Cleggy the Spyder Man Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 looks good so far m8 quite fancy doing a smaller project (rather than a car) if I ever get the Spyder done keep going t it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 Looking good Martin, is it possible to angle the insturment pod with a mini fairing as per the bike you are using as your insperation? Are you changing the tank? Would love to pop round and help/take the p**s, but a little too far Hi Mate I might very well hide the instruments behind a small flyscreen yet. That is a decision that can be made when the bike is finished so I see what it will look like. The tank will stay, I quite like it and trying to make something else fit will be an imense task, due to the frame design the tank is basicaly two seperate tanks joined at the top with a common filler. I was originally going to leave it brown and just laquer it to protect it from rust, but when I took it off there was quite a few rust spots so it needs blasting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted April 3, 2011 Author Share Posted April 3, 2011 Minor Update. After finishing the mock up the bike was stripped back to an frame, engine and forks. A huge pile of parts was then sent off for blasting (tank, wheels, inlet manifolds, rocker covers, exhausts, top yoke, instrument bracket, rear mudguard, swing arm, head light bowl, plus a load more). No real horror stories were uncovered, although you won't be surprised to hear that the tank had two dents in it which had been filled and painted. So these need to be filled again. This is mainly what I have been doing for the last two weekends, priming, filling and painting bits. The battery tray and rear mudgaurd have been painted in satin black and refitted to the bike along wth the newly blasted swing arm and plasitc under seat cubby hole thingie. No pictures as all this filling, priming, sanding, etc, is creating way too much mess to consider taking a camera in there! I'll get some pictures taken in the week. The final coluor scheme has been chosen, but I'm keeping that to myself for a while yet... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 Bu**er... Things were progressing very nicely. It had been stripped right down as described and in between all of the painting, I'd starting putting things back on. One of those was the clutch lever, now the clutch had issues when we test rode it, but I put it down to adjustment issues. Putting it back together confirmed this not to be the case and there was bigger problems. Try as I might I could not get the clutch to do anything before the lever hit the gearbox casing. Much head scratching, looking a diagrams and manuals was getting me nowhere. The only way to work this out is inspect the clutch... So the engine and gearbox were pulled from the frame the gearbox seperated from the engine. The good news is I have found the issue. The bad news is I have found the issue. The end of the clutch push rod has sheared off and is stuck in the end of the thrust bearing carrier. The picture below should explain it... (ignore the comments, there not mine) D is the thrust bearing carrier and E is the push rod. With the clutch cable removed there was enough slack in the system for the thrust bearing carrier to move enough for the push rod to drop out of it. Had the end not been broken on it, I suspect it would have stayed still. I have manage to find a new one from a German company for, are you sitting down, €48... eBay to the rescue! Order some 6mm silver steel for £4.79 delivered. I reckon I can reassemble it from the back of the gearbox, so tomorrow I can make a start on reassembling the engine and gearbox back together. Good news is the clutch is like new! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_m Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Great project, nice bike too Will be good to see it develop. I'm restoring a naked 1976 Goldwing GL1000 but also converting a 1980 GL1100 into somehting similar to this: http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN....oldwing Unfortunately I found an old mouse nest in the airbox and their urine had run into one of the carbs and into one cylinder . . . pleasant job cleaning it out and hoping the rust on the bore is light enough to rub off with emery cloth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 I did have some pictures showing the progress... But they don't reflect reality now. The bike, what there is of it, is by the garage door, the engine is on the floor and the gearbox on the bench. Ho Humm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted April 29, 2011 Author Share Posted April 29, 2011 Right then, so to bring this up to date properly... So, after all the mock up was finished I stripped the bike back to little more than a frame, engine, gearbox and forks. I then started the fairly tedious task of cleaning / checking / painting / etc as required all of the parts ready for reassembly. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of the bike in it's most stripped condition, but the following two picture are shortly into reassembly and give an idea: In these shots, the wiring loom has been put back on along with swing arm, rear mudguard, top yoke and clip ons. For the eagle eyed there is also a first glimpse of the colour scheme... Most of the delay to date has been preparing and painting things, and most of that work has been in this beastie: I took this in for blasting as it was starting to show signs of rust around the front and by the fuel taps. I thought the best was forward was to blast back to virgin steel and go from there. The blasted suggested at most, blasting the rust off and leaving the majority of it untouched. As it turns out this would have been very sensible, as blasting it revealed two dents, one reasonably minor on the right hand side, and the real b***her, on the left hand side going across the swage line... Much body filler, sanding and generally wearing away my fingers has got it into the condition you see above and is now ready for my mate who is considerably better at painting than me, to start the top coats. After that I carried on reassembling some smaller parts of the bike, and this is where is all went t**s up last week end. No clutch... All the details of that incident are just above so I won't go into details again here, suffice to say it was starting to look a little bit like a bike again and then I had to do this to it... Engine split from frame: Gearbox on bench: The guilty party: The end of the clutch push rod has broken off in the thrust bearing carrier. Not wanting to pay €48 + poatage from Germany I bought a length of 6mm silver steel of eBay for £4.79 posted and set to work with the angle grinder and bench grinder. Angle cut it to length and the bench ground the slightly releaved diameter and one end and the radius and chamfer required. The end result is a working clutch! Following the Wednesday's sucess of the clutch I decided to proceed torwards a rolling chassis and as of yesterday managed to get the wheels in it and a few more other bits and piece done. I'll take a picture of it's current state later. So far I'm really chuffed with it, it looks like a cafe racer, considering this has not been and never was intended to be, a full nut and bolt rebuild, just take it apart in large chunks, check, clean and reassemble, it is look remarkabley tidy. Which sort of confirms what I have picked up on during working on it that it has been reasonably well looked after during it's life. Bit's I'm not so happy with, the gauges, during mock up they looked ok. Now I have started the build proper, they are looking a bit out of place. Not helped by the fact the tank is not on the frame. I'll leave them how they are for now to get it finished and get the garage back for the Westfield, but they will almost certainly need looking at again at some point. And, the budget... Isn't it always the way... The 'optimistic' budget for the build was £750. Thats was left whimpering in a corner some time ago when I got stung for the £100 shot blasting bill. The 'realistic budget' was £1000. Whilst I am still under that figure, I am not going to be able to MOT and tax it and stay under that, and there are still a few more bits and pieces to get. Now, I feel I should say that those budget figures do include £300 for the original bike purchase. But you got it for free I hear you say? Well, yes I did, in a roundabout sort of way. My brother had a '97 Honda CB500 outside his old house for 3 years, he said if I collected it I could have it. So I did... Much effort went into making it MOT-able, without sucess, so it got sold in bits on eBay for £540, which provided the basis for this project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted July 13, 2011 Author Share Posted July 13, 2011 AAARRRGGGHHH! I'me going to launch this thing into a river soon... I am so near, but so far from completion. When I started to take the bike apart, the exhaust headers where knackered. I figured I could get some off eBay, and proceeded with the build. Mistake 1. Many hours spent looking for second hand headers proved fruitless and I started to investigate alternatives. And I came across some straight extension pipes for a Triumph, result, they enabled me to cut the knackered section of the header and replace with the new straight pipes. Mistake 2. In cutting up the original headers to get them off the bike I lost the ability to measure or notice that the original headers had a small kick up on the end of them. At this point, I should point out that a new set of headers and silencers is ~£450, or just under half of what I have spent to date, not an option... At this point I reckoned I could fabricate some new brackets and mount the silencers to the straight pipes. This is where I found Mistake 3. In removing the silencers from the knackered headers involved a rather large amount of heat, the result of which appears to be heat treated silencers at they now won't clamp to a pipe. I can tighten clamp as much as I want, but it won't clamp up. The old silencers are a bit rough, but they are called Lafranconi's and were worth £300 new, so I didn't really want to bin them. But accepting they were knackered, and looked totally gash mounted in the straight position, I started looking at new silencers and found these: Short Megaphones They arrived yesterday and look really good, and are nicely made, so tonight I have tried to mount them... Guess what... They won't clamp up... Anybody want to buy a Moto Guzi Cafe Racer, looks good nearly finished, just needs exhausts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleggy the Spyder Man Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 spend a few bonb and get it finished Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott beeland Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 Splash the cash on some proper headers Martin, and get it finished. It's looking good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Marshall Posted July 14, 2011 Share Posted July 14, 2011 Come on you cheap skate, if you do not spend the money you will only regret it. I do not want to go into how much I am having to spend on unexpected extras for my quick project Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted July 14, 2011 Author Share Posted July 14, 2011 The proper headers can come at a later date if I decide it is not the most hateful thing in the world to ride ever... A long think and a beer and we have an idea, I am going to bin the shims that came with the silencers and I am currently getting some custom aluminum ones turned up. If that doesn't work there will be a big bill looming... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 Right oh... Custom aluminium spacers have been made and the exhausts now fit! £86.74, much more acceptable than £450. Got lots of little things done today, such as sorting the movement in the switch pods, slight binding in the front brakes, some loose electrical connections, and, this is the big one... It Started! It's a bit loud... To quote a neighbour, it's sounds like Satan opening the gates to hell! Couple more little bits to do, bleed brakes, make some new side panels to cover the battery and electrics, a number plate and I reckon it's ready for an MOT. Because of the noise it might very well have to be a friendly MOT station... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleggy the Spyder Man Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 piccies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 On the way tomorrow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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