Nah, just a washer, those heater versions start at 8-900 euros here going up to 1,5k, and pretty much the only make that sells them is Kränzle which is ludicrously expensive as is.

 

Got some time to sneak into the garage last weekend and got the headlight unit started:


Turns out it`s actually MUCH easier to freehand the mold from cellfoam rather than try to make some sorry casts...



The first hole`s starting to find it`s shape, next I got to "drill" the other two holes so I can start finding the final shape. A LOT of delicate sanding and totally shooting from the hip ATM, hopefully it comes out good...

Also found out that the frame piece that`s around the light and sits between the upper fairings is broken, a really crappy bodge repair went *snap* when I lifted the fairings off the bike.

I visited the powdercoater today, got some good news and then some...



Little bits came out good, no complaining there...



The front rim looks good, I changed the color at the last minute from RAL 3020 to RAL 3001 and am really pleased with the end result. They are really much more red than in the picture, a poorly lit room makes them look bright orange.



As said the front rim LOOKS good, other that the ing has hung it from the valve hole and NOT from the purposefully too long center bolt as I told him to do! Gave him a proper lecture about tubeless rims and estethics, no way I`m gonna be able to get that canyon to disappear, let alone to get the valve to seal the hole properly... Gotta try, don`t want to have to re-paint the front rim...


...too...





The heat resistant tape that was between the sprocket flange and the rim has curled up and dug itself into the paint in the oven, no other way around it than to sand the whole hub from that side and to re-paint them both separately, take a wild guess is there going to be a visible border between the new and old paints, most probably gonna have to polish it off with farecla or something... Pretty dang pi$$ed at the moment, the painter was genuinely sorry and said he`s gonna take all this into consideration when calculating the final cost. A slim comfort thinking about all the unnecessary work and the delay to the whole project... Had already planned to get the rims under the bike the next weekend, get it washed and stuff... At least I got the exhaust bracket so I can finally carve the needed holes to the tail for it and send it to be painted and taped...

 

Dude, that sucks. I'd be really pissed about that. He'd be re-painting it all for free if I was you.

 

+1 there :/

 

He dang sure is gonna, I meant a discount from the original price...

Right now my next problem is to find a place I can press the new bearings into the rims, the old ones dropped out with just a small tap, but the new ones refused to go in so I have to press them in and the rims don`t fit between the pillars of my own press.

Polished the bolts of the front brake discs today, came out really good with really small effort, got all 12 bolts shining in about 30 minutes, gonna go to the garage tomorrow to get the covering bolts out from the threads, the heads are so thickly coated with the paint that I can`t get a grip from them with anything so I probably have to bang a socket over the bolts one by one or somehow get the paint off of them...

 

Always had good luck placing bearings in freezer and warming rims up under a halogen lamp or something.

 

Argh, of course, dumb me, didn't remember that... Thanks for the tip, gotta put the other one in, I almost got the other one in place already so that'll have to be forced in using the outer track of the soon-to-be-gutted old bearing as a punch.

 

Bingo, baby! Heat gun on the hub - don't be afraid to put a very thin film of grease on the outer race, if your bearing could slip out due to a little grease here, then something is way out of tolerance - lay it flat and tap it with a mallet, and use the old bearing to drive it in.

It's a shame about the paint foibles, but I AM very anxious to see things when complete - that color is very interesting.

 

A day off from work is a day at the garage, the season`s coming fast, in fact it`s 10c out right now so I`m starting to be in a bit of a hurry with the bike...



As I wrote I polished the brake disc bolts yesterday, a really easy little job that has amazing results super fast, probably am going to do this more around the bike.





Warming up the rim and freezing the bearing did the trick, I cut the old bearing up so I could use it to hit the new one in, took a few proper whacks with a big rubber mallet to get them in but got them there eventually.



This turned out to be the only spot where the tape had curled outwards, the rest of it was embedded in the paint in the rim. To anyone thinking about powdercoating their sprocket flange: despite of the painter`s promises, the paint DOES increase the diameter of the center hub quite a bit, as you can see from the markings I had to give the sprocket some proper bashing to get it out of there, gonna have to try to tidy the marks up somehow...



The sanding job wasn`t that bad thanks to a new sanding machine I bought some time ago, just pretty bummed I had to do it in the first place... Gonna have to cover the bolts and the bearing "bays" before I can get them back for re-coating.



Some little fine tuning with a needle file to get the brake discs to sit right...


...and one front rim ready for the tire.

 

Looking good - and you were certainly right about your earlier pictures of the rims, they really didn't give a good representation of the actual color!