Is that house empty? Doesn't take much to convert space you know.

 

Very tempting but, alas, the house belongs to a relative who has been too busy to get it on the market. Sure was nice working in the warm and dry. I took a few images last night that I composited into my first stab at a formal portrait -

 

Doc.


Bike looks awesome...happy that my thread inspired you a little. It's a big job to get them to that point


It seemed like a little plastic change in the beginning but we know better now.


Not to discourage others, but it was challenging for sure.


I'm looking at doing a sub-frame (using RR sub-frame) on the next one.


There are 3 projects in front of that tho.

 

When I had been fitting the the upper and the fuse box covers over and over through the build I found that I couldn't get the steering to go all the way left so that I could lock it, because it would hit the cover panel. I was going to figure out if I could heat and shape or maybe cut away some plastic from the left cover so it would work.

What I found out a couple nights ago was that when I fully bolted the fairings, scoops, lights, etc. up, it pulled things the last 1/8 of an inch into place and now the steering lock works perfectly. Lesson learned, completely assemble parts you are test fitting!

In the minus column, I had said my F2 rear hugger didn't rub on the tire the way you said yours did. That was true until I got the tire up to the full 42psi. Now it rubs and the hugger is more of a scraper, throwing road crud all over itself and swingarm. Looks like I will have to somehow reshape the last few inches of the hugger to give it a little more of an arc above the tread.

Back to the makeshift studio this evening. I have an idea in mind for some images that will emphasize the CF look.

 

Realized that I probably ought to share that I resolved my issue of the vinyl wrap puckers on the knee areas of the fuel tank. I had purchased a new old stock tank bra that is really nice, but really didn't fit the style of the bike (bra is for sale by the way) It's not very clear in the last photo, but you can see in the daylight photo I posted a while back that I covered the knee indents with custom knee pads. I bought some black construction paper and mocked up a pad that fit the shape of the knee indent. Then I cut some slightly textured EPDM rubber sheet I bought from McMaster Carr to fit the pattern. EPDM is particularly weather resistant and the adhesive is a really grippy 3M product designed specifially for EPDM weather stripping. Seems to adhere to the rubber and the vinyl wrap very well.

 

I took mine off like three times and cut it back and it now has about an 1/8" clearance. I plan to cut it straight across. Just to let you know it needs to be cut back quite a bit.

 

I like the construction paper patterns. I used heavy cardboard (not corrugated) for all the gold highlight decals that I made from 3M wrap film. It's heavy enough to use for a knife guide to cut them out. You just flip it over for the other side

 

My hugger seems to rub on the last couple/three inches. It already had a wear spot there when I bought it, so this was possibly a common issue on the F2 as well. I found that end of the hugger goes into a nice arc above the tire if you squeeze the sides together a little. It doesn't seem to take much pressure. What I might try to do is cut a length of 3/4" wide 1/8" thick aluminum and rivet it to the underside of the hugger near the end. Maybe I could shape that a bit to pull the sides in and develop an arc shaped gap above the tire.

 

I'm just going to cut mine back.


Been working on the front fender today. Just about ready for paint. A lot of extra work but it looks nice. I cut it way back and tried to shape it like the RR, I'll post some pics once I get it painted and mounted.


Going to try and put some time in on the bike next week. Hopefully can finish up the exhaust. It's mounted but the headers need to be painted. I had to space out the passenger peg to get it to fit.


Lots of little details left but getting close. We have snow and cold here anyway, so no riding in sight


I really want to get started on this bike. It's a low mileage original that I have all the fairings for...but the best tank I have is a black with red...buffed it out and its perfect so will change the color to black with red. Problem is the bike is out in the barn.

 

Just an update about the hugger. A strip of aluminum, formed by bending it over the tire to create an arc, worked to reshape the "flat with square corners" tail end. I drilled a hole for a pop rivet in the middle of the strip, then a hole near each end. Placed the strip under the back edge of the hugger. Used a scriber heated with a torch to poke thru the holes in the strip and up thru the hugger. Enlarged those holes and clamped the hugger to the strip to make it conform to the new curve. Then three pop rivets went in - center one first - to pull it together permanently. Have a nice even gap of about 1/4" above the tread now, and the rivets are painted black to make them relatively inconspicuous.