Its been a while so I figure a short intro would be good.
Bought this
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Stripped it down to this and got the engine out to be cleaned and painted.
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I took of the center stand assembly and dont plan on keeping it. I disassembled the rear and front tire and took out the forks. Basically got it down to the bare frame minus the steering assembly that I want to take off and repaint.
Here is a photo of my carbs when I first took them apart.
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Then after I took them apart I cleaned them in this Yamaha carb cleaning solution that you mix two parts solution to one part h20
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This was before I found out my neighbor had this chemical bath he uses to restore all his motorcycle parts et cetera, here is a photo of the bath
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And of the carbs after the bath
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Then I polished the float bowls with a Baldor 1/2 hp buffer grinder.
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Put new carb kits in them from Z1 enterprises, and put on my velocity stacks from Steel Dragon Performance
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But I broke this bolt in one of the carbs, I figure it isnt that bad as long as it stays right
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? Probably not so I guess Im just naive.
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So I took off the swingarm and disassembled it thinking I would send it off to Hondaman cos I read he does some nice rebuilds of these things, it was annoying getting those old steel bushings or sleeves out.
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This is a picture of various parts I bought for this build.
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I was going to put this yamaha r6 front end but All Balls told me their conversion kit is out of stock until June, so I am currently collecting parts to do that dual front brake caliper conversion for these 550s.
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Pretty cool it came with dual front brake calipers and both clip ons.
Here is a Dresda swingarm I thought would fit, bought it off ebay, bought it before the seller could tell me the dimensions of this thing. This Dresda swingarm is for a 650, guess I was being naive again and was hoping it would fit.
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Here is a foto of the swingarm not fitting
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Its because it is not wide enough
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But this 86 gsxr swingarm fits like a glove, except neither mounting bolt is compatible AND the dunlop swingarm is longer than the stock 550 swingarm, this needs to be cut down to match the same length.
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And so while I am looking for parts for that dual disc conversion...I decided to take out the forks and I found little to no fork fluid in both with small trace amounts of h20.
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This is what came out of BOTH forks
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So I know that rust in the fork travel area is bad. Both forks looked like this, and only had rust where the headlight ears used to be.
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What should I use to remove this rust? I could take it to my neighbors chemical bath and clean every part from the fork assembly or any other suggestions?
So this is where I am currently at right now. I still need to finish cleaning the engine, mount it to my engine stand and paint it. I will prolly polish some parts of the engine too.
I will most likely put up that Dresda swingarm up for sale later today or tomorrow. So best to wait for that post in the appropriate section.
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