NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

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bikemonkey
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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by bikemonkey » Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:19 pm

Ah, I used the same set first time I did the mod.

Your headlight bulbs will melt the plastic....

I replaced my melted ones with CCFL circular tube lights. They came with a plastic case but it was easy to remove and they mounted inside the headlights bare.

Been a while since I used them as the NC is now a trackbike, but they're still kicking

EDIT: think it was these, can't be sure though

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HALO-RINGS-A ... OSwLVZVy2D~

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by NGneer » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:57 am

peterm wrote:
Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:22 pm
NGneer
How did you clean the bearing surfaces up after nickel plating on the rear axle / shaft ?
To be honest...nothing. The zinc coating is only a few microns think so no issues with fitting and I can't see see it being an issue.
I guess time will tell :? :pray:

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by NGneer » Sat Feb 03, 2018 10:00 am

bikemonkey wrote:
Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:19 pm
Ah, I used the same set first time I did the mod.

Your headlight bulbs will melt the plastic....

I replaced my melted ones with CCFL circular tube lights. They came with a plastic case but it was easy to remove and they mounted inside the headlights bare.

Been a while since I used them as the NC is now a trackbike, but they're still kicking

EDIT: think it was these, can't be sure though

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HALO-RINGS-A ... OSwLVZVy2D~
Well to borrow a phrase from James May….”Oh Cock!” :(

Looking back through your thread Oli I think it might have been there that I got the idea in the first place…so I am blaming you now ;) . Sods law I had just spent an evening in the garage modifying the cables to fit the Angel Eye connectors.

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Thankfully when I decided to do this modification, I picked up a spare pair of lights to do it to, so I could keep the originals just in case I ever wanted to go back to standard. Plus as I never throw anything away, I still had the OEM sidelight bits I had recently cut off.

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The cables have now been reverse modified back to original and the original lights (including the normal sidelights) are back in play.

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I could get some of the ones you mentioned, but to be honest; when I did them in the first place it was just a little project to keep idle hands that had nothing else to tinker with, busy. At the moment those hands have plenty of other stuff to do – so OEM it is. :grin:

Whilst I had all my electrics fettling kit out I decided to do some other stuff that had been on the to do list. Whilst working fine, my coils were minging and whilst I can’t remember where or why, but somewhere along the line I had also picked up a new set of HT leads.

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So the coils were given a good clean, all the connecters polished up and the new HT leads fitted.

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Again, just because I had the electrical stuff out I got around to pinching the plug off the original rear brake micro switch and splicing it onto the pressure switch I will need for the rear-sets that are on the way and should hopefully turn up this week. :pray:

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by peterm » Wed Feb 07, 2018 7:06 pm

To be honest...nothing. The zinc coating is only a few microns think so no issues with fitting and I can't see see it being an issue.
I guess time will tell :? :pray:


Ok many thanks !

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by NGneer » Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:47 am

Well finally my new rear-sets turned up and I also had a day of work so I thought it was going to be a good day to crack on a bit. Unfortunately it was -9 degrees in the morning and even by midday it was still about -4 :( . As such the little fan heater in my draughty metal box of a garage really wasn’t going to be enough to make it a good day for being in the garage. Determined to do what I could I unboxed my rear-sets and fixed on the rear master cylinder and HRC reservoir.
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I had picked up a carbon fibre heat shield along the way and had always intended fitting that, but discovered that there are no corresponding holes on the SES rear-sets for the heat shield mounting bolts – which reasonably enough are set up for OEM rear-sets.
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Hmmmm – “bugger” thought I, but not wanting to waste the carbon heat shield, popped into the shed and briefly woke the other bike up from its winter hibernation for a quick carbon upgrade.
Before:
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After
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By this time I could no longer feel my feet or fingers and realised I had to admit the cold had beaten me for today so headed inside to thaw out :down:

My “spare” bits have found homes in various areas of the house including the Keller where I have stored my wheels and tyres, along with the summer wheels/tyres for our cars (German rules). It has been annoying me for a while that it was a bit of a mess down there so being frozen out of my garage for the day I popped down to the local equivalent of B&Q picked up some brackets and set about organising my wheel room better. A little bit OCD maybe, but it makes me happy :grin:
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I may need to think about thinning the herd at some point considering I only have two bikes and one of those already has a set of wheels fitted - Hmmm :?

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by NGneer » Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:37 am

So today I have another day off work (due to local festivities) but again it is f*****g Baltic outside so it is not going to be a full day out in the garage as I had hoped :( . However, as often happens with me, a moment of inspiration struck me at about 4am :idea: . Whilst swapping over the heat shield on my running bike I had noticed that the OEM item actually has x3 mounting points as oppose to the x2 that are on the smaller Carbon item and the third one on the OEM heat shied actually fastens to the frame as oppose to the rear-set. My initial though was “is it possibly to fit an OEM heat shield with the SES rear-sets using just the top bolt, ie would this be secure enough”. I thought I would have a play around and see if this was an option and if it was, then I could think about getting the heat shield powder coated or painted etc before fitting it properly. I figured I should be able to get that done at least before I froze again.

Having fitted the heat shield with just the top bolt it was …..ok I suppose and would probably have worked fine, but I am a bit of a pedant and wasn’t happy with it so was looking for a way to secure it better. I then looked at the SES rear-sets again and noticed the two threaded (but unused) holes on the upper arm. “Hmmm - could I pick up one, or both, of those holes and then secure the heat shield on there as well”. As the heat shield was held in place by the top bolt it wasn’t too difficult to line everything up and drill through the threaded holes using a small drill into the heat shield. Heat shield then removed, back on the bench and holes opened up to 6mm.
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I would obviously need some 6mm bolts, and some form of spacer as there is quite a gap between the rear-set and the heat shield at this point, so I went for a rummage amongst my 6mm bolts.

About this point I had another moment of inspiration :idea: (two in one day is good going for me). “Now that I had the location of the required holes on the OEM heat shield, could I use that to transfer to the Carbon fibre one”? Back down to the shed, carbon fibre shield removed from running bike and in short, the answer was yes. (It was actually done with the Carbon shield behind the OEM one….but you get the idea ;) ).
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Nothing I had in my bolts box was really going to fit the bill for what I needed, particularly the spacer element. So a quick trip down to the local B&Q equivalent and I had what I needed, and all for less than 3 euros.
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All fitted and it is solid as a rock – result. :grin:
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I will see what the clearance is like when I finally get around to fitting an exhaust system, but I can always just cut down the barrel nuts and bolts if required to provide a bit more space behind.
Fingers and toes were like blocks of ice by this point, but before heading back indoors to thaw out I managed to finish of by giving the OEM heat shield a quick rub over with some Autosol and refitted it to the running bike so that one is ready to go whenever the opportunity arises.
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Just need some petrol and about a 15-degree increase in the temperature now. :pray:

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by NGneer » Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:03 pm

Well having enjoyed a few days in Luxembourg (very nice by the way) today was the last day of my long weekend off work and with the Mrs already back in work I had the chance to spend some time back in the garage. 8-)

To be honest I am starting to get to the point where I am waiting on “stuff” to allow me to progress in a number of areas so I am currently down to cleaning / polishing and painting whilst I wait. Having said that today was the first day for ages with a little bit of sunshine & warmth so I grabbed my chances to do a little bit of spraying that has been on the ‘To Do’ list.

You might recall my cooling system components that were looking…less than sparkling to say the least. :(
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Well I took the water pump(s) to work and shoved them through the ultrasonic bath there, which helped massively. I then fetched them home and had a couple of sessions in the garage (before the fingers got too numb) with a soft brass wire wheel and got the components looking much better.
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I could have left them at that but as I am waiting on other bits to progress other areas I thought I would give them the full works. A bit of sunshine today meant the apple tree in the garden could be utilised as an external spray area. :whistle:
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A couple of coats later and some clear lacquer and they are looking pretty good. They should at least sit well with some new hoses ….when I get that far.
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Just waiting on bits now – or some warmer weather so I can get out on the other bike :pray:

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by bikemonkey » Tue Feb 13, 2018 10:25 pm

You know, those shiny cooling system bits deserve some stealth black samco hoses :whistle:

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by NGneer » Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:27 am

bikemonkey wrote:
Tue Feb 13, 2018 10:25 pm
You know, those shiny cooling system bits deserve some stealth black samco hoses :whistle:
Samco..yes, stealth black...no (a set of standard blue are on order).
Whilst I like to be different and would normally veer away from the ever popular blue, I think the colourwill better compliment the scheme I am going for in the end ;)

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Re: NGneers NC30 build thread (8 years + in the making)

Post by NGneer » Sun Mar 04, 2018 12:42 pm

I haven’t updated this thread for a while as I have been busy with work and also have been trying to decide how to proceed after a major set back with the project. :(

Whilst I had a good running engine to start with my plan was to give it a full pull through and refresh, with the addition of some trick bits. I figured that it had survived for nearly 30 years, so with a full refresh it should be good enough to outlast my remaining NC30 biking days.

One of the key elements of this engine refresh was the (rarer than unicorn poo) +1mm Omega pistons I had managed to acquire back in about 2012 :drool: :drool: :drool: .
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From what the guy selling them said, and following subsequent conversations with Mike Norman, it would appear Mike commissioned a couple of sets of bespoke pistons from Omega for G-Force racing. These were duly shipped out to California, but it would appear another set or two might have been made at the same time and made it onto the open market very much by the back door. Anyway I got them and have been planning to fit them as part of an engine overhaul ever since.

Having stripped the engine I needed to get my upper crankcase and pistons to TTS in the UK to get the cylinders re-bored to fit. Being in Germany I was a bit wary of posting stuff from over here so waited until my parents visited. I packaged up the crankcase and pistons (well) and they hand carried them back with them to the UK. Once there they organised for a courier to pick them up and take them the 50 miles to Graeme France, who had agreed to take my stuff to TTS along with his stuff the next time he was going down.

All was going well with the cunning plan until Hermes deliver the box to Graeme’s place looking a bit battered. Upon inspection inside this is what Graeme found: :o :scare: :Puke:

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The technical engineering term is “Proper F****d” and of course as the upper and lower crank cases are a matched pair, this has effectively now rendered the rest of the engine … scrap, or spare bits at best. As such the rest of the engine has been nailed back together where possible, or just packaged up into relevant packages for spare bits (clutch, crank & Pistons etc). :(

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Whilst this has given me my workbench back, it does leave me an engine down and even if I do manage to crack the Hermes claim process, I will only get 100 quid back. After all it was a metal component, well packed in a robust box so what could possibly go wrong, thus I didn't feel the need for the supper expensive additional insurance. Guess I never figured on the Hermes factor :cry:

Thankfully I do actually have a spare engine laying around. This one actually came out of Graeme Frances personal bike a few years ago and was forming a key part of my planned 3rd bike.

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Having this does mean I can at least carry on with my project but has kind of pulled the plug on bike no3. In addition I have no desire to strip down yet another good working engine just to try and fit the trick +1mm pistons and risk something similar happening again. Looks like I will either have some very expensive bling collecting dust in my garage in the form of the unused Omega pistons, or I might actually bite the bullet and sell them on to someone who can use them.

I had even been thinking of getting the engine soda blasted whilst it was all apart and giving it a fresh coat of paint to really tart it up – but now I think I will just take the spare engine to work and settle for just giving it a good clean instead. At least having an engine to play with means I can get that fitted and move forward with the project a bit.

I have a trip back to the UK at the end of the month and hopefully I will be getting some new rubber fitted as well as collecting some other bits from Graeme / Rick which will facilitate some more rapid progress and get the build back on track at least

Trying my best to be positive and find something good to report……at least my new knee sliders have turned up ready for Cadwell in June.
Before:
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After:
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Time to flip the tables and a chance for me to grind the RAF down for a change ;)


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