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tires mounted!!! Got sick of the parts sitting around so I mounted up the tires, all new motion pro wheel bits also. Nothing looks better than new tires mounted up in my book! Thought Dunlops were the only choice for a Honda. Been wanting to try the Geomax MX3S tires anyways.
Also got the FMF back from fusion pipe repair, I didn't have 100% faith it was salvageable but man was I wrong, they got it far beyond my expectations!!! Looks perfect for a racer and even though a naked pipe may look better on these old bikes the plated sure is less hassle so I'm a happy camper!!!
That sucker was smashed nearly flat! Never know it now!!!
They also welded up a crack in the silencer, got it packed and mounted.
Still waiting on the crank and cylinder to arrive back, langcourt said they were 7-9 days back on welding cylinders but I've got plenty to do to the chassis still before I need to worry about the engine too much. Mostly want to play with the Cerakote!
Next up is the phone a favor part as I'm gonna see if a friend who's a machinist can bore the kick start lever and press a bronze bushing into it to get rid of the slop and bore the rear brake pivot out so we can fit bearings in. I hate sloppy controls!!
I lost this week as my boss was in town and we were busy with real work but I plan to get the suspension dropped off at the anodizing shop this week somehow even though I'm working on the wrong side of town this week I'll make it happen.
Feels like the bits are coming together finally. Hopefully assembly will go smooth (yea right) and I'll be riding her soon!
Finally got my blast cabinet, Harbor Freight special but worked perfectly. Was able to blast everything pretty quickly. The 25 lbs of 100 grit media I bought was a little less than ideal, could of used at least 10lbs more to fill the cabinet. I had to stop and tip the cabinet up to get the sand back down into the bottom a few times. No real biggie. It did run my little 5hp 60 gal compressor pretty hard, wishing I'd splurged on the bigger model, regrets.
Hit the vintage swap meet today north side of indianapolis. Picked up a tank that I thought was a 86 but is a little more rounded on top, 85 maybe?
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Been having terrible luck on the bike too...
My crank came back with nasty pits on the seal area that I didn't notice, luckily the shop was cool and swapped out the bad LH half with a good one I had, cost me some shipping and probably will use crankworks next time I have a Honda crank. This time the crank came back with a small ding on the RH side but I'm going to ignore it as I give up, that stupid sheetmetal stuffer is the biggest PITA I can imagine
The Technosel seat cover I bought on eBay does not fit, the seller was cool was and offered my money back and contacted Mito in the UK that's the supplier, they could care less that it was crap, Uggh. I finally got to the upholstery shop in my neighbourhood after they returned from vacation and they think they can cut and resew the cover to fit, a lot of work just so I can have a trick cover.
The cylinder came back from the platers only to see it has a crack next to one of the head stud holes, WTF? I emailed them and after some excuses they agreed to fix it but now I'm without a cylinder for at least a couple more weeks and time's a ticking if I want to race May 20'th. Think I'll be trying another source on cylinders also...
On a brighter note the suspension and wheel spacers came back from the anodizers. I decided to have them type 3 clear hard anodized versus black. The shop recommended I sandblast the parts to minick cast magnesium, but said they can't guarantee color consistency. The fork tubes look pretty good, the shock body is a little splotchy but after the springs on and a couple motos it will be fine. I was able to get the forks and shock assembled with no issues, now I have to get a bit of time to run to my brothers shop so we can vacuum fill and gas the shock, once you use a vacuum shock filling system you can't go back.
Recon I'll try the suspension stock and see how it goes, the rear spring is a stock heavy weight so that's good, the fork springs I had were just standard so not sure they will hold up my 200lbs carcass.
I'm out all next week on vacation so I won't be making any progress. Luckily I got the cylinder head lapped today and re-sandblasted so after paint the motor should go back together easy, knock on wood!!
Here's a couple pictures of the suspension, starting to look like a bike!
Cylinder dropped in the mail. Insult to injury they lost my piston also. They are replacing it for me and have been very apologetic about the fiasco.
Guess now I'm just being stubborn to make it work.
On vacation this week so no progress but the next couple weeks I should be making some headway.
Been busy lately so hard to make much progress but since I get Good Friday off work I was able to spend a mostly uninterrupted day spraying the engine and misc parts with Cerakote.
I'd never seen the product before in person but since there was such a hype about it I thought what the heck, if its tougher than automotive paint that will be a win, plus I liked that it was much thinner and would hopefully match the OE paint Honda used.
I followed the instructions to the tee, cleaning and sandblasting the parts as recommended. I'm lucky enough to have a indy car shop that's a customer and lets me use the shop anytime I need, can't tell you how awesome that is to have expert welders, fab guys and access to all kinds of exotic goodies.
They have a oven that's perfect for drying the cerakote at 300 degrees. The application was really easy and anyone who comfortable spraying automotive paint wouldn't have any issues. The stuff looks amazing, I'd say a perfect match to the original finish and really does seem tough. Time will tell how it holds up.
Tragicially the cylinder had to be sent out again as when I went to install the powervalves there was slag inside the holes and it popped some plating off. Needless to say I've given up on Langcourt so I bit the bullet and sent it to Powerseal as there was a lot of positive stuff about their workmanship on the interwebbie and we all know the Internet is never wrong!
I also found out that the 4oz tester of cerakote wasn't quite enough to spray all the parts I had, I've got a pint ordered so hopefully finish the other case half and clutch cover this week. Then button up the bottom end and wait on the cylinder to come back... again. That poor cylinder should be getting frequent flyer miles!
Since I haven't heard back from the upholstery shop I've found another one that the seats going to in the morning and I put the shock in my car so hopefully I can sneak off to oil and gas it this week.
The front brake is rebuilt now and hopefully the kickstarter and rear brake pedal will be finished up soon.
Gonna be close for a May 20th race premier!
Pit Row
I'd really like a Technosel seat too, but after hearing your experience, I guess I will pass on the ebay ones I am seeing.
Gonna use the boots I've got as I'm tired of spending money, when they go I'll definitely buy OE boots
No treatment on the gears even though the race shop offered to run them through their process. They do look funny in the pic.
Stay far away from the techosel covers!! Dropped it off at the upholstery shop. They said, yep it's f*^ked up and said they could fix it for about 80.00 bucks... Oh well I've come this far so what the heck but never again!
Front brake all done! Filled with some fresh Motul 600 and fresh DP pads she outta stop on a dime.
Bottom end bolted in and most of the loose ends tidied up. Only thing that's a possibility of not being 100% is the ignition, we shall see!
My cats smarter than your MMI grad! (Just kidding, no hate mail please).
Got the cover back from upholstery shop, I hate it every time I look at it, note the "CR" is facing the wrong angle. I'll be making a paint mask and doing vinyl dye on a plain cover as soon as this one dies.
Engine looks so bada$$! And good news is the cylinder is on its way back from Powerseal and should be here Saturday!
Jumped at this Öhlins shock when it popped up on eBay as I missed a nice WP a few weeks ago. Got it all torn down and cleaned, paint the spring and order the rebuild parts next.
Well if the restoration gods look kindly on me the cylinder should be back and I'll jump on getting it resprayed and built back up.
Had a leaky o-ring on the compression adjuster on the Showa shock (the only part I didn't change as it's not available via Honda and looked perfect... luckily it's a size used in euro car a/c systems so they were plentiful on eBay. Whew. Just have to re-bleed and gas the shock, gonna do Honda SS-7 fluid this time anyway, the motorex 5w I used in desperation the first time seems a lot thicker so I guess there's a bright side to the redo.
Sucks to miss the Walbash vintage race next weekend for sure but there's plenty of summer left, might have to swap out the int-soft tires for int- hard tires!
Whoo wee!
Well finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Got the cylinder back from power seal and built up. Managed to strip out the left power valve rack stopper bolt, of course it's a 8x1.0 thread, luckily amazon had a helicoil for reasonable price. The cylinder literally fought me to the last bolt!
The mid pipe for the exhaust was much more of a engineering challenge than I anticipated, especially for non engineer! But after much struggle and more than a little help from a friend its finished and came out nice! The FMF lives again. Not gonna lie that at one point I was on Pro Circuits website seeing how much a new exhaust was gonna be. But the cost plus the wait caused me to stick with saving the old parts.
The shock is another story... Affer swapping out the leaking o-ring on the compression adjuster I stuggled to put the shock on, the linkage was bottomed out and it was still hard to put the lower bolt in. After some investigation I found out the shock is about 1/4" too long, the only thing I can think is the aftermarket seal head is shorter? Well get it apart soon and figure that one out. Easier to shorten than lengthen at least. Hopefully I'll get the öhlins back together soon, managed to paint the spring for it this weekend!
Still hoping to be race ready for vintage days and hopefully be riding the Husky in the hare scramble also as I've been fixing it up to go.
If you have never been to Mid Ohio for VMD, GO!! Its a two wheeled assault on the senses for three days. I have gotten into vintage British/Euro bikes and through my friend vintage road racing (I ain't going on the track, but I'll help). So it was a busy weekend.
We decided next year we can bring a trials bike so we can hit all the disciplines, RR, MX, Hare Scrambles, and trials!
The Honda CR really is a special bike, great handling, suspension; especially the forks that don't give up that much to modern bikes, a smooth fast motor that is easy to ride, the fit and quality that Honda was famous for still shows when you think about what the other Japanese manufactures were building at the time, not to mention the looks!
Still plenty to do, parts are ordered for the Ohlins shock, think a couple teeth added to the rear sprocket would help as it seems geared really tall, play around with reeds, I've got a Rad valve to try and maybe down the road a V-force and a airstriker carb would be cool...
Can't say thank you enough for everyone that helped me out, via the internet, in person and via US mail and Royal Post! Moto people are good folks!
See y'all at the track!!!
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