Shocking News!

The Bros rear shock has finally arrived from Hagon they have a build time of 4 weeks and it costs around £400. Other than looking really cool in red it has completely transformed the bike's handling characteristics for the good. With stronger brakes, stiffer forks and now a new rear shock the bike really does handle alot better than it ever has. This along with the new front tyre make it a treat to ride.

SHINY!

My Dad has decided to go touring on the bike to the South of France, I have fitted a 12V charger onto his bike this can take a satnav or phone charger it was a very simple part that simply bolted on a took a bit of chopping and routing to make it look as standard as possible.

New Footpegs

On my last couple of bikes I customised the original footpegs. This firstly adds detail and hopefully good aesthetics to the bike but it also sheds weight which is a huge bonus.

On these footpegs I wanted them to follow the contours that the seat unit will have, I wanted them to be sharp and shiny like the frame.

I started by covering them in masking tape and marking out design ideas over the top in biro this took many attempts to find a design I liked. Finally I decided on a random pattern using random sized holes. I found either clear lines all of the same size holes or random lines with random holes sizes works well. Straight lines with random hole sizes dont look right. Maybe thats just me.

I marked out most of the holes I wanted and centre punched every one of them, once the drilling was completed I cut off two sides of the foot peg so they ended at a point then I ground down the other side so at either end there was a point.

After deburring the holes I started rubbing down the surface from 120 to 1200 wet and dry. Then polished up the side. Due to a simple and small surface area this only took an afternoon to polish both.

Below you can see how I tried to make to foot peg follow the lines of the chassis.

Rubbing Down Begins

A huge job on this bike is the frame which has been previously polished but not very well it has to be said. The previous attempt left the bike with a few gauges alot of random original paint and all together a bit of a rush job.

I plan to start this job again but will take alot more care im my preparation. I will start by angle grinding the air vent welds and the cast parts of the frame. I will progress onto 120 grit paper and begin to rub the rough spots of the frame by hand.

 I will remove as much of the original paint as I can and I also plan to rub down and paint parts of the frame that aren't being polished to make the whole frame look fresh and new.

The engine mounts that comedown off of the frame will be rubbed down and painted satin black.

These air vents have no function on this bike, I have decided to smooth the welds around them and spray them satin black I think this will contrast well with the polished frame.

Clearance issues!

Once the clock mount was on the yokes could finally hold the new bars for the bike. However with a bigger master cylinder off of a Hayabusa there was an issue with clearance.
With the bars central and the throttle grip flush with the end of the bar the master cylinder banjo bolt was fouling the top yoke.
I decided to cure this with extra spacers or risers, I went to a friends workshop in Swanley (Steven Fellows Engineering) There I used his lathe to produce four ally spacers all around 20mm high which is more than enough. These were made to be within a +- 0.1mm tolerance.
Another job that required the lathe was the top nut. The original was in poor shape so a replacement was bought however it didnt have enough clearance to tighten down it would bottom out because it is a domed nut. This was put into a lathe and skimmed along the top until the hole was big enough for the screw to come all the way through the nut. I prefer the aesthetics of this to a domed nut, it looks alot more industrial and custom.

I will explain all the dust in the next post!!!

Clock Mounts

My next job on the bike was to make mounts for the clocks, The originals bolts onto the headstock, this means the clocks needed to clear the forks and stuck out at the front of the bike. This looks silly on a naked bike so I decided to make a new mount that used two M8 tapped holes on the top yoke as a mounting point.

This means the clocks will now turn along with the bars and it will all be alot neater at the front end. I used two ally spacers and some 20x3 steel flat bar to make the mount, I started by welding two plates onto the original clock mounts so the bolts holes were still in the correct place once all the MIG welding was complete I set about chopping all the bits off that were no longer needed.

Once they were mounted they needed more trimming to stop them fouling the ignition barrel but other than that they fitted a treat and the 30 degree angle for the clocks is perfect when sat on the bike.