General Bike Ravings

The rust on the frame doesn't seem to be too bad - it's mainly surface rust.

I guess I could get the frame sandblasted but I'm starting to wonder if I couldn't get a small sandblasting kit from SuperCheap and attach it to my air compressor. I'll look into that.

Still wanting to get the motor sodablasted though. And I'll need to get a new left hand side cover - this one has been welded up and looks pretty poo.

A bit of a worry about the shock too. It's pretty ...

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Okay, continuing with pulling this bike apart to see what needs to be done.

I removed the airbox cover and there's a cylindrical foam air filter in there. Well at least it looked like one. Until I touched it. And it tured into sand. Pretty horrid. Check the pic. Imagine if I had have tried to start the bike with that in the airbox. It would have gone all through the engine. yuck.

Pulled the exhaust off the bike too. A whole pile of rust came out of the muffler. I'm hoping ...

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Slowly getting there.
The mounting bracket has been completed for the right side – I’ve made it so I can use the factory rubber grommets to absorb any vibration and allow a bit of movement.

Brackets take a bit of pissing around with – 2 hours went into this one and there is a dud one in the bottom of the rubbish tin!

The left muffler has the joiner and mid pipes fabricated and tack welded together – visibly held held on in the pictures with a bungee strap! The ...

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Bumped into MarkW at the Avondale shops yesterday. Was a perfect day for a long ride, but both of us were just running errands.

I asked Mark to remind me how to determine the optimum tyre pressure for my bike. Here's the formula (so I always know where to find it):

• Fill tyres up when cold
• Go for a long ride to warm tyres (at least 20 - 30 mins at motorway speeds)
• Re-check the pressure when the tyres are hot (using the same gauge)
• The difference

...

I've been thinking about how to clean up some of these parts and the whole sandblasting thing seems to be a bit rough for a few of the bits.

Which lead me to searching for alternatives - whereupon I discovered NZ Soda Blasting Ltd.

They're local (in Montgomery Crescent natch) and I've left them a message to see how suitable their work is for my bike parts.

Here's a video which shows what they do:

I reckon some scrubbing and cleaning will work wonders on this bike. After all the main problem is it's sat in a shed for the better part of 12 1/2 years...

Kerosine and a rag for an hour produces the following result...

it's not perfect but when I spend some more time on it it will look just great.

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Decided to pull off the rear caliper and torque arm to see what I could do about it. The rear caliper was really oxidised and the torque arm very rusty. Damn I should have taken some photos before I started.

Anyway, the pistons came out of the calipers easily enough with the air compressor - after the RF900 with 4 piston calipers it's a joy to work on a caliper with 2 pistons.

One of the pistons was a bit pitted but the other one was perfect. To be honest, I reckon if I ...

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with a man called Gerry Foon at VTNZ Adelaide Road.

As I have the previous rego number, and the frame number and engine numbers all check out nicely, and we can establish that the bike was deregistered February 1997, it's going to be a piece of piss to get it reregistered.

I need to do four things:

1. Restore the bike to wof standard (d'oh!);
2. Get a receipt of sale from the previous owner who deregistered it, or failing that, confirmation from the police ...