Caff 500

Rainy Days

2010-06-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

'I love it when a plan comes together', or at least I love it when I try something out and it works. For example, the home made tool for getting the damper out of the fork tube (though I can't take any credit for ingenuity, that all goes to the chaps on the SR500 Forum pages). It has been a great weekend, plenty of time in the garage due to the crappy weather, and whenever I wasn't up to my elbows in grease, there was football to be watched! Lovin' it!

Ahem, for starters...a lovely polished triple clamp

Followed by a side serving of shiny calipers

And a cylinder head.

Midway through dismantling the forks.

Forks completely disembowlled, with special damper tool in the middle.

Stripping the chipped clear coat off of the lower fork legs, ready to be polished and have a new clear coat applied.

My first view of the heart of the beast, a bit nervous at what I might find.

And to my huge relief, everything was intact and the bore was as smooth as a cuban pimp. Now I just need to clean out the carbon deposits and check the gaps on the cylinder wall. Looks like the smoke in the exhaust when I first kicked the bike over was residual oil/old gaskets/or wrong carb/valve settings. The piston looks nice after a good buffing

The next stage...tbc

2010-05-10T10:45:00.002-07:00

Check out the new background! Nice to keep things fresh :D

2010-05-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

I have been umming and ahhing about what colour I want to do the wheels on the bike. I thought that leaving them as they were was a bit boring, and stripping them down to the alloy was a bit too BMW (eughhhh!). So I think I might go with a nice retro-cream finish with the tank decals the same colour. Also, I saw a bike with the same original seat/tail combination and thought that looked a bit crap, so I have re-done the image with a nicer seat and a new lamp. What do you think?

Back to the frontline :)

2010-05-09T00:10:00.000-07:00

Was a fairly productive weekend, managed to find all the engine covers from under the piles of junk, and set about giving them a clean. When the wife asked where I was heading I replied, 'I'm off to the garage to give my bits a good rubbing, hehe'. Joking aside though, there really is nothing more satisfying than taking a dirty piece of metal and making it shine till you can see your reflection in it!

Before...

introducing: the beast...

and after...

stripping the clamps

'I'm so shiny, look at me shine!'

The only way to replace all the elbow grease needed for polishing - a nice cold beer :)

2010-02-28T05:27:00.000-08:00

It has been a very long, cold and hard winter, but the snow is melting and the flowers are a-bloomin'. Nearly time to get back into the garage now that the temperature is above -5°!! Plus, the motorcyclists are already out and about which is making me want to get on with the project. I ordered some new forks and a swingarm which I received a while ago, so now I can think about getting some stuff powder coated. Then there is the engine strip down to be getting on with (which I shall be approaching with much trepidation). I'll try and get some more photos up soon.

2009-11-21T14:21:00.001-08:00

I don't think I mentioned that I ran into a major obstacle with the swingarm bolt. The bolt itself rotates within a metal sleeve within the swingarm pivot and with bearings at both ends. I knew from reading about similar projects that the SR500 swingarm bolt was prone to seizure and that there were a number of methods for removing the bolt. Well, I tried all of them and it just didn't work - so I had to resort to cutting the whole swingarm into pieces to remove it! As dramatic as this sounds, it was bloody good fun, sparks everywhere wheeeheee :D

(oh, and in case you are wondering, that is a bread mixing machine in the background, not mine)

2009-11-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

I have finally managed to start making some headway on the bike again after quite a long pause. Mainly because I have been busy every weekend, but it was also bloody cold for a couple of weeks! I proudly present...a spanking clean fuel tap :)

a cleaned and repainted front disc...(still with the masking tape on)

and wheels without the tyres (which were rock hard and useless) waiting to be cleaned and powder coated

An Honorable mention...

2009-10-10T12:52:00.001-07:00

I paid a visit to the Street Fighters shop in Interlaken last week, and I have to say that you would be hard pressed trying to find nicer and more helpful people! I must have spent an hour in the shop just chatting with Andreas about the project and asking silly questions, and being patiently and competently answered. These guys are excellent, if you are ever in Interlaken then go and visit the shop, or check them out online Street Fighters (make sure you have a look at their 'TEN' custom build, sick!)

First problems

2009-10-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

Now that I have had the chance to have a look at all the parts, I have also found the first few problems. The first being a bent fork stanchion which will need replacing. After I got the motor out of the frame and could get a good look at the underneath of the bike, I noticed that one of the center stand mounts had been ripped away from the frame. Not really a big issue as I was going to chop them off anyway! :)And last but not least, the bl***y oil filter bolt just will not move, plus it's a b*gger to get to! Patience...

Down to the last few bolts...

2009-10-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

So, the bike is now totally disassembled with all the parts strewn under my workbench in the garage. Something that I have realised a bit too late is that I should have given the bike a good steam clean before I started taking it apart, as now I have grime and sump oil all over my garage floor. Oh well, I'll have to save that bit of wisdom for the next project!

The end result...

2009-10-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

Should look something like this:

Finally down to the nitty-gritty

2009-10-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

Just look at how tidy my garage is! It hasn't been this clean since we first moved in (though this is also partly due to my landlord asking if he can store an oven at the back). This is a Grease Monkey's dream, loads of space, loads of tools, and an old bike just begging to be taken apart :D

2009-10-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

This was on the way to the customs office in Bern. Because I came back so late from Germany I couldn't do it there and then when I crossed the border. But it has to be said, the chaps in Bern were very friendly and helpful, and apart from the cost, the import paperwork was painless.

Some more pictures of the beast

2009-10-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

2009-10-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

This was how the bike looked when I first picked it up, well almost. I couldn't resist it and had already stripped some of the stuff off of it. I'm not keen on the seat, that will be the next thing to go.

Twitter didn't really work...

2009-10-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

So, my experiment with blogging the project on Twitter didn't really work, mainly because you had to host pictures on Twitpic. So here goes again...