Tom's SP

[zxrob]

I think its down to riding a 400

The old girl is a bit hefty and needs a good tug to get it turned in

If you have the standard shock on put a spacer on to raise the rear (I have a 4mm one on mine) and pull the forks through (mine are through 5mm) and this will greatly improve turn in and feel

Rob

[pptom]

Thanks rob, will do.

Removed the immobiliser yesterday, quite straightforward really, there was about 6 wires piggybacked on others which were power + and -, the other 4 i assume were for the indicators. Then 2 wires were cut and went through the immobiliser circuit i assume these to be something to do with injection / fuel pump, each one of these i disconnected and re-joined to the original wires, all soldered and heat shrinked.
A couple of the joins showed some corrosion, so this would have caused a problem in the future.
Decided to dump the oil, the pan was clean before i put it under the bike, but when i drained it into a bulk can I found a carb float needle in there! Its either attempted sabotage, been dropped in during previous repair work in an untidy garage or i've dropped it in there, which is fairly unlikely, its not the sort of thing i leave hanging around. Fortunately it didn't look damaged.
Decided i'd be best dropping the sump to make sure there was nothing else floating about and fortunately thats clean apart from a couple of tiny flakes of alluminium which i'm not worried about. Not even any gunky residue in the bottom which you usually find.
Just waiting for some threebond to turn up so i can refit the sump.

[pptom]

The offending article:



Wheels now off and hung the bike from a beam to have a little wiggle on the forks, no movement, but there is no resistance either, so the bearings probably just need tightening

[pptom]

Thought i'd better take some 'before' shots

[pptom]

Dirty calipers



Clean calipers



I used wonder wheels on the rear, but didn't like using the acid, so thought i'd try something different on the fronts. I ended up soaking them in a bucket of hot water containing a dishwasher tablet, little bit of elbow grease and a fingernail scrubbing brush and they've come out a treat. Now rebuilt with polished pistons, ready to be refitted once the forks are done.
Unfortunately the caliper carrier brackets are corroded from the brake dust, so I'll have to blast them and paint.

Got a load of bits back from my mate who's an electroplater, I cleaned everything up and polished the bolt heads etc. You can also see my DIY shock spacer thats been plated - runs out at 4.7mm.



Ktech fork springs arrived
Cleaned up the swingarm and rear end with some gunk and gt85 which has made a massive difference.
Waited 10 days from some threebond to turn up for the sump, only for the seller to tell me they're out of stock (idiots) so i managed to find something locally and re-fitted the other day. with that done I can now get the rest of the engine degreased and cleaned up.
After that will be the valve clearances, then I can get my parts order together and move on to the front end when it all arrives.

[pptom]

This was the shock after stripping. The spring had a few spots of rust showing through the paint and it was generally quite grubby



Got the spring blasted and powder coated for a tenner and I gave all of the removable bits to my mate after cleaning and polishing to zinc plate

[pptom]

Had a measure of the valve clearances, 5 were out of spec, but not by much.
I managed to swap around 3 of the shims and am waiting for 2 new ones to turn up, turns outs it's a pretty straightforward job, especially if your bike is completely stripped already!
Made a big list last week and put a few orders in, including fork oil and dust seals, taper head bearings, rear brake line, rear pads and spark plugs. I also tried to fit some standard air filters instead of the crappy aftermarket ones, turns out there are no rubbers in the air box for them to slot into (built into the aftermarket ones) so I've had to order them from MAP in holland.
Pretty frustrating as I'm impatient and have already waited over a week for delivery of everything except the brake line, but it has given me a chance to do some little jobs
Managed to score an original fairing set today, nose Is spot on, tail not too bad, the sides are a little bit marked though, but only really noticeable when you get up close. One of the side fairings had a crack about 3" long near the upper mount which I plastic welded this evening, think I might lay some fibreglass on the inside to give a little extra strength. The other thing about the side panels is that they're drilled for crash bungs, it's not all bad though as the seller gave me a set, so they can go on to both fill the holes and give a little protection.
Might keep the Chinese panels for possible trackday use in the future although it's not something I'm planning at the moment, the 400's are just too much fun and feel a bit less serious than the bigger bikes.

[graham]

Looking great! I'm just getting a front paddock stand this week so can get the wheels off and powdercoated. Are the bolts enp coated? Hope to have mine done locally rather than buy new or naff aftermarket!
Looking forward to the next installment.

[pptom]

The bolts are just zinc, but I polish them first to give a really smooth finish, which the zinc matches.
While I've been waiting for parts I thought I'd tackle the exhaust. You can see the end cans on the first page, the headers were also a little worse for wear, being slightly rusted and generally grubby.
I had various goes at stripping the colouring off the silencers with no result, then I realised that they're titanium and the colour is proper heat residue.
Off to the polishing machine, which stripped the colour off, but left an uneven finish, I just couldn't get a uniform shine, so I chucked them in the blasting cabinet and treated them to some crushed glass.
This made the finish uniform, but was too dul and dark for my liking, so I decided to scotchbrite them by hand. This was painfully slow, so I made a rig so I could fit them on the lathe, which sped things up enormously and didn't hurt my hands as much.
This is a pic of 1 can blasted and one polished:



The end caps were polished



And the cans rebuilt with new Acoustafill packing


This was the old packing by the way, came out the same from both cans - its well past its use by date, with loads of material missing

[pptom]

Onto the manifold / header.
I polished my NC30 headers and it was a laborious effort, but there is quite a bit on show with them, not so much on the SP.
For this I decided to give Pipe Gel a try as I'd never used it before.
It took a couple of applications and some elbow grease, but I got a decent result:



Autosol'd it all to give a decent finish and additionally polished the pipe which drops down next to the shock as this is visible



Also polished up the link pipes - before and after: