made some progress but not as much as i would have liked, nothing out of the ordinary haha



front end off.



would love to get a headstock stand but the f3's ram air intake kinda gets in the way haha. also its always inconvenient that the intake needs to come off if you're taking the yokes off.



first fork leg, no problem. 488ml of 10 weight with a special ingredient mixed in.



and on the second fork, hit disaster. had my brother giving me a hand for a change because I'm still buckled from the crash. he's slightly more competent than myself mechanically most of the time. whilst i was away measuring up the oil, he forgot to take the seat spring, (item 3 on the diagram below) off prior to winding out the preload adjuster (item 12) causing it to get wedged into the threads, not realising it had been missed we decided that it must just be stiff so gave it a bit more torque, whole thing wedged up but managed to get the adjuster back in to get the seat spring off but caused some minor damage to threads, bent the pins that sit against the preload adjuster and the pins gauged about 1mm of the bottom of the preload adjuster... so that was a bit of a ****emare. assessed the damage and its containable.

tiny bit of thread damage is inconvenient but its very, very minor and won't cause any issues. the other components are runnable short term will need replaced (items 12 & 5). i have to take some responsibility for it myself, i glanced at the workshop manual when he said it wasn't right and overlooked the spring clip. could have been a very expensive problem. anyway... rebuilt the 2nd fork, happy to run it but like i said it will need some minor work in the near future.

these things happen, its not the end of the world. would have rather it didn't occupy a couple of hours though. didnt have time to photograph the damaged bits but i'll get some when its sorted.





cleaned the legs right up.



looking much better. another thing i did with the fork rebuild is to mix some about 50ml of zx-1 friction eliminator into the fork oil prior to measuring it up to keep the same dilution between the two legs. i use this stuff in everything, even premix it into brake fluid, check it out, its super slippy awesomeness that does awesome things and makes things last longer and work better.

also zx-1 greased the head bearings.



all ball usa tapered needle bearings rather than the normal caged ball bearings. this ended up taking a huge portion of the night, it can be a nightmare taking old races off of stems and a nightmare trying to get the new ones onto the stem / frame. with the amount of wasted time dealing with the 2nd fork it was far too late (past midnight) to persevere (hammer, press & noise) so the bikes had to be abandoned without the front end. will get that done tomorrow and get the brakes done. leaving it a little tight if I'm wanting it wired and runnable for Wednesday, as long as there isn't any more setbacks it should still be achievable.

phewww... monday 01:55am now... what a night. I'm done.

 

some more progress and some procrastinating haha whilst waiting on a bearing puller.



just looking at how the tail lines up again, will either bolt onto the points you see here or ill have to make 2 wee brackets. trying to get an understanding of the underseat space for the electrics as well.



under the seat cowl / pillion seat.



looking to keep the frame area empty but the battery is going got be an issue no matter how i look at it. short term its staying in its box but long term i want it stashed, preferably not high in the tail.



this end bits going to have to be bent up in or something, can't be cut, need the support for passengers.



had thought about hiding the batter where the overflow bottle is but its too tight.



saggy looking as its at the wrong angle. nothing bugs me more than incorrectly angled tails than headlight that sit too far out



much better angle, needs to either come in line with the tank or sit just below it.



fixed **** up number 2 of the evening with the forks, the reason the bottom yoke wouldn't seat right is that between myself and the brother neither of us noticed that the old ball bearing race was in the frame still when we started putting the needle bearing race in... rookie mistake, silly things that happen when you're working in torchlight and are exhausted haha never again.



voila. race out.



new race in for **** sake haha still can't believe we did that.



the saving grace, a slide hammer / bearing puller. managed to pull the two races apart and then obviously the old one out, still on the puller actually. handy having friends with these kinds of toys.





started on the callipers, gave it a good clean down, used alloy cleaner and it couldn't budge some of the muck without lifting the finish so although its much cleaner now it will be getting pressure washed or something to see if it can get the crap off completely. might even blast them and powder coat them.



the muck just won't shift



right the 929 has two piston sizes like I've spoken about before but I've got seals labeled 32 that don't fit the 32 piston, not sure if I've managed to mix up seals haha or wether the shop made another **** up, I've not had much luck with them, don't think they'll be getting any more of my custom.



the old seals, sitting snug as they should. kind of strange. another 32mm set seemed to be the right size so god knows whats happened there, hopefully its my error and I've mixed some of the packets around haha i'll find out by the time i get through the brakes. worst case scenario i have to use old seals in one of the pistons until i get new ones ordered up.



one polished 32mm piston, think its strange that they're brown rather than the high polished chrome looking ones I'm used to seeing. but yeah i always give pistons a quick machine polish with autosol or equivalent. seal seats were given a clean out, the seals were given a lick of zx1 and the 1st piston reinstalled. at this point i was given the puller for the bearings so the brakes got abandoned.

when i got back to them, you know how sometimes you land lucky and they bleed really easily and its no fuss to get all the pistons out... yeah that wasn't the case. wasted about 300ml of fluid trying to bleed it enough to get the next piston out but it wasn't having it. rather than waste rakes of fluid I'm just going to pop the calliper off and use compressed air to push the pistons out, didn't see the point in wasting time trying to bleed it anymore. so thats the plan for tomorrow alongside getting the wiring started / hopefully finished.



well got the front end back on and passed the frame of mind to work on electrics. so with a bit of time on my hands i threw the tail back on for another look at how I'm going to hide everything (and to see it with the front end now because she's puuuuurdy =P )

[

rear 3/4 view. reckon its going to look mean when its fitted.



kind of hoped the battery might squeeze in under the tank beside the carbs but no luck haha there does look to be enough room under the carbs but engine heat is the obvious issue, not sure if i would get away with it. another thought is that when i do away with the old school coils that there might be room there for the batter but yet again heat might be an issue. it really is just going to have to go into the tail.



when its wired up it will be getting run like this for a couple of weeks until i can get the tail fabricated on, just with a numberplate mounted to the rear. quite like the shorter looking back end with just this seat in comparison to the 5pw's, thats one of the things that bug me about the r1 tails, its the length of them. still looks good like this though. not too sure how much the round headlight and the tail are going to go. been looking at some other headlight options but i do still need something with substantial light output and nothing really compares to big round lamps i reckon. bearing in mind I'm speaking about projection not brightness.



took a measurement and had the girlfriend take a picture whilst i held the tape... at an angle... so you can't really read it hahaha i reckon 71.6cm... i'll have to check it again and confirm that figure. no luck at all.


lots of time has been consumed today but its another step forward isn't it had hoped to finish it tomorrow night but its likely that I'm going to be finishing it wednesday or even wednesday evening... but i hope its wired up before evening. hope it isn't next wednesday before i can get to the powder coating set up haha

quite a picture heavy update.

roll on tomorrow, brakes, temporary tray for the electrics and the electrics themselves =]

 

so... the brakes haha you know how sometimes you get a seal that just doesn't want to go in, might take 5 mins longer than usual and you get brakes that just never want to bleed in. well... haha none of the seals were happy about going in, I'm talking up to 30 mins of wrestling to get some of the dust seals in.

clever me, being clever in an effort to save brake fluid from excessive bleeding took the callipers off the bike to use compressed air via the bleed valve to get the pistons out. when the banjo bolt wasn't long enough to seal the hole back up, clever me used a small cut of inner tube to do the job. clever me didn't foresee the inner tube getting wedged into the callipers chambers through the 2.5ish mm hole under the banjo. clever me tried loads of ways to get it out including splitting the callipers, removing the seals and blasting it out with heat. no luck there so as a last resort i had to drill the rubber out and then flush it thoroughly to make sure there were no tiny metal shavings or debris left that could block the channels. 3 hours wasted but n the plus side i get how the channels work



spot the wedged rubber. completely forgot to photograph it at the banjo end but yeah the channel splits 4 ways. firstly the banjo, the bleed nipple, to the pots behind the fluid and to the second half of the calliper, the hole seen is where it goes to the second calliper. the rubber went down the banjo hole and routed itself towards the second calliper. gladly it didn't head towards the pots as that would have been completely inaccessible. however there would likely have been a chemical option for removal. I've had callipers apart many a time but I've never had to pay so much attention to the internals, quite interesting.

what a pain in the dick. think your clever ideas through and then rethink them haha.



split.



my set up for blowing the pistons out. note the silver collar under the banjo bolt to space it out. on the second calliper i used copper crush washers top and bottom to seal it haha lesson learned.



unfortunately i was right about the seals being different sizes, identical packaging yet one fitted snug and one was saggy as hell. 10 points for quality control... all the 34's were sound and one of the 32s was fine, noted which ones still need done. removed the pistons, polished them, cleaned behind the old seals then replaced the old seals. will do for this now.

nightmare as they were bought through a friends trade account months ago so its not like i can just get onto customer service.



refitted, cleaned and zx1 greased all the bolts.

torx bolts are 2x m8x35 and 2x m8x40 just for reference. wi be replacing them with allen bolts as torx are inconvenient.

yeah and hours to bleed back in, whats usually a kinda 1-3 hour job took about 13 give or take. man starting to think this bike doesn't want to be built.





molex tool for icm connectors turned up, (Molex 11-03-0044)



new icm terminals.



as did the new preload adjuster, still need the nylon ring with the pins.



started wiring the icm.



crimping skills. its actually quite good fun.



seals in, about to replace the cover.



better than new, suck it mr honda haha
i will still do a full breakdown of the electrics when I've got the time.
i built the speedo connector blocks first just to get used to the tools and stuff, completely forgot to photograph it off the bike.



speedo connector block + the wire routing.



rearset on...

new pegs, the springs scratched up the powder coating though grr. doing a reservoir delete as well.



ohhhh whats that?

yeah can't remember which is which but one of the rear master is a 14mm and the other is a 1/4''. so the back brake is either going to be a bit harsh or its going to have a little more modulation. shall be interesting either way. just an experiment. its a bit more to play with when i do the swingarm as i'll have to d the back brake as well

to fit all i had to do was drill the holes in the hanger out from m6 to m8, no biggie.

going to polish the logo out when i re-finish the rearsets and stuff as well. should look sweet.

rebuilt the back brake and the 38mm seals fitted haha hurrah.

think thats me up to date with the last 2 days, was working till 6am the day before last tackling the front brakes and last night till 4am doing the rear with some odds and sods like the chain. and eyeing up where I'm going to put the main electrics.

 

if i hadn't run into the issues i well would have made yesterdays deadline, lost about 20 hours work i reckon haha gutted. ahwell next wednesday it is then... I've still got lots of little bits done which is awesome.

 

Oh man so been there... doing electric wiring things at 2am since it seems to be the only time you actually can sneak up to the shed...

I must say those are some neat crimps. I'm an electrician by training and I can't match those.

 

always seems to be the case doesn't it haha I've got nothing but time on my hands with the injury downtime so my night just carry on, might get a few hours sleep but the body clock always gets me up far too early.

still need to make a proper decision as to where I'm going to put the battery / electric tray. once its done i don't really want to cut back into it to rearrange everything for the tail actually getting fitted. tomorrow is decision day. lots of mock ups.

but yeah thanks man, means a lot, genuinely the first time I've done it other than a handful of practice ones. kinda thought it was all down to having the right tool for the job at hand. the smaller stuff seems to come out really well for me but the bigger terminals tend to 'banana' slightly due to the pressure, need to see if theres any adjustment on the pliers to stop that.

 

thought id take a day off but that didn't really happen. went for a cycle then got home at 10pm and just had the urge to fettle haha



so finished bleeding the back brake, thought i had cleaned it much better than that haha job for the pressure washer i think. braided line from the ace and you've seen the brembo master already P=



fitted the yet to be powder coated rear set (so i can travel to the set up to coat it myself)

realised how to switch the linkage to motogp style 1up 5down, just flip the bit that goes on to the spline upside down haha not sure what kinda benefits there would be for me. i reckon muscle memory would screw me over when things got hairy. imagine relying on engine braking and your muscle memory goes up a gear rather than dropping it... eeeeeeeeek anyway it feels wrong fitting stuff that isn't finished.



tonights **** up, managed to tear the in tank fuel filter, whilst putting it into the yellow tank. might have one sitting in a vfr tank that'll do the job, might.



paddock stand getting put to good use haha, radiator cap and speed sensor bracket, hanging to dry.



can't see much but i thought it was a cool shot.

electrical ultimatums to be made tomorrow. panic haha

 

Went for a cycle? Damn, you are healing up quick! That's great to hear. And I'll echo you and Matti - late nights/early mornings are the only time things in the garage seem to get done at my house too.

Looks great BTW! Those bearing races can be a pain, but a little bit of heat to the neck and an hour of freezing the new races make it a lot easier.

 

thanks man,

can't wait to get the tail on properly, also been looking far too much into carbon monocoque tails and subframes. the 2nd and 3rd stages of the build are going to be shooting for overkill, steel frame probably not the best platform when shooting for lightweight though.

yeah haha i was cycling the 2nd week i got out i think, just trying to keep active with 6-10mile round trips. I'm able just have to avoid jerky movements and lifting anything too heavy. so I'm getting there for sure.

I'm still in disbelief over hammering a race into a race whilst working under torch light hahaha and killing the preload adjuster. some days you really need to call it quits when things start going wrong. certainly glad we didn't heat the head up to hammer that race into another race, would of been in a world of suck.

id recommend getting a bearing puller though, makes the job unbelievably easy, think I'm going to invest in one myself.

//

for the record, the f3 nissin rear master cylinder is a 14mm, the f2 is a 1/2'' and the brembo I'm running is a 1/4''. obviously i haven't been out on the bike yet but at the pedal (other than needing to adjust its height still) it feels good, theres a bit more travel in the lever which with some luck is going to elate to modulation. i can see modulation being a good factor on the rear, should help to stop locking it up under heavy front/rear braking when all the weight transfers forward... should. with the big disks there is some ridiculous stopping power at hand.

had a couple of days of basically not spending time on the bike, its been a bit of a knock to the system haha. made decisions about the electrical layout though, i'll post the wee sketch up shortly.

 

so the other night spent a bit of time with the thunderace, pulling bits off that I've sold, measured up the 38mm carbs for width to see if it was plausible to use them on the cbr but at 13'' at its widest point it looked to be just that but too wide, the early blade 38mm carbs have an overall width of around 11'' which should be a fine fit. anyway spent a wee bit of time with the cbr.



cleaned and turned all the stainless clamps so that you can't see the bolts. sounds daft but it bugs me haha returned the radiator cap as well. used truck bed liner for it, its a scratch resistant almost plastic coating, just an experiment as i was looking at using it for frames and areas where abrasion could be an issue.



newly painted speedo sensor bracket on.



bit closer up.



cable tied the wire all the way up the brake line. the area close to the disk looks a bit sketchy but its fine, the wire moves against the for when it compresses rather than in towards the disk, made sure theres no way it will be in contact with the disk.



you're not likely to be able to make sense of the scribbles but basically i put the tail on the bike, noted the depths of the tail plastics to make a decision on where everything is going to lay with the new tail.

where i need to put the battery (about 6'' further up the tail) so that its terminals are just accessible from under the cowl & that it isn't visible through the subframe. there lies a short term problem. theres a drop down section in the f3's stock seat which renders the space unusable until the tail is swapped. it just means I've got to wire it to where i'd like it to sitting the tail and tuck the excess wiring away for now.

so, fuse box and battery terminals will be accessible from under the seat cowl and the icm, relays / starter relay will all be under the front seat utilising the space below the battery where i can get away with running a slim tray or box, keeping the exposed subframe space nice and open.

or thats the thought process anyway, it makes sense but we shall see. need to decide on a location for the R/R. thinking about using the space in the exposed section of subframe just to give it plenty of room to breathe, might need to make a heat sync just for good measure rather than attaching it to the electric box. not overly concerned as its a much better unit than the standard piece, i don't foresee any issues there.

came across a wild f3 build, truly something that stands out and he put the battery under the carbs, theres definitely space there but the heat will kill batteries left, right and centre. the work this guy puts in is incredible. totally breaks the mould as well. - CBR gets the Sailah treatment... | Adventure Rider

whilst I'm posting other people's build this is one thats given v3 of my build when it begins (after v1 and v2) a bit of inspiration, claimed weight of 172kg... and with the amount of hand crafted carbon fibre, i can believe it. now just imagine if it were aluminium framed as well. worth looking at just for the guys sheet metal tail. its stunning and faaaaar out of my ability. - http://www.customfighters.com/forums...ad.php?t=33094


//

with the bits I'm getting sold i should be in a position soon enough to see if this guy still has the aftermarket f2 swingarm and make a reasonable offer on it. that would be a win of a situation if i could get my hands on that. lightweight, braced alloy number thats true to the bike's era. had a look and it and f2 should be interchangeable with the f3 swingarm, a possibility is that i get my hands on a blade wheel to take a 180. 180's seem to be the middle ground in tyre size choice, in terms of keeping flick-ability yet capability for mad lean angles. its just an idea I'm playing with but it would also allow me to match the front 929's 3spoke should i use a 929 onward or f4i onward wheel bot of whichh allow for 180. another bonus is that it allows me to use the f3 swingarm with the gs5 build should it be beneficial as theres already a f3 front and and shock being thrown at it.

must say I've been trying to find information on swingarm length online and its next to impossible to find, slightly shorter wheel base is something that appeals to me, almost tempted to modify the f3's swinger and knock a link out the chain... but i won't haha got 101 other things to puss about with.

also been looking at danmoto exhausts... i know they're chinese but they seem to represent really good value, can get the XG1 MV Agusta Brutalé styled can shipped to the uk for less than 100quid, very light and they seem to get a good review as well. its not a priority right now but next month maybe.