LL's Bikit list

[legendlives]

As I now have a couple of 'nice' bikes and a couple of project bikes on the go I thought, rather than starting a new thread for each one I'd bring them all together in one simple thread and show the work that I'm doing.

Project bike number 1: Aprilia RST1000 Futura. Thread here 

This is a pretty rare bike and parts are as good as non-existent so I'm having to make and/or repair the damaged and missing parts.

It has small covers on the side of the fairing for the oil and coolant fillers. The right-hand one looks like this:

The left hand one was missing so I bent, welded and generally messed with some 2mm aluminium and made this:

It still needs finishing and painting, but it fits nicely and once it's painted no-one will know the difference.

[legendlives]

The most 'fun' bike I have is a 1998 Triumph Speed Triple. Big pipe, Power Commander, Ohlins suspension and a noise that summons demons:

The indicators are from a Triumph Bonneville America, and replaced the pathetic small LED ones that came with it. I like people to see the signals......

I bought this Union Jack radiator cover that (according to the advert) fits 'early Speed Triple':

It doesn't even fit where it touches! So it sat on the shelf for a few months before I got brave.

[legendlives]

Dragging the rad cover from the dusty shelf where it sat, first off I cut a couple of extension pieces to make it the right width, and welded them on:

Then smoothed and shaped the extensions, and cut a few more holes so that airflow wouldn't be overly impaired:

 

 

[legendlives]

A generous coating of crackle black and a nice woven stainless steel mesh to replace the cheap hexagon one and:

It mounts using 2 x M5 stainless button-head screws at the bottom and a 90 degree return which hooks over the top of the rad.

It's quite subtle, if you could ever think that slapping a union jack on the front of a bike is subtle.....

[legendlives]

I've just bought this from Bearded Baldy:

Yamaha AG200. I've stripped all of the bodywork/plastics off it and already fitted new (home made) swing arm bushes. More soon.

And just to properly introduce the 4th bike of the set (and the one I've owned the longest):

First generation CBR1100XX Super Blackbird. For when you feel the need for speed!

[legendlives]

As the Aprilia came apart more horrors revealed themselves. The rear light unit was suffering from sitting above a hot exhaust for 23 years and had gone brittle, and the seal had....well...unsealed itself. The mounts had mostly broken away and the captive nuts were spinning:

I turned up three tight fitting aluminium tubes that pushed over what was left of the mounts, and then filled the resulting gaps with epoxy adhesive:

Very secure now and nuts not spinning. 

Next!

[Bearded Baldy]

Oh c'mon, that whole visit and not one mention you own a damn blackbird!

Old boss of mine had one 17 years ago and i have pined over them ever since.

[legendlives]

5 hours ago, Bearded Baldy said:

Oh c'mon, that whole visit and not one mention you own a damn blackbird!

Old boss of mine had one 17 years ago and i have pined over them ever since.

When the better weather comes I'll ride it over and let you dribble over it!

[legendlives]

I carefully split the Futura tail-light and indicator lenses away from the backplate. Years of road dirt and soot had left the reflectors without a lot of the reflective silver so I gave it a blow over with some silver galv paint and gave the lenses a good clean:

With it all glued back together it looks 100% better. It's still got a few hairline cracks that don't look too hot up close, but as there's absolutely no chance of finding another one I'll live with it:

[legendlives]

Having stripped the ex-BB AG and removed all of the paint from the plastics (which came out quite well) it was obvious that the tank would need some love.

Pressurising the tank with compressed air pinged out a few of the dents, but there was still this yawning chasm on the top.

Annoying. There is no access from inside the tank so it needed to be pulled from outside.

[legendlives]

My solution was to weld washers to the depressions and pull the dent out:

And after about ten washers and a combination of pulling, hammering and pressurising the tank again it came out almost acceptable.

It will still need a skim of filler to smooth out the ripples but I'm happy enough. The bike isn't going to be a show bike, but I do like my vehicles 'nice'.

[legendlives]

Sad to report that I had a low-speed 'off' with the Triumph a few weeks ago. The damage was minimal (bent pegs, broken lever, smashed indicator) and it gave me the opportunity to improve a few things. I renewed the fixing bolts for the footpegs and shimmed the bearings to take out some of the 'slop' on the brake and gear levers. The indicator mount brackets were originally very thin and flimsy steel so I broke out the 2.5mm aluminium and made these:

Which pull the indicators out around 5mm giving more clearance to the rad and top hose.

[legendlives]

The clutch lever snapped in the fall, so I replaced both levers with these:

I've got the same ones on the Blackbird. They are fully adjustable for length and reach, spring loaded, and if my talent should desert me again they flip up if they're hit:

Nice!

[legendlives]

After the initial skim of filler I decided to strip all of the paint from the tank as sanding the filler revealed more irregularities:

I used these strip-it discs which are great on paint and rust, and leave a nicely keyed finish for paint etc.

Incidentally, if any OS'ers want any of these discs I thought I was buying 20 but ended up with 200! I don't think I'll ever get through that many so happy to pass them on for $2 each.

 

[legendlives]

The rear brake lever was sloppy as F$@k. There was over 50mm sideways play at the pedal so I machined the wear out of the pedal pivot and turned up this aluminium bush. 

No more slop! Obviously once everything is cleaned and painted I'll assemble it with some decent grease.

And in other news, a special delivery from our Chinese cousins:

The footpegs arrived chipped and scratched and looking very secondhand, but as I only paid about $6 for them I guess I can't complain.

[legendlives]

AG 2.50

After a very pleasant drive down to Whakatane today I arrived home with this haul:

(Almost) 1 and a half AG's. The parts these beauties will donate will give me the following:

Working speedometer, good mudguards front and rear, better front wheel & less worn tyre, better forks, cables and clips, and ironically a better tank with only one tiny dent in it.

I'll put all of the parts replaced back on the almost complete bike and sell it on for parts as there's still going to be some good items that I'm sure someone else will be able to make use of.

[legendlives]

With all the parts sorted to give me all of the best bits for the 'first' AG, it was time to assess what needed to be fixed.

I've cut all of the unnecessary mounts from the swing-arm. It won't have the enclosed chain so there's no point in having studs and brackets sticking out. I will make a new chainguard so to pre-empt that I welded a couple of small tags to the top of the arm.

With welder in hand I looked around for the next victim of the electric glue. The footpeg mounts were in pretty crap order, the pegs drooped down like a pensioner in the morning thanks to wear in the pivot holes and the support face:

I welded thick washers to the pivot holes, and a lump of metal on the supports.

I then straightened the gear lever and added a new rubber retaining 'knob' to the end before cleaning it, the peg mounts and the brake lever in preparation for some nice satin finish paint:

Always remembering that it's only a snotty old farm bike....

[legendlives]

Well it looks like all of the decent bikes are taking a bit of a back seat whilst I spend all of my time on a field bike....

Like most old, abused bikes there's lots of things that are badly worn. The swing arm bushes have already been replaced, but possibly the worst wear is on the left-hand side stand. To give an idea how much, this is the bush I had to make to take up the slop:

This top-hat bush is 4mm thick, and where it goes through the hole it has an OD of 12mm and an ID of 10mm.

The stand now flicks down (and up) as it should:

The 'rattle can restoration' continues with the exhaust. I've been trying to use just what I have around rather than buying loads of new stuff. I had VHT white paint so the exhaust is now white:

The shields are done in wrinkle blue paint (which I also had), and wherever possible I've been replacing the nuts & bolts with Stainless-Steel fixings left over from other projects.

Pegs and levers are back on now, along with front & rear guards and shields. 

[legendlives]

At the front the alloy handlebars are now also wrinkle blue, and all of the controls are bolted to them including the new clutch & brake levers. I took the worst front headlamp mount and cut the rack off it, and welded in a couple of M6 nuts for future use....

[legendlives]

I want lights on the AG. Headlight is already there, and (until I bought the donor bike) I didn't have a rear light so rummaged around in my various boxes of parts & materials and came up with this motley selection:

The lens is from a series 1 Land Rover (I think). No idea what the bulb holders are from. 

After a quick spin on the lathe, the addition of a couple of threaded tubes and a couple of hole saws the base plate now looks like this:

Side light:

And brake light: