[Stinkwheel]

Thanks Katana,

Got sorted, project has progressed quite a lot in last few days. Now want different bits………….

Oil cooler and lines from GSX600/750F or bandit 6 or 12.
Exhaust downpipes from any of the above bikes or any 85-90 GSXR750.

Thanks Folks, nearly there now

[Stinkwheel]

i was told that MOT’s had gone up somewhat. i think 27 is bloody steep when it had been only 15 quid for so long, maybe step up to 22 or something but 27 straight off is taking advantage.

[Stinkwheel]

I have faced this with my step kids. My step daughter started coming out on the back when she was 16 and now doesnt live at home but still ocassionally wants to come for a blast round the block. My step son michael bought an ar50 for his 16th birthday but it turned out to be a shed so we got him a yamahe Neos 50 scooter thing more for transport than anything. I’ll be more than happy if he wants a 125 at 17. I see no problem with any of my 3 young’ uns wanting to ride a bike. Im happy to share my knowledge and teach them the basics. Bikes are sometimes dangerous a dn i’ve seen a few friend sover the years go down to these danagers but i would never deprive my step kids the pleasure of knowing about biking.

[Stinkwheel]

Radar, the F2 was and is a great bike and i do agree the earlier YPVS felt just that bit more special. Something to do with the ignition and the way it curved and peaked, yamaha wanted the F2 to be more reliable so lopped 500 rpm off its top revs and flattened the power curve just a little.

Im glad some of you have enjoyed reading the stuff wot i did writ Its probably no more or less exciting than plenty of others biking life, i think i benefitted working in the trade as it were for 5 years, you do lots of silly things on lots of bikes when you get the chance to ride them every day.

The VFR 750 did seem bland to start with but its one of those bikes you do 50 mmiles on and are pretty impressed with but do 250 and you will never really need anything else and the 96 on models until they became the 800 were best for hard riding as honda had lopped so much weight off.

The 96-99 bandits really are the one to have, i find it amazing how magazines and journalists put the older models down as being a bit pedestrian as i still defy a good majority of riders to get anywhere near the old bandits limits let alont eh lastest sports tackle. If you can do 130mph, grind your pegs and have a big grin on your face, what extra do you need really?

[Stinkwheel]

Hi again people, thanks for the encouragement and to thumper, TDR’s are great, i got another about 18 months ago but sold it after less than a year, i was going to hurt myself on that one, it was a bit tuned and i found myself going everywhere literally flat out, and this time it would never manage more than 60 miles on a tank but back to the story…………….

Yes a new 96 bandit was mine, for all of 6 months. I liked this a lot, it was like a cross between a modern bike and an older bike, and once i swapped the crappy bridgestone exedras for some proper sticky dunlop radials it handles like it should too. (same wheels as the RF600 so suzuki had no excuse for putting such rubbish bridgestone exedras on them from new) I ‘really’ learnt to ride on this one, hanging about with experianced bike trade people and other damn good riders like police motorcyclists meant you got some very good advice on where you were going wrong and how to be fast and smooth, which for a few years i was, fast and smooth, now im slow and crap, more of that later.
The suzuki had to have new footrests at one point as i had worn them away enought for the rubber inserts to fall out But a month old 1997 VFR750FV came into the showroom and i had the opportunity to buy it at trade in price, well, would have been rude not too. The VFR was the first bike i got my knee down on, silly and un-needed on the road but at the time in the 90’s it was all PB went on about and all my mates could do it, so, what the heck, your only 18 with a VFR750 once

I put about 6000 miles on this in about 3 months and i loved it to bits, but again i decided i was getting a bit too fast on the roads with this, so i downgraded (depending how you look at it) to a VFR400 NC30 road bike and a husky WR250 enduro bike for green lane fun (which a work mate had introduced me to on a borrowed XR250) I carried on riding until i was 21 when i A)changed jobs B)moved in with my girlfriend C)Bought a house. I didnt own a bike again until i was 24, just couldnt afford it.

The re-introduction was a grotty ex proddy race 350 YPVS F2. This was patched up, and MOT’d and i ventured out onto the roads again. It was a shock, a big shock.
I remembered how to ride a bike obviously and traffic etc wasnt much different but i just didnt have the confidence or ability to start with, the ability came back over the next couple of months but the confidence was slower and its only really the last year or so (5 years later on) that im back to having proper confidence in the bike, tyres and myself to really get the best out of biking again. My lay off was only just 3 years and 24 is no age at all to start riding bikes again but i now understand how the supposedly ‘born again’ bikers must feel sometimes after a decade or even 2 lay off and coming back to modern bikes.

Since i started riding again i’ve been through a few steeds, i guess its a throw back to the bike shop days of having a real variety of stuff to play on. So far the list reads…..350YPVS F2, TDR250, GS550e, RD125LC x 3, GS550e again, ZX6R. and i still have the gs550e which im modifying and also one of the 125LC’s and i think im about to but a VFR400 NC21 too, but watch this space. Have fun out there and most of all, ride safe.

[Stinkwheel]

Well thanks for the encouragement, so i may as well go onto ……..part2.

At this point I still have the 125 Superdream and have just left college and gone to work in a bike shop. Yes BMW main dealers and general used bike sales and service. I initially started as parts boy and worked up/sideways to parts manager, service manager and ocassional technician. (i think i was basically a dogsbody but i had plenty of perks – like getting to ride plenty of bikes)

So anyway, it became obvious i was bored silly with the honda so i sold it to a local guy, he seemed happy with it, no accounting for taste, so with the money from that and the fizzie (which had been sitting in the garge for months) part exed at a local back street dealer i did a deal for a 1985 Mk1 RD125LC. This was where it was at, That first day I was shouting and whooping to myself in my lid everytime it hit the powerband, now i understand why 2 strokes are my first love, this bike just got to me so much. I only had it for under a year but that thing taught me how to get round corners with some lean and speed, it taught me how to rebuild a water cooled 2 stroke motor (about 3 times i think) the most dumb of these being the time i couldnt figure where the oil was dripping from shortly after a reabuil, then at about 60mph it seized its crank solid. Yes the oil was coming from the autolube pipe that had come away from the stub on the carb. DOH!!!! that was the last (and most expensive) rebuild. At this point i passed my test. It was a little weird as because i worked in the BMW dealership i knew the examiner i had as we serviced the DSA test vehicles all the time. The other weird thing is that about 2 minutes into the test the radio link between us failed, apparantly as we had started he was obliged to give me the option to continue, so i just had to watch his indicators and go where he pointed. Amazingly i passed Time to buy a big bike then.
I saw an advert for an FZ600 locally, it had full loctite BSB paintjob and the loudest vance and hines can i had ever heard. Consider it bought. I rode it home in the heaviest rainstorm i had ever encountered, well i stayed on and it kept going, good omesns both or so i thought, shame that when my mate at work looked it over he noticed the fact it was burning oil cos’ the valvestem seals were shot and also that a couple of the header studs were broken. BUM. So the day after i buy it its consigned to the workshop and into many parts whilst my mate fitted in the full engine teardown and rebuild between ‘proper’ jobs.
Now the sensible thing to do would be wait until it was done right? No fun in that so i bought cash a 5 year old Yamaha TDR250 that we had just taken in part exchange. Must be good fun these i thought, like a twin cylinder 125LC right? Wrong, it was much more mental than that, much. This thing was a rip snorting hooligan machine. I gently rode it round the yard to get used to the controls then set off home, pulls up at some traffic lights, filters between cars as usual, Lights change and i give it a bit of stick, the tin box drivers wer etreated to the sight of a TDR250 on its back wheel with an barely in control and rather surprised me hanging on and hoping it all lands in a straight line, im here to type this so it must have done A bit more respect and a little while to learn the thing and It becomes apparant that the TDR is A) Fast very good for making you ride like a fool and C) Thirsty, 75 miles to a tank sound good?
I was quite pleased it took my mate 6 months to finish rebuilding the FZ600.
When the FZ was done i took it for a shake down test ride, guess what, camchain tensioner gasket failed and pee’d oil on the back tire. Glad i wasnt going silly as i would have been on my ear, that sorted i used the TDR and FZ in equal measure for another month or so, when a new bandit 600 took my eye i chopped them both in against it. I think this will be boring you all enough by now so I will leave it at that, stay tuned for part 3, sometime/somehwere soon.

[Stinkwheel]

you gotta look objectionably though………

I mean yes a ‘wetdream’ is a crap slow heavy bike, but people bought them in their thousands. Look back the bsa bantam was a slow peice of crap even for its time, they still sold them for years. the velocette LE was albut a total flop and they are a classic. Just because we dont like them doesnt mean they aint classic. i mean people thing allegros and marinas are classic cars for flips sake.

[Stinkwheel]

Well you guys are ahead of me,

I may finish the GS550 special, I may buy a NC21 VFR400 thats just come up and i may finish re-building the 125LC’s i have.

[Stinkwheel]

quote:

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Good work on the mono shock, are you confident the frame will be able to cope with the loads coming through one point rather than two?

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Im almost confident, but not quite, im going to gusset the frame and put a couple of bracing bars accross also.

I want to see how much space im going to need for some sort of airbox and battery etc first though.

[Stinkwheel]

More progress…………..

A few points first, I am really sorry ay how bad i am at taking pictures.
Im also really sorry my shed is such a mess and that i work in such a bloody awful messy way.
id like to point out that to get it to this point has cost me no more than 450 notes at this point, aim is to be MOT’d for 600 (well technically its still MOT’d but thats as a GS550.

Anyway,

today i bolted in the front end, total peice of cake, its a Bandit400 front with twin discs. It bolted straight in and even uses exactly the same size bearings, result.

The rear end is a bit more tricky, i decided to be a smart alec and not just use the Bandit400 swinger and weld twin shock mountings to it, i decided to transplant the whole mono rear end.

Armed with a tape measure, steel rule angle grinder and a welder i attcked the Bandit 400 frame. This left me with the upper shock mount and the lower mono linkage mounts.
These were measured, re-measured and finally tried against the GS550 frame, I got things as near as the GS frame allowed, very loosely tacked everything in place and bolted it all up, seemed OK so took it all out again and welded it all up.

Its a bit longer than the GS was, the rear swinger gives it a bit of a drag bike look, which i quite like, hope its not too long a wheelbase for out on the road but we shall see.

Will it all end in tears? Watch this space as they say.

[Stinkwheel]

I agree the sorn system is a bit crap, recently i’ve had similar situations (im also in northants) but the first letter has sorted it out.

[Stinkwheel]

Different, i think its ‘almost’ authentic looking. Bet that seat is a bit hard on the old chalfonts though.

[Stinkwheel]

A lot of the older jap 4’s used to suffer from noise like this. (i.e. GS, Z, CB etc)

your clutch suggestion is certainly a good one but also i would try getting the carbs balance properly (professionally or by someone who really knows what they are doing) as this used to cause a lot of uneven lumpiness that become noise from various places due to general imbalance.

Hope that helps.

[Stinkwheel]

Cheers Radar,

Im looking at changing the front end and a different rear wheel now also, watch this space

[Stinkwheel]

i had a honda camino as my first 50, anyone remeber them? it soon went in favour of one of the late FS1’s that was cool but my first 125 was an RD125LC, first time i hit the power band i was literally shouting and laughing inside my lid. That was it, bikes had me hooked forever

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