JamesHambleton 87' VFR750 Liz

[quote=yantosh;3109230]re tap the hole and get a new spacer , want I make spacer?[/quote]

Might take you up on that at some point. The angle grinder has at least got it close enough to mock up now.

Hopefully @370steve will be about to help me out with a m26 x1.5 tap

In Between Northern Ireland, Glasgow, London and christmas I've got bugger all done, oh and my rear camera is fubared so have to take photos with the front camera :doh:

so... Went to work on the swingarm some more tonight. Found that one of the arms hits on the back of the engine. So sorted.




Now I've got most of the movement I need, checked the other side and the rear set has being scraping on the swingarm so that now needs spacing out and the swingarm painting (was hoping to avoid that)


Went over to the other rear set and went to swap the mastercylinder over and..... the outlet for the reservoir is on the wrong side so now need to find another... oh and the bolt pitch was wrong!

Remounted the old rear shock and that seems to fit and clear the swingarm so looking at buying a new YSS rear shock for it.

My bike is currently sat on the mainstand so for the linkage triangles what angle should I have the swingarm set to?

Hold shet another f̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ post.. damd @casper

Rear wheel in



Started completely overthinking about this shock linkage, about the bolt positions and it actually extending the shock instead of compressing it.
Just couldn't visualise it so drew it up went back to it and it functions as it should... enough to get the bike back to a rolling chassis at least. Need a rolling chassis for completing a few other bits.



Decided to messabout with the exhaust so the subframe, seat, rear cowling and seat lock frame thing

Hunting for an exhaust mouthing. Still not 100% decided on location yet but this indicator..




hmmmm.....



Held the tip up too much but you kinda get the idea. though I probably need to make a bracket to hang it off as I want it higher.

Found some indicators which I like so.. got some


Managed to blag an offcut for making the linkage triangles


Accidentally made a small fire



Snapped 2 drill bits, wore the angle grinder down to nothing and now can't find the tool to change the disc.
Got most of it done but gave up for the afternoon, hopefully I'll get the linkage finished done tomorrow.

The last thing you want is to see all your hard work go up in flames James !
As always the small parts of a project seem to take the longest, but it will be worth it in the end.

Your suffering the effects of the Pareto Principle.

80% of a project is completed in 20% of the time. Completing the project is then 80% of the total time.

At least your not paying someone by the hour to do it for you...

GollyGosh wrote:Your suffering the effects of the Pareto Principle.

80% of a project is completed in 20% of the time. Completing the project is then 80% of the total time.

At least your not paying someone by the hour to do it for you...

I know that feeling too.

GollyGosh wrote:Your suffering the effects of the Pareto Principle.
80% of a project is completed in 20% of the time. Completing the project is then 80% of the total time.
At least your not paying someone by the hour to do it for you...

At the moment I'm about 4k into it, I've only got a smallish list of things to do and another thousand or so quid to put into it. New rear shock, exhaust system and odds and sods.
I'll start relaxing one I've got it to a rolling chassis, but I need this bike finished before the end of summer. But with an upcoming house move in a few months we'll have to wait and see what happens!

ANDYC wrote:The last thing you want is to see all your hard work go up in flames James !
As always the small parts of a project seem to take the longest, but it will be worth it in the end.

Was a bit of old tissue that caught sparks under my feet as I were grinding, hoiked it onto the bench and tried to blow it out/ set it alight faster but no such luck just smaldered so just left it.

So the day after yesterday.. that would be today then =D
Stole... sorry borrowed my mums phone as it's so much easier to take photos using a working rear camera instead of trying to use my front one!

The finished product of last nights efforts.



Did some more trimming to the triangles to get the clearance between the swingarm and dogbone mount.
Managed to get it somewhat linked up but hit more problems, apart from not having a 10mm hss bit for the bolt holes so I can't get the triangles perfectly centered in the holes but that's the least of my problems.


The bolt which I were using from the shock linkage not only cannot be inserted because it is shrouded by the dogbone linkage. So do I need to flip the triangles or would I need a much longer shock.



oh and the rear shock fowls on the swingarm

Fiendishly clever these Japanese in making everything difficult to modify.

Managed to get an m25 1.5 tap delivered, awfully expensive for cleaning up one thread but oh well.
Many many thanks to cookie for sending me his spare linkage triangles.
After more finessing with the swingarm spacers, I got the swingarm in and both bolts nipped.
Managed to get the triangles to work with a cbr125 rear shock for now.






Going to make a list of bolts and nuts I need tomorrow to get the rear triangles properly secured. Then I'll chuck on the subframe, tank and bodywork and roll her outside for some cleaning.

Thanks to Steve for digging out the bolts for the rear suspension, I think my mockup using the wrong size bolts has bent and twisted the existing dog bones. Also found out that the different year subframe has more than one change excluding the footpegs, meaning the removable seat lock/rear cowl support/new exhaust mounting position isn't properly mounted.







After this I put on the standard rear undertray and the rear doesn't look as high, but still should be enough room for an exhaust pipe in there I hope.

22 hours of wiring and she's finally good... ish.

Started out with this in december and promptly gave up


Then these last 3 days I've got everything working, chopped, soldered, heat shrinked, rewrapped,
wrapped again... re-routing, re-routing... hang on I'm not a satna...re-routing... bloody wires!!!

I've relocated the fusebox from the traditional front yoke/dash mounting :nuts: extended all the wiring from that to the switchgear plugs,
I managed to accidentally make two seperate ground circuits, one grounded and the other not - and I wondered why it didn't work. :doh:

So I've ended up chopping up the entire rear section of a cb400sf loom I had, to then make the front end of the wiring reach the headlights bowl and indicators,
and cutting up a cbr125 loom I also had for the connections between the switchgear connector block and other parts of the loom - as well as the ground from the isolated front ground circuit.

Tucked in nicely in front of the airbox thanks to Rex sausagety for that



BFT shirt because proper shed build


She looks like a proper naked now =D

Managed to make a bracket for the speedo pickup and find a place to mount it.


Also managed to decide a route for the cable.


Wanted to finally get the P clams done for holding the brake lines and the cable but the bolt hole is too small for the bolt I want to use.
Tried to drill it out and didn't end well for me, my thumb, or a twisted bit of metal that was once a p clamp so need to pick some of those up tomorrow with a larger OD hole.

Ordered SLOSH tank cleaner, and tank sealer today so that should be here tomorrow too!
Worryingly I'm starting to run out of things to do.

I'm really on it at the moment, update 3 in as many days.

So onto the tank.
Emptied the molasses mix out of the tank after maybe 5 months?


Gave it a bloody good wash round with the hose, and a little bit of shaking and running the hose through the tank until I got all the flakes of rust and debris out.

Put the fuel gauge back in and added in Tank-Kleen, left it and rotated the tank every 10-15mins with vigorous shaking, then found some gravel to put in. You can vaguely see the bubbles of it working here.



Washed and rinsed. Then the fun game of 3 tiny stones which didn't want to come out.

Got em out then time to dry out the tank. Tried my airline and got bored as it wasn't doing the job well enough.
So into the kitchen, hair dryer!


Then I uhh... sloshed the slosh




Now it just needs to cure for 5 days and then I'll see if I've messed it up at all.

I think I used screws and bolts in my CB500 tank but had the same nightmare to get them back out!

The Slosh stuff also blocked the breather pipe. I only realised this when it was back in use and could hear the air rushing into the tank when I opened the filler cap. I had to pierce the slosh coating where it was blocking the pipe using hook bent into the right shape... the hardest part was figuring out where the opening to the breather was inside the tank using a small mirror and my phone torch/flash!

Bike looks great!

Running a small amount of air through the tank, helps the slosh to cure. A small fish tank pump is ideal for this.

I think if I were to be more patient and waited longer I wouldn't have needed to add the stones. 

As for airing the tank I've blown some air clean air through it this morning and set the tank outside in the sun whilst the shed airs out the smell. Oh and it's only 3c at the moment so the warmer the better

Magnets for the speedo in.
Fuel tank sealed but my fuel tap o-rings leaked chucking petrol all down the side of the tank, so went back to the old perished looking orings. 

Managed to get the bike running which is a massive relief but only via gravity feed from the tank but I fear that the fuel pump isn't working, which could be the relay or even the pump itself or my wiring but I don't think I've touched that circuit but who knows. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxswAF7aLL0
There isn't a massive amount of flow coming out of the petrol tank so I think I may have slightly blocked the strainer when sealing the tank. Not too sure yet. 


Managed to get the p-clips sorted for the front hoses and speedo pickup and the horn mounted up. 

Made another list of things to do, which are really just odds and sods.. generally 

Rear caliper/hose/mastercylinder
Mounting and hoses for the oil cooler. 
Exhaust hangers - maybe use p-clips on the rail? 
Indicator mounts
Seat lock mount
Offset sprocket
Footpeg mounting bolts
Bullet connectors for indicators
Drill holes for dzus nuts
Lockstops
Bolts for indicators mounting
Bolts for p-clamps 
Osram headlight
Mount the reg/rec and wire it up
Exhaust system
Rear shock
Remove mainstand
Seat cover


Got a new phone so back to photos. 

A massive thanks to [MENTION=20223]370steve[/MENTION] for letting me borrow his bike ramp. 


Dropped off at firefox racing for getting my rear shock sorted out/built. 

Nothing much to report yet, yesterday I visited zorstec and paid a visit to firefox racing. 

Dropped in at Zorstec and spoke to Tom about what I wanted, and got a ballpark figure which was massively cheaper than I expected. 
They couldn't give me an exact price as the bike wasn't there and I didn't have any photos of the bikes exhaust system. They were massively accommodating with what I was wanting. 


No progress has being made within the last 3 weeks in regards to the rear shock. 
I've spoken to them about delivery and they're willing to transport the bike to Zorstec for me once they've completed their work which helps me massively.  
Whilst I was there I got a load of photos for Zorstec and emailed them across last night. 

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