12/30/11 Carbon Tail

Another quick one today. I prepped the front crossmember for POR-15. I also sanded and cleared the carbon tail section and put it on the bike. This one is gonna look mean.

K.Y. and I also did a bit of work on the benz, but for some reason now it's burning coolant out the tailpipe. I don't think it's a headgasket, but likely a intake manifold gasket issue. We'll troubleshoot it soon.

W.W. SBSS

12/29/11 Paint and Carbon

Just a quick update today. I painted the floor today and it looks great. It also looks great on my face...where it splashed...and won't come off. I guess this means itll stick to the floor pretty well.

I also put another coat of resin on the tail of my SV, and trimmed the excess. It's gonna look great when finished.

My suspension bushings arrived today as well. Once the struts come in, I can finally build my suspension.

Soon I'll be ordering sound deadening, carpet padding and carpet so I can complete the interior. It's all coming together.

-W.W. SBSS

12/28/11 Frame Rails Pt.3

Today I did a bit of work on the frame rails. I cleaned up some of the welds and sprayed the newly installed rails with rubberized undercoating. It's looking pretty good now.

I then spent a good few hours prepping the floor for paint. This involved alot of wire-wheeling, some Marine Clean, and some Prep and Ready. This process isn't very photogenic so you'll have to trust me.

I tried out the silver POR-15 on some suspension components. 

Then I did the necessary dremel massaging to get my top triple to fit on the new forks. 

Having done this, I was feeling inspired with the bike, and decided to carbon fiber my tail. 

All in all a very productive day.

-W.W. SBSS

12/27/11 Frame Rails Pt.2

Because I had the whole week off, I decided to spend the entire day in the shop and knock out the frame rails. After a little of fiddling, I got the front rails on and ready to weld.

Once they were all lined up, I wheeled in the welder and tacked the front rails into place.

Then I trimmed the rear rails to fit, and tacked those in. 

Repeat on the other side and everything was all tacked and ready to go. 

Then it was weld weld weld and weld some more. My welds started out a bit ugly, for some reason the welder I was using wasn't very good on thin metal. After switching to the trusty Lincoln 135 the welds got a bit nicer. All in all it's not the prettiest weld job, but it's definitely strong.

Also, it turns out cotton gloves and blue shop rags are flammable...

W.W. SBSS

12/21/11 Plugging Along

I'm still working on the frame rails. I want to do this right, so it's taking me a long time. That said, with the time I'll have over christmas break, I should be able to finish them up. Last time I prepped the inside of the rails for paint with POR-15, this weekend I painted them. 

As you can see, I left the tab that welds to the floor bare. This is because I don't want to contaminate the weld with the POR-15. To protect this area, I sprayed the tabs with a Weld-through primer, which has a high zinc content and will not adversely affect the weld. 

I am currently waiting for the paint to dry and will be welding them on soon. 

I also listed my new, free, mikuni triple carb manifold on ebay. It was unlikely that I was gonna find a third carb to complete the set, and I am not really willing to pay for a full set of carbs. 

In other news, last saturday I saw my buddy G.S.'s band Ibex play at the Orchard house cafe. They were awesome as always. Here's a terrible video I took.

That is all.

-W.W. SBSS

12/15/11 Overdue Update (again)

I know it has been a while, but the holiday season is tough. I've been to 5 parties, including santacon shown below, in about as many days, and it doesn't look like the pace will be slowing down until after new years. #firstworldpains  In any case, here's whats been going on.

A very nice member on the HybridZ forums decided to clean house. Instead of selling his extra stuff, he gave it away to whoever could pick it up. Since I live only an hour or so away, I went and got myself some free toys, namely a shopping cart full of Datsun transmissions

And a corroded and 2/3 complete set of triple Solex carburetors. Since the triples aren't complete, I'll probably end up selling them since I plan to do an engine swap eventually anyway. I'll likely keep at least one transmission as a spare and sell the other. Not a bad haul for an afternoon's drive.

The other day I was walking in midtown and saw this very interesting Ducati. It was a 999, which usually looks something like this.

But this one had been stripped down way beyond what even most streetfighter conversions remove. Check out the tail section. Not only is the seat gone, but the tail fairing as well. Just exposed tubing there. Also the wrapped exhaust is sweet. It's not often you see something this...different.

I've been plugging away at getting my frame rails installed. As I said, it involves a bunch of hammering to get them to fit flush. I also needed to use a wire wheel on an angle grinder to grind away the undercoating on the car. This is dirty work.

I finally have them fitting the way I like, so now it's time to paint the inside of the framerails with POR-15. I prepped them last night with the etching solution, which allows the paint to stick well to the smooth new metal. Paint will go on tonight.

I also finally got ahold of the UV-proof clearcoat I needed for my tank. This is gonna look awesome on my bike.

Finally, I pretty much have the CB700SC back together. I may register it so I can ride it around until the SV is back on the road, but eventually I'm gonna sell it. The only thing holding me back right now is I'm missing a stupid little 'T' fitting for the fuel system. I misplaced it at some point and it's always the little things that hold you back.

-W.W. SBSS

11/29/11 Frame Rails pt.1

My new frame rails arrived this weekend, so it was finally time to start installing them. The first, and dirtiest, step in this install is to remove the old rubberized undercoating from the areas of the floor where welding will be required. This means taking an angle grinder with a wire wheel attachment under the car and slinging bits of goop everywhere. It's slow going , but when finished, the area should look something like this.

Notice the shiny bare metal on the lower section of the frame rail. This is where I will be welding the new section in.

And along the original rails where they meet the floor. Because my car is very rust free and I am adding these rails for additional strength rather than to fix rust, I will be leaving the original rails in place. I haven't decided whether I am going to leave factory undercoating on the original rails or strip it and apply POR-15, like I will be doing on my new rails. Using a weld-through primer on the sections to be welded, both methods should provide enough rust protection, especially considering I don't plan on driving this in weather or on salt.

Next it was time to mock up the new rails to see where they need to be trimmed or adjusted. These rails aren't exactly the same shape as the originals, and all of these cars are a little different, so a bit of massaging is often required to get them to fit perfectly. I may box in the section from the TC bucket to the new, wider rail.

As you can see here, there is a section of the original rail that bows downward, keeping the new rail from being flush with the floor in the front. A little coercion with a hammer should get it to fit perfectly flush. More on this tomorrow.

-W.W. SBSS

11/28/11 Coming Clean

OK, I got in a minor motorcycle accident in September. I hadn't mentioned this on the blog because I didn't want to worry my mom, but the hospital bill was sent to her house, so the cat is sorta out of the bag...

It was a silly accident. I was between a dentist appointment and getting full dental scan. The scanning facility was 5 blocks away and I needed to move the bike across the street for street cleaning anyway, so I decided to ride. Because of the short distance, I decided to forgo my usual riding gear for only the second time in 2 years of motorcycle ownership. This was stupid.

I was riding down 73rd between Columbus and Amsterdam, and there was a schoolbus parked on the right side of the road. As I approached, the bus threw out the stop sign. Trying to be a good samaritan, I attempted to stop before the bus, despite the fact that I was pretty much right up on it. The hard braking, combined with the torn up and potholed  surface of the block, caused me to lock up the front wheel and go down. It was a pretty low speed accident, ~20-30 mph, but it was enough for the bike to bang into something and bend the front fork. I wasn't very injured, only a sprained ankle and some light scrapes. If I were wearing my boots and my jacket I literally would have had no injuries at all, none.

I picked up the bike, parked it, and walked home. After a while I decided it would be best to get my ankle checked out, just to make sure it wasn't broken. I took a cab with A.D. to the hospital and got an X-ray to confirm my ankle was just sprained. I was in and out in less than an hour, which is a credit to Mt. Sinai. The moral of the story is ALWAYS WEAR YOUR GEAR. ALWAYS. EVEN IF YOU'RE ONLY GOING A SHORT DISTANCE.

In any case, I used the damage to the bike as an excuse to do a suspension and brake upgrade. I got a smoking deal on a used '06 GSXR600 forks and started collecting the other parts necessary to put it on my bike. Right now I have the forks mounted. Lookin' good.

In other news, I saw this awesome Ducati 999 on the street the other day. It's been streetfightered out a bit, with the fairing and rear seat removed, but I think it looks great. 

This was a less awesome Ducati sighting. It seems someone knocked over this row of bikes the other day, The Duc had some damage, which is unfortunate, because it was a very clean bike that I had been admiring for a few months. This is why we can't have nice things. 

In Z news, two major things happened this weekend. First, my frame rails arrived! I started prepping the floor for their installation, but this will be a reasonably long process, as undercoating is somewhat tough to remove. Stay tuned for updates on that.

Second, a member of the HybridZ forum posted that he had some parts he wanted to get rid of but didn't want to ship. Luckily he was pretty local to me, so I was able to score some great free stuff. First was an intake manifold and two carbs for a triple carb setup for a Z. Complete working sets of these go for $1000-$1500, so this was a total score for free, despite the rough shape of the carbs.

Second, he had two 5speed transmissions for the Z. All in all not a bad haul for a few hours of driving!

-W.W. SBSS

Success!

I finally got the stubborn strut cartridges out of the struts. Turns out they were old school Koni's. That is all.

-W.W. SBSS

11/21/11 Goodbye Old Friend

This weekend I finally sold my 280z 2+2.

Saturday morning I loaded up the G35 with a battery and the 280z hood (which I was running on my 240z) and drove home to Newark, where the 280z was. I dragged the car out of the garage with the focus, installed the battery and it started right up. The clutch had drained itself, so I topped off the master cylinder and pumped it until it had pressure. I put the hood on and it was ready to go.

In fact, I drove it to Maplewood for lunch. It was nice going for one last ride before giving it to it's new owner. It was a little sad to watch it drive away, but it's better that the car be used than just sit there while I work on my 240z. Not to mention it frees up some cash for the suspension and brake components that I need to buy.

While I was home, I pulled some parts out of storage to bring to the shop for the 240z, namely the original gas tank from my car and the heater controls. I don't want to cut this body up too much, so I'll be installing the gas tank rather than putting my fuel cell in it.


Friday night P.C., A.D. and I did an awesome Livingsocial deal. For $70, a bus picked us up in midtown, drove us to Grand Prix New York, set us up for a 90 minutes endurance race, fed us, then drove us back to the city. Not a bad deal.

It was a great time. The karts were fast and the track was interesting. There was quite a bit of elevation change, and lots of traffic to play around in. Our team came in second place by a margin of only 55 seconds. We're the 'heavyweights' in the table below.

I got in a little bit of trouble for aggressive driving, but the real problem was following slower traffic a little close, and bumping them when they braked at inappropriate times. In any case it was a ton of fun and I recommend it highly. Next time that deal shows up on living social I think I'll do it again.

-W.W. SBSS