F5’s first ever brand new bike!

[F5 Dave]

Josh have a look I'm all over it. Also Hag's bike in the feature was an inspiration for this one, from the early 90s or whenever I had the pic on my wall.

Henry, the gearbox is up for it & I am not removing much from the cases. You have to remove much more for the 10mm over stroke, or the 14mm!

Clutches aren't too bad but there are kits to increase the pre-load or ideally the surface area with thinner but more plates. Investigating this. Drag applications can use lock-up clutch kits but 100hp is ok on stock clutch in good order & maybe some stiffer springs.

[CM2005]

Yeah found your thread.. the RGVbits make it look waaay modern and Cool! So a 100Horse 2smoke twin... I'm very jealous!!! Must've cost.... alot.

[F5 Dave]

Well my budget is to produce something for about the same as plonking down for a modern 600. Of course it will be worth no where near when I go to sell it, but that isn't the plan & I've had my SP best part of 10 years. Actually I don't want to sell the SP, it is still a grouse bike to ride. We'll see if I can finance this project. 2 buckets, 2 dirt bikes, 2 classic bikes to make one from, and then 3 roadbikes? Hmm. Still would like to keep the 750 but. . .

I spent thursday finishing off the case boring job with a die grinder. We couldn't bore right the way down without taking a bunch from the transfer sides. Also the cases needed matching to the barrels as with 3 transfers per side instead of two they are a bigger entry. This took ages but it fits now.

Dropped the engine cases down to a shop with instructions for the trenching. Really needs a boring machine. Dropped the frame down to Damon to do some frame bracing. Have dummied up the frame with some bars clamped to it & tried to remove the engine. If I take the head off it can be modified quite a bit. Should be hella strong afterwards.

Now it is looking a little sad, with the frame & engine out there was just the front end strapped forlornly to the bench & a few small piles of components, an odd wheel etc.

Was a good excuse to get into the dirtbike maintenance on sunday.

Anyway progress progress.

[CM2005]

awesome, good to heard. I've had a bit of progress, managed to get the motor back in my GP125 and it started 6th kick yesterday. Should be back at Mt Welly buckets after 3 rounds off, i'll have to re-learn my tarmac riding "style".

[McDuck]

bump? hows it going?

[F5 Dave]

Well time for an update I guess, but had hoped for some pics of real progress.

A large period of inactivity at the welding/machining front. I got a call to say they were setting up the cases for boring the trenches on sat. Haven't heard, expected yesterday.

Went to see bracing frame. Looks good so far, maybe finished todayish. I'm off down south till next week so it will be more inactivity I'm afraid.

I have rebuilt the brakes again & they feel better with the new seals (9 weeks wait). & I've gotten a new loom, sadly it will need a lot more work, but is a better starting point. I've gotten the pipe design & made some templates from No.8 wire so I can plan where they pipes will run.

Barrels & head have been painted.

So the big items to go are Pipes, Airbox & mount ZXR radiator. All of which needs the frame to fit up to. Summer approacheth.

[F5 Dave]

Well we lost the last update in the great KB crash of August so here is a bit of a catchup:

Well progress is slow but steady. Here’s what she looks like currently. The thermostat arrangement & filler for the ZX4 radiator is after a bunch of trials quite neat. Esp as the ign coils, remote fuel tap, & electronics have to live up there. Maybe in the new loom I’ll extend CDI & Rec/reg down the rear.

Just at the bottom of the hose attached to the head is the vertical outlet that I turned up. It’s a thing of beauty and I’m a little bit proud of it. At this stage I have to admit that I’m new to this lathe stuff having only bought my ancient Sheldon a few months back. Now I have it I don’t know how I coped without it and am glad I have it for this project.

The std kit outlet is right angle points forward. They don't run a thermostat and I needed a remote filler. For a roadbike this wasn't a flier so needed a solution, I ended up with a FZR250 housing & will fit the std RZ thermostat which will fit with a bit of grinding. It is 71 deg which is a little hot, can use a RZ500 one which is 65deg. tested them against each other in a pot with a dig temp gauge. They are quite accurate & start to open at stated temp, aren't fully open for another 15 degrees though, but this probably isn't an issue. The R1 dash will display temp in deg so will be able to monitor it.

This is the airbox dummy. Minutes after this photo & sanded it down so it actually looks pretty good rather than the abomination it appears here, but you get the drift. Of course then it needed some more filling & more sanding to come. Ho-Hum, some things can’t be rushed. Then I can lay the fibreglass. I am concerned that the box is very narrow & will be a squeeze to get the manifolds in, but if I make it wider it won’t extract out of the frame.

[F5 Dave]

This project is a bit embarrassing taking so long, but I have a new house that needs (according to the wife) gardening stuff done (though she’s good & does most of it). + other projects that need attention. My Bucket 125 I’m fettling for a race at Ruapuna (other island of NZ) end of the month. Aircooled 125 with class 24mm carb restriction slotted into an ancient RS125 GP chassis. Also the roadbike that needs to be ridden in the nice spring weather we’ve been having lately. YZF750SP with restyle, Aprillia tailpiece, race fairings, R1 brakes, suspension kits both ends & 20kg carved off it by fastidious attn to detail.

Also there is the Touring bike, the Dirtbike & the Trials bike (that I had been working on the brakes so had to go ‘test’ it in the weekend.
My T125 Stinger restoration project hasn't had a spanner on it, although I am collecting more parts.

Be aware when undertaking projects that they take up a lot more time than you ever image. You have to be focussed & forgo TV & other distractions, but you still need to account for sanity time else you burn out on the project.

List getting shorter. Time to firing it up getting closer.

[jonbuoy]

Only just seen this, thats going to be one mental bike. You decided on fairings yet?

[McDuck]

could i have a go when it is back on the road? Please???

[F5 Dave]

Well currently it has the top & tail fairing as in first pic. I might look at if the rest of the sides fit, but I kinda like it the way it is. Ideally I'll save up & get Carbon replicas to match the front guard & rear hugger.

[F5 Dave]

Ok well here is the airbox almost complete. With a coat of paint it came up alright. The manifolds are from some old GS airbox. The filter is ZXR750, currently just sitting there but I will rivet in some angle ally so it doesn’t fall in.

Fitted the airbox blends in, yes I know the carb isn’t fully home, just I don’t have the reedblock fitted on that side. Tank is a bit smudgy from greasy fingerprints. Fitting the remote fueltap with the bracing & the airbox is proving very difficult; I don’t want it to be a mission every time the tank wants to come off. So I will try match up a tap that can sit directly on the tank.

[F5 Dave]

Well another update:

Got the frame back painted and began the final build. It is at this point where you have to take some time to sort out those niggley items else they remain forever, or at least put them on the list of scheduled maintenance. For instance I noted the steering head races had some witness marks. Not enough to feel with the fingernail so I cleaned them up but it is on the list for next time I drop the front out to revalve the forks for instance (Race Tech kitted but who knows until I try it).

Had to rivet the VIN plate onto the headstock, it was removed to do the bracing, but there was little room so I did the best I can. The rest of the bike looks pretty clean with the new frame plate & really they will just be checking that the numbers on the frame on the other side match up.

I fired the rear end back in & fitted the footrests on their painted but still temporary hangers until I determine the final footrest position.

Engine didn't want to go in so easily this time in an attempt to scratch the newly painted frame. Finally got it in & fitted the head & PVs, reedblocks & water inlets properly this time. The tube to the case was a bit of a bugger, the bend making it hard to fit between the monoblock. Given time I should have made another tube but I impatiently reformed it. I hope this doesn't leak into the gbox. Sadly I couldn't complete this as the o-ring I had was too fat. Also I trialled some stiffer clutch springs I had from my YZF, sadly they bound. I might just buy the FZR plates for more surface area. May also lengthen clutch actuation lever for lighter pull.

oh yeah the 27cc heads measured up as 12.3:1 compression on the 496, 96 octane should be ok.

I'll leave the rad off until the pipes are done & concentrate on the wiring.

Ah yes the pipes, my friend in South Africa is apparently working on them from info I've supplied so I'll get them in kitset form. Time is ticking on though & the weather is getting better.

[imdying]

Hawt

[F5 Dave]

Well some have asked if any more progress & instead of lying (yeah it was great but I sold it to finance an Emu farm) here is the truth for anyone who cares (as opposed to the masses who can't understand why the heck I didn't just buy an R6. . . they may well be right).

Well another month fairly kumara’d & weather here is getting real nice and the Christmas rush is starting meaning if I want to get the bike finished & rego’d & certified before the holidays I am pushing it.

The real hold up is the pipes. My friend in S.Africa is busy as all heck but promised to get things moving & send some autocad files so I can print out the sections & tape them up to see if they fit before he makes them. Another call tonight I think.

Plan B is I can put the original pipes on with some adaptors & certify rego it like that. Problem is that they are a little small in the stinger & muffler section. No really ideal for a big engine to run too small stinger lest piston overheating could occur, although some mitigation with fat jetting & retarded ignition until I get the pipes finished.

So why haven’t I got everything else finished?

Ok so Friday night a mate had come around & we were trying to work out the rear wheel & chain run. Now the sw & wheel is straight VJ22 RGV swap so should be fine. But the wheel is dragging & the chain rubs against the tyre. After a bit of pissing around with a straightedge it appears that the wheels aren’t entirely in line. When we did the welding the guy did ask if I’d checked the alignment & I embarrassedly assumed that it was ok from the last guy who built it. Maybe it wasn’t.

At about 1am after a few beers & many different approaches with string etc all we had determined was my straight edge was no longer straight (incident retrieving a remote control plane from a very tall tree). And that the string method is pretty inaccurate. So I still don’t really know but I suspect that the steering head is off to the right a little bit. Maybe I will take it to a chassis adjusting chap up the island at some stage, but should be close enough for the time being. Must buy another straight edge.

But it appears that the sprocket needs some more spacing out.

Last night I find myself at home with a reheated dinner & the wife out having dinner & drinks with the girlies from work. Perfect garage time. Yet I am slumped on the couch & tragically end up watching Biker Buildoff. - What a bunch of Plonkers! Most of them are assembling pre-built frames & engines & the most technical they get is sheet-metal fabricating the tank. OK fair enough I couldn’t do that, but they don’t seem to encounter any of the issues special builders seem to.

Screw these losers, into the Garage. . . Only to spend the next 20min searching for my 3/8 rachet with 8mm hex drive that I last used in the weekend on a friend’s Ducati. Call friend, no idea, doesn’t have it or anything. Where the smeg is it? Txt to pick up wife. Oh dear, I don’t suppose. .

Oh, opps! I was using it, try in the bucket with my gardening tools. Your what?!! Sure enough along with a 12mm spanner. I struggle for a min trying to think what the heck she was. . , nah - then I resolve to never, ever find out.

OK so I space the sprocket out a bit more & the chain is now clear the tyre & seemingly straight run (must be quite close on RGV). But as can see it is now very close to the skinner RG frame. A thinner chain would be nice, but this is quite a thin one, even for o-ring. Also the chain plastic SW guide has a runner on it that isn’t in the right place so it kicks the chain left & right, I’ll take that down & that will help.

The wheel is no longer binding; the bearing inner spacer was loose so the bearing needed another seating whack. Nice.

So back onto the wiring. (It looks worse than it is, I’ve still to black tape some areas & still have labels on in case I need to fault find some areas) I’d mounted the battery outside the frame in a cut down battery box & have been working my way through the loom. The problem is that I am using a switch block of some misc DT & don’t have the wiring diagram for it. I ditched the RH switch block as I needed a quick pull throttle for the 35mm carbs & ended up with an NSR250 one that with it’s linkage carbs makes a good straight pull throttle. But it doesn’t have a light switch or a kill switch. I got an NSR kill switch but decided to use this all controls left hand side.

The fun & games began, but the upshot is I got everything worked out with screw connectors & then after a few false starts as I worked out the power feeds from various things like indicator relays etc joined the wires together properly. I have worked out that the RZ has the tail light positively switched so you can use the ignition switch to turn the park light on. But the DT used negative switch & as the HI/LO is in the same block I can’t just connect the Rear light to the headlight cct. So I found another switched feed & used that. The rear light will be on all the time the ign is on & so be it. Ohh look it’s 1am again. Time for sleep.

So I’ve now got the R1 Dash all connected, the last drama was the headlight Hi beam was marked in a different colour on the diagram, but we got there. The tacho is connected to the ignition so should work (need to start bike to confirm if I need a filter) & the Speedo sensor wiring is correct (tested both tacho & speedo with a signal generator). But it appears the geartooth sensor I got was duff so I ordered an R1 one from Evilbay for the princely sum of US$9. Shipping was $14.

You know if I could make the pipe adaptors up I could fire it up this weekend.

But then I have a race on Sunday & the racebike needs a set of rings fairly desperately & the wheel needs putting back on & new clutch cable fitting + the dirtbike needs filter doing, when did the SP last get an oil change?
[sigh].