New pistons, boring cylinders

I finally got my new 0.5mm oversized pistons and rings, and all new valves. I brought the cylinders and heads down to Rick at RM Enterprises in Concord to get them bored and the valve seats grinded.

Couple weeks and I'll have the motor rebuilt!

#1 Cylinder corrosion

Got a problem here. Need a new cylinder!
Can anyone part with a #1 cylinder in decent internal shape?

Engine issues

I just finished painting my engine on Wednesday. I baked out the last pieces in the oven last night. I'll be putting it back together this weekend.
Big problem: I've got a corroded cylinder where one piston was sitting so long the rings rusted into the liner. I also need my valve seats grinded. Those are getting handled tomorrow morning, but the cylinder is still not resolved.

How I see it, I've got three choices:
1 - leave it as is and put it back together
2 - get a new cylinder or a new(used) one
3 - do a small bore and upsize rings... not sure this will work with just rings though

I'll have to post pictures and ask advice.
-S

Paint Concepts

Here's a couple of mock-ups I've done in photoshop while brainstorming on the paint job.


Yeah, both ideas were stolen. But that's OK with me. They both look hot on their respective bikes. I think the red bike is from Denmark? Best looking paint job I've seen on a VX yet. Wish I could see more photos of the front.
I can't figure out where I got this photo from. Somewhere on vx800.dk. It's hard navigating a site in another language.



The other is from Filippo Barbacane's S3. Photos taken from his blog, found at:
http://filippobarbacane.blogspot.com/

Rolling Chassis

I've done a huge amount of work lately and have taken many photos, but tonight, things came together and I'll only show the final result. I've paid attention to every last detail while putting it together. Every washer has been polished or replaced with stainless steel, everything has been restored to a brand new condition, or better.

I think I can finally claim a 'rolling chassis':
and with the right shock on, this time (I'm waiting for a new bolt for the bottom of the shock. Stock was too stripped to use I realized at the last moment)

Love it or hate it, it's been bobbed for real. Just enough room for my butt and a tiny rear cowling. Cowling will overhang the end of frame a bit.
And for comparison sake, I plopped the original seat on the top. My seat will sit much lower and there will be very little gap between bottom of seat and frame.

On the way is a complete photo documentation of my front-porch home-brew anodizing setup. I just finished anodizing my brakelight mount, rearsets, and rear shock pieces with excellent results. More to come soon...

Progress Post 3/9/09

See my beautiful triple clamp! All painted and mounted up on the bike:
Detail views:

Final Drive painting project

My final drive was in bad shape as you can see from the as bought photos below:

I debated on powdercoating it and then decided not to as it might compromise the tolerances.
What else can I do but paint it?

The step by step process I took was:
1) strip and degrease
2) beadblast
3) treat and clean the aluminum
4) sand
5) fill any dents (or some of them)
6) sand out
7) etch primer - 2 coats
8) high build primer - 4 coats
9) sand out
10) spray high build where I sanded through to metal
11) sand out
12) color coat - 2 coats
13) clear coat - 4 coats

I didn't photograph every step of this incredibly tedious process but here's some of the shots:
Freshly blasted:
Submerged in 140 degree alumiprep for 5 minutes:
Drying out:
Application of METAL2METAL filler:
Sanded out:

Here's the paint line up:
And the final product, shot inside my makeshift paint booth:
And outside in the sun:
I had my camera on auto white balance so the color temps are different and the color therefore looks a little different.
As you can see, I decided to go with yellow to match the frame. It was either black, silver or yellow. Silver would never match the swingarm properly, black looks bad, so I had my paint shop custom mix me up a color and put it in a spray can. Took the guy 4 days to get it right and it's pretty dead on.

I'm letting the clear cure out for another couple of days before I rebuild it. I used a real deal 2-part urethane clear coat in a special one time use spraycan.

Brakelight bracket - redux

I got distracted with the process when making my brakelight bracket and shaped it to the frame cross pieces instead of rounding it. So, I did it over.
Here's the shots.

Basic shape:

Drilled out and shaped:

Sanded out:

Fit up on the bike:

Again, it will be etched and then anodized black.

Tail Redesign Part 4

I fabbed up the tail light bracket today and am very pleased with the results.

I first started with a cardboard template to get a feel for layout and look:

I then worked a piece of 1/16 aluminum and came up with this:

This is using my new flare LED brake lights I ordered from England.
And on the bike from a couple of angles:

Alas, everything is not quite right yet. The bracket/endpiece is a perfect fit, I mean so perfect. But the only problem is:
Those stupid welds are in the way of the end-piece fitting flush up against the lower cross piece! I didn't plan the weld location all that great. OOPS. So now I either remove the welds (bad idea), space out the end-piece using rubber or another metal piece, or modify the end-piece so it doesn't fit all the way to the round frame (ugly). I think I'm going to space the bracket out slightly.

I've still got to drill the mounting holes and of course, anodize the aluminum piece. I've set up a homebrew anodizing rig and have been getting excellent results on test pieces so far. More about my anodizing setup on another post.

-Stephen

For those asking about color

I decided to put the parts together so you can all see the major pieces. I've also got the front and rear brake calipers complete and gauges completely rebuilt. I'm working on the damn final drive right now. I spent 45 minutes getting the dang thing mounted up in the mill on Saturday night just to drill out a broken bolt in the internals. Need to tap it now, and paint the thing. I've got all new o-rings and seals for the final drive just waiting for the paint job.

The following images are pretty large...

Together. Or at least near each other:

View 2:

Triple Clamp Mania

Lots of photos, little narration. As always, click on the pictures for the super zoom view.

Lower bearing pressed in and ready to be mounted: (sans grease)

And mounted (but not torqued. I need a stem nut socket!):

Upper triple clamp with freshly milled HTS-2000 alumi-weld float layer:

Upper triple clamp sanded out:
You can see that my float layer wasn't perfect. I'm going to have use a little bondo to fill in the small low spots...

Upper triple clamp sanded out even further:
And the under side, plugged:

Posed up on the bike:

I'm getting close to having the front end assembled! Wheeeee!

Enter the frame

Back and the rebuild starts! I've been doing more work than picture taking these days. Pushing to get a rolling chassis and using all my time assembling.

With nothing on it:

With some engine mounts, fuel pump and seat latch:

With highly polished and super clean rear master cylinder:

I've got the forks assembled, the lower triple clamp ready to mount, and the front wheel finished. I'm going to need some kind of stand for this thing now... Have to make it.