first project....restore #3 to it's former glory

[Steve Lake]

Having re-aquired #3 from John the plumber (who had it from me as part of a deal which saw me get a central heating system built around my woodburner with a home made back boiler)
john had done many 1000's of happy miles on it....and decided to go for a complete rebuild as it was getting hard to start and a bit tatty......the engine was stripped and rebored, new HC piston, head gasflowed. bespoke oil cooler fitted (this was a UK engine, so not fitted with an oil cooler). then the problems started....or not as the case may be, as John couldn't start the bike atall.....took the whole plot back to the guy who did the work on it, and fault was diagnosed in the generator....so was sent away for a rewind...... but the bike was still very reluctant to start...and John just lost interest in it..... i got a text one lunchtime.....'wanna cheep bike m8'.....and here it is.....

first things i checked was carburation, it currently has a pair of mikuni's... which have always worked ok...... but to my mind it seemed that there was a fuelling problem.....so i fitted my single 40mm dellorto.... after a bit of effort the bike started, but after a while (3 or 4 mins) it would backfire, flame out of carb etc...then stall.

on checking the tappet clearances...they were very tight.....with no clearance atall on the l/h inlet....adjusted these to be on the loose side, and set up the decompressor tolerance correctly.

now seems to be a bit more reliable....so #1 son has the mikuni's to clean up with his air line. in the meantime as you can see, the cosmetic side of things need a lot of attention.
John had 'personalised' the bike somewhat.... alloy guards....home made battery box,  small tacho and matching speedo, a lot of rewiring, l/h switchgear from a different bike.

all in all a bit of a shambles...John said he rode bikes, not polish tem, but i doubt that this bike had been serviced properly since it left me 3 years ago. ther was a lot of rust around the back of the bike, so i removed the swingarm, and it didn't look like it had been greased since i rebuilt it with new needle rollers, and the rest of it is in a similar state, ,so i shall put the original speedo and tacho back on , and the correct l/h switchgear, ....this will all get done fairly quickly, as i intend to sell it, to fund 'second project', which i'll enter up on here tomorrow.




[attachment deleted by admin]

[Steve Lake]

more pics....poor old girl looks a bit tatty....still, nothing a few weeks of hard graft won't sort out.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Steve Lake]

and even more pics..... i should have all the parts i need to fix this bike from my stash.... so just paint and wiring stuff needed....

[attachment deleted by admin]

[andy230]

Ach Steve, that must be nice to have her back in the fold!

Keeping Tiggy company too- great stuff!

I see the Redex-sponsored catch tank lives on!   

Cheers!

a

[Ian]

My sympathies for suffering from the same affliction that I have Steve

Ian

[Steve Lake]

 Had to remove the swingarm and associated bits 'cos it was looking so rough...
hadn't been greased since i sold it 4 years ago!..... god it was a mess....
i have had to strip the swingarm and graese up the needle rollers, then  a coat of black hammerite
the rear subframe is awful..... i just can't understand how, in the space of 4 years a lovely looking bike can be reduced to this
i'd wire brushed off the rear subframe and more black hammeritethen found the pretty s/s braided rear brake line was chafed away...more expense
and at the front oil is pi55ing out of the forks... more expence

and i have found some more unobtanium... the plate at the end of the swingarm (yamaha part number END1  )
see pics
it's going to be a while before i get this pile of poo on the road
oh, and the chain!....ye gods....once i got it off i found it would stand up on its own, almost like an indian rope trick!
so the sprockets are cr*p too... starting to look like a money drain.......

[attachment deleted by admin]

[guest1155]

hence what looks like a jack and coke methinks

best of luck.

[Steve Lake]

Ahh yes, the pic, 2 bits of unobtanium....the end plate for the swingarm.... the new one is from stock at my local yamaha dealer, last one in the world by the looks of things.
the other  (isn't coke) is Thwaites Liberation Ale at 5.2%, I have 3 bottles left, last year they brought the abv down to 4.8% and in the process bu55ered up a really good beer.
I can't fix the beer problem, but with a bit of luck and a following wind I'll get this poxy bike sorted......but
in the process of checking and cleaning bits b4 rassembly.....more effin problems
the braided hose for the rear brake is chafed right through the braid AND the pistons are siezed.....bo77ocks!!
got the hose replaced using the original (expensive) s/s ends...for a fiver, so that was a bit of a result (thank god for the few remaining quality m/c engineers!).....still working on the piston problem....any/all ideas most welcome

[guest1155]

everyone i know blows them out with compressed air. myself,if its seized both sides i bleed the brake with a front master cylinder(need the lever) then pump until one piston is as close tocoming out as i dare. Then apply G clamp to that piston to stop it from coming out,while you pumpthe other one right out. Never yet had any calipers that were able to resist the power of hydraulics.

Bugger about the beer.I hate it when people mess about with something thats good and ruin it.the good thing i've always found when a brewery ruins your favourite beer is that you have to go loooking for another one.Which of course means sampling many an ale. which is of course, nice

good luck.

[themoudie]

Aye Steve,

Agree with Skraatch, when did your hydraulics let you down! 

I've a nice bit of 5mm plate, which sits between the pistons in the caliper and a couple of well polished tyre levers. Use the levers to move a piston back in whilst pumping on the lever.

If this wheeze fails!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Then remove caliper. Place in vice and split the caliper, soak the whole lot in diesel, clamp a pair of 'Mole' grips onto the piston, with the caliper body in a vice and apply leverage. Knackers the piston, but they do come out! 

As for the beer/ale! Greene King I.P.A. or else try a drop of St. Peter's, will deliver to your door and the bitter is a lovely drop of beer. Good and 'hoppy'! Here is their link: 'St.Peter's'  Mind you, it would make a nice little canter from your place, to fill up a tank bag or a seat pack on the back!

Slainte, Bill.

[Steve Lake]

Yes Bill, know St Peters well, a friend had his wedding reception there (now that's what i call good planning), and my local Morrisons sell their beer.

I did the 'hydraulic' extraction, well, put it this way, with the caliper in the vice, i managed to push the pistons back into the housing ok, and there wasn't much in the way of corrosion there. I figured that cleaned up and a new set of pads installed, i could refit it on the bike and use the mastercylinder to ease them out again....

Well the theory was good... and would have worked a treat....if the master cylinder hadn't been siezed as well.... hells bells....what else am i going to find wrong with this bike??!
Now, this must be the 6th rear master cylinder I've had to try and rejuvenate, and if true to form, i'll fail miserably, and with the 'service kit' no longer available, a replacement unit is an expensive fix.
But after 2 hours on the workbench I finally got the thing working tolerably well.... the final fix being a thorough polishing of the bore with a strip of rag wound round a bit of rod soaked in brasso and turned by my trust black a decker drill.
refitted the mastercylinder, and then went through the time honoured excessively lengthy bleeding process peculiar to SRX bleedin brake systems.
Once I had a bit of pressure, a good heft on the lever and the pistons obligingly moved out, so i levered them back in, repeated the process 4 times, re-bled the system and hey presto... thank god for that., job done.
I'm seriously not looking forward to replacing the fork seals....heaven knows what i'll find.

[guest1155]

a labour of love indeed. I keep telling myself with mine when innevitably everything takes forty times longer than it should that it will all be worth it in the end,and yours is looking well tasty already.

Good luckwith the fork seals,not my favourite job at all,but some of this might help:

http://dorsetpiddlebrewery.co.uk/acatalog/Bottled_Piddle.html

[Steve Lake]

Forks were a doddle... all of an hour and job done... but the job revealed how bad the problem was, the l/h caliper (and hence the pads) were soaked in fork oil, so the calipers will need a thorough clean and the pads replacing (interesting to note that the same pads were in place that i originally fitted years and miles ago, I know this, because i always fit one sintered and one standard pad to each side).
the job with the forks....having lulled me in to a false sense of 'job going smoothly now, be done in a few days'.....now kicked me in the teeth as i surveyed the horror of a completely bu55ered wiring system. john had slung out the original spedo/tacho, made up a bracket and fitted a matching pair of small chrome units, and some very ugly warning lights, the whole thing is a mess, and i have found sufficient parts (albeit a kph spedo) so put it back to standard (the srx binacle is one of the defining characteristics of the machine along with the quirky tacho position) but john (he really should stick to plumbing) cut a load of wiring out, ang removed plugs, so i'm really struggling, he also replaced the l/h switchgear with an item from 'who knows what', and fitted LED indicators amd rear light assembly, it also looks like the rear light assembly has been connected up 'ass about face' and burnt out......wunderbar!

[Ian]

Now why doesnt all this surprise me?

Ian

[guest1120]

Hi Steve, tell me more about the Del Orto carb on the SRX! What adapter do you have? Where did you get it from? Do you run it on the Del Orto or revert back to the Mikunis? What about jetting/needle settings? What are the advantages?

Thanks in advance, Mike