Re: SR250 Brat/Street Tracker - First Build (aka Little Trouble Kid) [PIC HEAVY]
Thanks Brodie.
It's been a while again. Spent my holiday trying to finish the bike, then ran into some troubles with the electrics, then got sick, and now she's still waiting to be finished. She's about 90% ready i guess.
So, how did i spend my holiday? Getting up at 7am, getting my hands greasy and quitting at 10pm, every single day for two weeks. Had a lot of problems along the way, but she is turning out nice. First things first, lets start where we left off.
After the filler and primer, the dents were still visible, albeit very faint. So refilled the smaller dents and scratches, and had to reprime because sanding after filling took off some primer to the bare metal.
New coat of primer:
If you look at it under the wrong lighting conditions, the filler is still a bit visible, but couldn't get to spending more time on it.
After the primer i shot it with some coats of gunmetal grey metallic, and placed the decals: (the tape was for alignment purposes)
Next up it was time for some shiny protection: 2K clear coat.
First few coats went on fine, but when i wanted to move the tank to the basement for curing, all went downhill.
Got some dust, spidereggs (!!) and all sorts of crap in there. So tried to get out most of it and respray the spots because the top coat was still wet.
The final results after curing were one drip (from the respray), 2 black particles under the layer of clearcoat, and no (or not enough) clearcoat under one side of the tank, but all in all it's not that bad. Lesson learned for the respray during winter season
Love those flakes, shame for the dirt and drips:
Vinyl is a bit thick too:
The drip:
Then my holiday started and i got a phone call from my powdercoat guy: my parts were ready. Just in time!
A nice, thick, satin black. Everything looked brand new. Only had to spent 4 days getting of the protective plates and nuts, including the liquid sealant. This was the hardest to come off, and had to use a markingpen to remove it scratch by scratch.
Fresh powdercoated pieces:
When all was ready to be mounted, i started with the wheels. Respoking, truing and balancing, mounting tyres and setting up the brakes.
Lost quite some time on this one. Had the spokes on backwards (pattern), so had to redo the rear wheel. Truing went well. The maximum horizontal and vertical runout was 2mm. Had to spent 2 evenings on this one, but got it down to +0.7 and -0.7mm, so maximum runout was 1.4mm.
Mounting the wheels with spoons was another problem. Rear one was doable, but the front one was near impossible. Managed to puncture the inner tube, so had to redo that one, managed to repuncture the tube, had to redo-redo, and two days later i noticed i had a front flat, so decided to take it into the shop and have them fix it for me. 2 minutes later and 30$ lighter all was fixed
All parts coated, wheels built, … Only thing i had to do next was clean the engine, apply a fresh coat of paint and mount everything back together.
Taped off everything that couldn't be painted, cleaned the engine with engine degreaser, sanded some rough spots and went nuts with the VHT engine enamel, satin black:
Almost brand new:
To finish it off i used some stainless allen bolts, and semi-polished/sanded the covers and some fins.
So, on to mounting phase one: Frame over the engine, and mounting the front-end:
She's a roller now:
Now, this thing will still have to prove itself once i can get her out for a test ride. The battery box is mounted on the swing arm (2 bolts right through). It is a little off-centre, to compensate for the chain, but it's a tight fit. The clearance between the chain is around 6-7mm, and at it's tightest gap, around 4mm. But whatever i try the chain doesn't seem to touch the battery box:
These springs had to wait a long time, but finally they're back into place and looking like they belong:
And a first view from the cockpit:
There were still some things to be manufactured. First up was the bracket for mounting the rear light, made from 2mm sheet steel. The second was a bracket for the front light. This was made out of a 6mm aluminum bracket, because the 2mm sheet had to much vibration from the weight of the front light.
Only thing left to do now is redoing the wiring, mounting some final pieces and she's ready, right? Wrong. Spent 4 days rewiring all the electrics, then tested it, and some crazy electrical voodoo got hold of the wiring. It's not easy to explain what's wrong with it, and it's quite long, so i'm going to save it for part 2 of this post. For now i think you'll all get by with this pic heavy post