Not a lot of progress with the project bike lately for a number of reasons. Having embraced the Honda Britain scheme I am now waiting on a set of decals to be produced and am also trying to get a set of wheels done in HRC(esq) gold. The wheels are currently in for blasting and then, hopefully, the painter at work says he can spray them for me….just got to see if we can order the YR502P needed. Once I get the decals fitted the same guy will also throw a coat or two of clear coat over everything at the end.
So my garage looked like this until I tucked the project bike away in the shed to give me a bit more space to give the ‘every day’ NC30, a bit of loving, servicing and prep for Cadwell Park next weekend.
Idle hands lead to excessive internet surfing and recurring ideas of a third NC30. Due to this I suddenly had a full on plan to buy another NC30 and collect it whilst back in the UK for the Classic Bike track day. Now along with this my son (27 years old) has just got his first big bike (CBR600) and I thought I could do the cool Dad thing and offer him the chance to get on the track using the 3rd NC30 I was planning to be collecting at Cadwell
. Track day offered up, readily accepted and off he went sorting out a set of RST leathers in anticipation. Some say he wears his leathers to bed....all we know is...he is called ..Jake
About this point the wheels started to fall of plan A slightly. Whilst the bike I was looking at was a cracking deal and a great start point for a project, it was just that – a good start point and not ready to be put on the track. It wouldn’t need much and we even thought about trying to do the work required in the paddock on the Saturday evening before my sensible head kicked in. This is going to be Jakes first time on an NC30 and first time on a track, as such I need to make sure that whatever he is on was in as good a condition as it could possibly be. The only way I could do this is if I had had my hands on the bike and prepped it myself. Here begins Plan B
The bike that I know is 100% and ready for the track is……funny old thing the one I am riding around on and was planning to use at Cadwell myself. So plan B was that we could work this if we were riding in different groups and hot swapping the bike between sessions. However, I had also asked if he wanted to go in the Novice group or with us in the Inters. He had said it would be cool to ride with me and the rest of the crowd (before people changed to the fast group) so plan B wasn’t going to work and we were onto plan C.
Plan C was back to needing two bikes, but having only my daily ride and the project bike, the only way to achieve this was to finish off all the little jobs on the project bike, and bring that as my ride, effectively giving it a shakedown on the track. Certainly not ideal or my first choice, but hey ho – Plan C it is.
The Chinese Rothmans fairings were removed from my bike and that was refitted with my original fairings which, post an unplanned diversion through a Lincolnshire hedge in about 2007 became my track day fairings and have done many a lap at Cadwell. Easy peasy – Jobs a good ‘un bike ready to go.
Onto the project bike. All the Silhouette fairings were removed and tucked away safe and a few little jobs that had still been on the “to do” list were mopped up over a few evenings. Mechanically finished (I hope) so onto getting it dressed. Decided this one will be wearing the Chinese Rothmans fairings that came of the other bike so started to fit them. Hmmm problem! Where I’d had a problem with the clearance between the Ethos system and the Silhouette lower, with the Chinese fairings it was much worse with the exhaust pressing hard against the bottom right of the lower fairing and also at the back just before the exhaust exists up the side of the bike. That was end of play on Friday and with a full weekend ‘socializing’ I wasn’t going to get back in the garage for a couple of days, and was thinking at this point I would either have to swap the fairings, or think about swapping the exhaust….which was not an appealing prospect.
A couple of days out of the garage let the problem fermenting slowly in the back of my head. I had a couple of ideas and having acquired a few metal offcuts from the bin at work was contemplating trying to build some sort of heat shield for the belly pan. Sometimes walking away from a problem for a while is the best solution as when you come back to it you have fresh ideas how to solve it. Back into the garage last night to have another think and it quickly became obvious that the best way to solve the belly pan problem was to extend the opening in the bottom, removing the problem and giving the exhaust the space required. The required trimming was marked up and out came the faithful Dremmel.
Just started cutting but you can see how much I am removing here.
…and finaly removed and tidied up a bit:
I also knocked up a simple heat shield for the back of the belly pan with the slight lip at the front holding the pipes off slightly and the rest just acting as a heatshield / joining piece. All refitted and thankfully it works.
Went to fire the bike up and suddenly the new speedo has ALL the lights on and the L/H switch gear doesn’t work at all------Arghhhhh! Fairings back off and after much poking around I find that the problem is the earth cable from the L/H switch gear. Although well secured it doesn’t seem to be making a good earth. Check cable (ok), check crimp attachment of ring (ok) hold ring against engine mounting bolt…..everything works as it should…Yayyyy. Refitted, tightened and ….nothing. Hmmm! Off again and after trying a couple of different earth points finally found one it seemed to like, so fastened it on and checked it - success. Fairings back on again.
So in theory the bike is now ready to ride, but really could use a couple of gentle runs just to check everything and scrub the tyres in a little bit Slight problem is that the bike is not MOT’d or insured yet so can’t really take it out for the sort of shakedown I would like to. Decided I would at least take it down the back roads to the petrol station and check the tyre pressures. I set off and the first thing I noticed was how much higher your feet are with racing rear sets fitted
. Next thing I noticed was how rough and lumpy the bike was running, almost like fuel starvation, and how unstable it felt
. Riding to the petrol station I was already contemplating in my head going back to Plan B so we could both use the other bike in different groups.
A quick tyre pressure check at the petrol station revealed 2.0 Bar in the front and just 0.7 Bar in the rear!!! Tyres topped up and funny old thing the handling suddenly felt much better
.On the way home there is a decent straight stretch of dual carriageway and as the bike had had chance to warm up properly I decided to wind it on a bit to see what happened. Well it was lumpy, juddered and then suddenly took off like a scalded cat. I gave it couple more hard acceleration stints and it seems to have “cleared its throat”. Maybe it just need to blow some fuel through the new carbs – fingers crossed.
I didn’t have the chance to do anymore last night so hoping the weather is ok when I get home and I can go give it another gentle run around (with the odd squirt) to start and build up some confidence in it. As such this is how the Garage currently stands with the toys we are bringing to Cadwell.
Looking forward to seeing some of you guys there