kseries.rookie

I recently did this on a tank that was pretty rusty and the difference was literally day and night. Simple process, pop down to bunnings and get yourself some hydrochloric acid (or if you've got a mate whos a concrete guy they will have barrels which I am sure you can poach some off) Bang in some water. I did about a 30/70 mix (Acid 70) and put in the acid.. It's dangerous shit so make sure you're wearing minimum gloves, face mask and goggles.. Nasty shit if you get it in your eyes. Let it sit for approx an hour, turn on the side, again on the side etc etc.. Once thats done, drain the solution. Fill the tank back up nearly full to the top with water and add some baking soda, table spoon by table spoon until the water stops fizzing when you put it in. Shake said water around, repeat the last step Empty and you're away laughing. I did have little bits of rust floating around the tank afterwards which was a pig to get out but I just lopped off a piece of garden hose and jimmied up an attachment to the vacuum cleaner and sucked out the rusty particles. Not sure if this is the proper way or not but it worked for me haha E: Water before acid, always! As I said, twice.. it's nasty stuff

At the stage above I still had a fair bit to do, including finish the wiring up front and mount headlight, indicators etc. Things like exhaust, mount pegs, polish engine and do a hand/eye check to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. I completed the above (apart from polish engine) and took it for it's first test ride which was a success! I came home and wrote another list of things I needed to do And that my OSGC's is where we are at today. All I have left to do is mount the new exhaust pipe and take it down for a warrant. Fingers crossed there aren't any hidden surprises What's your thoughts?

Wheels were next, as well as rear shocks. I plan to replace the rear shocks with something decent but I wanted to do something about the ones I had in the interim. Left is how they came, right is after a clean before I went to town with some sand paper Below is the "finished product" Back to electrics.. It was time to wire up my new tail light (integrated indicators) For the life of me I couldn't get the tail light to work. I knew it wasn't a faulty light as I was able to test on a known working circuit so was time to figure out what was wrong. Fortunately I had a spare loom so I split that up and started tracing the wire back to the front of the bike. I tested the wire at both ends and was able to get continuity so ruled that out. Tested the power where it was coming from and was also getting power. So it was time to test the switches. This was a pig of a job.. So many little fiddly buggers Put all back together and still the same problem. I went back to square on and found it was the feed that was feeding the tail light that was buggered.. I found the speedo back light feed and just rewired it to that feed. Job done and was able to keep it nice and tidy too. I assembled the bike now that all my painted bits were dry and rolled it out of the shed for some Vit D for the first time in 4 months and gave the shed a good clean

I wanted to retain the factory decals on the bike but I wasn't a fan of the colour and I felt like it wasn't a good fit for the overall vibe of the bike so I touched base with my go-to sign writer and he made me some custom decals. I went with a gloss black and matt black combination. I'm chuffed with how these came out. The side covers are super low key so you can only see them in certain light.

Paint.. I was originally going to paint the frame like I had done with the GN but on closer inspection the frame was actually in alright nick and just needs a bloody good scrub. I started by stripping the tank which was full of bog (typical GB tank dents) Before I started this process I did some reading on rusty tanks on the inside and gave it a good blast with Hydrochloric acid and then neutralised it with some baking soda (shout out to the one thing I listened to in science class at school) Paint stripper is nasty and ineffective, I shouldn't have wasted my time with it Panel beating is something I leave to professionals. The colour I went for was Nissan's grey (KH2 is the code) commonly found on R32 GTR's and also gloss black

Deciding on how I wanted the bike to look was a difficult decision. Things like the wheels, exhaust, the motor, the forks, guards, petrol tank etc.. They were all in pretty bad nick and required lots of attention. These parts aren't cheap either so getting a new tank in good condition I was looking at approx $700 NZD and that wasn't even painted! This is where I will piss off a few GB purists and butcher my bike.. I decided on going with a mostly black look. I didn't want to just paint the whole bike gloss black as I just don't think that would contrast well and needed something different to break it up a wee bit. I went with a black wrinkle paint (what people generally paint their rocker covers with on cars) on the forks, yolk, rear hoop, clip ons and fuse box cover. I wasn't a big fan of the huge front guard and I do have a spare (note I have a spare bike pretty much so all the things I have painted can be reversed with rusty old parts again..) Good opportunity to use the angle grinder my brother brought me for Christmas last year haha Same with the rear guard, that got the chop. Did I mention I have no idea what I am doing and are just winging it? Haha. I am sure there are some fabrication pro's out there absolutely rolling in their seat wondering what the f**k I am doing..

At this stage I had confirmed it was a runner and continued with the rest of the build. That wiring needed attention.. big time. The fairing that was on the bike wasn't a factory bikini fairing.. It was just a fibreglass replica sadly so that was to go, along with all the additional wiring. Get a load of this 1970's house wiring steez I took so many photos and videos of the wiring. I am so glad I did - I had to refer back so many times. Electrics have never been my strong point sadly.. Next up.. Fork seals. A few videos on youtube later I was confident I would be sweet in replacing the seals and dust caps. Fortunately for me, a friend of mine is a dirt bike guru and nearly ever dirt bike needs their fork seals replaced so I thought I would just chime in on those skills and take them up to his work shop and get some professional assistance with the process. Believe it or not, this one was the better one of them both. Sadly I don't have a photo of the tubes looking mint but this was about 10 minutes worth 1500 grit sand paper and half a can of WD40 I couldn't get all of the 'pitting' gone but they were "dents" so my mate wasn't concerned as it wouldn't damage the seal (although we still protected the seal on the way down with a bit of plastic bag) New seals and good quality fork oil.. What a difference! It went from complete mush when pushing down to a nice little bit of spring. I also banged a $2 coin under the top cap which pre loaded them a little which was a little tip I received from a GB guru

I'm glad I did this because it was pretty badly gummed up with old fuel The jets were clogged to buggery A bloke I met while selling some GB parts offered to clean my carb in his ultrasonic cleaner in exchange for a discount on a part, which I was more than happy to accept. New jets, gaskets, bolts etc then it was time to reassemble. Sadly the bike didn't fire up.. It did however turn over and there weren't any savage noises coming from the engine which was reassuring It wasn't until I noticed it was missing the enrichener valve set so after weeks of trying to source one I managed to find something in NZ of all places. Banged that in and fired up right away. Shout to the sponsors PUMP for the make shift petrol tank As you can see in the above photo, while I was trying to source the valve and cap I needed I started on removing a bunch of stuff

Family photo, back home after unloading bikes As mentioned earlier, first plan of attack is to hear the bike run. In order for this to happen it would require the following.. - A battery - Carb clean Try and see what happens Unfortunately I don't have a garage to work on. I have converted a garden shed into a make shift work shop. It could be worse, but could be better haha but I still get it done At this stage I had never taken a carb apart (well practised now haha) so I took plenty of photos along the way to make sure when it came to reassemble time I wasn't going to get stuck. What an absolute nightmare! What should have been a very simple excersize (in my mind, in theory) turned out to be about 5 hours work and approximately 451 swear words and 6 mangled knuckles. In the end I had to remove the rear wheel and drop the swing arm to get the air box out.. Even with this dropping I had approx 2mm of room each side to work with.. Great success!! Carb is no longer in the hole.

Thanks man. Exactly, although it's 'just' a shitty little Hyosung, I still enjoy getting out there twisting throttles and banging gears. The GN250 is perfect for the Wahine. She mentioned the other day she was wanting to change it up a little to more of a 'scrambler' style so i've gone and brought a whole bunch of parts so stay tuned for v2.0. I'm looking forward to it as it's the direction I would have gone myself if it was a bike for me. Alrighty, GB400tt build. Backstory.. I was on my way home from a party and as the taxi driver dropped me off he saw a bike out the front and said "Oh are you into bikes? I've got an old Honda I wana sell, a CB500". I was hammered but my voice of reason kicked in and politely declined. The next morning I remembered the conversation and had a moment of instant regret.. By some miracle I remembered his name and rang the taxi company. I explained the situation but they wouldn't give me his number but the supervisor did say he would pass on my details. Several weeks went by and he called me. Again, he called it a CB500 and I was fizzing thinking it was a 4 cyl CB500 and I said I would come and have a look. Had a squizz and turns out it was a GB400tt.. I still thought they were bad ass bikes but was low key gutted it wasn't a CB four. He also had a spare bike tucked away in the bushes and a shed of parts. Needless to say, after some negotiation I purchased the bike(s) on the spot. He also had a Yamaha xz400 sitting under a tarp that he didn't want so I took that off his hands too. Kinda to help him out, I knew I would take a loss on it but I got the others for a fair price so was happy. Enough talking, moar pictures.. As you can tell, the bike has been neglected. It hadn't had a warrant of fitness since 2015 I believe He said it was a runner before he parked it up when he got hand surgery and I had no reason to not believe him but the first thing on the list was for me to hear the bike run before I pour a load of money into it. Don't look too closely at that wiring by the headlight or it will heart your heart as it did mine This was also the spare bike and box of spares it came with - Bit worse for wear, yeah To be continued

By the way - I have no idea what I am doing.. I am an IT nerd by day that doesn't mind getting stuck in and just figuring things out. I have mechanical experience when it comes to cars (enough to get by) but motorbikes is a whole new world for me.. I'm loving it so far tho Quick snap @ Paekakariki (where the b0yz are cheeky) Not much has changed from here really other than i've done a couple of the Ride Forever courses (highly recommend to anyone), I got my lazy ass off my Learners and passed my restricted and i've also started a new project - a 87 Honda GB400TT! The GN is still going strong several thousand km's later and so is the GT250r

Alrighty up next.. The Mrs had registered her interest in learning to ride a bike. I was all for it! She went and got her learners licence Once she had that I set a budget and got to work finding her a bike to learn to ride on. She had done her basic handling test on a GN125 so that sort of riding style was all she knew and was keen on continuing to learn on. A mate of mine was selling his GN250 that needed a little love, which was perfect for me. He had taken it in for a WOF but it had failed on the below.. - Remount the rear shocks (Looks like it's missing a spacer or something?) - No rear reflector - Master cylinder has been welded previously "needs replacing" (I'm going to file back the weld and paint it black and see what happens) - Exhaust not secure (Missing a bolt on the engine side of it) - Fork seals need replacing (Doesn't look like they're leaking to me although they're soft.. Not sure if GN ting?) - Forks have surface rust - Throttle is sticking - Indicators need spacing, can't be seen It had already been modified a little so I can't claim all the good looks on my own personal design haha but I will show a before/after picture at the bottom of the post. This was the condition I received the bike in The priority here was to get the bike as safe as possible. She wasn't too fussed on the aesthetic side of things but I did want to have a go at polishing a turd, within reason I must also add - I don't have a garage. What I do have is a small garden shed which I have converted into a "workshop" Here are a series of pictures, because who is actually reading all of this? I am loving re writing this.. I tend to forget all of the headaches that were head during the process.. The snapped bolts, the faulty wiring, the cross threaded nuts etc.. Went for a re-check for the WOF. Failed on a few basic things (IE missing split pin etc) which I fixed took my tools to the workshop and quickly banged it out WOF - Check! Here is a little comparison photo - I reckon I did alright for a super tight budget 'build'

This will be a somewhat copy/paste from another forum. I've decided to also update here because there is a plethora of knowledge of older bikes on the forum so would like to capitalize on that, also the other forum is private so if anyone is google'ing a problem that I have come across, they won't be able to see the resolution, like they would if the situations were posted on here. First off i'll post about my daily and then I will update with what i've built and/or am building currently. Current daily This was my first bike after not riding a road bike for nearly 10 years. I have ridden plenty of dirt bikes so I am by no means a complete pleb but I am also well aware of my limitations. I wanted to spend 2k or under and I also wanted it to be 2000+ (because bugger 6 month wofs). What I got was a 2008 Hyosung GT250R. Bog standard, nothing special with a butt load of maintenance paper work. So far (while I write this on the 18/6/18) I am happy with my purchase (As I re-write this on 2/4/19, I can confirm - still happy) I brought it beginning of May, done 48 thou km. It's now done appox 51 thousand kms (Now done 70,000 as of 2/4/19) Did a DIY tail tidy, added LED indicators and put on a black tinted front screen I replaced the sprocket so I am not humming at 8500 RPM at 100kmph (Most of my riding was highway riding to and from work) Now comfortably sits at 110 at 7300 ish. Happy days. In terms of other maintenance, i've done countless oil changes, oil filter, air filter cleans, new brakes all round, new tyres - Just all the usual stuff.. Obligatory image of the bike at my mates work shop Current future plans.. It's probably due another birthday soon - Clean the carbs - Oil change - Replace spark plugs etc In terms of aesthetics - Nothing.. It's just a cheap burner that I chop traffic with in the mornings Just keep riding it really.. It does the job

Recently did mine - 10 minutes on each headlight with generous amount of auto sol and then went over again with a wax/sealer Went from barely being able to see past the frost to crystal clear. 6 months on and it's still like new

I grabbed and shook everything I was able to grab but didn't get any movement. I'll look for the 2nd mount (had heard there was a common issue with these going but didn't realise there was two mounts) and have a look there, as well as the strut mount, as well as the UJ. Awesome, thanks guys - keep the suggestions coming. I might strap a gopro under there and go for a drive to see if I can physically see anything

Hello online mechanic friends.. Wonder if anyone has come across this problem before, and if so - what was done to resolve. Car: 1996 Rav4 Transmission: Automatic Problem: When turning left there is a thud/donk/knock noise coming from the left rear side (from what it feels like from the drivers seat). It's a rotational sound, it's not at random. Also when travelling faster than 80kms there is a slight shudder coming from the rear diff but as soon as I take my foot off the accelerator the wobble disppears. What I have done: Replaced the diff oil with proper AWD diff oil supplied by Toyota - No change. I can see by looking underneath that the rear diff mount has been replaced at some stage. If you were to hazard a guess, what do you guys/gals think? Clearly a blown head gasket eh?

Nice base dude. Are these expenny over there?

That evo is tastefully modified! I also love that it has a tow bar Awesome progress

In my defense, the only pics that were displayed on the page was the painted cage!! Now they all want to load

Has the cage already been homologated? Unless you're a wizard of course have fingers in pies, you may find it hard to get it done with paint. If you knew this, disregard and i'll be on my merry way

This is so rad!

Looking good bruff!

Owwwweeeee, sounds rad

R100 = hnnnnng. Looking forward to seeing it all done (much like you I imagine!)

Im here gui'z wer u