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

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 6:25 pm
by NGneer
I have been distracted from the project for a while through a mixture of work and stuff ......but more honestly due to the cracking weather, awesome roads out here and two other bikes to enjoy. :grin:

Anyway trying to get the project moving forward again I have been pondering my lack of electrical problem. By that I mean the fact I don't seem to have any of that electrickery stuff...or only a bit. When I turn on the ignition my newly grafted in Koso digital speedo does the fuel deflection thing and shows the neutral light...but that’s it. There is no power to anything else at all???

I think I am going to have to start by uninstalling the digital speedo and trying to get the electrics back on line in a more "standard" set up and then maybe look at grafting the digital speedo back in. At least by doing it more step by step I will have a chance to narrow down the source of the fault whereas now I just kind of know...it is on the bike somewhere :-(

Whilst thinking about my options (and following a good tidy up of the workshop) I decided to at least prep the replacement radiators I have for it. Refurbished fan and fan mount were fitted with a minimal bit of tweaking and all the mounting rubbers have been swapped over. I managed to forget the upper radiator protection mesh when I was getting things plastic coated but can't be bothered to put that in alone so I think I will be setting about that with the rotary wire brush and then some rattle cans.
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I also stumbled across a nice lightweight / magnetic sump plug amongst my box of shiny stuff and decided to fit that whilst I was going. Having drilled a small hole in one of the sump casting flanges, for the wire locking, I noticed a number of what appear to be small cracks in the side of the sump. :o :?
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Not sure if they are something to be properly concerned about or nothing....but as my other (spare) sump looks in much better condition, and I have a gasket laying around, I think I will be swapping that over as well - just to be sure.

Fingers crossed the electrical gremlin is not too much of a problem and I can get the momentum going again. :pray:

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

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 7:45 pm
by PB127CU
I wouldn't be too concerned about these,they are most likely casting marks.Seen them quite often and never had a problem.

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

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 6:48 pm
by NGneer
PB127CU wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 7:45 pm
I wouldn't be too concerned about these,they are most likely casting marks.Seen them quite often and never had a problem.

I must admit I thought the same but as I had another sump that looked better (and a sump gasket) laying around it seemed silly not to change it over.
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In addition whilst the sump was off I had access to the oil pump and associated bits. When I was planning to do the full engine rebuild I had got all new seals/gaskets for everything.
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As I now had access to the oil pump, pipes, relief valve etc it seemed silly not to pull them out, give them a clean, check and fresh set of seals before the replacement sump went on.
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Now that was all done, it was time to stop avoiding it, and actually address the elephant in the room that was my complete lack of electrickery :cry:
Now electrics are not my favourite thing and to start fault diagnosing things I figured I should get the system back to as close to 'standard' as possible first. As such I started by uninstalling the Koso digital speedo I had grafted in (in case that was causing the issue), an dchecked all the wires and connectors were good. Sadly nothing obvious there so it was out with the multimeter. Literally checking step by step from the battery to the ignition switch (check), feed to the Reg Rec (Check) feed to the fuse box......Hmmmm, I think I may have found the problem :oops:
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I forgot this was not the loom from the original (working) bike so had assumed that everything from the previous working bike was still there - Dohhh :roll:
I dug the old loom out then checked and transferred all the fuses into the fitted loom / fuse box.
ImageHorray - funny old thing but having plugged the fuses in everything seems to work properly again.

Muppet of the week award goes to me, but at least I am back on track and can crack on with the exhaust, Rads,and carbs....then I am getting close to to the moment of truth with some fuel and crossed fingers :pray:

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

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 8:54 am
by NGneer
Having got to the bottom of my "lack of electrickery" issue (dohhh!) it at least meant I could crack on with the next stages of the build.

It was time to break out and fit my spangly new carbs. Many thanks to Graeme France for these which had had a total strip and clean, new seal kit, full BZP to tin ware VB tray and float bowls, new jets to suit the HRC mapped Ignitech and HRC emulsions / short stacks. Nice :drool:

New carbs V's old carbs
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..and having gone to that much effort, I seemed rude not to also treat them to some new mounting rubbers, clips, suction hose and cables whilst i was at it.
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To be honest, with new rubbers and a spangly clean components I was expecting the carbs to slip on comparatively easily. No such luck, but after the standard half an hour or so of swearing and scuffed knuckles the finally slipped into place.
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Having got the carbs fitted it was time to dig out an exhaust. The one I have for this build is a full Ethos system which was acquired a few years ago when I was overseas again and it was in lovely condition when I found it, though with nothing else to do at the time I may have spent a little while "polishing my pipe" with the Autosol :oops: ;)
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The only problem with the exhaust was the inlet end of the end can which had been damaged and crudely fixed.
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This just wasn't going to do, so once again without access to a workshop at the time, I tapped into the wealth of 400GB skills out there and got one of the members on here who is a genuine wizard with metalwork to help me out. Whilst we were at it we decided to go for a full refurb, new carbon sleeve, packing etc and (with some more help from the 400GB brethren) managed to find some pucker Ethos exhaust badges which were added to one of the group "Webike" orders back then...and fitted.
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I had never had anything like this fitted before so never thought about it, but a free top tip for anyone out there fitting something similar.... fit the connectors to the exhaust ports BEFORE you fit the engine :whistle: It is still possible with the engine fitted, but trust me will involve another hour or so of swearing and scuffed knuckles.

With the exhaust fitted I could get the radiators fitted, the rest of the Samsco hoses and of course the compulsory HRC radiator expansion tank / overflow fitted.
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Having sat down with a coffee to ponder my next steps, it dawned on me that with some oil, coolant and fuel ...there was nothing stopping me pressing the button and seeing if there were now signs of life. Having filled the oil and coolant I rigged up my remote fuel tank and let the float chambers fill, then pressed the button......

....and for the first time in over 8 years.....

....IT'S ALIVE :twisted: !! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyqteVYEUVE)

Finishing of the brakes, fitting of chain and refitting the Kosso digital speedo I removed is next on the list.
:rocks:

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

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 9:04 am
by pptom
Good work, it's always a major milestone firing up a build for the first time.

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

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 12:14 pm
by CMSMJ1
I;ve been on here a long time. Have seen some great builds. This is a wonderful thread - kudos Ian for getting it all going.


That pipe - lols - bling de de blingy bling.

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

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 5:15 am
by blknoel
What a sweet build. That V4 purring into life must have felt so rewarding. And I will never be able to get over those Dymag 5 spoke wheels lol.

Congrats on your great efforts.

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

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 7:04 am
by NGneer
Cheers for the kind words and encouragement guys .......and thanks for pointing out how long we have been kicking around here Mark, I don’t feel old at all now – lol :sshh:

Having got the bike to fire up and sound pretty good I was onto catching up with some of the other outstanding jobs I had left to do. First on the list was to fit the new braided hoses and bleed the brakes through.

Amongst the stuff I had been building up and stockpiling over the past few years was tooling as well as just bike components. I figured that when I finally got around to building again it would be really nice to have the proper tool(s) to make things as easy as possible. Amongst my purchases was a vacuum bleeder kit so that was broken out for the first time and put to use. As both master cylinders had been overhauled as well as the callipers never mind the new hoses, it was going to be as difficult a bleed as possible with so much air in the system. Having got some brake fluid into the system a few pumps of the brakes managed to get enough fluid into the MC to lubricate the seals and at least get the MCs pumping and sealing. The vacuum pump is not (in my opinion) a total solution to brake bleeding, but trust me it certainly helps a lot. Using a mixture of the vacuum pump and the old school method I had both the front and rear brakes fully bled and feeling VERY good after about 30 minutes. :up:
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Having got the brakes done I turned my attention to the chain guard. After a fair bit of hunting I had finally managed to find a very nice looking carbon chain guard ‘with’ the tabs for the rear brake pipe clips, which is what I wanted. Having found a picture of the one I wanted ‘on line’ I got in touch with RSR Moto (www.rsrmoto.com) to Order it. Unfortunately there were none in stock and they were having some issues getting items from their suppliers. A bit disappointed as this was the only one I had found in the shape/style I liked so I kept hunting in slow time. However a few weeks later I got an e-mail from Paul Jordan (director of RSR Moto UK) informing me that amongst the last delivery of bits was x1 NC30 chain guard, and basically did I want first dibs. A nice bit of customer service in this day and age so the deal was done and I finally had my carbon chain guard. :grin:
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Whilst this had the tabs for the brake pipe securing clips, it didn’t actually have the clips. As such I drilled out the rivets on the clips from the OEM chain guard so they could be recycled.
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Obviously these had a lifetimes worth of gunk and grime on them so got a good clean up before going anywhere near the new chain guard. (they were actually a lot shinier than they look in the pictures 8-) )
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There are actually only x3 clips on the OEM guard but there were tabs/holes for x4 on the new one so having pinched a suitable bit of metal from the off-cuts bin at work I set about knocking up an extra one...
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…and then there were four.
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Out came the hand riveter and the refurbished clips were fitted to the new chain guard…
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…and finally the chain guard was test fitted to the bike.
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Whilst the chain guard is not fouling the rear 160 tyre, it still sits damn close :shock: so once I have checked/sorted any chain clearance issues I will be removing it once more and spending some quality time with my Dremmel to ensure there is proper clearance. :wink:

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

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 10:08 am
by CB1pod70
That is one lovely bike you're building there, the attention to detail is far more than I can ever be bothered with - keep up the good work

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

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 8:39 pm
by NGneer
It was time to start looking at putting a chain on the bike and addressing any clearance issues due to the 160 rear tyre that is fitted. I had both a new 525 chain and a 520 chain sat on my shelf but if possible wanted to use the 525 as I had 525 sprockets, and didn’t want to buy another set if I didn’t have to, pus I am a tart and like the gold of the 525 as oppose to the black of the 520 chain.

I laid the chain over the sprockets and even though it was not under tension, which would ohave pulled it a mm or so to the left, it was clearly too close to the tyre.
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Time to break out what I assume is a Rick Oliver chain spacer kit that had come along with the Dymags when I bought them ages ago. For those interested the kit is designed to step your sprockets (thus chain) over by 5mm.
The set consists of x3 rings of different sizes all of which are 5mm in thickness

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I began at the back end so started by removing the sprocket carrier from the axle.
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The large steel spacer goes over the axle so that it sits within the oil seal on the left side of the hub.
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Moving to the front. Remove speedo drive, the front sprocket cover and front sprocket.
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Fit the large alloy spacing washer behind the sprocket refit the front sprocket and then fit the smaller one against the end of the output shaft, under the head of the retaining bolt.
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Having refitted everything I laid the chain back on and though it is not the best picture, you can see there is now the required clearance between the chain and tyre.
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A bit of a problem here was that laying the chain on, the chain slider to try and check the clearance was that the centre rib was now 5mm to the right of the chain and was tending to ‘guide’ it back towards the tyre. I wasn’t sure if this would be an issue once the chain was properly fitted and under tension, but got in touch with Rick Oliver to see what his thoughts or experiences were. Rick replied and said
“The best thing I can say to you ref the chain slider is that when I started doing those conversions I used to assiduously trim off the centre rib so that it wasn`t `misguiding` the chain - then I tried leaving the one on my own bike unmodified and it didn`t seem to make the slightest difference so since then I haven`t bothered...”

Hmmmm – nice to have the reassurance from Rick, but it was still niggling me so I decided to whip the chain slider off and remover the centre rib, just for peace of mind.

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….and refitted ☺

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Having sorted that out the new chain was properly fitted and the clearance checked gain – result ☺

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Now the chain clearance had been sorted it was time to have a look at the chain guard, as this was VERY close to the wheel in places. Once again it was fitted and the areas where it was too close were marked up with a paint pen.
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Having done that out came my faithful Dremmel and the marked areas were removed.
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REMEMBER – if you are cutting or sanding Carbon fibre you REALLY do need a mask etc. If you inhale the dust and particles the body doesn’t recognise them a foreign because they are carbon and you (or most of you) are a carbon-based life form.

The fettled chain guard was fitted and I moved onto the next job, namely refitting the digital Koso speedo I had removed when I thought I was going to be tracking an elusive electrical gremlin. Having removed it previously I thought about a better (more elegant) way to do the wiring so started again from scratch. Sods law nothing worked afterwards but after much poking with a multimeter and re-fettling I finally got the thing refitted and working. I might be biased – but I do like it.
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I had got as far as adding some body work before the Mrs and Mother in law came home from their day out and I had to brake off for BBQ and drinking duties. This is where the project stands at the moment.

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