, back a couple years ago, I had the bottom crack on me, i'm assuming there's nothing that can be done for it. It still functions 100%, it's just hard to read the gas sections. Any thoughts?

EDIT: I'm 99% sure this is the polariser for the LCD, so it's not like I can replace it Can't really fix (glue) it anyhow either. Guess it stays as is.


The circuit board is the tach driver board

 

You can totally improve the look of that LCD. The part that is crummy looking is just a clear plastic cover with the red and yellow boxes dividing up the display. The polarizing film is reached by taking apart the display itself. What I did was get a new sheet of polarizing film, thanks to a guy on here named CaptNemo. Then, I took my display apart, it's just screwed together, and the film is sandwiched between the screen and a plastic cover. I rotated mine to reverse the polarity, and just tossed the ugly cracked "indicator" plastic with the markings on it.

Here's a thread with some pics of my LCD, to give you the idea:
http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=38079.html

Here is Nemo' s original thread: http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=1 ... +film.html

Edit: okay, the clear sheet on top IS polarizing, now that I read that again, but makes no difference, you can buy polarizing film, you just lose the little boxes, I don't miss them, it's still labeled on the sides. I also broke the glass on my instrument cluster, just cut a piece of acrylic for mine.

 

Oh, and on painting that metal surround, I can heartily recommend not painting it chrome. I did that, wanting to break up all that black, looked cool, but blinded me

 

Lol it's bad enough when the sun reflects off the glass some mornings, I couldn't imagine chrome

It may be hard to find polarizing film in this area, there's a place that does custom cut glass etc near by tho. I'd rather do glass as it won't weather at all. Maybe I can take that polarizer off, cut the warped part off and replace it with a small piece out of something else.

I doubt i'll get to buying paint today so I may do the painting next weekend (Enjoy the rest of my weekend relaxing

Thanx for the tips Mike!

 

Upon removing the 30 year old film that was on there, I'll definitely have to find some new film. The old is cracked, AND it was glued on there, was a pain to get the sticky off the glass (I eventually did tho)

Hopefully maximike is still on the boards and has some film left he can drop in the mail for me.

I also tried to restore the plastic casing, as it was quite grey (not black) Seems as tho anything oil based will do the trick. I used Dunlop fingerboard lemon oil, as that's what i had handy.

After pic in the dropbox link.

 

You mean, CaptNemo? I don't know if he is or not, but I'm sure you can get film from the internet, that's where he got it. Looking closer at your pic, now I can see that the actual glass of the display has a crack, I didn't get that before. Thought it was just the layer of plastic cracking. It might be easiest just to start with an unbroken display(just the LCD part) lots of people get rid of ataris, there's probably somebody who would give you the screen. And it doesn't even have to be the same kind of bike. My maxim has a completely different Atari, but the LCD screen is the same in all of them.

 

The glass isn't cracked Mike, it was just the top film that had cracked and fell kinda flat.
I got it off ok, just need to get some new film. It was amazing to see how the sun had weathered that top film after 30 years. No wonder the LCD was a bit weak lol.


Nemo used up all he had, so i'll have to see what I can find.

 

krs14,

While the fingerboard oil will make it clearer, it will only be clearer for a 'short' time. The oil will evaporate and will also get cloudier as it dries out. It is also a petroleum/mineral oil- based product, and will potentially have a long slow reaction to/with the plastic.

I would recommend that you get another product called "Plast-X". It is by Maguier's, and is designed for cleaning and polishing plastic. It is really for the plastic automotive headlight lenses, but works well for turnsignals, signal lamps, fairing windshields, etc... and plastic gauge lenses. I have YET to have it cloud up again. I have restored several Windjammer fairing windshields with it, too. That involved sanding the windshield through many grits of sandpaper, then polishing it with the Plast-X, and they look like new. An occasional polish with it keeps the 'shield nice and clean.

YMMV,

Dave Fox

 

Here is a source for free polarize film. Next time you go to a 3d movie, the kind that uses POLARIZE glasses, just pop the film out of the glasses cut to shape and fit it to the lcd screen. Worked for mine.

 

Now THAT'S a hot tip!!!!!! I keep the glasses rather than recycle them. Heck....I paid for them. Now I have a neato tip that I can use all 10 pairs for! (well, maybe all 3 pairs) LOL

Thanks again for a great idea!

Dave F

 

Any time Dave. Another source is broken down LCD computer screens, but the film can be a pain in the rear to get off the glass.

 

I discovered the tip razz just brought up, i've got a glass broke LCD downstairs i'm going to rip apart and grab the film out of it. Free, in house, perfect

I may grab some plast-x today just cause I'd rather do it right Need paint and some other stuff as well. More progress today hopefully. I should get the glass ordered up too, need to get dimensions i guess.

 

So I got a bunch of stuff yesterday planning on working on it. I got to the point of needing the tach needle off, to paint. Well that brought a quick end to any reconditioning I was going to do.

When trying to pull the needle, the WHOLE SHAFT of the tach pulled up and out, ruining the springs/calibration inside. I still don't understand why the plastic needle didn't come off instead of pulling the whole shaft. And that needle broke in half as well.

Oh well, so now the new plan is to buy a nice Acewell, or Trailtech unit and fit it to the existing mount points (the mounts that hold the headlight up)

It's not SUCH a heart break because a nice new unit will look a bit more modern, and get rid of some of the 30 year old mechanical bits that WILL fail eventually.

I'm leaning towards the Acewell 5652, and getting the new speedo cable from Acewell so I can hook it up all nice. The 7000 series does look nice too tho.

Either way i'll be having to bypass some wiring to make this all work (not an issue, just have to plan for it).

 

Yay, it came in one day!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/refq0wfax48kc ... .35.56.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zct6ph74lyjg2 ... .36.12.jpg

Can't wait for spring now

 

Cool. My long term plan is to lose the Atari as well. The whole cluster is making noises, I've had enough of taking it apart and lubing it. What I want is maybe a digital LED speedo, like blue numbers, and I haven't decided on tach, but everything I'm seeing is a little spendy. I'll probably end up re-working some normal looking instruments from the junkyard. Yours is nice, but I want standard round chrome cans, two bigs ones and maybe something between them with a smaller clock and voltmeter. I'm still working on how to put the LCD display from the Atari into a sexier container, and maybe move it down near the ignition.

 

I would have loved to get something like this:

http://www.kosonorthamerica.com/new/sho ... 000-rpm-4/

A bit too pricey tho. But daaamn does it look nice!

I'm not sure how i'm going to adapt to the number display instead of the needle. May be a bit harder to read from peripheral. It does look a lot more modern tho

 

I saw that when I was looking them up on google. That's basically what darkfibre has on the "Pumba" project. Look up his thread if you wanna see it on a bike. Plus the cool bracket he fabbed to attach it. Gave me some ideas for the awkward area around ignition I posted about on another thread.

Edit: Here, this is his instrument panel: http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy14 ... CF4283.jpg

From this thread: http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... rt=30.html

One of my favorite bikes, for the lighting alone. I wonder if I can get one of those police alternators...

 

Hreat thread and pictures. I will keep this in my "to do" list.

 

I wouldn't mind mounting digital speedo/tach inside the Atari keeping the "computer" intact. Goes with the resto/mod theme of my bike. Any comments? Any source for affordable digital gauges?

 

The '81 Virago 920 had digital gauges...........and I'm running away :lol: