Keep the postman busy

The postman's been sweating the hell out these days delivering part boxes to either my personal mailbox, work address or even my parent's home ...

Some Honda steering stem caps and washer for 929 CBR forks (plus a pen goodie, yoohoo !)

ZX7R fork seals (plus a keychain goodie, yoohoo !)

A spare ZX7R subframe that will serve as a racing seat unit support, hence it's going to be cut

A ZX10R lower fork clamp to start the mocking up front ends job with a fork swap as a target

Projects are still a bit stuck for now, but parts keep on coming, so there's no reason they linger for too long any more apart from a significant one : me having no sort of time to work on the bikes.

Racing battery

One of the easiest and quickest way to pull some weight off a motorcycle, as well as put a whole in your wallet, is to install a lightweight battery. There has been one in order for a month and it made it to the garage's door last week.

A standard ZX7R battery, say a Yuasa YT12B, weighs a heavy 4.09kg. The Racing Batteries RB240400 is as light as 1.05kg, which makes a full 3.04kg gain once installed.

Of course the tiny battery does not have the same dimensions as the standard one, causing a short head scratching moment during the installation process in order to attach it properly. Of course, there are some maintenance instructions that you should follow thoroughly so you don't damage the LiFePO4 battery permanently. But it's still an easy mod for a huge saving.

Now, to the pics. I put a well-known toy next to the RB240400 so everyone can figure out how small is this battery.

Racing Batteries recommend the use of a specific charger and suggest you get an Optimate Lithium battery tender. You can buy one direct from them.

The whole set came in what is certainly the worst packaged box that made its way to the garage last year.

Winter's hot track days

Forget the cold and windy winter and head south for a warm sunny trackday weekend. Some famous UK trackday promoters do offer a wide range of "European tracks" events, some taking place in Spain on their wide and fast MotoGP-approved tracks like Valencia, Jerez or Aragon.

So if you're track mule's ready to be waken early from its winter storage and if you've already recovered from last year's late high fat rate celebrations, then maybe one the following link might be of interest somehow :

- Focus Events

- Track Sense

- No Limits Trackdays

Of course there are some others around the place and most offer complete packages with flights and accommodations for the rider and hauling for his bike.

No Limits Trackdays' offering

Happy New Year

Happy new year everyone ! 

Memorable rides, hardly moving two-wheeled projects and a bit of track action is the least to expect from 2014. Keep an eye on this place as this is where these events will be reported. Well, if they only happen, that is ...

Wishing you all the best.

Stripping a fatty

The stripping process has begun last week. As always with this sort of operation, it may bring its own kind of nice surprises and disappointing finds. One rarely come without the other and there's no reason a 15 year-old green panzer would make an exception to the rule, as clean as it may look.

So off goes the fairing. The engine looks clean, so is the radiator. Unfortunately, the reason to this is that the latter has been repainted. So has the frame in order to cover what looks like a nasty solvent damage.

Right side, no real fuss. The cooler still looks too clean, but the rest is aged reasonably, down pipes included, and period related.

Up front, with air intake covers removed, the cowl shows a cracked light mount. It's worse than I imagined while still being fixable. It's not in the priority list anyway.

Finally, I found a way to shave some weight out of this old fatty. There's at least 1kg of rust packed in the tool set.

Front wheel shows signs of leaking fork seals.

Jake Holden's ZRX1224R Pikes Peak racer for sale !

Check this ad if you're after a neat bike. Real Pikes Peak contender and not one of the slowest !

Up FOR SALE: Jake Holden's custom ZRX1224R Pikes Peak racer! #ppihc #forsale #zrx #zrxoa #roadracing #epicbike $30k pic.twitter.com/txsoJ2jBFT
— SBK Factory (@SBKFactory) 25 Novembre 2013

Honda NR750

Came across these clean pics of the super rare 8-valved oval-pistoned Honda NR750. Enjoy !

Leaky front end

Among other thingies here and there when buying project Green Panzer, there was a leaking fork seal on the right leg. It wasn't that bad at the time of pushing the bike on the trailer in order to bring it home. But now that is sits on the bench, there's a big oily spot growing right under the brake caliper and I noticed the left inner tube was starting to feel greasy as well.

The front end needs a full rebuild anyway. And as later posts will show it's only just the beginning of other nastier finds. Hey, it's a 15 year-old fatty after all ...

Think Motorworks

There was the photo below attached to the last Motorworks promotional email.

If you're into a BMW project, especially into a airhead one, their huge stock and precise knowledge might come handy at some point. They were to me several times already, even though the project is an oilhead. Motorwoks would also be a useful address if you own a hexheads as they offer a full range accessories for recent flats.

The 2 scales trick

Weight is a sensitive topic when working on a ZX7R. There are loads of forum threads around the web quoting dozens of ways to address the heaviness issue with solutions ranging from "buy another bike" to "put yourself on a diet". Now there are some really interesting posts about how to really shave a couple of pounds out of a ZX7R, but you have to know where you're actually starting from.

I knew too much about the bike's real weight before buying, but I'm seeing this as challenging and am pretty sure there's potential to make this green Panzer tank behave. So to size up progress, I bought these 2 mechanical scales last week.

Then the work began. I put the ZXR on the bench, then on paddock stands to have both wheels raised enough from the ground to be able to slide the scales underneath.

With the scales positioned, it was time to measure out which, being alone, turned out to be a tricky operation. I had to lower down the front, then the back while trying to keep the bike up straight but my own weight away. Next time, I'll opt for a simple solution.

Time for the real figures now. The scales measured the bike's weight distribution as being settled this way :

- 112kg rear

- 107kg front

And that's being without a battery and with a drained fuel tank. So with a additional 4kg battery the ZX7R sets a new record high of 223kg. There's room for improvement so let's start the diet plan.