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Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 7:47 pm
by Tim400GB
NGneer wrote:
Mon Aug 27, 2018 8:36 am
I was contemplating trying to build a full bike using the spare bits
Build it and worry about the engine later

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:59 pm
by NGneer
Having decided to go back to basics, including a less fancy exhaust system (for the time being at least). I removed the twin stack Ganador system but then only had x2 spare exhaust gaskets laying around so had only got as far as refitting the OEM rear manifold before being at the “waiting for deliveries” stage.

As I have had to go for a new set of front discs I decided the calipers should get an overhaul as well. After all what is the point of new discs if the rest of the brakes are still crap. Unfortunately, I had already whipped the calipers off before deciding they were going to be getting pulled through and as such had not pumped the pistons out…bugger! A quick Amazon moment and I ordered myself a pair of brake piston pliers. They rocked up a couple of days later so I set about the calipers.

Well whilst the pliers are a good piece of kit, they were not going to shift the pistons from my calipers alone. Though I have never tried it before I have seen those You Tube videos of people pushing out stubborn brake pistons using compressed air. Well I tried it but had no joy as I couldn’t get a good enough seal and maxed out at about 7PSI. I think if you had time to make some sort of adapter to screw in it may well work better…..but my pistons remained well and truly in the caliper housings. I did think about taking them to work and trying with the compressor in the hangar but then decided to just rebuild the front brake system instead and pump them out hydraulically, like I should have done in the first place.

I put the front reservoir and master cylinder together and then fastened x1 rear and x1 front brake line to it with the corresponding calipers at the end. Then began the joy of bleeding the system through enough to then pump the pistons out. For anyone who has done this you can imagine how tedious this was (even with a vacuum pump to help). Anyway with much bleeding done the rear caliper pistons were the first to move so they were pumped to the point of falling out.

I then had to swap the rear brake hose for a front hose and the other front brake caliper and start all over again. Fast forward a day or so and finally I had the system bled and the pistons pumped out as far as possible. The calipers were then removed and transferred to my bench for final stripping. Though the pistons were still quite stubborn, this is where the piston pliers came into their own and with much wiggling and swearing, I eventually got all the calipers stripped down.

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Thankfully there was nothing “too” traumatic that will need dealing with, but there is (as always) a build up of crap and corrosion underneath the seals that will need cleaning out. I will take the bodies to work tomorrow and chuck them through the spirit bath and maybe even leave them in the ultrasonic cleaner for a couple of hours and then at least I can see what I am dealing with.

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In the mean time I set about cleaning up the pistons to make sure they were fit to be re-used. Thankfully all the front caliper pistons polished up lovely.....

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..... but no amount of Autosol was going to bring the rear caliper pistons back to life.

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A quick e-mail to Uncle Rick and thankfully he had not yet sent my discs etc, so I have added a couple of new rear pistons to the order and they should be here, with everything else, before too long.

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2018 7:50 am
by NGneer
So having finally got the callipers apart I took them into work to make the most of the cleaning facilities we have there. I gave them a good wash down in the spirit bath before chucking them into the ultrasonic cleaner. I had to go do some other stuff but once they came out of there the guy who works in that area put them through the wheel washer and then dried of in the oven as well for me :grin:
Before:
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….and after:
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Far from “spotless” but clean now and at least I can see what still needs to be done. Even after the full Spa treatment there was still a good build up of crap and corrosion in the seal recesses. This has to be removed otherwise it will build up, push on the underside of the seals which will then effectively bind on the brake piston stopping it working as it should.
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Tools of choice for this job….a scribe (to get right into the corners) and soft rotary wire brushes for the Dremmel.
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Start with the scribe or other scraper to break up the bigger and more stubborn build ups and then use the Dremmel and brushes.
Half way through on the rear calliper….
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and finished….
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…as were the front ones.
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The front callipers will be getting re-built next, but I will have to wait on the new pistons before doing the rear. Hoping some of the other bits I am waiting on turn up tomorrow so I can crack on with the exhaust re-fit etc

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 9:21 pm
by NGneer
Well annoyingly the post on Saturday morning did not bring the stuff I am waiting on to re-fit the exhaust thus then enabling me to do the rest of the back end etc… as such I just cracked on with the bits that I could do. First on the list was the front callipers re-build.

Full fresh set of seals and proper seal/piston lube (snigger)
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Funny old thing but with fully cleaned callipers, fresh seals and proper lubricant, the polished pistons slipped in so much easier than they came out.
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having got the pistons in the callipers were put back together and then treated to new pads and cleaned up other bits….
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…and as I didn’t have a lot else to do, fitted them to the bike and bled them through fully. Just waiting on the new discs now.
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Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 9:57 pm
by NGneer
Having done the front callipers I was starting to struggle for things to do as I was waiting on bits in the post. As such I decided to turn my attention to the bodywork and cosmetic side of things. Whilst this is (as I have to keep reminding myself) going to be a track toy, it can still look as tidy as I can make it with what I have laying around in my garage…..and I am a tart who likes shiny stuff.

All the fibreglass fairings along with the best front mudguard I could find were dragged out from under the bench and treated to a good sanding in preparation for some rattle can action.
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I even started to play around with the nose cone and a spare set of light covers to see if I could replicate the race nose cone look…
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However having done this it just didn’t sit flush enough for me so I took them off again and had to set about filling and sanding the holes I had just drilled (Dohhh!)
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The tank I am using for this build always had a few small dents in it, but that never mattered as “it was just a track bike”. However with a bit of time on my hands, and some filler in the garage I decided to dress it up a bit before it got the rattle can treatment.
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Having dressed out the worst of the dinks, it was washed of and give a coat of primer.
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Not perfect, but not bad and a lot better than it was before.
Having done the tank I moved onto prepping and priming a few other bits of the fairings. Because I knew how the front mudguard was going to end up (and didn’t need any further tweaking to fit) I could take that from rubbed down..
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through primer stage….
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to paint then stickers and finally clear coat.
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I originally started to think about either doing the bike in either really wacky (lot of neon colours) or some sort of replica period race scheme.
Again the sanity check was needed as I could quite easily replicate a simple race scheme with rattle cans,....but then I would then be shelling out 60-70 quid for stickers to match the scheme ….and this is meant to be a CHEAP build.

I had showed the Mrs a few schemes I was thinking of and she picked up on a basic black and white one saying “That one is classy”! Maybe not the most ‘funky’ but when it comes to questions of style and taste, I defer to my better half so black and white it is. This also worked out well with the principle of this build as I had a few rattle cans of black, white and silver laying around in the garage. As a real bonus it turned out the black paint I had “laying around” in the garage was actually a really nice metallic paint, which might not show up in the pictures, but looks really good in real life so if I can get the rest of the paint to go on as nice as it went on the mudguard, it will look really good.

Got a few days away with work this week so hopefully by the time I get back all my spares will be here and I can crack on properly with the build, and the rest of the cosmetics, next weekend :pray:

:rocks:

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:10 pm
by Tim400GB
Amazing what an ultrasonic cleaner can do.
Where did you get the spare light covers from?

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2018 4:57 am
by NGneer
Timon wrote:
Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:10 pm
Where did you get the spare light covers from?
I got them from Tyga when I was doing the Honda Britain as I heard they would fit the Silhouette fairings I had and I wondered if they would be a bit more 'rounded' (curved in both directions) than the ones I had. Once they arrived and I compared them with the ones I had.....they looked exactly the same, hence they became a spare pair. :whistle:

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:58 am
by NGneer
I just got back from a few days away with work and whilst that meant no opportunity for spannering on the bikes, it did at least kill the time until the latest deliveries turned up. I got back yesterday afternoon and found a couple of packages waiting for me from David Silvers and good old Rick Oliver. :grin:

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Whilst the new discs are nice, shiny and eye catching, it is the exhaust gaskets that were the most important bits in enabling me to carry on and with the Mrs working late, a couple of hours in the garage seemed like a good idea. With the exhaust gaskets I was able to refit the OEM (cut) exhaust system…

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…then the rear subframe…

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…under tray and end can.

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I need to have a bit of a mass swap around of bits between the bikes and stuff on the shelves (wheels, chain guards, chain guides, swing arms) to get the right bits with each of the bikes. Nothing too challenging, I just need to think about what order I do things and have a few hours run at it to try and get it all done. As such I am saving that for Friday afternoon/Saturday so used up the rest of the evening rebuilding my rear brake calliper with new seals and the new pistons from RO.

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Having got this far it would appear that I have the wrong bleed nipple for the rear calliper as it appears to be too long. Having checked the part numbers, the front and rear calliper bleed nipples are different numbers (so are presumably different in some way). All I can assume is I have managed to fit the rear calliper bleed nipple to one of the front callipers by mistake. Bugger – sods law as I have already bled the front brakes. :down:
Hopefully I can remove the nipples from the front callipers, identify the correct front/back nipples and refit the correct front ones without ‘too much’ air getting into the system before finishing off the rear calliper. :pray:

Last thing, having got things back together, was to hook up the remote fuel tank, and fire her up to check I hadn’t missed anything else.

I hadn’t, and she fired up lovely – which is always nice to hear :grin:
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Next up, nipple tweaking (snigger) and prep ready for the big swap around.

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 7:36 pm
by NGneer
So – bit of an update on the big swap-around of bits and progress with the track bike project.

There was literally stuff moving from / to every bike either from other bikes or from the shelves onto bikes so trying to work out which order to do things in was not fun. Added to this the Mrs car ate its own turbo last week and so whilst that is in for repair she is using my car, hence I needed to make sure I always had a bike available for getting to work each day. :down:

Firstly, at Cadwell park I had noticed a deep score in the swing arm on one of the bikes (my Rothmans bike). It wasn't as obvious as you might think as it was hidden behind the end can, but having looked at all the various bits, it became apparent this had been caused by the slip on exhaust clamp bolt repeatedly rubbing up and down the swing arm.
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Whilst it had worked fine at Cadwell and since then on the local roads, IF it were to fail it would effectively mean the back end falling off – which is not a good thing. Thankfully I had a spare swing arm in the garage and whilst it had a few scuffs from a bent foot plate in the past, it was infinitely better than the one that was fitted. As I have the swing arm adapters for my Abba stand I thought swapping it over would be a fairly quick job. That turned out to be wishful thinking as everything seemed to get in the way and I basically ended up with the back end of the bike removed just to get the swing arm off and then swapped over. Anyway whilst I was this far in it made sense to swap the VFR linkage for an RVF one to accommodate a 17” back wheel. I have another RVF 17” rear in the cellar but having gone back to OEM style wheels on the Honda Britain I also had the Dymags ‘lying around’ and more annoyingly with a set of 090s on them that had only really done the Cadwell weekend. As such I decided to fit the Dymags to the Rothmans bike which also meant I could put the wheels/tyres from that bike onto the project bike as they were in better condition. Having a brand new set of brake discs sat on my bench, it also seemed to make more sense to fit these to the Dymags and thus to my regular use Rothmans bike and swap the OEM wheels from that over to the project bike complete with the existing discs in place.
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Fitting the Dymags also meant I needed to swap over the modified chain guard and chain runner from the Honda Britain bike to the Rothmans and fit the chain spacer kit again to accommodate the wider rear tyre. Finally, it was all back together and the, refreshed, Rothmans was once again fit for the road, and I had transport to get to work.
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An unmodified chain runner and standard (but well cleaned up) chain guard were then fitted to replace the ones pinched of the Honda Britain bike and without too many traumas that one was also back to a state where it was ready to use, and by the end of the day the garage contents were looking a lot better.
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Having got my transport options for the week sorted out I turned my attention back to the project bike. As mentioned I stuck the OEM wheels from the Rothmans onto this build as they were both in better condition than the ones it came with, plus the 090s they had on were only fitted just before Cadwell so have plenty of life left in them.

I have been grabbing any chance when the weather permits to do some classic rattle can spraying in the back garden over the last week or so.
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As I say, not going for anything outstanding, but I figure even a track toy can be blinged up a bit with a little bit of time and effort. Not finished yet but this is where we stand at the moment.
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A few touch ups and then a few stickers to go for the cosmetics side of things then just a couple more mechanical/electrical bits to sort out. :grin:

Re: NGneer's "Project - spare bits build"

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:28 pm
by Tim400GB
Do love a home paint job. Gave yourself a difficult task bringing the wings across the tank like that. Think maybe a third feather is needed?

Like the fact you’ve kept some of the original lines