Hey guys,Im new here on the forum so I thought I would introduce myself! My name is Art, and this is my CBR story!

So my car broke earlier this year and in the meantime while it was getting repaired I borrowed my friends CBR600 that he had lying in his backyard. Well I fell in love with the ride and now its all I ride even though now my car is fixed. I went and go my license and got insured and have been riding since!. Well after putting 6k miles on the odometer, I decided now I want to fix up this bike! So been doing a lot of research and reading and here it is.

Here is a pic of the bike the day that I picked it up from my buddies house. He really babied the bike where it mattered. He bought the bike in worse condition than this. the motor was in superb condition. It fired right up after sitting so long and it sounded amazing and still does.




As you can see the cosmetic appearance of the bike was pretty bad. All of the fairings were missing, except 1/3 of the front. The paint was in god awful condition. I later found out it was a latex paint much like inside wall paint....
The seat was torn up and gas tank lid was broken among many many other things I later found out. But I saw potential!

Well I was new to riding, and I knew I was bound to make a rookie mistake and lay the bike down. I was right in my assumption. I came to a stop on my driveway a little to fast and lost balance, the bike ended up tipping over and a look of embarrassment and shame was all over my face hahaha

I ended up breaking the right mirror and brake lever. So with that, my first upgrade was to upgrade the mirrors. I ended up getting ebay mirrors with the blinkers integrated. The stock signals were literally zip-tied to the front end...the brake lever I replaced with OEM. Here is what that looked like.




So now the bike was back in shape to ride again. That lasted all of 2-3 weeks. I knew the chain had to replaced, it was super saggy and clanked around while riding. I was planning on doing it on one of the weekends, procrastinating of course. Well one day coming home from work, here I go trying to look cool passing a car when CLANK! there goes the chain! i lucked out and the chain just came of the rear sprocket and was just spinning on the inside rear wheel.




300$ later i got that fixed and the bike ran amazing again! new chain and sprockets made a huge difference! i was finally able to open it up without the fear of death from all that clanking around from the drive train.

Well I searched around and finally found a good condition seat for an amazing price! my rear side thanked me for this upgrade.

before and after!


I found out my buddy had the fairings in his garage and he had taken them off because of the condition they were in. I asked for them thinking I could fix them. I was wrong the only pieces worth keeping were the tail fairings. everything else was gobbed with epoxy fiberglass and nasty interior paint...

I put them on and it really made the bike a fraction better.



It wasn't much longer after that the battery was dying on my rides to and from work. After all the reading I had done here I knew instantly the R&R was busted. So I ordered the GSXR 1000 R&R from online and with some elbow grease and solder got that issue all taken care of.



Ended up blowing the 30 amp starter fuse whilst replacing the R&R because yours truly forgot to disconnect the battery before starting this project. 2 wires crossed and zap blown fuse. This later caused me grief because I thought I had done something wrong with the wiring..live and learn!



So now that I took care of the easy stuff! it was time to move onto the body!

I started the repair of the tail fairings! i didn't want to invest a lot of money into the cosmetic side, so I decided to do a rattle can job.
I figured that would be better than interior paint haha. I'd say it came out pretty decent for rattle cans!







This past weekend, I started tearing the bike apart, I knew the tank needed paint for sure. Since I was taking the tank off I figured it was a good time to take care of all the maintenance under the tank.



I was amazed at what the air filter looked like...I'd say all 25k miles of the bike were on this filter...



I pulled the carbs off and surprisingly they looked in really good condition considering how dirty the bike was!



Everything moved really well and all the gaskets were in excellent condition. I still plan on cleaning the jets, but they were in good condition!



Next I pulled the rear fender off, and am going to modify the OEM one as many others have done. the rear passenger pegs have also been removed. I need to figure out how to fab a bracket for the exhaust, but thats way later.



I also pulled the exhaust headers off and sanded all the rust off them. Then I used high temp paint and painted them a flat black. This made them look way cleaner. I also painted the bolts and nuts that attached it to the engine.




And that is how the bike sits now. Lots of progress and lots of hard work ahead. I should be completing the bodywork this upcoming weekend, minus the wheels. For some reason I have a fear of removing the wheels off the bike. My mind is telling me it's a 10/10 job...

I also ordered a whole bunch of new goodies for the bike. I will update the thread after I install all that stuff.

I'm hoping to get this bike looking fairly decent by the end of the month. Wish me luck!

 

Good luck Artie! I'm anxious to see you turn that thing around!

 

$300 for a new chain ?!?!?! I bought my XSO with new sprockets for like $150 at most. my first set was like $85.

 

Mike, I think the $300 was for new chain and sprockets as well, but if I'm wrong, Artie, I hope that chain is plated with a precious metal of some sort!!

 

haha It was for labor too, since the chain broke on a Monday, and I'm impatient, I just took it to a shop to get repaired while I went to work. I was able to get the bike back for a nice Friday casual day ride!

 

JNS, chain and sprocket kits are cheap enough. Even a nice one for my RC51 is like $200. I paid $150 for a Regina SXO chain with stock sprockets. eBay is your friend.

As far as labor, if you can't adjust a chain or even put one on, sell your bike.

 

calm your s**t bro, I took it to a shop because I had to work during the week and I wanted it fixed asap, not because I couldn't do it.

Damn acting like it's your money I spent to fix the bike.....

 

Gotcha, that makes sense, regarding the $ amount.

Oh for sure, you don't have to tell me about parts cost, I do all my own work to all my cars and bikes, both race and street, and have bought parts-o-plenty!! I usually pay just over $200 for chain and sprockets, for D.I.D ERV3, and AFAM race sprokets... I did pay about $300 during my last chain/sprockets purchase, but that's because I get a couple of additional rears with different teeth-count, for alternate gearing choices for different tracks/conditions.

 

Hey man good thread you got going.Looks like you got a lot of work ahead of you. call me crazy but I almost like working on my bike just as much as riding it .Huh. Keep up the good work.

 

thanks man! I really do enjoy working on the bike, Im always working on one project or another.

So regarding taking the wheels off, it's just a jack the bike up and unbolt the axles right?

today I'm going to be clear coating some more plastics and hopefully draining the coolant so I can repaint the Radiator.

I also would really like to paint the frame and engine too, high temp paint of course. how hard is it to pull the engine off the bike just to get a good cleaning and a few coats of paint on it?