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1/3/2011
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Micahdogg
9/22/2020 8:58am
9/22/2020 8:58am
Edited Date/Time
10/18/2021 10:44am
I picked up a new project for when the ATK gets finished up. This wasn't really on my radar, but it was fairly local to me and I had never actually seen one. I thought if I didn't pick this up, I would probably never have the opportunity again (unless buying a finished one).
The good? It was only 130 miles away. It is fairly complete. It has some brand new Fly Racing aluminum 7/8ths bars...which will find a good home somewhere else. It has a new heavy duty tube in the rear. The gas tank was razor bladed and sanded. Its not great, but its a pretty good start and the kid did a decent job. It will save me some time for sure. It also has a brand new Wossner overbored piston and recently bored cylinder. It makes very good compression. The price was $1000. I don't know if that qualifies as good, but I don't think its bad.
The bad? It doesn't run. It doesn't appear to be producing spark. The original TM carb slide is shot. The crank has a little wiggle on the stator. The plastic is all bad. The silencer looks like Mad Max handiwork. Obviously the suspension is shot as are the tires.
The good? It was only 130 miles away. It is fairly complete. It has some brand new Fly Racing aluminum 7/8ths bars...which will find a good home somewhere else. It has a new heavy duty tube in the rear. The gas tank was razor bladed and sanded. Its not great, but its a pretty good start and the kid did a decent job. It will save me some time for sure. It also has a brand new Wossner overbored piston and recently bored cylinder. It makes very good compression. The price was $1000. I don't know if that qualifies as good, but I don't think its bad.
The bad? It doesn't run. It doesn't appear to be producing spark. The original TM carb slide is shot. The crank has a little wiggle on the stator. The plastic is all bad. The silencer looks like Mad Max handiwork. Obviously the suspension is shot as are the tires.
I picked up a cheapo Keihin wannabe carb because this bike is already looking to swallow a couple grand. Its not one of my prouder moments, but at this point I'm not sure if I'm lighting money on fire or if I can stay positive on this thing.
A silver lining....two stage Uni Filters on each side that look to be in decent shape. I was expecting a nest of some sort.
I will have to refurbish the exhaust in order to save money. I think the silencer is original to this bike, but I'm not sure. I tore into the homemade "tetanus shot" spark arrestor to see what I had to work with.
I had the idea of spinning down an old tensioner pulley to use as a suitable endcap. I recently picked up this lathe and was excited to have it start paying for itself.
Looks like I'll be able to chop the silencer down a bit and fit this puppy in the end. It may actually look alright too.
This will be a challenging restore to say the least. It is very much like the 92 CR I did starting condition wise.
No way would I buy another in the same condition as that one. Just too much work when you have others that will need so much less.
I look forward to your efforts.
The Shop
Jealous
Following
Also, have you noticed inaccuracies between the same size jets chinese vs keihin?
I figured it would be best to mock up the seat, plastic, airbox, etc... because I'm confident that my seat rails are bent. This should help me figure out how bad, then I can repair and get the frame powdercoated.
Yeah I would say it is still pretty tweaked. I know the ergonomic are whack, but this seems a bit ridiculous. I will have to zip a pie cut out of the bottom of each of those rails and heave them down.
The body fits much better. We went from a 1 to an 8 outta 10. The bike is starting to feel ok to sit on. I can fudge a little more fitment with the seat foam, seat pan and mounting bracket to get it to a 9.
Speaking of, I attempted to mount the seat foam and cover last night but forgot about a couple seat repairs. The seat bracket mounts to a couple flimsy (and trashed) tabs that reside inside the seat pan. I took some scrap metal and welded a couple nuts here and there, then trimmed out my own new mounts.
Next, there are two nuts that sit at the tail of the pan...one was missing. I reused one of the old oem seat tabs from inside the seat and with help if a file and heat gun was able to press it into the seatpan. These mounts are a bit superficial as the fender has two stronger mounts on each side.
Also the seat cover seems to have a bit of excess material near the front so I glued a 3/4 inch chunk of foam to the pan to give me a little lift. Hoepfully I can produce a wrinkle free cover.
Pit Row
In an effort to save money i found some old footpegs laying around the garage that had extensions on them. I zipped the extensions off and welded em to the stock RM pegs. Now there is an actual platform...and it was free.
I have never had a bolt freeze this solidly. I hoisted the frame sideways into my 20 ton press and it wasnt moving. I was afraid to damage the frame rails I kept cranking. So my last resort was to chop it out. I hated doing that, but with the bolt and sleeve free I was able to work out on it with the press and eventually separate them. It took a couple hours and it popped along with a lot of pressure and heat. So I need another bolt now which Im sure is going to be fun to find!
Frame is bare, shock spring came out, so both of these will go to powdercoat. Im going to do a blue that matches the seat and fork boots for both. I know its not "correct" but I think it will look better.
Also, when grinding the nut to remove the peening, apparently I didn't go far enough. When the nut broke free it tore a thread loose from the shaft. I ground away the damaged area, but I'm afraid to cleanup any further. I know the Showas have a jet that can fall out, but I dont know if the peening was holding anything inside this KYB shock. I think everything will be ok because I still have like 5 full threads on the shaft. In this pic you can see exactly how much broke free compared to the profile of the nut.
I usually have to get my 70/80s yamaha seal heads from RT since Yamaha doesn't use a integrate rebound bumper. Sometime I can get away with a generic one if the stack height is within a mm or 2.
Also don't waste your money on some of these aftermarket bumpers. You can get shock bumpers from Honda from 10-12 dollars. For the 14mm shafts I like to use ones from CR80/85s and for the 16mm shafts the 00s CRs..
Yeah I think you are right about the sealhead. I think I will buy some race tech seals and a bushing and rebuild the stocker. Parts look like $35. I honestly didnt think parts would be so readily available but I should have checked first before buying this sealhead
Edit = Just ordered a Racetech seal, dust cover and bushing to rebuild the stock sealhead. Total was closer to $50 shipped. The BikeBuzzard sealhead/bumper combo was $70 shipped and the bumper looks to be a good piece. I remember now that Racetech listed the bumper at $35 and I was afraid of wasting a bunch of time trying to find a suitable (cheaper) bumper so that's why I got the combo off Ebay.
Now I'm going to end up with $140 freaking dollars spent on this shock rebuild....that bums me out. It shoulda been half that price.
Also my powdercoating guy called today and was like, "You got some rot on the lower frame rails." Yep. I sure do. I blasted some weld at it and brought it back two hours later. Sorry, no after pics.
BTW, this is my go-to welding station.
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