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kseries.rookie

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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)

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Did a DIY tail tidy, added LED indicators and put on a black tinted front screen

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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.. 

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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'

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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)
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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

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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..

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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
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To be continued
 

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Family photo, back home after unloading bikes

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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..

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Great success!! Carb is no longer in the hole.

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I'm glad I did this because it was pretty badly gummed up with old fuel

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The jets were clogged to buggery

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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.

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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 

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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



 

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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

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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.

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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

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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)

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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

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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.

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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.

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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..

 

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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.

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The colour I went for was Nissan's grey (KH2 is the code) commonly found on R32 GTR's and also gloss black


 

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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.

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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

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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? 

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Thanks team! I'm certainly enjoying the process.

I banged it on the back of a trailer today and took it down for a WOF check. I've never used this guy before but he comes highly recommended and has had quite a few GB's in there over the year. Seemed like a pretty straight up/no bullshit kind of guy which I like. Not much room between me and the ground so I want a thorough check..
It was cool seeing all the necks it snapped driving through town. I heard a few people make comments about the "cool bike" haha

Obligatory photo for thread. Hondaception

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On 17/04/2019 at 18:31, xsinclairx said:

Nice bike, I might borrow that paint code for my pop up :thumbleft:

Paint code is KH2 - Show me some photos if you do!

Got in some seat time today. Took pics because it doesn't count unless you take a photo, right?

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I need to do something with the footpegs.. They vibrate a lot at 100kmph.. Wouldn't do my bung knee's any good on a long trip
Any suggestions?

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