www.zxrworld.co.uk

need to get the tail unit and rear brake ordered...the old one was completely corroded...had to hacksaw it off! will probably get an R1 rear, as i am looking at an R6/R1 radial front at some point...

get the tail unit, then i can build the rear subframe and tail tidy. i will also make a one-off rear brake caliper holder, might try to copy the R1 where its a bar welded to the inside of the swingarm, or whether i will just get a small torsion arm made and mount it under the swingarm...im still undecided on a small rear hugger or not.

then its sorting out the rear shock (might go with a racing-type on with the compression on a thing that sits above the shock...you know what i mean), but if so i will need to mount the battery somewhere different...wanted to put it above the shock to mass-centralize a bit...will have to see if i can learn something like autocad and have a play about?

then i can get the rear electrics and all the relays/EXUP servo/CDI etc. relocated under the seat, again, want to get these just about under my butt, to get them forward.

its getting to the stage where i need to spend money now £114 (tail), £100 (frame powdercoat), £50 (misc welding), £100 (tooling), £150 (custom aly subframe)...dont tell the wife

TIME TO SPLIT THE CASES!







gave the frame a bit of a clean as well as the swingarm:-


never been this clean before...used to be covered in 5mm of thick, used, dirt-soaked chain wax...

ooohhh...





now to see if i can put it back together again

been cleaning up all the old oil and old gasket material from the crankcase half's, got half way through and was almost passing out from solvent fumes even though it was outdoors...i need an organic filter mask

upper crankcase half


when my plastigauge gets here i can start the rebuild

engine is back from the painters! cracking job...just wanna ride the damn thing now

ive also bought all of the engine internals that i can afford (basically everything except clutch plates/steels/springs), should be here soon, then i can fit everything and fire it up after all these months

parts are here and the rebuild has begun!


first difficult bit is getting the transmission forks to line up properly, a bit of swearing and it is assembled fine. turning it by hand i can get it to move from neutral to 1st to 2nd so thats all good! and ive made damn sure that the forks are definitely slotted in correctly so thats one hard bit out of the way.

got to refit the oil feedways and the bottom of the sump, then its ready for the next tricky bit, getting the pistons into the bores...am sourcing a ring compressor at the moment from a friend...and ive managed to sonicate clean an oil jet (shoots oil underneath the piston to cool/lube it) so thats saved us £30

i made my own piston ring compressor when rebuilding my rs125, either cable tie round the rigs, or cut up a coke bottle, cable tie it round the rings and twist so its almost coned shape to go up the barrels, a mate rebuilding an r6 engine did this and apparently it works on 4 strokes aswell? and transmission forks are a pain, had to do it on the mock cr250 engine build, i say mock, i mean chucked together, realised it would likely go bang and taken apart again, so now need full gasket, seals and bearing kits, will be fun when its done though

WOW!! That engine clean.

Who did the painting and how much did it cost?

a guy i know

£140 for clean and paint.

I'll clean your ZXR carbs for ~£25, PM me

Do you have any before and after pictures?

On the Zxr400 if you get a selector fork wrong it goes through all but 6th....Maybe worth checking all gears

YZF1000R wrote:

I'll clean your ZXR carbs for ~£25, PM me

Do you have any before and after pictures?

ask awacs, ive recently cleaned, sonicated and balanced a set of carbs for him in spain, im doing some at the moment for someone on here in birmingham - sorry its been a buys day, cant remember the username...

wes wrote:On the Zxr400 if you get a selector fork wrong it goes through all but 6th....Maybe worth checking all gears

just fitted the pistons into the bores, so it better be fucking working

am 99%, will be 100% when i get the bike fired up for the first time, i might give them a spin by hand again - ive not put the clutch basket on yet so ill give it another turn by hand.

but wait....



fu.ck yes!!

that looks bloody good! Makes me want to rebuild a bike from scratch now, but I need to sort out the 3 bikes ive got atm, and good to see the wire strippers still going! Not too bad for £2.50

valves are in the head, the two half's of the head have been mated together, the shims and buckets are in (its cam over bucket - none of this rocker nonsense), the cams are fitted and ive learnt how to do the timing properly - all the marks are forward of their intended positions by almost a whole cam tooth before you tension the chain...odd, but ive got it all marked now, so no more problems

pic is from before i put the cams and buckets on


checked the valve clearances, exhaust are all at the edge of being tight, so ill stick in a 0.05mm smaller shim on each, should make them bang on then - clearances are a lot bigger than the zxr, 0.21-0.30 exhaust, 0.11-0.20 inlet...but the inlets are all tight, some i cant even get my 0.0015" feeler gauge in...this is because they have all been refaced - ive got £45 of shims on order plus a few "odd" ones incase i need to increase some gaps even further...im expecting to be doing this 2-3 times so a fun weekend for me