Curt's (Uber Pikeys) Castrol

[uber pikey]

I thought I should introduce my bike before the Castrol thing kicks off this year and I look like everyone else.

Some of you already know that I bought this bike last September for £400.00, the thing had been sat in my mates garage for 10 years, he swapped it for his Pontiac Firebird before he went on his round the world trip as he didn’t want a big car sat in his mum’s drive, he never got it running and never had any interest. He offered me it over Facebook so I took a trip to Swansea to have a look.

When I got there I was happy to see the bike for the first time as I am a bit of a gambler when it comes to vehicles and thought I could definitely do something with this. I dragged it out side put the key in and it fired straight up however that was it, as soon as it started to get warm the thing cut out and gave up. I knew it was carb related as I have worked on bikes and cars all my life. I stripped them off took them home and followed a thread on the internet on how to maintain the carbs (you guessed it Cammo’s).

I went back the next day and it fired up and purred like a kitten, happy days.
Here is how she was the day I found her and after I got it running with her clothes on.






I serviced her, checked the tyres, MOT’d her and then rode her home to Shropshire.

I will write up the strip and rebuild over the next few days.

Curt

[porndoguk]

nice one Dirt, looking forward to the pics & story.

[uber pikey]

I knew from the start the bike needed stripping and rebuilding, the thing was filthy dirty even though there was only 11k on the clock, the fibre glass body work was as cracked as Michael Jackson’s alibis, the left hand side had been caved in like Jordan’s back teeth but thankfully it was all cosmetic, the search still continues for a white plastic nose and mid panels so that I can fully say it’s finished. I have just repaired the fibre glass and reinforced with carbon fibre, to stop it from flexing so god damn much and splitting the paint again.

The whole bike needed an overhaul, even though it was in a friend’s garage, time hadn’t been kind to it let alone the abuse it had probably suffered before then. I stripped the back end first as it seemed the obvious choice at the time. The chain had dry links, the electrics were frayed, the rear tyre was a touring type tyre with extremely high side walls, the exhaust stained to hell and the back wheel was so stuck to the hub that I spent half the day trying to get it off, worrying if I was doing something wrong.


At this point I had caught Castrol fever, in the day I was working on the bike and at night I was buying all sorts of shit off of flea bay, check my clothing out lol…

The back end was hard to clean due to the amount of shit on it but I scrubbed it hard with some quality cleaning products, finally it was starting to give me results.



All brackets and any other rusty bits were removed and powder coated, the only good thing that I found was the Hagon shock, it works out to have done just over a hundred miles (I put them on) as it was new on fit when he collected the bike. The sub frame wasn’t as bad as a tea bag but rot was starting to creep in, I sanded that right back to bare metal and re-sprayed it so it all looks sound. The plastics I scrubbed and managed to get cleaning cloths from work that brought them up a treat.

Curt.

[tanto]

"the only good thing that I found was the Hagon shock"

You lucky SOB!

Good luck with the build. And no free time, obsessive checking of eBay, bike mags, 400GB...

[uber pikey]

Working forward on the bike, I stripped the rocker covers off to check all my valve shims, to find that they were all tight by just over 0.10mm on both inlets and exhaust, they were either badly adjusted before or the valves have stretched due to over-revving. Either way I replace all the shims but being anal I made sure all the gaps were bang on the mid point of clearance, fired her up and she does sound smoother, not surprising considering how tight they were.

I decided to start on the front end as the back wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, however it turned out to be a bit of a money pit that’s for sure. All the brackets were rusty, the light cluster filthy, the yokes were brown from corrosion and the grips were red for fukc sake!

I am lucky that I have access to a media blaster in work, so after spending hours in the cold on a stool rubbing down the sub frame for re-spray I managed to get the use of the blaster and to say thanks to the guys who look after me I bung them biscuits every now and again (they are all fat now). I made all the parts ready for powder coating and carried on stripping down the front end. I didn’t bother powder coating the sub frame as I think the spray job will suffice for now. The yoke was a right tw@t to remove and I didn’t like what I found, the bearings had seen better days, take a look.






I measured the thickness of the discs while they were off and they came in at 3.6mm so I knew they weren’t going back on, 0.1mm is just not worth the hastle so I needed new discs, feck!

[Delboy]

Another major rebuild, good work keep the pics coming

[uber pikey]

Thanks Derek, you’ve spurred me on.

Since the front end was stripped I managed to get all the powder coating done and have finally gotten all my bits back, the yoke looks “cool as” man after the state I removed it in, the only thing left on there is to apply the Honda sticker plate. I have fitted new clip-ons from Mr Oliver(God like), new Ariete grips, new head races, new fork seals(not done the RO fork upgrade yet), new EBC discs n pads and repainted the forks, touched them off with new Showa stickers at the bottom, attention to detail and the side stand is now back on so rolling chassis in coming.

The head light and clock brackets are disappointing as they look so good but are hidden by the clocks and lights (good quality finish).

[Muttonchops]

Good luck with the build. Wish I had time to do this to mine!
Toby

[uber pikey]

A new day a new start, with all these new shiny things on my bench there was no way I was sitting at home so I went back to the garage to finish putting the front end together.

[Muttonchops]

Looking good, want to do mine?