Topic: Terry's Kawasaki ZZR1100 "Bring it back to life" project.

[spotty]

cleaned the calipers up on saturday, amazing stuff thinners is, while i was using a paintbrush to clean the caliper bodies, the pistons and bolts were just sitting in the bottom of the bucket, i went to do them after the bodies and there wasn't a scrap of dirt on them
got them back together and stored for when its time to start putting things back together
pulled the back wheel and got the bearings out ( lots of heat makes that easy), puled the disc and sprocket carrier off and brought it all into work today for a day long soak in degreaser and then a nice hot pressure wash before i go home
photos if i can ever get my crapulent phone to co-operate

[RAFster122s]

What kind of thinner were you using to clean the calipers? Just paint thinner?

Congrats on the progress!
David

[spotty]

yep, just normal paint thinners

got the bearings back in the wheel last night so thats ready for new tyre

as theres nothing left on the frame now it was quite easy to turn it upside down and pull the linkages, shock and swingarm out, all of which were absolutely filthy, so everythings come to work for a good clean today

i was pleasantly surprised to find all the linkage/shock pivots were plain metal, not needle rollers and everything came apart easily so no seized or knackered bits there

once the stuff is clean, repaint, grease all the pivots properly and reassemble

also need to be checking the shock for its level of fcukedness

[Terry in Australia]

That's good that all the suspension pivots are bushes Spotty, I converted all the needle bearings on my neighbors RM250 to bronze bushes when the local stealership quoted him around 600 bucks to replace them, I think my price was a bottle of JD?

He "inherited" the RM, it had belonged to his wife's ex-fiance who (I didn't know at the time) was killed on that bike, he was out trail riding, rounded a bend and was impaled on a low hanging tree branch. The bike was totally undamaged as it was winter and just landed in the mud.

Once I learned that, I found plausible excuses for why I was no longer available to work on his bike. He moved shortly afterwards, so not a problem for me any more.......

[spotty]

Well, got the front calipers cleaned and back together, stored away for when the bike starts going back together
back wheel had its bearings out, serious clean including the disc and sprocket and new bearings back in
Both wheels ready for tyres next week
Swingarm and shock out, stripped all the linkages and gave everything a good soak in thinners which has taken the Smeg off most stuff
Shock got a high pressure hot wash and came up looking a lot less second hand, still needs to be pulled apart and checked for fcukedness
Swingarm will get the pin and seals back in before a hot wash tomorrow
To get all this stuff out I've got the frame upside down so while it's there the centre and side stands can come off for a clean and paint
At the moment it looks like it's ready to go to the wreckers but hopefully it'll Start going back together this weekend
And now to the pivot bushes......turns out that all those plain metal bushes in turn pivot on..... needle rollers. Bollocks
But all seem in happy condition so after the above cleaning they can go back together
I bought a mini grease gun today so all the pivot points will get properly attended to when back together
The swingarm has much scuffing so when that's properly clean then paint time for that too
Shame it's going to piss down for the next week, makes it harder to paint but I'll manage
A week's holiday from Friday should help keep my spirits up

[spotty]

Did I do the right thing changing this bearing ? I"m sure it would have been fine but I had new ones anyway so I changed it .......

[spotty]

X

[spotty]

Before cleaning the calipers

[RAFster122s]

Gee Spotty! Ya keep changing out those primo parts like that bearing and you are going to go broke. That bearing easily had another couple km in it, maybe 2.5 .

[PeWe]

Bearings are low cost parts. It will cost time and ride hours if not replacing them when parts are apart.
I had front wheel bearings I thought I knew were good since I replaced them with correct tools max 35.000 km earlier. 20 years standing still enough to make them bad. SKF bearings from the 80s before made in China.

[RAFster122s]

PeWe, you missed my wink.  Was joking around..
Yes, it is better to pop in a new set of bearings than hassle with pulling it apart later when you realize they were worn as well as dirty. Far mor trouble and time to do it later than to go ahead and do it while you have it apart.

Good spot of work done!

[RAFster122s]

Hey Spotty!  You doing any bike work or out riding this winter? Quiet of late...
David

[spotty]

Not much riding, it's the rainy season in the hills at the moment ( even had snow the other day ) and the roads never dry out enough for it to be fun

Progress has been made this week

New tyres on and new SBS HS pads bought

Swingarm cleaned and reinstalled with all the linkages and a surprisingly healthy seeming shocker, all the pivot points got a healthy dose of lithium grease courtesy of my new grease gun

Forks filled with 10W and reinstalled

Both wheels back in and bike right side up again

Battery ordered

Found an ebay ad for a zzr bring wrecked locally so went and picked up the headlight and r/h fairing. The fairing was cracked but complete so that'll need fixing

Got home from picking up those pieces and decided it was time to attack the tank.....
Well, fcuk me, the sludge in there took some believing and a lot more rinsing
The rust in there had been converted to goop with the rust attack agent young Terry had dropped in there last year so lots of solid rusty bits came loose in the cleaning process and there's lots more still in there
I turned it over to clean underneath and noticed a strangely orange trickle of fluid from underneath the foam insulation, pulled most of that off and......
Strangely bubbly sort of surface instead of nice flat paint.
Wire brush on the drill and several holes did appear..
FCUK

Fave up on that for the night and brought the fairing inside to start repairs only to run out of superglue and no 2 part epoxy

Beer time

[spotty]

Yep, that's the holes half way along the shiny silver bit

And this is inside the tank

[spotty]

Strange blistering on the top of the tank

[spotty]

But progress none the less

[spotty]

I reckon this bits looking particularly good

[RAFster122s]

So, how was the tank on that wrecked bike?  That really bites to find all the rust damage on the tank.  Nasty looking inside the tank. 
Good you scored a headlamp and rt fairing.

Starting to look like a bike again!

[Terry in Australia]

Good work Spotty, good thing is if the tank in not saveable, there are plenty of "C" model ZZR's going cheap with blown engines, so lots of un-rusty tanks to be had. Keep up the good work!

[spotty]

Minor progress this morning

New sexy green levers fitted, which you'd think would be a five minute job but by the time you've pulled the old ones off, cleaned up inside the m/C pivot spaces , greased those bits cleaned the pivot bolts and greased them then put it all back together there's an easy half hour gone but the look good and should be more functional than the stockers so I'm happy

[spotty]

Then I thought I would attach the frame cradle to the engine, another 5 minute job right.....

I'd already cleaned the majority of the cradle but when I looked closer the rubber isolators and their bolts were covered in sh1t and rust so all that came apart for derusting and greasing
Got it all together and attached to the engine then discovered that there's no way in hell I'm going to get it down from the dungeon under the house to the carport on my own without an accident
Even though the motor is on a trolley the dungeon is about 10 foot higher than the carport and the carport backs onto the outer wall of the dungeon, which means that the gradient rises 10 foot in the length of a car....
Terry will testify to the level of danger inherent in my driveway and paths
Very steep and not to be tried on my own so now waiting on a reply to my sos to fellow CFA members
Must be lunchtime then

[spotty]

In fact if you look closely at that picture above, which is of the motor on the trolley you can see to the left the tiled roof of the carport, that's how steep this place is

[RAFster122s]

Sounds like you need to build an elevator or block and pulley crane...

[jgger]

Or a slide, maybe even a fire pole😁

[Trevor from Warragul]

New sexy green levers fitted

I fit those style levers to all my bikes.  They were a huge improvement over OEM on my CBX.  Not that expensive, either.