[MDM]

Bellypan had the holes filled and a couple of cracks sorted whilst I was messing about with fibreglass for the tail unit and sidepanels on the 'Unforgotten' project, then a lick of paint and a load of stickers. It's not been fired up for a while so the battery is now on charge, and I'll look at getting it onto a dyno at some point as well. Hopefully a new shock will be sorted too.

 

[MDM]

And I finally got around to swapping over the temporary brake fluid reservoir bracket that I'd bodged up (about four years ago) when I first fitted the fatbars, fitting a neat stainless steel one I found on the interwebs for Not Much Money.

 

[MDM]

And I've finally succumbed to the realisation that, right now, I can't justify the cost of a brand new aftermarket rear shock, so will go with the well-known SV upgrade of fitting a ZX-6R shock instead. Just need to find one at the right price...

 

[MDM]

Fired up on Sunday and, as I had half-guessed /assumed, the exhaust header decided that it wanted to set fire to the bellypan, despite there actually be some (rather minimal) clearance between the two. Effectively, it only bubbled the freshly appied paint, and I'll make a 'hump' with my recently acquired fibreglassing abilities to give the small part of the header (from the front pot) a bit more clearance.

 

[chrisexup]

And I've finally succumbed to the realisation that, right now, I can't justify the cost of a brand new aftermarket rear shock, so will go with the well-known SV upgrade of fitting a ZX-6R shock instead. Just need to find one at the right price...

Dave, i've got a spare ZX6 shock you can have, the curvy was sold before i got round to fitting it.
Free to collect in Cheshire or i'm happy to post it.

 

[MDM]

Thanks Chris - the irony is that yesterday's post included a ZX-6R shock...

 

[chrisexup]

:homer: Doh! Isn't that always the way =0/

 

[chrisexup]

:homer: Doh!
...isn't that always the way =0)

 

[MDM]

The five minute swap over of standard to ZX-6R shock wasn't quite that fast. The aluminium undertray I made needs to be relieved to give space for the reservoir on the Kawa shock, and as the Kawa shock has an aluminium fork at the bottom end, I needed a longer bolt, which then created an interference fit with the dog bones, so I need to cut down the bolt so it is only just long enough for the locking nut to fit, and maybe also add some spacers to the dog bones, otherwise I have a hardtail SV track bike...

 

[yantosh]

ripples in the pond mate

 

[MDM]

Ripples, ripply ripples.... fuckers.

Only able to cut down the shock lower bolt by how much I could cut the nut down, which amounted to not enough... So then made some spacer washers from 3mm ali plate. Which should be easy enough, but for the fact that my 25mm hole saw, to make the spacer, was about as adept as cutting through the ali as my teeth... all told, to cut two spacers took four hours. 4 fucking hours that I'll not get back!
(Note to self - buy some proper quality hole saws instead of the cheap shit you've got)

 

[yantosh]

or phone a friend......

 

[MDM]

Undertray modified to give the ZX-6R shock a 'peekaboo'...
(hmm, can't attach image right now, will try later...)

 

[yantosh]

make with the peekaboo pics guv arty-smiley:

 

[MDM]

Peekaboo...

 

[MDM]

That pic doesn't have the little 'guard that bolts to the arm and stops shite getting on the shock, but that'll be fitted again tonight.

 

[MDM]

And I've modified the bellypan so that it has a little bulge tat should hopefully stop the exhaust from burning it... hopefully...

 

[yantosh]

where's the pics maaaaan

 

[MDM]

Pics when I've refitted it ;-)

 

[MDM]

Delays and delays...
Back at it, the SV has been out to a trackday (well, evening) and seemed to go okay, although the couple of days previous had seen some frantic panicking to get it 'ready'...
The battery that I had been using clearly was nowhere near powerful enough (something like 50CCA where standard is, I think, 80) so I sourced a flyweight lithium battery of the same size that has more ooomph.
The same size?... When it arrived it was bigger, although really light. It felt like it was just aplastic box with no innards. So, battery tray reintroduced to Mr Grinder, some bending in the vice, and the battery fits. Some rejiggling of wiring to fit (the terminlas were, of course, the opposite to the other battery) and it fired up sweet as a nut.
Well, it fired up. Coughed. Farted. Stalled,
Would just about run on one cylinder. Ish.
Old fuel, of course.
Carbs off, float bowls cleas as, but pilot jets blocked. Cleaned, reassembled and a little bit better.
Carbs back off, pilot jets, blocked again (!), reassembled and better, but popping through the exhaust if held a bit above tickover. This was the night before the trackday so I decided that it'd have to do, and hope that it would pass the noise test with the popping...
No rev counter, so the noise test "at 5 and a half thou please" was guessed at, and he let it through, with a warning to have a tacho next time...
Out on track and it just stated to run better and better through each session! Ace!