GS1100g Cafe Racer - Project Romesy

[oohsam]

Hello my good friends.
I have been missing a while....Not becuase I do not want to work on Romesy, more that it was the Holy month of Ramadan, for the past month, which has no just ended. It's hard to allocate any time to work on the bike, as I'm fasting all day. I break my fast at sunset and then head off to the mosque to spend about 2 hours praying. By the time I come home, its pretty late and I just want to sleep.


I did however manage to get quite a bit of work done in the past week (since ramadan was finished a week ago!).


Fitted rear swingarm, assembled shaft, assemblred new shaft spleen to wheel, installed new bearings etc. The PO was missing some spacers from the rear axle, so I'm waiting on some I bought from Canada (Ebay) to arrive. Should be here today or tomorrow...





Painted Forks matte black (and triple tee)...nice.





Fitted front forks...nice







The front end of this bike is getting a brake upgrade. The original brakes are terrible, so its getting the kawasaki ZG1000 twinpot brake upgrade. Drilled out CBR disc mounting holes to 8mm (pattern is the same) Fitted front wheel bearings, fitted front wheel. Scratched the forks a little, so I had to touch that up...fitted the side stand. I'm not fitting the centre stand. Although its useful, i think it looks worse than its practacillity....





Also installed the handlebars but didn't take a pic of that yet. Its starting to look like a bike now.
I started overhauling the ZG1000 calipers. I'm missing a little spring clip so I had to order that, but in the meantime they are getting a good clean. Got some new pads to put on it then they get fitted and for the first time since I had the bike, I should have some brakes! yay!


Also waiting on the entire bolt set to fit the rear shocks. again, the PO didnt have the bolts/spacers/washers etc required. So they are coming from the U.S....hence why the rear end is resting on the rear tyre....which I might add are new Pirelli's  Got them cheap from ebay in Sydney. Only paid 20bux shipping to Melbourne.! Oh yeah.

[oohsam]

Front brake fitted.......Kawasaki ZG1000 calipers...Honda CBR900RR rotors...oh yeah.
Cant wait to give these things a go

[haplo_84]

Man those things look so freaking mean that when you pull the brake lever in you'll flip over the handle bars!

[Hoosier Daddy]

Looks like a Bitch to bleed though.
HA-ha-ha-ha!
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.
.
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Sorry, inside joke 

[teazer]

Are those calipers on the correct sides? The bleed nipple should be on top.

Wait until you grab some brake and the forks feel like they are bending like they are made of bamboo.  Nice to see a bright red frame again.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Are those calipers on the correct sides? The bleed nipple should be on top.

Good eye teazer, I sent him a PM on another forum asking the same question. He an I been working on bleeding his brakes from the M/C down... then I saw the same as you.

[oohsam]

W00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000t!


Sorry for the excitement. It turns out that Hoosier, sent me a PM, possibly to avoid embarrassing me...about my bleeding issue on my calipers.


Firstly. He pointed out that my bleeder in the previous pics, are on the bottom of the caliper. They should be up the top...I put them on the wrong sides, and thus, upside down, and thus allowing the air to be trapped up the top and i was bleeding from the bottom.


I swapped them when i got home from work, and 5 mins of bleeding, I had a rock solid brake lever. I spent days on this, with nothing, then 5 mins of it (the right way up) and I have brakes as solid as boulder.


Thanks Hoosier! Life saver wont be making that mistake again lol
here is the latest...






Just continuing assembly...


So, when I build my new rearset mounts to take the rearsets off a GSXR, I fabricated some new mounts, worked out the height I wanted, and spot welded the brackets. Then I fitted the rearsets and made some adjustments and continued to weld the brackets.
I was very happy with the result.


When I went to fit the rearsets today, I realised the rearset linkage was a tad short, so I got some 6mm rod, cut to size and welded it to the linkage...all went well...







Until I kicked up the kickstand   :O oh oh...
I never, ever, during fabrication kicked up the stand with the rearsets mounted, so I have a slight issue.





Top View...The actual kickstand will clear the gear lever and linkage so it should be ok.





After looking at my R6, I realised this is a common issue so they resolved it by placing the kick bar half way up the stand...I wish I tested this before becuase now i have to cut off the kick bar, and weld it half way up the stand, which means the powdercoat will be ruinined. So I'm just going to sandblast it down to raw, and after its fixed Ill paint it black...Not so bad.


More on this later

[cafematty]

I like a black kickstand anyway.

[oohsam]

Yes mee too! ha!


Hey Matt, I've been going over paint ideas for my tank/seat.
I am sorta infatuated with ur airhead paint scheme. Do you mind if I 'steal' your idea...


They say imitation is flattery, so...... 

[oohsam]

So I decided I should get this kickstand sorted out before anything else.
It was tricky as I had to leave it on whilst I determined the best
a) location while stand is up
b) location while stand is down
c) tack it on so I can complete the weld


I never weld flat | flat..there is always a V cut out of the metal I weld so I can get a good bond in both peices of steel Im welding. The only issue is its really hard to keep a piece in the same place while welding...and my magnet had no affect on the round steel.


Yes..I know what it looks like ya filthy mongrels! Fancy welding I say !





Ended up getting it done with a few cuss words and a few little hot pieces of weld on me !!











Looks ok in black me thinks. In hindsight, I probably should have moved the kicker down 1-2cms so its lower than the centre to help it swivel...but it sorta works well enough for me. meh...



While I was at it, I thought I should start rebuilding the rear caliper as its in a sick state.
Got it for 25 bux on peebay.
Here's what it looked like when I pulled it apart...











And now...








My worst fears, one of the pistons has a really deep gash type pit in it. Its un-useable. The other piston came out ok.





Basically pulled them out and soaked them in CLR for about 5 hours. Cleaned up good, there's still a tiny bit of cleaning left to do in the piston chamber but its pretty darn good.


Called suzuki today, they said the pistons are in stock and they cost 80 dollars for a pair. unfortunately thats more than im willing to part with..So ill have to take alternative measures...watch this space on the rest of my caliper rebuild.


On she goes!

[rat_ cxn]

before you apply stripper you have to scratch the paint up good and propper with either some 40 g sand paper or a screw driver.. this way the stripper will get right under the paint layers and lift the whole lot off at once.. Also after you apply the stripper cover the whole tank in plastic to seal the stripper in for about an hour.. then it will come off easy

[oohsam]

Huh? Whats this in reply to ?

[rat_ cxn]

oh oops sorry i was just replying to a post on your first page as i thought i was on the last page of your build.. my bad, 

[oohsam]

haha all good. There's a few more pages for ya to read

[rat_ cxn]

i used to have a 1100g years ago and it was faaast!! i managed a 10.19 1/4 mile on avgass. Ofcorce it was not stock. It was always spitting starter clutches because it had to much compression