Finally a project bike update

I managed to get a set of XR 400 wheels with black rims and hubs that were right up my street. Nice wide rims, and the rear hub is the same disc bolt pattern as the original hub so I can use the original disc.

As ever, things aren't that easy. I've had to get a new front spindle made as it wasn't possible to get new bearings for the new wheels to fit the original. I'm lucky, I guy I work with is a model engineer and has lathes and milling machines, he did it for £30.

The big bummer is that the 320mm supermoto disc I bought to fit the original front hub when I was planning to have a 17" rim built onto that hub doesn't fit this new front wheel.

So its new spacers for the front wheel and probably some at the back. The back hub is actually a little narrow so I'll be getting a spacer made to space the disc off the hub. Spent last sunday doing the drawing for the spacer, all proper like, then I went to order the Aly I need for my mate to make it, and find that postage for the material is double the cost of the material itself. What a pain in the arse. Now I'll have to wait until I've made the measurements for the front caliper bracket that needs making so I can order all the material at once. The new caliper bracket is to fit the 4 pot Brembo I got to beef up the front brakes and alleviate the issues with trying to fit the original sliding caliper.

There's a 320mm front disc the correct bolt pattern on order so hopefully I can get that caliper bracket worked out and get all the Aluminium I need ordered. I'm using http://www.aluminiumwarehouse.co.uk/ in case any of you are interested.

I've also been  trying to bend the seat rails for the new rear sub frame. This is the best I've managed so far, the former for the pipe bender I'm using isn't the right size for the tube and its flattening the tube a bit on the bends, its OK but not perfect. I think the next step is to try padding the former out a bit or make the leap and splash out on the correct size former. I'm learning as I go along, which is fine, but its taking a long time and burns through tubing. I've also tried bending it using heat but the tube bender has given the best results so far.

And I've found time to take some more stuff of my duke, bye bye nasty old mirrors, hello nice neat bar end mirror. Bar end needed a little bit of turning to get rid of  a step in the end of it and turn the shaft down a smidge so it would fit in the end of the bar. I've kept the brass weight that's OEM and the weight of the mirror is more than the heavy original bar end but I've had to move the mirror from the end to the top of the bar end to help reduce the vibes.

Cant help it

Yes thats right, with little over 300 miles on it I'm already fucking about with it. But it had to be done, EU regulations result in an uglier than ugly rear end. Out with the old and in with the new evo tech performance rear tail tidy, awesome bit of kit, super impressed with the finish, only disappointed with the nasyt crimp connectors supplied, cant have been much more expensive to supply the right connector.

 

Much better!

New ride a comin

Now I know any of the 3 people who actually read this probably wont care too much for this, but here goes anyway.

Following the recent trials and tribulations I've been having with the Bandit, now all I can hear when I ride it is knocks and rattles and I'm basically am waiting for it to die. As I still don't have anywhere to resurect it if that happens' combined with the cost of fixing it, the loss of my only working bike and my daily ride, I decided to part ex it in against a new bike.

This not a decision I've taken likely and have spent a good while thinking about it. About 3 weeks ago I went and test rode a KTM Duke 390, at 78 mpg I was curious to see if I could live with a much smaller capacity bike. As its a 390 engine in the 125 Duke frame, the whole thing was small, too small for me, it felt like riding my monkey, I didn't like the position of the pegs and my arse was in agony after only 40 minutes, and that was with the comfort seat fitted. Needless to say it was not for me, but what a killer little engine. So after a 2 hr ride I took it back and told em why it wasn't for me.

The sales man then say's "well I'm not doing my job properly f I dont let you take the 690 Duke out" as its still a sunny Friday afternoon  and it was another free ride on another new bike I thought fuck it why not. Straight away I knew I liked it. Great riding position,  brilliant engine and superb handling. I had it for an hour and loved every minute of it, but it was a bit vibey and not great in stop start traffic.

But I still couldn't get it out my head, and with 0% finance available over 2 years I've gone and bought one, possibly the last one thats coming into the UK this year as they're not making any more this year.

Bumper post

Ok I've been really slack on posting again, here's a bit of a bumper catch up on what I've been doing.

My daily 1200 Bandit has been giving me loads of trouble and taking alot of my valuable time thus there's been little work on the project bike.

I had to fit new front pads so while I was at it I decided to change the fork oil. In spite of my best efforst at the time, I then had a frustrating 2 weeks of sticking calipers.

Then I finally discovered why its been cutting out intermittently, 2 of the four terminals in the starter solenoid had snapped and were just manky green stumps rubbing against each other, thus the intermittent cutting out, then came a debacle getting a new one. I usually go for new parts but after a week of waiting and the wrong part arriving with no eta for the right one I went to a local breakers and got it for only £15 instead of £53 for the new pattern part I had first ordered.

I also fitted another chain and sprocket kit. no matter what I do I cant seem to stop it eating them.

Its also been running like a sack of shit so before going down to the bike shed show I whipped the carbs off. When I came back from the best show I've every ever been to I spent a day cleaning them. I expected to find them full of crap but they were clean as a whistle, so a day wasted and over £8 worth of float bowl screws as I had to muller them all to get em off and there was no change. What a bitch.
 I think I've now narrowed the issue down to the choke not shutting properly which is being caused by the higher rise bars I fitted after my off on the ice this winter, the choke cable is too tight and keeps getting pulled when I turn the bars alot.

Tidy

This has been a long time in the making, a little bit here, and a little bit there and to be honest I've spent far to much time and effort sorting this out considering its for my monkey bike that I plan on getting rid of as soon as its sorted and the weather picks up enough for me to get some descent money for it. A small shed accident meant one of the indicators got broken, and as the battery eliminating capacitor I'd tried to fit wouldn't let all the lights work properly and made for an MOT fail. The broken indicator needed replacing so I thought I'd buy some LED ones and and LED rear light as well and see if I could get everything to work with the battery eliminator. So the tail got tidied into the bargain, but the micro LED indicators I bought were too small for the front as the headlight bolts covered the indicators too much. By a stroke of luck one of the micro indicators self destructed when I was fitting it to the rear. Luckily this gave me a better look at the make up of them and I had the brain wave to fit them inside two of the remaining original indicators and re fit these back onto the front.

Soon to be viral

This is an incredible follow up to the first, unfortunately Martin Ashton seriously hurt himself just before filming was finished so two of the greatest bike riders this country has ever seen were drafted in to help out.

Progress

Had a week off work this week and have spent a good bit of time on the project.

Some forwards progress and some backwards.

Now my carb is clean I thought I'd get on with Daves Carb Mod, found a great place just down the road in Manchester to get the new float bowl seal and new jets NRP motorcycle carburettor repair specialist proper nice lads too, very helpful, the website is a bit limited but give em a call if you need anything, I'm sure they'll be able to help.

So I was getting on with fitting the new bits and I went and dropped the bloody slide, and as surely as toast lands butter side down, it dropped right onto the needle an bent the end over 90 degree's, ARSE.

So a phone call to nrp, and they can supply me with a new one but its likely to be in the region of £30 + vat, now i feel like a propper ham fisted dim wit, fortunately they are going to be doing a carb kit for the Dominator which includes a new needle and the kit will be cheaper than the price of a needle, but I'll have to wait until they get the kits in mid Jan. As the bike has no rear sub frame or forks, I figured I can wait 6 weeks.


Tank mount sorted and happy with, this is attempt number 2, you probably wouldn't believe the number of hours I've spent just sorting this little bit, I know I can't. There's a piece for this toungue to slot into on top of the top tube. I'm going to stick rubber top and bottom to get a nice tight fit (oh er) and help stop rattles from the vibey single.



Finally got round to doing the fork seals, and while I was at it I thought I'd have a go at lowering the forks, chopped 2 inch off the springs and added a spacer as per the instructions I was following from the xs650 forum.




And today I made a start on the new subframe, big learning curve here, never done any tube bending before. The pics are of attempt number2. The first one was just figuring out the tube bender and seeing how easy or not the tube would bend. I tacked a bung in each end and filled the tube with kiln dried sand in an attempt to stop the tube deforming or rippling while being bent. On the whole it went ok, with the tube just flattening out a little in some spots where it was in contact with the bender I was using. I'm not 100% happy with it just yet it still needs some tweaking, and I may even go for attempt 3 but I'm going to start running out of tube and this is just the back end, there's the 2 seat rails to bend up yet, plus the supports. Hoping I might get on to them tomorrow perhaps.


Rear sub frame