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BLIZZO

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Everything posted by BLIZZO

  1. got bloody busy trying to get this thing finished in time so didnt do any updates, might as well fill ya'll in now. So i went to put the engine back together and noticed the little end of the rod and gudgeon were toast. Rather than do down the rabitt hole of getting a new rod i took the crank to my local machine shop and for a mere $50 they honed out the little end and the piston, then machined an oversized gudgeon pin and she was all hoki mai. That meant I could get stick into throwing it all together. When doing so I also noticed the gear shift spline was coozed, so ordered a new one through anaconda ex japan that was going to turn up 3 days before leaving for east cape, heeeeeaps of time. Aliexpress LED looks lightly out of place on a classic styled bike but jeeebus does she throw some lumens. Resident palmy GC matt cut me out some exhaust flanges so I could make a sweet full stainless pipe and get mitch to tig it all up. Threw the engine in just wihtout the right side cover and clutch as needed to wait for gear shift arm/spline to turn up for that. stocked with how the black come up Rolled her out for some sunbathing I tried a side number plate mount but it ust wasnt gunna work with panniers so ended up going off the rear guard This jigsaw puzzle took a while Alloy taped it so I could drop it around to mitch to buzz up
  2. so the cam on this thing was a bit farked, so I ordered a good second hand XR200r cam off a reputable honda parts supplier Quick look at the lobes you can see it has less duration so must be a limp dick cam from an XL or CTX200 or something, he took it back and refunded my money anyway which is lush. went to the local cam shop and old mate spun an XR200a profile which is the most agressive of stock cams onto my cam, so thats sorted now. I used 3x cans of VHT urethane "Wheel paint" for the frame as its supposedly very hard wearing and has a nice satin finish. its not quite as hard as id like and wish i just forked out the $250 odd to powercoat it, oh well, done now. Retired washing line goes hard for a painting rack. I went to throw the engine back together on the weekend and on inspection of the little end of the rod a piston its a bit farked. dumb. Looked at getting a conrod kit / splitting crank / new piston kit and couldnt be bothered smashing $400 odd bucks at it, so went and saw my motor machinist and get honed out the little end and piston to spec, then used the crank grinder to machine down an oversized gudgeon pin to fit all spic and span, cheap option to achieve the same result as the big end seems all gravy. Because I had to take the crank out I decided to give everything a good clean up and then paint all the cases etc while apart. man there was a lot of gunk inside / in the centrigugal oil seperator / filter thing. good to get it all clean and asses the gearbox which appears mint. one main bearing was a bit wobbly so ill replace that while im in here. Started throwing it all together which im starting to be quite happy with GN250 front guard with the mounts cut off for the rear fender and ali tail light. unsure how ill mount number plate yet but likely a nice custom tucked in mount off the top shock bolt. Still waiting for my modified offset rear sprocket to make the 2002 XR200r engine work, but starting to look like a bike again Speedo mounted up, I like how the controls / bars have all come together Pushing on pushing on east capes calling
  3. ah sweet, the old pump bottle of gas to biff in and then discard as soon as theres enough room in the tank will be aplenty then.
  4. whats our max distance this year? interwebs tell me I should get around 150-160km from my 9L ish Cg125 tank on the XR200 engine
  5. I was then at the point of "what should I do" with the XR200 engine. It ran fine but was a tad smokey. I could have just given it a buff and a coat of black paint but it would be a shame to make the bike nice without giving the engine a once over. I decided to give it a good birthday without splitting the cases and i'm glad I did. After pulling the rocker cover off its quite evident something has gone on. The inlet valve had been munched against the inlet tappet screw and made a bit of a mess. really weird as the exhaust valve was fine. The cam also had a decent amount of wear. Luckily the cam journals in the head are pretty bloody good a well as the rockers. I put in an order with Malcom at Anaconda, new cam, gasket set, inlet valve, tappet screw, rings, , full oil seal kit and full gasket set for less than $300, bargain! I also grabbed a new timing chain, new timing chain guides, clutch plates/steels/springs to put in it too. While i'm waiting for al that to turn up I got the head and cyl bead blasted. gave the cylinder a good hone and it come up really nice. the exhaust valve seat had a bit of pitting on it so I gave it a cut, did the inlet too while I was there. Once the valve turns up ill give them both a good lap in. Couldnt help my self to attack some of the rough casting in the ports. I dont have a proper dome sanding toon to smooth it all out but shell be right, better than what it was factory, especially the exhaust port which was hugely restricted by the casting around the valve guide. Got the frame back from the sandblasters here in palmy. flicked that off to mitch to finish a few tig welds that we left until it was blasted to get nicer welds. Once that was done gave it a good going over with some brakeclean and whacked a couple of coats of etch primer on it. Just need to get onto painting it now and sticking it all back together.
  6. Leading up to east cape I have been putting a bit of work into the CT185 again. Building two bikes at once (this and the vespa) has its challenges but i'm getting there finally with both of them. As this will be running full electrics I wanted to make a nice discreet electrics tray for under the seat to hold the CDI, flasher, Battery (capacitor) and the bulk of the loom. Thought the easiest way was to make it out of fibreglass so I whipped up a wooden mould and laid one out. couldnt be bothered doing the whole plug and mould situation to get a nice finish so rough fibreglass will do. Tuned out alright i think and is fit for purpose. will be painted black to blend in with the black frame. Then up next was the seat. Easiest way again was fibreglass. I Wrapped everything with glad wrap after pre drilling mount holes. i started by laying 2 layers of cloth and layer of chop strand mat. let that dry then put it the seat bolts which are joint together with a piece of steel to stop them turning in the base. I then whacked another 3-4 layers of cloth so it gave me a nice strong thick base that the upholstery rivets will go into nicely. Greg was in the middle of moving at this stage so I decided to share the love and sent the base down to Lewis at Tinwald Canvas and upholstery. Lewis also does amazing work. I gave him an example of what I liked the look of a said fill your boots, I just wanted black suede for that classic rally look and tuck and roll top pattern. i was not disappointed and he did a superb job. The matty B finish looks really good against the honda red I reckon.
  7. The dirt PK100, now affectionately names "the chuddy" had gross indicator holes on the front legshield and and rear pods, as PK vespas do, so I decided to do a quick slap up job and fill them in. and a quick one swipe bog smear and she's golden then a bit of a buzz with the orbital sander followed by a quick hand sand and its good enough for a race bike its quite convenient that VHT silver wheel paint is almost the exact same colour, so the entire bike got the treatment of one can, no way I was splashing out for two. Cut out an alloy blank plate for the left hand rear pod. this will get a race number painted on it eventually. whacked the seat on and its starting to look like a bike again. I hate checker plate but couldnt think of an easier way to get some grip on the floorboards, so hacked some bits out with he jigsaw and riveted them on. Also ran some rubber trim around the legshield to save severing any limbs. Filled the headlight in with a piece of alloy, thinking of painting something on it to get away from the blandness, jury is still out on that, was thinking a KC daylighters cover or something. vespas are rotary valve inlet, opposed to reed. unlike most rotary valve bikes that use a separate disc with a hole in it to set the inlet opening / closing and duration vespas do it a bit of a whacky way. they use one web of the crank to control the inlet, so to modify the inlet timing you "cut the crank" or modify the rotary valve sealing pad that the crank web rotates against. the photo below shows the "cutout" of the crank, the edge on the right closest to the big end bearing dictates the closing of the inlet ATDC, the edge on the left dictates when the inlet starts opening BTDC. the current timings of this crank, which as a PK100S already has the longest duration of any stock crank is closing at 55degrees ATDC and opening at 110 degrees BTDC. The science behind inlet timings confuses me, ive read the jennings and G. Bell books but still failed to accurate formulate what my ideal timings would be. talking to Vespa barrys they reckoned leave the inlet closing at the 55 degrees that it is already at in order to not sacrifice mid range power, and have the inlet opening a little earlier. the Jennings book gives a general rule of thumb for "a broad range of power" of having the inlet open "at the same point the transfer ports in the cyl are closed". this results in zero overlap. more peaky engines can run up to and over 10 degrees of overlap. I have cut my crank to now have the inlet opening at around 122 degrees BTDC which is when the trans ports close on my modified stock cylinder. the image below is the rotary sealing pad of which he crank web with the inlet cutout rotates against (with a very precise fit) to form a seal. You can see there is extra "meat" on the inlet closing ATDC section. Porting this out can have the inlet closing much later, peakier race engines will close around 70 degrees ATDC. im going to stick with the advise of the british vespa barry's however and leave this as is at this stage. For reference the last two stroke bike I owned, a suzuki GP125, which go bloody well at around 14hp stock but are a little peaky have an inlet that opens 145 BTDC closes 55 ATDC. O well, hopefully it works.
  8. so, like all things I do, I couldnt really do this vepsa thing in halves, and one wasn't going to be enough. I had been talking to one of the blokes in the Palmy SC about various smallframe vespa bits , has a cool hotted up SS90 replica. He mentioned a local old girl that was selling a 60s smallframe 90 that was "all there" but in a few bits and pretty straight. He said what she wanted for it which sounded pretty reasonable so I had a ponder on it. Was a sunday afternoon when @Sparkle was around at my place and he convinced me to go check it out, which we did. Unfortunately were son had pulled it apart and ruined the orignal paint by giving it a barry rattle can job but other than that it was surprisingly OG. I had just brought another smallframe but it was nothing like this so decided to flick on the ratty one and grab this. I struck a deal with the old girl "Trish" and that was that. Went and picked it up a couple of days ago, its quite the honey and my wifes already in love with it. So the story is, its a 1966 vespa 90. Some will say that no its a pre '65 Vespa 90 because its a "Small door" model, but ill get to that later. The Scoot was sold brand new to A Judith Brown from Kaponga in 1966. Patricia (Trish) Martley purchased the scoot off Judith in 1967 when it was a year old. Trish had owned it every since. This is some of the kack that it came with, along with another big box of spare parts The clever eye will notice the absence of a Piaggio frame number here, under the engine door where its usually located. And this little tool/rego holder opens up another neat bit of history Discovered this through the interwebs: "Up until 1984 NZ had a heavily regulated, central government controlled economy, (on reflection) and in short it was a democratic, benevolently communist environment. As such import licencing was very strictly controlled to protect local manufactures and markets. Airco, an Auckland based company held the NZ licence to import Piaggio/Douglas Vespa scooters in CKD (completely knocked down) form which they assembled and distributed. The licencing regulations required that a certain amount of local materials/manufacturing/labour/etc went into any imported product to further support/protect NZ businesses and markets. Airco made the seats locally which they badged after themselves and assembled the frames which were stamped with their manufacturing number code (sometimes not stamped at all) .They were then distributed and sold as Vespas to a waiting list of buyers...new, foreign made anything always sold at a huge premium (tariff loading) and had an air of exclusivity. Models available over time were early wide-bodies, early Douglas Vespa 125 variants, GS160, SS50/90's, Douglas Sportique 150, Super 150, SS180 and Rally 200 and some other models from time to time along with the odd, VERY expensive, privately imported machine (and you needed a very large stash of foreign funds to get passed the authorities). They were available in an almost Henry Ford rainbow of colour options...Roma Red, Peacock Blue and "appliance" White. NZ never had a VIN system back then (pre golbalisation/Americanisation). Vehicles were registered at the Post Office by chassis/frame number and engine number. Registration had nothing to do with a certificate of ownership (no one ever had such a document), it merely documented vehicle information as cover for a Government tax. Airco stamped the frames with a manufacturing number (4 digits) on the frame which became by default the frame number. I had one SS with no frame number at all (probably a replaced frame at some stage) but the rego paper had a frame number recorded. It wasn't until the late 80's that NZ adopted the VIN system, registration papers became obsolete and everything became computerised to the global standard" So yea pretty rad. Not too sure what the plan is, I like the OG poverty pack look of the steel wheels etc. Will likely build a nice torquey polini 130 engine for it or something with a vintage looking faco pipe. dumb thing is the 90s are 3 speed so could either leave it that or convert to 4 speed. but yea, all original build but with a bit more boogie, bit of a sleeper etc. Its down on the project list so will have to wait. its a shame its had the respray, because of that I might have it blasted, properly panel beaten and resprayed in the original color. wouldn't use base/clear though, i hate stuff that's restored shinier than what they were new!
  9. yea it was a beautiful accident that one. it was my "workshop stool" but is perfect for holding smallframe vespas. so handy to just easily push it around the workshop.
  10. So onto the fun bits. The port timing on these things stock is lazy as, so that needed to change. I was told by some barry’s in blightly to aim for 125* transfer duration and 180* exhaust duration. Still don’t know what inlet timing to run but I havn’t got to that yet. To work out the timings you sit the crank in the left side engine case whack the piston and cylinder on and tighten in down and set the degree wheel at 0* as the piston first meets the opening of each port ATDC. You then rotate through to BDC and back up to where the port is just closing BTDC. I then used a series of shims (washers) to raise the entire cylinder to get my transfer duration to the target of 125*. The shim thickness was 3.4mm for me. So that is the thickness of base packer I will use. 3.4mm will then need to be machined off the top of the barrel, a process referred to as “top and tailing”. This packer only increases my exhaust duration to around 165* or so (can’t quite remember). To raise this, I need to port the roof of the exhaust port. I drew a mark and calculated how high I would need to go to get to 180* exhaust duration, this was about 3-4mm. couldn’t find too much reliable info on the ideal port shape so I decided to just copy the current shape. Marked it out with pen then attached with the Dremel, I don’t think I fucked it up to bad. I then used some very small hand files to add a slight chamfer on the edge of the ports so the rings don’t get caught, munched and spat into the exhaust. These are the current timings for if anyone’s interested probably not but ok Jim. Speaking of exhaust, I picked up this “Polini Banana” for a good price second hand and slapped a coat of jam on it, apparently they are one of the best “value for money” pipes and would pretty good with 180* of exhaust duration, so win. The throttle on these things is so shit, it has maaaasive travel and is full non return cruise control spec. to fix this I made a new solid mounted throttle tube that sticks out slightly more than stock, yea its uneven to the other side but fight me. Whacked a china quick action pit bike throttle on then modified the cable and the carb end and whammo, ¾ race scooter. Its pretty lol, full throttle takes like 20 degrees of rotation so shes nothing or WOT, perfect. I wired the elec starter button up as the kill switch (as well as a master switch under the seat) and blanked the switch blocks off with alloy. Kill sticker cos race scoot. @64valiant kindly donated some 10” knobbies, ones done a burnout so that can go on the front, steering’s underrated. I cut out an alloy sheet for the middle to stop appendages going through the hole and breaking, this help came from the Italians who apparently found out the hard way, ouch. I have some checker plate to add to the floorboards but haven’t got there yet, also trying to weigh up if I should cover in the “pod” where there is usually a door, with a sheet of alloy, could also just leave it open but it looks like it could hurt in a crash. Anyway, its coming along, I’m waiting for some Barry info on inlet timings, and whether to cut the crank, inlet pad or both to alter it. Hopefully that arrives with me soon and I can throw the cases back together and then get to setting up squish. I’m going to be running the standard SHBC 19/19 carb, I have ported the inlet manifold to get it to flow much nice. I’m pretty happy with how this thing's turning out, so far it owes me less than $400, the aim was to build the entire thing for sub $500 so I think ill be close.
  11. found out why the clutch was dicky, aside from having almost no cork left the locating tabs had been based to shit by the basket, there was about 60ml of oil in the poor bloody thing. While I was at it I "lightened" the flywheel by heating up the ring gear and bashing it off. no need for electric legs when you have 3 ample sized real ones. Next up on list of “wow check out how fucked this is” was the bolts holding the rear wheel to the hub. They had obviously been left loose and the wheel had been chattering for quite some time. Photo below was one of the better ones. Someones lucky they didn’t die. So I got talking to a bunch of Vespa dudes about how I can make this go “well enough for a bit of fun at dirtmasters” but I didn’t want to go dropping several hundred dollars on a Polini/Malossi cylinder kit. I was wanted to do some barry mods and bolt some second hand shit on to get it going well enough to be a bit of a laugh to ride. Spoke to a bloke named Matthew Brookes who’s now down in Milton and is well versed in these things. Less than 200 dolarydoos later I had a new seat (the single seat was shit) a PK125 3 port barrel and head, a new piston and rings, an alloy packer (will get to that later) and all the gaskets/seals and shit id need to rebuild. I thought about changing the primary gears too but the low 100 gears which top out around 80 would be better for around town / on the dirt. First thing I did was strip the cases and port them to match the transfer ports on the cylinder. This was easy using the packer as a template. The thing was pretty bloody grubby on the inside. I ended up completely stripping the cases and bead blasting them. On the flywheel side of the engine these things use a weird 2-piece bearing that makes it easy to split the cases. Sadly, for me this thig was koozed, was all carboned up and super grumbly, so off it came. Unsure if it’s an Indian PK125 copy or something but I havn’t seen one that either uses a copper headgasket or Oring like this does. Ill grab a viton Oring to use as a gasket anyway.
  12. Well that was dumb. Seems we lost the days posts, including the first new thread I've Started in like 4 years. Oh well ill start again. So went something like: Ive never really been a Vespa foamer, they are European and 2 stroke, that's two things that have never gone that well for me and both combined. About a year ago a fellow penny pincher, Ghalal got given a PK100s that someone had stripped to "modify" but realized they weren't even capable of undoing wheel nuts so gave up. unfortunately they lost all of the bits they took off (quite a few bits) so it sat in a sad state until it was given to G for free. It then sat in a sad state at G's place, he tried to get it to spark but it wouldn't so he gave up on it. Over lockdown I did a bunch of work on a C100 that PPSC and friends put together to donate to G after his bike got stolen. Being the bloody nice bloke that he is, and in lieu of his work G donated the Vespa to me. I didn't think too much of it and just poked it in the corner. This is how it arrived. Que QCR Dirtmasters being announced with a 125cc limit, my other small bike is a 140cc and there was emphasis on least practical bikes as possible so I thought building this thing would be perfect. I did a bit of interwebs searching and found that the Italians build these smallframes (mostly PKs as they are "undesirable to vespa barry's) into 17hp hotrods and launch them around full sized MX tracks. that's my inspo sported. So I needed to get the thing to run. i stripped out all the wiring and hooked up the 2 wires that the CDI / engine needs to run and whammo she fired. well after considerable push starting and start ya bastard down the street it fired. it was a slow as a wet week and ran like a bad of shit, clutch was also super weird, more investigation needed. Before I got to pulling the engine I wanted to weld the frame brace in so did that out of some 25mm tube. She's a full 3/4 race scoot now. Pulled the engine and started stripping it down, jeeze these things get grubby
  13. just an FYI for dudes who havnt seen the tank in person, it is wayyyyyyy more mustard / lush in person. for some reason it photographs really yellow, particularly in unnatural light.
  14. like yea you will probably be waiting for people to catch up a fair bit and shit. but i have to do that anyway just cos im a silly cunt. You will still have fun and sink heaps of tins and THAT, is what this ride is all about. / Lifan your CT
  15. yea @00quattro00 the Baja would be fine man. I took my XR250r as a backup bike last year but didnt need it in the end so it stayed at J5s place. Im riding an XR200r swapped CT (your old one) so its not that different really.
  16. Fuck yea I see 7 penny pinchers on that list. Def gunna win the gang fight this year
  17. smashed some progress, on this today, thanks heaps to @Mitch.W for doing almost all the work while i stood around, talked shit and drunk beer. Mitch spent ages on the tig and fabbed up this lush new subframe on the bike. thicker rear stays in the same spot as the stock one but the thicker pipe looks way better. a nice flat frame with a wee kink at the end that all ties in nice and level with the tank to give a lush flat backbone to the bike. I cut the mounts off the swingarm for the shocks are remounted them on the inside of the swingarm to narrow the shocks up which also helped heaps with the bikes aesthetic. Nice wee tank mount, unfortunately theI cheapo chinese CG tank isnt level so the left side drops below frame, might grab a Jap CG tank if one ever pops up. m super stoked how it all turned out and cant wait to make a seat base for it. I might still shorten the rear guard out as i dont know if i like it out that far but will see once the seats sorted.
  18. this was sorta the look i was going for this has a different front end off i dont know what, which gives it an 18" wheel, but ill stick with the 19 to keep things simple. the fact the 3.5" tyre bit was a bonus, i didnt think it was going going so was a bit of a risk. I picked up this haggard but good running 2002 XR200r for $300 Whipped the engine and loom out, then promptly sold the rest of the bike to a bloke for $550, good old PPSC special, buy for cheaps, sell for heaps. once i get the hoop made and whip up a fibreglass base, then hope to smash together a black suede seat Still deciding what to do with the engine aesthetically. either paint black with stainless bolts and polished fins on the head only, or go out and do some polished side covers as well, currently unsure, i do think this looks petty rad: . Will update once the rear hoops done this sunday hopefully
  19. When looking for an XR200 engine this CT185 popped up on here. grabbed it for the engine which was supposed to be an XR200 but was actually a lame mishmash of Xl185/ATC200 parts with boring cam and compression so that went under the bench, but thought i might try work with the frame, which was worked out alright, just needs a new rear section. Rear hoop and stays got hacked off, new one getting made this weekend. to make the front end work with the CG tank without smashing the shit out of it / having no lock i needed so offset triples. after oodles of searching what would fit nicely i found some 80's CB125T triples, snapped them up and whacked them on and was golden. good lock and no knock. You can see here i have whacked some classy golden boys on as well. 3.5-19" front and 4.0-19" rear. front only just fits, but ive got a bit of a plan here to get some more clearance and will run incise dust caps.
  20. so in true blizzshop fashion i got sidetracked with another project before the Africa Twin was finished. With the Brass Monkey being postponed until next year i lost a bit of motivation to finish the twin, and with East cape not too far around the corner again i thought i better hurry up and build a bike for it. I had purchased an old Xl100 to build up a while ago, plan was to throw an XR200r engine and a Cg125 tank on it and send it. Delving further into the XL frame tho, there was some nasty as shit repairs, it was a bit bent and the swing arm was wonky, and it wasnt going to fit the XR200 engine that well, so i shit canned that idea
  21. yea im def coming to this, fizzing and once again will be on a different bike for the 4th time in a row. im building a little 1983 xl100s, with shortened forks, 18" rear wheel, Cg110 tank and xr200 donk. currently trying to make it not look like shit
  22. sooooo have hard a good push on this old girl to get it sorted well in time for the brass monkey in May. I dont want to be embarking on a 3000km journey on a super fresh build. One of the many problems i have in this tidy up is super thick grot yellow paint. I did some research and the plastic used in these fairings is ABS. i did some more research on how to chemically strip paint from ABS plastic and many places suggested brake fluid. Believing the internet i tried this on one side fairing and yea sure enough, it bubbled the paint and didnt seam to harm the plastic, so i tried a little more and stripped the entire piece, then bang, like 4 massive cracks in that one bit that i just put brake fluid on. sooooooo, more research and yes, brake fluid upon contact with ABS plastic causes catalytic embrittlement and internal stresses in the formed plastic part make it crack like fuck. gutted. at least its fixable, the whole part will now be more brittle but hey, ill try to always drop it on the right hand side. So that brings me to the next stage of repair, plastic welding. For those that know me, know that I'm fucking jewish. not the fun kind of jewish with the funny little hats and nipple tassles on my forehead, but the kind that hates giving away my hard earned shillings and six pence. I decided commercial plastic welding was too spendy, and these guards have heaps of plastic weld repairs on them already, like a fuck tonne, i dont know why exactly, but its probably got something to do with this photo the previous owner sent me: actually, its because it got ridden into the side of a garage, then written off, repaired, and re complied, but that photo is too good not to share. so i found a really handy hint on the interwebs, poor mans plastic welding. Lego is made of ABS, the same material as the fairings, and ABS melts like fuck in acetone. So take a $6 blue lego duck and jam it in some acetone: mmm lego slurry. just add more lego or acetone to get the consistency right, similar to golden syrup is bang on. then just V out the cracks and dab in the slurry. the acetone in the slurry instantly starts eating / bonding to the ABS in the fairing and makes a super strong bond, like full on two become one Gerri Halliwell show me ya tits bond i have found the best way to do it, similar to bogging, is to layer it up with thin layers, doing 2 layers to fill a crack. it shrinks a bit and forms a skin as it dries which makes the middle take way longer to dry, so thinner the better. it also gets quite a few air bubbles if you slap it on too quick. Its also handy for making entire new pieces and tabs and shit, took a bit of progress but got there in the end: So yea, just chipping away at that. Have also got the plugs almost sorted for the side covers, foam plug is finished and then layered with one layer of woven mat. I'm currently bogging these up to get to the desired finish before I prime and then lay a mold off it. Simply fizzing and the bung to see this thing come together and be a full on adventure barry.
  23. In my attempt to make the africa twin look nice again i have been playing with / teaching myself how to fibreglass. the RD04 was missing the stock tail section and side panels, of which are stupid money to aquire, so i wanted to make some that look alright and also make the bike slimmer than the stock once so panniers arent too wide. I watched a few youtube vids on how to make plugs / molds / lay up glass then headed down to a local composites workshop and had some sweet yarns with the barry that owned it who preceded to sell me all the bits i need, worked out so much cheaper than buying smaller kits. first up i needed to make a tail section, so i could then have that piece finished to make sure the side panels fit up to the tail nicely, and its the smallest piece so probably the best bit to learn on. first up i brought a sheet of XPS foam from bunnings, this stuff is pretty cheap and being closed cell sands nicely to get the shape of your plug. bit of mucking around and i got this- Next up was to lay one coat of fibreglass cloth over it. Please note that you need to use epoxy resin for this, not polyester as it will eat the foam. The reason for the tin layer of fibreglass is so you dont accidentally sand though the bog process and muck up the shape of your plug. once that i set i covered the entire plug in about 3mm of body filler/bog and left to cure. once cured i sanded it down to a nice finish. next step was to spray a coat of dark etch primer onto it, as seen in the photo below, once the etch primer was on i brushed on 3 thick coats of high build thinner primer. this gives a good surface to sand back to an immaculate finish. the reason for the dark etch primer is it lets you know when you are sanding though the primer filler before getting to the bog. sorry i didnt get a photo of the high build primer filler. once the primer filler is left as your final surface, i rubbed on and let cure 3-4 coats of release wax, and then brushed on a thin layer of PVA, pretty much a special PVA glue that helps release the mould from the plug, the fibeglass barry reccomended this stuff and it sure makes life easier. once the plug is all ready i brushed on 2 thick coats of gel coat, this was the first one that was too thin, around 2mm is ideal. after the gel coat i built up two layers of chop strant matt using polyester resin. this gives the mold which when released looks like this, the plug got a bit stuck and damaged in the process here. Once i had the mold i then repeated the process of wax / PVA / gelcoat and then layed up a final piece using a layer of cloth, 2 layers of chop strand mat and then another layer of cloth. once popped out the final product looks like this im pretty happy for my first try, next time i will use a lighter grade chop strand matt for the mold, i used too heavy of mat and there was airbubbles present between the gelcoat and glass which made this defect, but i will give it a sand back and paint anyway. with the right practice and finesse, you can easily get a part that pops out as a finished product, but man it sinks up some time. Just had this sweet little XR style tail light turn up that will get mounted on this guard next up is the side panels, the blank cutout is shown here but there is lots of shaping to go on still to make it look good.
  24. a wee while since the last Blizzshop update as i havent been up to too much other than work and painting the bloody house. Had great fun for a wee bit on the wee GP from above then promptly sold that on for some good coin. Have a new small bike project replacing it which i will put some info up about when i pick up the rest of the bits later this week. I have been getting over staring at one of my favorite bikes i own that is by far also the ugliest bike I own, so i have started de-uglyfying it. The grot rattle can canary yellow RD04 XRV750 Africa twin is yellow no more. previous photo for reference lawl So first up I stripped it down, paint stripped the Fuel tank, etch primed it and started bogging up some dents, still got some more work there to go. The only mechanical issue the bike had was being very hard to start from cold. When not used often these bikes have a notorious habit in which the choke plungers get jammed on (enriched). I dont know what happened to this one but one plunger was disconnected and some numpty had jizzed half a tube of RTV down the plunger hole to block it, after picking most of that out i found a partially drilled out and extraction attempt of a now mangled choke plunger. Unfortunately for me the idiot mangled the wall of the carb while drilling it out, so the carbs are now junk. $400 later i landed a new set from Austria. Fun fact, the rear carb runs a richer main jet than the front carb to compensate for the hotter running temps of the rear cylinder in the V formation, i wonder how potatoes get around this issue with only sucking from one carb, but then again they probably dont go fast enough to get airspeed to cool the front cylinder. Anyway, the replacement carb has slightly richer getting than my factory one (118/122 opposed to my one at 115/118) on doing research the richer jetting is stock for this model of bike. I will run it like that anyway as mine was a bit lean with the straight through muffler on it. so hopefully that all fixes the starting issue. Next on the agenda is to sort out the horrendous lack of side covers are i threw the even more horrendous checker plate in the trash. I borrowed some RD07 later model side panels but didnt like how they fit, especially once they will be painted white so am going to pick up some XPS foam and have a crack at making my own fibreglass plug / mould / glass side covers which will be a fun project as i haven't worked with glass before. i have a sweet little tail section on the way which will get rid of the big monstrosity thats on there are the moment and i also got some lush as frig but slightly damaged adventure spec soft cordura panniers for cheap. These are currently with @64valiant getting some repairs done, once thats sorted ill make up some racks to hand them from this thing. Plans at this stage is to finish this body work, repair the cracks in the front fairings and then paint it all white and get the lads a watermark to do some sweet rothmans livery. will re do the dash setup and make a few other small changes but wont dig too deep. once this is all done ill ride it for a year and then probs fully strip and powdercoat the frame and do all the bearings and shocks and stuff. oh also need to do a preventative mod to the fuel pump. These things have a small mitsi fuel pump to supply fuel when the level drops below carb level (about 1/4 tank) and the points are notorious for welding themselves together. There is a wee mod to add a diode into the pump which through electrical magic reduces this sparking and stops the pumps from clagging out all the time. Looking forward for some adventure times
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