Tuesday 15 March 2016

Ready or not here we come.....

Had a couple of things to do before the weekend. Balance the carbs on the 500, and swap the shock bolt aruond on the FZR. I couldn't work out how to take the weight off the FZR rear end, without another set of hands, so instead I made it fit the side it was by grinding the washer so that it would fit, it does mean that you have to hold the bolt on the other side but it will do for this weekend.

Had to move all the bikes out of the garage to run the RG to balance the carbs. I use an air flow meter to measure the "suck" of each carb at a fixed carb setting. All done, except I need to fit the fairings and then we ready to load the van.

Yup need to change the angle of the belly pan on the FZR.

Sunday 13 March 2016

Ready.....

Well, balanced the carbs on rhe 350 and started it, no problem. The 500 didn't start to easily as I had left 2 plug leads off! After fitting it started first kick. Sounded good. Belly pan was fitted and I just need to balance the carbs and we'll be ready. I am going to borrow a trailer for Ledenon, to transport the 3 bikes next weekend. The weather forecast looks good so hoping it will be right.

Monday 7 March 2016

More stuff....

The painter had finished the fairings and stuff by Friday, so I picked them up on the way back from seeing Olly in the hospital (another story) and also dropping off Pierre-Luc's part that I had made.

I got all the bits painted white (Peugeot), and left the front fairing and mudguard the standard black, I thought it would look good, but not convinced now I have it together! I will also have to change the belly pan brackets to have it horizontal, it's leaning a bit towards the rear which looks a little strange.

Before getting all the painted bits put back, spent 30 mins balancing the carbs again, with the new jetting it sounds pretty good in the mid-range (better) but not at the top, still, I will wait to have a run on it before changing again. With Libby's help I made the pads for the seat unit which were stuck on with neoprene glue.

I completely ballsed up the fibreglassing of the hole in the front of the fairing. I had some old gel coat with hardener, which just didn't harden, fortunately I used some new stuff for the carbon fibre, so that hardened but the gel coat remained liquid... The result was not pretty, but at least it gave me the right shape to stick some sticky backed paper to (stuff I make my numbers out of), so it will initially stay like that. On Sunday I put the front fairing back on fully expecting to have lock problems when turning the handlebars, but it's OK. It does touch the fairing inners at full lock, but won't endanger any fingers or other stuff so deemed OK. Starting to look finished now.

The RG got it's pipes and radiator installed, and is now ready to be filled up with fluids and started.
The RD got it's pipes back on and equally is ready for a start before going to Ledenon in 2 weeks time!