kicker

A bit more today. I fitted the freshly rebuilt crank to the right case half. I used the hot slug method. You put the crank in the freezer then heat up a socket with a gas torch, the socket sits snugly in the bearing inner race and heats it up making it expand. When you feel the bearing give a bit of resistance take the socket out then get the crank out of the freezer and push it straight into the bearing using feeler gauges to centre it in the case. The main reason for doing it this way is because using a torch or heat gun might cook the crank seals which have to be installed first. Now time for gearbox reassembly and pressed in a couple seals to finish off

Some stuff arrived. Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4: press in the seals Step 5 Step 6: press in the rest of the bearings cos the heat and freeze method didn't work

Loving your work so far. I have been using a pipe bender to bend tube recently cos I'm cheap, I have found a couple tricks help to minimise the kinks. First is packing it full of sand (ram it then just put some tape over the ends) and second is to use a tight fitting form where you are bending it to stop the tube from flattening out, try using one of your slick forms in place of the white one. There are probably better ways than mine like using an oxy set but we use what we have

Will see how painful the whole process becomes, premix might be easiest long term but not the best for keeping the power valves spooge free

Yeah, I would assume so. More air = more fuel combined with stock oil flow would make a weaker fuel oil mix. Was thinking I would run it premix to start with and do some measurements on the oil injection pump. It has some adjustment in it so will see if I can get more flow, it may only adjust when it goes full open but we'll have a look anyway.

Not much progress at the moment, waiting on some transmission bearings and case sealant to arrive but other things are under way. I sourced some of these things Which will let me use the bigger one of these. Stock on the SR is a 28mm carby, dirt 200 is 35mm. The SR has oil injection through a port in the inlet rubber, the new inlet I will use doesn't have this as the 35mm carbs are used on premix only bikes. So I'll drill an unused boss on the carb and feed it in through there.

That wording is one of the options on the dereg form isn't it? It's lame but I am not surprised at the Vogon-like bureaucracy

I'm currently cleaning up the crankcase halves and decided to do a potentially unnecessary job but one that is super easy to do at this point. KX/KDX's of this era have the potential to leak from where the steel crank bearing seat ties into the crankcase, as per the arrows. A bit of JB Weld sorts it out Also picked up the rebuilt crank, the wombled bearing seat was just within spec. And finished off the expansion chamber and gave it some high heat paint that'll probably just burn off anyway as it was quite rusty on the header pipe section.

Yeah, need to find a cheap one, this'll do in the meantime. I removed the rest of the mesh and dampening material and gave it a wire brush as far as I could reach, also tapped out a small dent. And I think I'll borrow one of the Toomey silencers from my RD parts to put on.

I'm also on a quest to turn up the ring dings. I could source an aftermarket pipe but I have cutting discs and welding wire. Inside the stock exhaust there is some baffling in the chamber which can be removed for more hp's and a crisper sound.

My bedframe/bearing puller case splitter Split them nice and easy with a few tappity taps here and there. LH crank bearing was stuffed and not long for this world. Crank has been out before as there is evidence of sausage fingery under the RH bearing where someone must have tried cutting a race off. It's currently with the bike shop for a rebuild.

Not much progress but the engine has been stripped a bit further, everything is looking good so far. Someone has put a Wossner piston in it at some point so it has been opened before, not sure if they split the cases but since I have to anyway to replace the crank seals then I may as well go a bit further so I have a rod kit on the way. And the main reason for the rebuild Where the fuck did the seal go? The metal outer part is there but the rubber has vanished and you can see the spring chilling on the crank. As mentioned earlier I wanted to get this legal before spending money on a rebuild so I used sealant on the sidecover to keep it in a running state haha. Currently fabricating a case splitter as I couldn't bring myself to pay $130 for something that looks shit and might only get one use.

Oooh EV meet, let me brush up on the latest punishing yarns about tyres with the least rolling resistance and the best power rates for charging cars

Sounds good, I can make it to two in a row, what a treat

Good thread, agree with all the recommendations. I'm in the process of adding a separator, my old vac gave up the ghost after rawdogging it for too long. I'm only using glass bead at the moment, love the finish, here's an old wheel I use as my compressor hose reel

Whipped the valves out today, I'm surprised, some wear and carbon build up but no chewed gears or sheared shafts, win. Better look at the cyl, nice

So much fun! My favourite bit is when it goes from eeeEeeeeEee to EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! But because I like doing things the wrong way it now looks like this Crank seals needed attention (they are a split the cases job) and I need to see what state the KIPS valves are in as they are prone to stripping teeth. Good news so far the piston and cylinder look good, will check the rest out once it's apart.

You are on the money there, the main aim for this was to have a 2T motard. Currently working on these

The bike now ready I gathered some more docs together, another ownership declaration and the NZTA approval, loaded it on a trailer and towed it to VTNZ. A few days and $525 later ($325 inspection fee + 6 months rego) I got a call saying it was ready to pick up, clean sheet check, nice.

Anyhoo, so now I had the approval from NZTA I had to get it ready for its compliance inspection. Tyres were tricky due to the 21/19 sizes needed, took a bit of searching but found that Michelin Trackers came in the right size and were road legal. It was good fun getting the old ones off and the new ones on, positioning the bead lock and tube etc The brakes were shit so new discs, pads and hoses all around along with master and caliper rebuild kits. Replacing the front hose was a pain as due to Honda having some kind of patent on hose routing (WTF) for a while the KDX had a hose/hard line combo going under the fork leg. New hose routing Wheel bearings were rough so new ones chucked in front and rear. Fork seals weren't sealing, after making a couple tools the job was a piece of piss. Steering and swingarm bearings felt good so just pumped some new grease in To make it look a bit nicer I bought some new fork shields (on the right) from Aliexpress for $17 delivered Going by the NZTA info the last thing I needed was a park light as the KDX doesn't run a battery. I borrowed 3x 18650 batteries and BMS from another project and knocked up a small 12V that fits under the seat, wired in a bar switch and fit an led in the rear guard.

Will definitely get some vids, anyone got recommendations for a phone holder or cheap cam so I don't need a gopro

The bike was mostly complete and other than washing it I didn't do anything to it as I wanted to confirm I could get it on the road otherwise would flick it on. A call to VTNZ told me it had been imported in 1999 and had been entered into LANDATA which was promising, the only issue was a lack of any export certificate and Japanese deregistration needed for the compliance process. I knew I'd probably need to use the Alternative Docs process to get an exemption for the missing papers but didn't want to pony up the $184 unless I knew I had a good chance. I contacted the exemption team directly and they said to just send through as much info as I could to make their job easier. The Alternative Docs form asks for the following; -Proof of previous registration I had no proof of previous registration (hence the need for the exemption) but did include an email from a Japanese company that sources copies of deregistration certificates stating that no copies are kept for motorcycles. -Ownership trail I had no ownership trail other than a receipt from the guy I bought it off so I got a JP to sign a copy of that, signed an ownership declaration, added printouts of the TradeMe auction, auction success email, text convo organising for me to pick up the bike and an email chain between us with him stating he had no information either and no longer had the details of who he bought it from. -Written VIN/chassis number verification This was a piss around until I got clear info, basically only the VTNZ/VINZ person approved to comply the bike can do this so you can't just go to any old station, it also needs to be hand written on official letterhead. -Photographs of the vehicle and identifiers Easy, take heaps, pad that sucker out -Confirmation of deregistration from the country of origin Had nothing for this -Statutory declarations covering how the vehicle was obtained and its condition Another declaration signed for this Along with this stuff I added my initial communication with NZTA about the process and heaps of info on how this was a street model (I didn't want them to think it was a dirt only model I was trying to sneak through) which included Kawasaki catalogues showing trim levels, copies of pages from the owners manual I sourced, photos of factory brochures I pulled from Yahoo Japan Auctions, photos of bikes in Japan showing their plates that I found on instagram and even a spreadsheet of vehicles I pulled from the NZTA fleet database available to the public. Once I had it all together I added my $184 bank cheque and sent it off, I might not have needed to include lots of it but I wanted to give it my best shot. A couple weeks later I got a letter saying this.

I've had this sitting around in my garage for about 18 months while I pissed around trying to get it road legal. I'll run through my experience in case anyone finds it useful. Anyway here it is when I first got it.

Very nice, I have been dreaming of having a lathe at home but no space currently

Anyone got any recommendations for a good DC TIG machine? Have been wanting to learn for a while, I assume lift arc at least. Already got a Lincoln MIG so no need for a combo setup and probably not much use for AC at the moment either, basically just something I can have a play with doing small jobs.