Well I've paid my monies so I'm committed (or should be). The plan is to resurrect my old 100 project that started 13 years ago.
A breif & depressing history;
At the time it was seriously ambitious & advanced for a bucket. The first RS transplant that I'm aware of (to be corrected I'm sure). People were starting to use RS forks & SW, so why not just run the whole thing? Procured a bike from T&E (remember that, I hear it's still going) & raced it at Taupo to see what it was like.
Answer; a bit slow & my-word-it-was-cramped. Once I braked I would slip forward & no longer be able to use the gearshift & this was after putting a block under the seat. It started making a noise in the last race & I loaded it up there was oil in the fairing. Hmm. Once on the bench I noticed the crank bolt had backed out & bored a hole in the cases. Used bikes huh?
So I sold the engine to a karter (with full disclosure, it was an easy fix).
I then proceeded to offer the engine to the frame. Ahh. Now I saw why people weren't lining up to do it. The CR125 derived RS engine was super narrow at the back, there was no way the MB was going to fit with the sprocket anywhere near the swingarm & the engine knocked into things in several places & the carb entry to the top suspension mount meant the carb would be IN the mount.
Deep breath & break out my grinder. Several sessions later I had cut serious amounts off both the frame & the crankcases. But it was close. Then I made some serious mistakes. First was taking advice from a friend who thought he was an engineer & could ally weld.
Anyway a long & sordid period passed where he tried in earnest to destroy it with an ally welder. Every session was followed by me spending ages trying to straighten things & sort it out. The design I had in my mind was quite good despite being some time ago when I was a sight more clueless. Water cooled with an NSR250 pump driven in the correct direction at the right speed (so often screwed up). + many other modernisations to design.
The execution was flawed & I ended up with my brand new barrel that I had chanced on for $80 needing a rebore before it even got a piston (he held it in the lathe using the bore -why? it slipped & mungered) & then being ruined, the lovely exhaust port was welded into so many times to repair a leak from the water jacket to the port it pulled the ally away from the liner. Bound to seize from local overheating.
I felt sick & pushed the bike under the house where it largely stayed for best part of a decade, getting pulled out every year or so before realising another cock up & being pushed under the house again. I did actually start it & rode up the driveway. I do have something to thank this bike for. When my now wife came to stay with me many moons ago she shared a bedroom with it, so she knew what she was getting into when we got together some while later.
One thing was we had used the front engine mount, which was proving a problem on MB engined transplants cracking the cases. I'd also cut off the rear upper mount so there was no turning back. Later I saw DC's implementation (+DPs). I'd always considered drilling through the frame spars as sacrilege, but it was simpler. They still had the sprocket farther away from the sw than I thought right, but it seemed to work.
Anyways I decided the only way to get keen again was to build something different. I sleeved a RGV150 engine & raced it like that, but I had made a mistake in the engine pushing me into a corner & it kept blowing it's clogs, after a duff crank build (I've suffered at the hands of people who should have known better), the only option was to find another crank.
So having sold the 125 engine I'm now enthused to finish the 100. So fast forward to 2009; A friend had some ideas & I've implemented some of them. I put the bike on the workbench & offered the engine up & cut the 125 mounts off. -A plan was hatched. I then broke my collar bone a few days latter & well, that has prevented me working much on it. Till now.
OK so now I have the engine mounts in. Today I finished the headstay & the clutch bracket so that works now. I lapped the ignition taper to the crank & swapped the taper into another flywheel with some new rivets, but called it a day, my arm isn't quite ok enough for fitting them.
OK so only a few hundred tasks to go & I'll be up & humming. ok there are a few other distractions (new kid & my 500 to finish), but I do have 4 months & aside from another operation to take the plate out I should be into it.
. . . mind you, when I can ride again I might be swayed to get out on the roadbike. Or the dirtbikes. + the 50 may need some attn as there will be some stiff opposition this year, one of them I'm building for a friend.
ok who's placing bets?
Here's a pic from ~7 years ago.
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Originally Posted by ajturbo
Absolutely!!
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