Dirt-bike handlebars on and FXR150?

[Damien_Toman]

With the bar bent, my thumb hits the tank on full lock. When I raced years ago that would fail scrutineering as a tank slapper could leave you with broken thumbs! A tank slapper is probably unlikely with these small bikes on a small circuit but you could still hurt your thumb going down. I've straightened it a bit but I'm determined to give the MX bars a go

I will do Taupo on another occasion - probably next time it's on. This time the bike is not quite ready and I'm also still a bit sore (right shoulder and left thumb!). I am also hoping to have old race tyres for 14 Nov. practice at Mt Wellington while waiting for new slicks (due mid December). I am not going out again on the tyres I've got - even the side wall on the front tyre is perishing - see photo.

Have fun and stay on

[Damien_Toman]

Progress! Mounts drilled, threaded with M10x1.25, threaded bar cut to size (allowing for deep 12mm threaded nuts for spacers to clear forks) and araldited into mounts.

[Henk]

Definitely making progress.
I'm slowly getting there as well. Hopefully have eveything done by the two hour. Work getting in the way of life.

[DELLORTO]

Definitely making progress.
I'm slowly getting there as well. Hopefully have eveything done by the two hour. Work getting in the way of life.

what are you doing to your bike?

[Henk]

what are you doing to your bike?

Taking things away.
Hopefully I haven't removed anything critical.

[Damien_Toman]

Looking forward to seeing it.

[Henk]

It's looking a bit sad at the moment. I seem to have trouble putting things back on straight. Geting there though, I think I can put the angle grinder away for now. Main things left to do are to get the GSXR wheels butchered and get busy with the paint. I have someone who knows what he's doing to do the work on the wheels thankfully.

[Damien_Toman]

Yes, I've stayed with the original wheels, at this stage, as fitting 250cc wheels sounds like it requires machining, fitting and possibly new bearings and brake disc work.

Henk, you were right in your early post that I might need longer throttle and clutch cables. I do! I've made a start and will take some photos of making the new cables.

Using threaded 12mm nuts as spacers - see photo.
How the bars look so far - see photo.

[Henk]

as fitting 250cc wheels sounds like it requires machining, fitting and possibly new bearings and brake disc work.

Surely does take some maching, just spent a day and a half at a mates workshop getting the gixer wheels modified.

Rear wheel
Found bearings that go straight in but you still need to make a brake side spacer and a new spacer for inside the wheel between the bearings. Still have to get a couple of seals as one of the bearings isn't a seal type, made the spacer OD to suit readily available seals. Also need to take 12mm off the disk carriers.

Front wheel
Machined the wheel to take bearings as the closest thing I could find had a 1mm bigger OD, spacer for inside the wheel and spacers for both sides of the wheel, made these the same width for ease of fitment even though it puts the wheel 0.4 mm off center. Also had to machine 2mm off the disk carrier to stop the disk bolts running into the caliper mount. Haven't heard of anyone else doing this so suspect there are a few bikes out there with the wheel more on the piss than mine is by quite a bit.

Two sets of wheels done at the same time to make it easy to switch from slicks to wets. Two sets of spacers made in case I get stupid and lose one.

Took much longer than I thought to get it all done, Engineer mate that did most of the work was suprised at how quickly it went.

[Damien_Toman]

Great information. You should do a complete write-up on the project when you are done. Would be really valuable to the rest of us. I might even start taking bits off mine!

[Henk]

Most of the mods I've poached off here.
Wheels, hmurphy pipe mod, rip out all uneccesary electric string (including dash) chop anything off the frame that doesn't look like it needs to be there any more, glass tail piece and number board from Hazzard and thats about it. Still may have to move the seat unit around a bit, may have it mounted a bit high. Will put some pictures up when it's all done, you're more than welcome to take it for a stroll at some stage to see if it's an improvement on stock.

[UNSTABLE]

Front wheel
Machined the wheel to take bearings as the closest thing I could find had a 1mm bigger OD, spacer for inside the wheel and spacers for both sides of the wheel, made these the same width for ease of fitment even though it puts the wheel 0.4 mm off center.

How did you centre the wheel? FXR's out of the box have the wheel 4mm or so offset in the forks... but they are in line with the rear...

[Henk]

Measured edges of the wheel to the forks on both sides and then did the same with the GSXR wheel. Maybe an oops moment. Will find out next saturday I guess.

[Max Headroom]

I've just fitted a TZR front wheel to Mrs Headroom's bucket to match the existing TZR rear wheel. I measured the distance from the rim to the slider on both sides and made the spacers to centralise the wheel as required. The exercise also involved new bearings and a new adapter plate to mount the FXR brake disc.

I've also checked the front-to-rear alignment and re-machined the TZR rear wheel & spacers to locate the rim in line with the front wheel. The rear hub setup it had when purchased was quite lop-sided, with the chain alignment and rear wheel skewed to the left side of the bike.

Time will tell if it was worth the effort.

[Henk]

Stringline on the bike today. The wheels are in fact 4mm out, going to be easier to shunt the front over at the moment than to move the rear across (machine another 4mm off the disk carriers, make new spacers, space the sprocket out 4mm) where the front just needs a couple of spacers made, thankfully the 2mm I took off the disk carriers isn't going to cripple me, at worst I can always run the wheels backwards and use the side we didn't molest in the lathe. At verry worst I may end up runing with the wheels out of line, hopefully wouldn't make the handling TOO weird.