1/2/12 A New Year

Happy New Year!

To celebrate, I made some serious progress on the bike today. One of the things holding me back was the fact that I didn't have the tool to properly torque the stem nut. The reason I didn't have it is that Suzuki, for some reason unknown to me, charges $170 for the tool, which looks like this.

Normally I'd just take a brass drift and tighten it with a hammer but because this is part of the steering and having proper torque could be important, I decided to do it the right way. To this end, I decided to make my own steering stem socket.

First I bought a 32mm deep socket and wrapped it in tape.

Then I marked where I needed to remove material.

Then I turned it in a lathe to remove excess material from the inside.

Then I took a dremel to it to cut out the notches.

And then cleaned up the edges with a grinding wheel.

And I was good to go!



Next in my day of fabrication, I needed to make a brake caliper spacer, as my forks were missing one when they arrived. Searching fo some scrap aluminum, I cut off the end of my old bent clipon.

And this was the end result, accurate to 5 thousandths of an inch. The one I made is on the left, with the original on the right.

This allowed me to start buttoning up the front end. This is gonna look pretty good!

-W.W. SBSS

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

12/15/11 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

10/26/11 - Mirror Finish

Just a quick one today. I went to the shop for a couple of hours and did a little sanding on the tank. Sanding is pretty boring, except you can bring tank from this

to this.

I also welded up a couple other tiny holes in my floors on the 240z.

If you haven't noticed, I'm dragging my feet a bit on the Z. That's because the frame rails are delayed, and won't be ready for a few weeks, which really holds me up as far as installing the interior and everything else. I'm gonna have to move on to the suspension soon.


In other news, I saw this on my block the other day. I'll let you figure out why that's funny.

-W.W. SBSS

6/7/11 - Taking Shape

Just a little update for today. I spent some more time with the sandpaper and the dremel getting the final shape out of my fairing. Here is what it looked like after a little trimming.

Then I made the sort of jaw area a bit narrower.

Added some detail.

And here is the almost finished shape with the angel eyes on. I think its starting to look pretty decent.

Now I'm just waiting for my carbon fiber to arrive so I can make a finished part out of it. Stay tuned!

-W.W. SBSS

6/3/11 - Mold Making for Dummies

Yesterday I spent most of the evening hunched over a block of pink foam with a bit of sandpaper making the mold for my fairing.

First I hollowed out what was necessary on the back side to get it to fit over the lights, gauge, bars, etc.

Then I mounted it on the bike and took a look at what I could rough cut away.

With the foam rough cut, it was time to break out the sandpaper.

Starting to look like something here.

It's still much, much too large and bulky, but the shape is starting to come through.

You really just have to work with the foam and let it shape itself. I need this to be a bit curvier and about 2/3 its current size, but it is getting there. Stay tuned for updates.

-W.W. SBSS

6/2/11 - Pens, Coins, and Foam

After a wonderful long weekend, I returned to the shop for the first time Wednesday with two goals: Pull the doors and seats out my Z and make a trip to home depot to buy foam for mold making.

K.Y., Harley and and I got to the shop and immediately started work. One thing I love about the Z is that it comes apart relatively easily. Twelve easily accessible bolts later and my doors were off the car.

The seats, stock from a 3rd generation RX-7, were a little more difficult. I custom mounted them about 6 years ago, and I remembered them being a pain to put in even then. They weren't much easier to remove. If I had a 12mm ratcheting wrench, it would have been a bit easier, but alas that was the one tool missing from K.Y. and my collections. After some sweating and cursing, however, the seats were out.

Pulling up the carpet I found all sorts of things. In the drivers side I found about $20 in change and 20 pens and pencils.

In the passenger side I found that the floor was simply bolted in, not welded, and that I could see daylight between the two panels in places.

K.Y. pulled the intake off of the Benz for cleaning. It is incredible how much crud is in the intake. We think it'll run like new with a good cleaning.

While he did that, I stole his BMW to make a home depot run to pick up some foam insulation boards for mold making. The idea is that I will glue this together, shape it into the shape I want my fairing to be when it's finished, cover it in packing tape, wrap it in resin soaked carbon fiber, vacuum bag and pop out a new fairing. If this works well, expect many more carbon parts in the future.

W.W. SBSS