Finally!! Muffinpunch's SV650 build! (Phase 1)

Before I could get the bike home to start work on her this week, I had a fare share of work to do in my garage to get a space ready, not the least of which was "designing" and building myself a 2' x 8' work bench. Not an inspirational feat of unprecidented architechure, but cheap, simple, and super sturdy.


After that i finally got the bike home and then spent the last few days tearing down the ol' girl with relatively few hiccups along the way.

The wall of shame


Made sure to thouroughly clean everything with simple green at every stage. She should look like she just came off the assembly line by the time im finished!





Ive sorta come to a standstill until I can procure some odds & ends. I have it stripped down to the carbs and the next thing on the list basically clean and rebuild them.



I gotta be really diligent about labeling each bolt and wire as this is really my first mechanical endeavor of any magnitude. Fortunately for me I was able to find a factory service manual. I have a feeling it will be in tatters by the time im through with it. Stay tuned for more to come!

Not a whole lot of work on the bike today, but I did just drop about $400 on parts. I ordered a carb repair kit, new brake and clutch levers, a set of Renthal StreetFighter bars, bar end mirrors, LED turn signals, A billet brake fluid reservoir, grips, a battery, and new tires. I also have a set of naked triple clamps on the way, courtesy of an SVRider.com member.

Ill have to kick my butt back into gear once stuff starts showing up, but until then Ive begun focus on a plan of action and a goal to work toward. I was inspired hugely by SVRider.com member ebrammer252's 2000 Naked build and will be basically using his bike as a benchmark.

Here is a quick and dirty Photochop I made using his bike. There are a number of details that wont be exactly the same, but for the sake of visualizing my goal I simply did a color and trim exercise on his bike and extended his shorty exhaust a few inches. As stated before, this is simply a plan for Phase 1. Carbon slip on, and wrapped headers, along with a much better seat/subframe, new headlight, and USDs will likely be part of Phases 2 and 3.

Its little more than a orange paint job and wheel stripes over a gloss black frame and swinger.


The paint Im going for is a Victory color called "Suede Nuclear Sunset"

I am intimately familiar with this paint as I work in the ID department at PII and pictures just do not do it justice! (no pun intended) It looks like it has a lot more red in it in low light pictures, but in reality it is a lot brighter orange.

Anyway, Ill keep plugging away as much as I can. Thanks for looking!

As for progress, I got the carbs all cleaned out and reinstalled. I came across a mysterious line attached to the rear sync valve which had been connected to the petcock when I removed the tank. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but both of my buddies who are previous owners of 1st gen SVs insist that both sync valves should be plugged by default and no lines... If anyone can shed some light on this I would appreciate it.

I also got the naked triples installed and my dirty bars/controls mocked up. A very important step because I learned that by rerouting the cables and wires I can basically get it to work, but it looks like a mistake, so I am now searching for a deal on either some used OEM naked cables, or some Motion Pro replacements. My broken budget is making this part a bit more difficult as there are plenty of used OEM S cables sets to be had on Ebay, but the sellers dont seam to realize theres a difference in length between the N and S models.



I have half a mind to cut my losses and temporarily go back to clip-ons. I went ahead and got the fluids and misc. maintenance items the previous owner should have had done, so once she's all back in one piece I can ride with confidence that she wont suddenly choke on me and leave me stranded. The bar-end mirrors I got will need a tiny bit of modification to get them to work properly and a bit of splicing to get the Naked OEM gauges to fit to the S wiring harness, but I think Ive got everything I need to get her back on the road, including a new set of Pilot Powers!

Progress has been a lot slower than I woulld have liked. My buddy who was helping me had a loss in the family and had to run back to his home town for a few weeks. If I had been a bit more confident I would have proceeded at a more regular rate, but I ran into some stuff and didnt want to disturb his mourning over something so trivial as a turn indicator not working right after splicing my wiring harness or something like that. So I took it pretty easy for the last month or so. I say "took it pretty easy" but in fact I spent two weeks traveling for work, so maybe im justified. First I went to DC where we unveiled a number of new vehicles at our Dealer conference, not the least of which was the new RZR XP 1000! (shameless plug)


That was followed by a 12 hour mototcycle ride to Sturgis SD for the unveiling of the new Indian Cheif. I realize its not everybody's cup of tea (admitedly not mine) but theres no denying it's beautiful and was recieved extremely well!!


Ended up sticking around the rest of the week to see the sights and watch Masotdon and Zombie perform at The Buffalo Chip. (EPIC!!!)

I did finally bite the bullet and order some new throttle cables and a clutch cable from motion pro. I also got a new throttle tube so I wouldnt have to grind up the OEM one to fit my new grips.



I also spliced my naked gauge cluster with the S sub harness. It went pretty smoothly with a simple wiring diagram. Most of the colors match up, theres just one or two wires that dont have a color match counterpart. Easy enough to figure out which ones go where though.


[URL=http://s256.photobucket.com/user/muffinpunch/media/SV650%20Build/20130817_201743_zpsbb6c683d.jpg.html]

Then I spliced the OEM turn signal connectors to my low-profile LED lights.
[/URL]

Unfortunately I got a little over enthusiastic about getting the thing finished that I forgot to test it before re-wrapping the harness all up in electric tape. The low beam doesnt work, nor the left-front turn indicator. I have to install the tank to make sure the rest of the electronic are still good, but I dont anticipate anything major as I only messed with the sub harness which connects only to the gauge and the front lights.

I also got my CNC levers and brake reservoir installed. Here I ended up dropping the master cylinder and cracked the plastic connector, so I have one on order. Should arrive shortly.


I also ordered a custom built set of SS brake lines which should also be arriving shortly. After romoving the fairing brackets, the upper coolant bottle bracket needed to be replaced, so thats on the way too. Going to mount the new tires tonight and probably change out the rest of the fluids. After that I will be just about ready to rock! Getting pretty stoked now. Only a few more weeks of summer so I gotta get out and ride! Then come the BIG mods...

SS lines came in. I can't vouch for the performance of the lines as I have yet to use them, but I am very satisfied with the service and the price. I got them from a place out of Canada called Apex. They custom made me a full set of 4 stainless brake lines to my spec for $92 shipped. I selected the black hoses with the black fittings and they came with banjo bolts and crush washers.





I also mounted my Pilot Powers to my wheels. What a PITA! At least It gave me my groove back. Temperatures finally started to hit in the upper 90s for the past couple weeks here In MN and for some unknown reason the extra effort and gallons of sweat I spent unmounting the old and mounting the new tires on my wheels got me motivated to keep working on the bike (much to the annoyance of Mrs. Muffinpunch). I helped a buddy move into a new house yesterday evening and came home around 9:30 pm, then went streight out to the garage and wrenched till 3:00 am! She's just about all together finally! Unfortunately my phone died about an hour into it and I didnt get many decent progress shots. But I did manage to get before and after comparison shots from last night.

Before:


After:


So shes finally back on her own two wheels! Obviously she still needs quite a bit of work aesthetically like paint and rear fender elimination, but mechanically shes clean and just about whole! Im still waiting on the front brake master cylinder connector before I can button up the brakes, and I need to troubleshoot the wiring harness from my earlier failure, but Im pretty happy about where she sits at the moment considering I made more visible progress in one night than I have for the past month!





Hopefully Ill be riding her to work next week. Labor day couldnt have fallen at a more appropriate time! Wish me luck!

Another week come and gone and still not riding the bike. Its killing me seeing all this beautiful summer weather now were in fall and im still stuck on 4 wheels!!! I spent a fair amount of time on the bike this week though. I feel like im so close I can taste it! Trouble shooting the wiring yielded some minor results. The lights are all working properly now and I was able to get the engine to turn over. She runs pretty strong, but I had to bypass the start switch to get her running. Not sure whats going on there. Im gonna see if my electrition buddy can take a look at it. Its the spliced gauge cluster thats causing all the problems... ive poured over wiring diagrams for hours trying to see where I went wrong with little luck.

I took a brake from the loom for a few days to clean up the undertail. Just used an online template that ive seen kicking around for a few years.



Printed out and spraymounted it to a sheet of scrap aluminum then took it to the bandsaw. Cleaned it up with a file and some sand paper.



Finished off by wrapping it in a peice of matte black vinyl.






Much better than stock, dont you think? I didnt want to get too carried away with it since its just a temporary fix. I ultimately plan to make a custom tail and sub-frame, but in the mean time this should suffice. I started mocking up a slightly raised tail to accentuate the streetfighter aspect, but finally decided its not for me. At least for the time being. The stock tail fairing is just too bulky and it visually puts the weight too high if I go up any more.




Also got my fluids changed finally. I didnt want to put new oil in there if I couldnt run it through the system. All thats left now is the front brakes which are basically ready, but the reservoir connector I ordered over a month ago got sent to the wrong address so im still waiting on that. Fingers crossed that this is the magic week! Wish me luck!!!

Sent from Motorcycle.com Free App

Long awaited update here.

Im calling phase one officially complete at this point. I cant afford to wait any longer to ride the girl. We probably only have a few more weeks left in the riding season here in MN.

The big holdup was the tiny plastic connector from the front brake reservoir to the master cylinder, which I ordered a month and a half ago but got lost in the mail. So I got the brakes set up with SS lines all around. Never bled brakes before so there was a bit of a learning curve. I wasted half a bottle of DOT 4 on the front brakes since I had no clue what I was doing and mixed the new fluid the nasty black garbage that had been sitting in the system. The rear brake was a breeze now I know the process.

The lines work great BTW. Took the bike out for her first ride since I started this endevor. Its a big departure from the heavy twin cruisers ive been stuck riding since I sold my sumo, so it will take a bit of getting used to. Feels great though!

So after that it was just a matter of double checking that all the bolts were tightened and everything was secure before o put the final touches on.

A few cans of plastidip later and ive got a completed bike!




Never used this stuff before but its pretty easy to work with and super forgiving. Its a temporary finish obviously, but im really liking the white on black.





I think for phase two I will probably go with a satin pearl white with gloss black frame and swinger rather than the nuclear sunset orange I was originally planning on. We use it on the Victory Boardwalk which coincidentally is the sister bike to the Judge on which the nuclear sunset orange first appeared.

Anyway, without further a due, I give you Leviathan 1.0:





Ill get some decent daylight shots taken tomorrow, but for now these will have to do.

There's a whole long explanation on where I got the name which ill spare you, but sufficeth to say im a big Mastodon fan.

Sent from Motorcycle.com Free App

Rode the bike to work today for an impromptu photo shoot on the turntable. Ride was great! Im stoked about this bike and no one at work can believe How cheap I got it for.

Im no kind of a good photographer so these pics are amateur at best, but the lighting is good and the camera is superb.






One gigantic pitfall to using Plastidip is that anything even remotely corrosive washes it right off as if it were chocolate syrup. Supposed to be pretty easy to patch up though. My radiator was overfilled and so was my coolant res so it spewed all over my frame up front. That was the one fluid I neglected to flush before taking her out. I had done my do diligence I could have caught this little mishap before it became and issue. No big deal though.



Another thing I dislike about Plastidip is the texture of the tank against my thighs. Its grippy like a balloon, so you'd figure it would give you an added sense of confidence going into tight corners, but maybe Im vain because all I can think about how much of the stuff is going to rub off onto my jeans if I lean too hard. Or how much of my jeans is going to rub off onto my tank. Maybe if it were black Id have a different impression, but this exercise its serving its purpose so I have no regrets about using it. Id do it again for a similar reason.

There likely wont be many more, if any, updates until the snow starts too fall or it gets too cold to ride anymore. But rest assured when Phase 2 begins you'll be the first to know. This is when the fun really starts!!!

Jakey Poo said:

You S.O.B.! I was going to do the exact same paint as a temporary sort of thing. Looks good
Sent from Motorcycle.com Free App

Click to expand...

Lol! Neither one of us is proving very avant garde with black and white plastidip on a bike, regardless to which of us did it first!

The stuff is plenty durable though and Im finding that the clingy balloon texture fades quite a bit after giving the spray some time to fully cure. But boy does the white get filthy fast!



Im in the planning stages at this time for a GSXR front end and new body work. Ill post some new stuff once that gets a little more fleshed out.

Fast Forward 10 months...

So rather than starting a new build thread for Phase 2, Ive decided to simply continue this thread. The build has progressed by leaps and bounds, albeit very slowly considering the last time I posted was back in Novemeber.

A lot has happened since my last post. My 2nd son was born on Feb 3rd, A cute little butterball who is proving to be a lot less stressful than our first boy. Still, it kinda threw a wrench in the mix, but obviously it was well worth it! Also the extended and ultra freezing winter we had in MN didnt help much either. I was at least able to order some odds and ends during my preoccupation, such as billet grips, handlebar brace, front brake fluid res., etc.

It was about this time last year that I started this thread, shortly after purchasing the bike. Ironically, Ive now owned the bike for a full year now and I have only ridden it MAYBE a hundred miles, if that!

I had a rough idea of what I wanted based on the photo chop I did earlier, but since I wanted New Pearl White instead of Nuclear Sunset Orange, I returned to the drawing board to do some variations. I knew I wanted white body work and a gloss black frame and swinger. I also knew I wanted the motor to be black, so I started there. Photos of naked, white, gen 1s are surprisingly few and far between, so I settled on a yellow one off Google and went to town. Its clearly not quite my bike, as it had USDs, a belly pan, passenger cowl, and dominator headlights, but its close enough to get the point across. I tried a few different versions with red, white, and gold wheels, black wheels with red, white or gold stripes, and red or gold pinstripes and Suzuki emblems to match, etc. Ultimately I landed on this one:



Gloss black frame and swinger, matte black engine with gold covers, Gloss black wheels with red reflective stripe, New Pearl White tail, fender, and tank with black rally stripe and red pin stripes down the center.

Ill have some actual progress posted up soon so stay tuned!