Well, that's another weekend flown by and wasn't it a nice one? The top of my head is suitably roasted, lacking in the hair which, in my younger days, would have adequately protected my scalp from the ferocious solar radiation we get here in Surrey. Right.
So, what have I been up to on the bike front?
Well, on Friday I turned a front wheel spacer. Unfortunately it was still about 2mm short of ideal so it's temporarily packed with a nice heavy washer as you can see on the left picture. At least the front wheel is now close to centre and in a position where I can now consider how to mount the calipers.
On the other side I still have a very long speedo cable exiting forward of the fork leg - not pretty but I'm not sure how I can avoid that, bearing in mind that the calipers will probably prevent a rear exit. The length of cable can be resolved, however - I have a rusted CBR item that I'm trying to free with penetrating oil. Another week should do it!!
Said brake calipers, as mentioned more than once, totally don't fit the fork leg mounts - hardly surprising really - so I'm going to have to be a bit innovative with what I've got.
This is going to involve drilling and tapping a new hole/thread near the top of each existing mount and extending the mount at the bottom with some aluminium welded on, drilled and tapped to match the bottom mount.
Obviously the scope for total destruction of the mounts is clear... This is a case of 'get it right first time or else...'
At the other end, the back wheel too looks more centralised on the frame rather than the swinging arm. This has had the added benefit that now the chain guard fits without hacking it about. Pleased I held off butchering it, that would have been a bummer...!
Still no sign of my rear caliper and mount, though. The person who received it by accident still hasn't forwarded it on to me. I still have the wayward filler cap, presumably because the intended recipient hasn't confirmed if he still wants it now the GPO have bent the key a bit... This is starting to bug me because it's holding up the job somewhat.
However the exhaust system duly turned up, all wrapped nicely. It's quite a heavy piece of plumbing, though I lightened it a fair bit by cutting off most of the pipe yesterday. When I say pipe, I mean press-formed and seam-welded steel conduit - it's probably a lot easier to manufacture difficult profiles that way than to bend a stiff old pipe!
Does this look like one slim bike or what?
Over the weekend I had a bit of a think about how to mount it and accepted that I wouldn't be able to use the existing tail unit.
Then today having popped down to school to borrow the requisite equipment, I MIG welded a couple of extensions to the subframe, with cross member, to support the silencer. Unfortunately I didn't have enough steel strip so could only do the rear cross brace :(
Supporting the can temporarily with a couple of welding rods gives a rough idea of how it will mount.
This leaves a section between the header pipe and the can, to fit into place. I've ordered up a length of 45mm stainless pipe and a roll of stainless MIG welding wire to fabricate the connection - both should be here tomorrow, with luck. Less useful is the rain that's forecast to accompany said items. I reckon I will need to put a very shallow dogleg into the pipe so I'll need to get hold of a pipe bender, the alternative being to cut-and-shut it. However the offset from centre is only a couple of inches so it shouldn't be too difficult a job. Said he...
Going back to the tail unit, I think a shaped piece of 1mm sheet steel or easier still, aluminium, could be the order of the day. At least it won't melt on the silencer! (Yes, I'm planning on using some heat-insulating material to protect the bodywork - probably a nice wad of folded glass fibre matting sandwiched between stiff wire mesh... or an original 600RR item if I can get one dirt cheap).
Originally the light unit, registration plate and reflector hung off a plastic mudguard with reinforcement tube running around it. The gap between the tube is too narrow to accommodate the silencer so I'm going to have to drop a couple of straps off the silencer mount, which is a bit of a worry as there's already quite a bit of leverage off the tail end stubs of the subrame... I may need to consider some fancy gusset work to provide a bit more support back there. Don't want the whole 'new' back end falling off in a year or two, do we!
Nor am I convinced that the original rear light is appropriate with the modification. Perhaps a smaller, rectangular unit off a little 125 or something, would be better. Less weight, less obtrusive. More money...
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