Thanks man It's kind of a PITA, but there's also a sense of accomplishment. I'm right at the limit of my technical know-how, so it's nice to push myself a little. As long as it all works when I put it back together, anyway...

Z did a review of the Carbon GP pipe and said it worked well, and most of the reviews seem positive. I'm not really looking for HP gains (which I understand are minimal with even a very expensive slip on) but the big metal beasty has seen its last day on my bike. I was all set to order the GP pipe until I saw the JISU one - information is trickling out because it's so new, but I may have to give it a crack. Hopefully someone does a real review on it in the next four or five days before my money hits, cause as soon as it does the whole list of things is getting ordered.

The LED pegs were already wired, but to remove the passenger foot pegs I had to snip the wires. I marked them each individually so that I can connect the same wires that I snipped back together if I need to, but if those tags fall off I'm not sure whether all the red wires are interchangeable, and ditto with the black wires.

I picked up a cheapie gas cap off ebay. It's race style, so no key, but I think that's kinda cool. I'm not real worried about someone stealing my gas, knock on wood. Just have to make sure I don't strip the threads in a rush to put it back on one morning. The seller, dormousesleep, shipped really quickly and it got here within a couple of days.

 

be careful with the amount of ebay parts you order that have "cbr" on them, imo if to many accumulate it starts to look tachy haha

but that just my opinion what does i know

 

LOL. That should be the only one.

Okay, maybe the grips, too, but THATS IT lol.

It won't say it anywhere on the bike, so I gotta represent somehow.

 

I really like all the work and pics. Your bikes gonna be awesome when finished so keep up the great work.

 

Well, for $88 shipped, I may have to reconsider that Delkevic can I was thinking of ordering! I won't be making a decision any time soon. Unfortunately, I have to concentrate my efforts on my car at the moment!

 

Well, it's $88 plus shipping, so around $128, but it's still a good deal.

Today's festivities:

Cleaned almost everything, except back around the swingarm. I rubbed down electrical cables with alcohol, degreased / WD-40'd / toothbrushed the engine and associated bits.

I wrapped a lot of the electrical and the engine bits in plastic so that when I spray paint stripper on the frame it won't end up somewhere it shouldn't, like the throttle bodies. Also for when I hose it off with water.

I took the sprocket and rotors off my wheels, and am going to stop by the bike shop tomorrow to have the tires taken off.

My chain breaker came, so I broke my chain. Not before breaking a pin trying to break the chain, but it turns out the pin I tried at first wasn't for motorcycle chains anyway, so no biggie.

I cleaned out the front sprocket area. I was going to take a picture of the black lagoon creature that was living in there, but it was too horrible. I do have a picture post-cleaning: I wouldn't eat off it, but it's much better.

I sanded down some of the more prominent gorges in my headlight plastic. I have to sand with successively smaller paper still, but it's a start.

Finally, I reblasted my test panel with more white: The gray primer was showing through after the initial few coats yesterday. If it's still showing tomorrow, I'll bake it and see if that helps the ceramic properties fill better. If that doesn't work, then I just won't prime my tank.

Pics attached.

There seem like a lot of stress fracture looking things on my engine. is that normalish? Also, the red hue is from the shop rags stuffed in the header holes, not rust.

 

My bad, I thought I saw something that said free shipping.

Gunk in the front sprocket cover is very common and not much fun to clean up! It is important to do as part of routine maintenance as the grit can more quickly wear your chain and sprockets. No sense cleaning your chain and rear sprocket to a spotless shine just to run it though a chamber packed with nasty old grit and grease!

Do you have a pic of the fractures? I can't see what you mean in any of those ^^^.

 

This is the best picture of them took, F3:

 

Just a heads up...

Depending on what kind of stripper you are spraying... it may eat through that plastic, especially if you plan on using aircraft remover.

 

I'm just using Klean-Strip nowensby, and I blasted a test piece of plastic and left it on for 20 minutes to see if just that would happen.

The last thing I want is bits of melted plastic and chemical junk directly into my engine. I'll probably try and throw some cardboard or something else on top of the plastic when I spray. We have enough boxes that I should be able to craft some sort of quasi shield.

I wish there was room to get the inside of the frame with the engine still in, but alas it looks like a no-go.

The heat gun is what I'm really worried about. The flameproof paint I bought requires a curing process that involves heating it way up (~650 degrees or so at the last cycle). I'll probably omit that last heat cycle, but may get it up to ~400 - still enough to melt thin plastic and wires no problem. Just gonna have to be extra careful, and maybe see if my fairings have some extra heat shielding that I can move wherever I'm heating up.