I started the repairs by stripping the front end of the bike down to asses the damage, once done came the most painfull bit buying all the required parts to fix the bike. The parts were small and numerouse, but it had to be done. This included new bearingsfor the tripple tree and thefront wheel, seals for the forks, turn signals, brake light assembly, morrors, the list goes on and on.
One thing I do remember, I got the tail light assembly from 4into1 and while visually correct the quality is very cheap and chinesey, the metal is very thin and the wiring is not correct it used a cheap turn signal socket for the brake light. To fix the wiring issue I gutted the destroyed brake light and transfered its wiring in to the chinese brake light.
I will never ever ever do again is rebuild these bike gauges, the chrome crimp ring is the biggest PITA i have ever dealt with. I stabbed myself multiple times taking the gauges apart and putting them back together, and whats worse I had to paint the gauge boddies twice because I slipped and gauged the paint reassembling them. What I did was buy a set of untested gauges from the pick and pull, pull all the guts out of them, repaint the boddies, then transfer the good working guts of my gauges into the repainted gauge boddies. I would reccomend that if your'e going to redo your own gauges either pay to have it done or do a ton of research, build a jig, and open a tab at the local bar.
The easiest part of the rebuild was actually working on the tripple. To ensure there was no cracking done to the tripple trees or the (steering rod?) I stripped all of paint down to bare metal before inspecting with a magnifying glass and an attempt at my own DIY dye penatrent. I checked the bar/rod that connects the two trees for trueness with my dial indicator. After I was convinced everything was kosher I repainted it and re-assembled with a new AllBalls bearing kit. The AllBalls tapered bearing kit was a smooth install, I just recomend you remember to measure the bearing stack height to ensure proper assembly. After instalation you can really feal the improved smoothness of turning compared to the old ball bearings.
I wont discuss indepth what the process for installing the new front wheel bearing was like, I just hope that god and whom ever tries to replace the bearing again forgives me for the atrocities I committed to replace it. I highly recomend buying the correct tool for removing the baering retainer, I used a hammer and punch when I removed the retainer, the shame of which will haunt me forever.
The last major repair was the fork rebuild, the rebuild itself was a straight forward opperation considering this was my second time rebuilding the forks. The difficult part was tracking down new fork tubes, I was looking at either A. Buying used ones from my favorite motorcycle pick and pull for 200$( All of the used tubes I pulled were pretty crusty and I didnt want to risk leaking forks), B. Having the current tubes straightened for 100$ a piece ( I got turned away by two shops and the third shop said it probobly wouldn't work but they would try if a payed first) or C. Buy new tubes. I ended up buying new tubes from Forking By Frank this was where the majority of my budget went but it was worth every penny, the chrome on the new tubes is excellent and they are 100% identical to the OEM forktubes from honda.
Those were the major parts of the front end rebuild, everything else was pretty minor. A little wiring, a few bolt on parts, a couple spots touched up with paint, and I was able to straighten the fenders to an acceptable level using a 2x4 and deadblow hammer. Now that the wall of text is done the next post will be a wall of pictures.
