Reasons to be Cheerful....Part 2

      Well, quite the week, progress has been made, even with the missus banning me from any rattle can action in the garage, indeed i have been banished to the bins. I jerry rigged a mini spray booth...well, a cardboard box with the front cut out and a bar inserted to hang things from. Under pain of death if i get any paint on the bins. The trials of this avid bike builder.

     So, with everything cleans and wiped over with white spirits i began the slow process of priming all my parts restored thus far. The pace being dictated by both the weather and the capcity of my booth. But, despite the sedantry pace, all were primed in good order:

Forgive the socked feet......

     I am pleased with my progress, indeed a happy man. I have test assembled all parts, and i have now come to terms with what 40 years does to rubber grommets and O-rings, so off to flea bay and Amazon for some speculative purchasing of said pieces.

     With the parts primed, sanded and primed again they are now ready for the satin black final coat, to the rattle cans......The last job for the front is the fork lowers needing a good clean and polish, my dilema is to just a light polish with some Autosol, or go for the mirror finish with mops and a lot of swearing, i do love these decisions.

      Thats it for this short interlude, next uP the finished parts, assembled and ready for the frame, something that still needs the engine removing and then trimmed of some redundant fixings and cleaned up before powder coating.

 

From the Brakes to the Front End........And back again - Part 1

      Well, I seem to be over-using the term fuckwittery, so lets just leave it there, at the start and assume there is a lot of it from the previous donut of an owner. That said, the forks are OK, the only thing they need is the lowers polishing. I will refresh the fork oil and thats about it. The tubes are just about salvageable, the potting not being bad and the seals being ok, again i may replace them to refresh the forks.

    Now then, the rest of the front end.....Clocks, binicle, trees, handlebars, headlight and indicators (or lack of them). They all have suffered from storage in a resty puddle or loss over time.

 

The headlight seems to have faired the best of the bunch, the only bug bear being the surround, the chrome is severely rusted and bubbled out. No issue I thinks to myself, I have watched Henry Cole on mumerous TV productions, will get it and will throw int a few other items to join them in the acid bath. The light mounts, side stand, surround and some sundary parts would wing their way to a local chromers. Hmmmm, firstly Scotland is bereft of metalurgists, secondly - it would appear unless you are Henry Cole or the like, the cost is rather prohibitive, quotes north of 300 of the Kings finest pounds have been bandied around. Rather eye watering when you consider the purchase price of only £225.00 And a selling of parts balance of £25.00. As this is being kept true ot the cafe racer mantra and keeping it clean, stylish (in my eyes) and cheap I have elected to sand out the chrome headlight, etch prime and paint in satin black, along with a lot of other parts. Hey ho, Henry Cole is a blagger of the finest kind, gave me a little false hope to join the chrome gods, but also inspiration on my build.

     Now, the clocks. I have learnt that even the finest Japanese engineering does not partner well with good old British puddles. The rev countrer is propper fucked, rusted internals, broken dial and fuel gauge has long since departed any relm of salvage. Only one thing for it......eBay!

     First decision - after market or OEM.....well, the only thing that kind of scares me is 40 year old bike wiring, and i did not fancy rrying to re wire / fit new swanky dials to an old loom, so OEM dials it was - now to find them. Turns out their is a lot of variation - even within model production. And price, every one selling dials for mid 80's bikes are very aware of the paucity of availability and hence proud of their possesions and price accordingly. I did find a set for £100, made a pleading offer of £50, and to my delight, it was accepted. New clocks, but not quite right, so I have had to replace individual wires with a 3 block as per my bike. Soldering - I have learnt is a skill all of its own, and flux - in copious amounts is always preferable to little balls of spent solder on my bench. Once attached, all good, apart from a redesign of the chrome rear support for each clock and the mount being the same but differnt!  Also, the inner plastic is orange, not white as on mine and the needles are also a different colour, i will frankenstien the construction with some artistic melding of dials etc and then paint the surrounds, that are long past a clean ad put them back together.So all that is now being sorted.

    So now I have a good set of functioning clocks, a mount and centre consol that appear to be functional and look good, or will once painted in satin black and assembled. I have ordered some appropiate handle bars from China, they are at present - clearing customs at LHR and should be here withing the week or so. Then, once all the little taskes are done, all will be assembled and reunited with the very nice brakes and will await the frame to catch up once it is powder coated and the rolling chassis can be compiled.

    So, lots of prep work, rubbing down and parts picking to be done, and then priming along with the application of satin black paint, to start to bring the scheme together. Oh, and of course, all of the fastenings to be polished and used too, to which end i had to order a new belt for my lathe. Noe, Halfords used to be my go to, they offer Blue Light discounts and stock ,ost things. But you go to their web site and try to just find a 35" V belt......tis nigh on impossible. What I am finding more and more is that most places now want to know what you have and tell you what you need.....not trusting you to know what you want, so I have consigned Halfords to the archives of my buildong and now am a convert to Amazon prime and eBay, Halfords stock will plummet with the withdrawl of my custom.

     Part 2 will have the finished pieces and hopefully - and assebled front end (minus the hideous gold wheel, that should get powder coated along with the frame and swing arm) when the finacial gods deem it possible. Again, my estimate of costs will almost certainly be blown out of the water, but am hoping fro around £250 mark for the work....... I must stay focussed on my vison:

Obviousy, colour and fittings will differ from below, this is my template......

Total Brake refurbishment...more fuckwittery

      Years of crud, shite and rust - thasts the story of the brakes, oh and negkect. Its a good job I enjoy the rectification of time and stoopid. So the brakes were stored in a box, open to teh elements and, from what i can assertain, under a bush. They were in a state of neglect and on the brink of being scrapped. 

     I took a deep breath and started to take them apart for restoration. Following my mantra of restore before replace. From what I could see, they needed cleaning, stripping, painting, all seals replacing, along with both master cylinders serviced - so not a lot then! Have gone back to tacking pictures with my Canon SX40 bridge camera, I prefer it to my phone - old school I know!

     A lot of WD40, swearing, cussing and liberal use of torque, heat and percussion adjustment I got the units apart, quite the job, and - incredibly - no damage to anthing that wasn't going to be replaced. Lots of rust and detritus removed. 

     Inotially, hot water and degreasing was the order of the day, using scotch brite, 0000 wire wool and a very stiff tooth brush. These were the weapons pof war against the grime, and worked very well. Everything was cleaned. Surprisingly, the use of domestic products is often a good and cheaper way of doing things. Following that idea, i used common paint stripper on the brake housings, they were down to the alloy after 2 coats and a bit of green scotch-brite action, rear calipers were given the same tratment, as you can see below, the stripper done its job well:

     I swifly re-engineered a cardboard box into a spray booth, having purchased some satin black gloss brake paint, followed the instructions (unusual I know!) and  painted the calipers, having blanked the ports off prior to spraying. Two coats later, mmmmm, almost shiney (see what i did there...).

     so everything came up well, Banjo bolts were serviced or replaced as required, bleed nipples given the same diligent treatment. All hoses blown through and serviced, washers replaced and everything greased and then assembled. The front brake lever was polished, retaining some scars, a hint to its past and the switch was replaced as the previous one had parts missing. The pistons were put in my lathe and given a polish, a couple of pits, but not to affect their function, Everything went well - I had an issue getting the dust seals in the front calipers, a fud moment, but resolved the conundrum by using the piston with engineering skill to stretch the seal and get it into place, happy days.

     The final build results are below:

Drive train removal .......

     Fecking nora, what a trial, this bike was definately been loved at some point, the mechanicals seem good (there is the kiss of death),  the drive train moves freely and without any percievable backlash. That said, the nuts and studs connecting the drive train are very corroded, and in two cases were removed instead of just the nut, this was at the rear of the drive train. I intend to clean up the drive shaft and treat it to a nice greasy time. It would appear that the boot covering the engine to shaft link was removed quite sometime ago. The moronic behavior of the previous owners is causing quite the frustration. My intent to restor this bike and give it a new lease of life, albeit, not as a standard GS, is becoming resolute.

Drive chain out, next the forks.

     Like the rear, the front end fought me, like cat in a bath, it was a twat. The screws were all on their last legs, often rounded on tightening, so removal had to be artistin, and involving WD40, heat and an manually driven impact wrench, which was also surprisingly theraputic. And the upshot was the removal of the stubborn screws. The stem and bearings were in very good condition, so there was either some love shown by a previous owner, or, in my opinion, nothing was touched and Suzukis build quality has prevailed. 

      The rest of the bike was challenging, but succumbed to my skills with lubricants, heat and wrenches, Its condition is hot and cold. The alloy has definately seen better days, but mechanically (I am going to say it again), the bike appears to be sound as a pound.

     The strip down is almost complete now, the  carbs were a mare, fighting to stay on the engine. Again leverage and verbal lubrication helped a lot, so only the engine to come out of the frame, then a little grinding and filing allied with some studious moments looking at what I need to achieve with the frame will result in it being ready for a trip to the media blasters and powder coating in a satin black.

     The carbs are in a bad way, a refurb kit is in order, as is a acquisition of a ultrasonioc cleaner to refresh everything else. Then reassembly. But first I will attend to the brakes and chassis so as to get the rebirth on the way.

    The carbs off, considering the fight they put up, the fixings are a little corroded and surprisingly compliant to my advances. Am thinking of loosing the pods and reverting back to a nice K&N filter, to avoid the rejetting and subsequent hours of tuning needed to gett the engine singing on PODs. And the K&N type filter is more in keeping. As you can see from the last picture, a little tickle with some 0000 wire wool, 2 of the filters show promise, the other 2 will come up just as well when i give them the treatment. 

     So, next, engine out, grindiong and off to teh blasters witht he frame, swing arm, wheels and sundry items. Stand-by for the next thrilling installment of 'Old man with a vision.......'

Angle Grinder to the frame.

      So, after my disagreement with my angle grinder, I picked it up again and removed the hideous tail section of the frame. I have to get this of my chest - the last 2 owners showed such disrespect and were complete cockwombles regarding the GS restoration. Leaving parts in platic boxes in the open to rust and decay. Not to mention the half hearted attention paid to anything done to the bike.

     The cutting has already made the bike look soo much better.

 TO 

     Added to the removal of the dispicable rear, i have also removed the raised handle bars and got the bike onto the lift. All so I can get to removing the front and rear wheels and suspension. The good news, and there is a pausity of it with this bike, is that the forks are not beyond salvage, indeed they look ok, after a light caress with 0000 gauge wire wool. The seals do need replacing, but that is a nause I am willing to tackle.

     I did notice another attempt at complete fuckwittery:

 

     Notice the clearance differances of the 2 suspension legs, how they out of 'sync', this is also quite obvious, when you look, as the front wheel is out of kilter. Oh the joys of a ground up restoration project. At least the engine turns and has compression with a spark. So thats a positive. And no road rash on any of it.

     So the bike is now on the lift and the strip down with happen at pace now. Front and rear is next.

     Remeber the carbon seat unit that was gifted to me by my father-in-law, well I put it on the bike, to see what it looks like, and was not over impressed, see the picture, and the tail unit I think should go onto the bike:

 I prefer this style for the restoration, i think decison made. colur may change, as it is a bit too 'Yamaha' for a Suzuki. The juices are flowing, so let the fun commence.

The teardown begins, with a brief interlude for stupidity.......Bring on the pain killers.

    So, it's been a busy week. Halfords (UK version NAPA), had a reduction on a bike lift, from around £120 down to £96. I chanced searching my Blue Light Discount card for Halfords offered 20% of garage tools. I applied that online and behold! The lift cost a paultry 76 quid, give or take. I was very happy for the 40kg addition to my garage. A breeze to buils, i like the colour too!

 650 Kg Lift capacity, happy days.

     So armed with my new lift, I tempered my enthusiams and got on witht he honey-doo list, making a house for the bins. First up, lay conctete slab, 2nd up - trip to A&E with a shoddy attempt to shorten my left hand fingers by 1/2 inch! All done with a 4 1/2" angle grinder.

  

  

     Was an ouchy with much sympathy (not) from my gorgeous wife. A pause of 5 days while finger tips healed enough for me to wield a spanner or two.

     I them began the teardown, a familiar story, lots of bubba'd nuts and bolts, shoddy repairs and general fuckwittery from previous owners. Got things going nicely, turns out that the tank that came with th e bike was a shoddy attempt at replacing the genuine article, so turns out I already need a new fuel tank, added to my initial list:

     Seat Unit, Mirrors, Clocks, Indicators, Exhaust, and now a Fuel Tank. Not to mention a polethora of sundry bits and pieces.

The offending article: 

    Mind you I get to eBay the original Indicators, hideous twin lights, fuel tank, plastics that survived the buffonery of previous owners, of which there were 5 before me. Anf the horrendous seat and a box of rust and some unusable pieces were suitably recycled at the local depot. Forgive the poor pictures, was in a hurry to post and update my progress. 

     And the time with a jet wash also helped with the cleaning of the sled. More to follow this week. My for subscribers are keen for updates.........😁

Well, it happened.......I got a new project, and boy does it need love. Welcome to the 1984 GS850G

      After the dissapointment of having the Guzzi sold out from under me I put a speculative add onto FACEBOOK....which led to all kinds of replies, but one, local to me caught my eye. Ned messaged me with 2 possibilities, a very nice CB1300 that needed very little work, a very nice bike indeed and a rather interesting '84 GS850G. Thats where it started, not Craigslist as before, but a simple add on FB. The picture sent:

     You get the drift, but somehow it appealed, anyways, long story short, it is now mine. 

First thing i did was to clean it, pictures below, first i gave it a good blast witht the leaf blower and then hit it with the Demon Shine soap through the jetwasher. Removed a lot of surface rust and a shit ton of accumilated dirt. The gold powder coat was not the best, and has flaked off in places on the wheels, not an issue as it all is getting blasted and recoated in satin blackThen i just wanted to put the tank on for an initial lookie see at lines and insirations.

     The tank doesn't fit, I googled the bike, and yup, its the wrong tank..Doh! Had an initial paddy, but needed to see, and now I know. I have no idea what the tank is from, i presume a suzuki of some lineage, but no idea from what. Thats around another £150 quid or so i did not budget for. Hey ho, not over the moon.

     

So the plan......or possibilities. 

     So, the big question - To restore to originial, cafe racer or bob it?

     The chopped rear of the frame, will make life very complex to restore it to original, but the bike in its former glory is a sweet ride: 

     Option 2 is the cafe racer, where my addiction for this all started. And there are some sweet modfications outh there. Although a shaftie, they do look good, with the rider - they are done well, something I am a fan of doing, using as much of the original bike as possible:

 or 

    You get the  drift, maybe a nod to the era with JPS paint...not sure yet.

    Or Option 3....the bobber, to bob a bike is basically ripping to minimums the same as cafe racers, but with the added loss of the rear suspension. Again, they do look right if done right, and there is the rub.

As with dodgy cafe racers, they is a plethora of dodgy bobbers around too. Here is the idea:

     So, decisions decisions.....But forst to strip down,and for that i am off to Halfords. Why? i hear you question, in a quiet and unassuming way. Well the bike lift they have is around 120 quid, down to around 96 quid, and with a Blue Light discount, it is down to a very reasonable 76 of your finest British pounds. Will make things so much easier for the restoration. Oh, and a gallon of WD 40.

More to follow very soon.

 

GUZUMPPED on a new project......

 Well.

I thought i had found a new project, a very ratty and in need of TLC Moto Guzzi V65. It was local to me, although pricey, was worth a look. So off i trotted, a 30 minute drive later i was viewing the bike. It was OK, which for a project is a good state of affairs. Anyhow, i try not to buy with my heart, so I thanked the seller and left. A few days later i asked if the bike was available, he said he had a buyer coming to look at it. I asked if he would message me if it fell through.

As you can see, quite the nice project.

A day later the sale fell through, i asked his best price, he told me, i had a barter, and during the online bartering he sold it out from me. Thats life, in the words of Del Boy 'he who dares.....'. So i lost that bike.

So i went to the garage, fettled my FZR and tried to start it. Petroleum flooded from the carbs. BOLLOX, that'll be a full strip then, and a clean.

Some grazed knuckles and turning the air blue, presto -

The carbs are off, now to strip them, clean them, not lose any parts and then reassemble.

Will keep you posted.