What better way to see in the new year than to get in the shed and get roasted doing some bike work.
First on the agenda was putting the copper washers on the manual cam chain tensioner. No idea why I hadn't done this earlier as I've been sitting on the copper washers for ages. I actually need to grab some M5 washers for the smaller bolt but I tested the concept with an M6:
No idea if it will hold the oil in, but keep your fingers crossed. I still need to fashion a plug for the front bolt hole, thinking an M10 x 10mm with another copper washer and some sealer Loctite (hopefully red would stand up to the heat of the motor).
Second on the agenda was seeing if I could mount my coils. Because of the fuel line pickups on the tank, the stock setup hit the coils and so I needed another option:
My solution was to mount the coils on the underside of the coil brackets. It has the coils a bit close to the top of the motor so I'm thinking I will fabricate some heat shields to go in between to stop the coils cooking too much:
Next up I grabbed some more PVC pipe from the local hardware store and set about getting the exhausts finished off. Used the tried and tested method of cutting angles and hot glueing them in the correct angle:
Used a much tighter angle out from under the swingarm to try and get as much clearance as possible (you'll also notice I put the oil pan back on too):
Much better, plus I will have the radius on the actual bends much wider so I can hug the tyre and swingarm even more, so I think I'll get a bit more clearance back then too:
Tested the lean angle and it's getting better, however this is without the rear shock compressed so I will still be looking to get a bit more clearance with the final thing:
It was at this stage I need a bit of a break from cutting PVC pipe and hot glue. I turned my attention to getting all the engine mounts finished off. The rear I was able to tweak as it wasn't lining up perfectly, an easy fix by reducing the width of the spacers and opening up the holes a touch. The front however wasn't lining up at all and it turned out one of the holes was not in the right place. Given they were CNC machined I would need to have them redone and so set to creating a template in cardboard:
All done and here you can see how far off one of the holes was:
Whilst I was feeling in the building mood I though I would press on with the exhausts and see if I could finish off the templates. I used the one I had created to make up another one as a mirror image and use that as a guide to get all the angles right. Surprising enough the mirror image was not that close to what was required and a fair chunk of adjustment had to be made to the length of the run out from the swingarm (shorter) and also the angles.
If I'm honest I wasn't really feeling the exhaust up until this point, however I persevered and kept tweaking it. Making sure it was symmetrical and also the angles matched from left to right. Took bloody ages and the more time I put into it the sweeter it got.
In the end it's fair to say the result is bloody close to what was in my minds eye all along (very exciting) and I'm sure once they're done in stainless with more gradual bends it will look fantastic. The left hand side still needs a bit of tweaking to get it tighter to the swingarm, but it's getting close!