Thanks for the comments. The bearing race is to be removed, it's not required for the replacement taper bearings. The blaster was going to remove it (so he said) but then didn't. As regards the tank - keep checking in, I intend to fit the orange tank to the yellow bike while the yellow tank is painted at some point, after that it will be surplus to requirements, hence for sale. My time frames are clearly quite elastic.

I bought a tungsten carbide drill bit and tried to drill out the sheared HSS bit in the sheared disk bolt today.... it took around 3 or 4 seconds for the drill bit to bite and the stuck bolt shaft wound straight out of the wheel. Result!

In fairly typical sods law style it was the same day that I completed painting the replacement rear wheel:



so now I have a spare pair of wheels that I only really bought because of the sheared bolt. I'll fit them to the yellow bike when the weather improves. It means that I have a brand spanking front BT45 tyre to sell that I no longer need.

The radiator on the yellow bike has suffered the usual lower corrosion and the bottom mount is no longer attached. I bought yet another radiator from China which, amazingly, fitted inside the Honda cover! The paint finish on it was terrible however so for the first time in my life I took some sand paper to a brand new part and prepared and painted it:



I'm waiting on the latest genuine parts order delivery for new headlight bracket mounting rubbers before front end re-assembly can begin.

Looking forward to seeing the finished bike.

top work fella.

have you thought any more about the mph speedo faces you'd talked about before ?

Loving the attention you are putting into this build - especially the paintwork.

I also had a broken drill snap on my NC29. I bought a set of Dewalt Extreme 2 drill bits from amazon & was amazed. 4 - 5 secs per drill bit & a very painless task.
Keep on with the pics please.

Suzuki416 wrote:I bought a set of Dewalt Extreme 2 drill bits from amazon & was amazed

I use DeWalt kit for work - I think I might have single handedly financed the company over the last few years...

royster81 wrote:have you thought any more about the mph speedo faces you'd talked about before ?

I bought a set of Chinese outer covers from MPW and had planned on fitting to them a set of clocks made up from the red bike's clocks, the 'bargain box' needles and stops and the MPH faces as supplied. When the covers arrived however some process had obviously blown through one of the screw holes and tarnished the outside chrome. I contacted MPW regarding replacement and am still awaiting a reply and that was over Christmas so at the moment I am not impressed. This plan, assuming it works, should allow the other new set of clocks to go on to the yellow bike with a KPH-MPH mechanical converter. (Current clocks work but there's no lights to the rev counter side and KPH only so it's guess my MPH while riding.)

Superjack44 wrote:Looking forward to seeing the finished bike.

Not as much as I am!

bludclot wrote:Thanks for the comments. The bearing race is to be removed, it's not required for the replacement taper bearings. The blaster was going to remove it (so he said) but then didn't.

Ah, I'm glad you said that. I was a little worried you'd forgotten about it. Silly of me to think that really since the level of detail has been 10/10.

My only other note would be to clean the inside edge of the rims of paint. I've sprayed rims myself, left the paint on only to find the Tyre doesn't seal on the rim properly later down the line because of flaked/chipped paint. Normally leaves you with a slow puncture. You maybe fine but its bitten me before (and I know what your thinking, in your head they wont look as nice ).

I've painted a fair number of wheel rims over the years and not (yet) had trouble with tyre beads sealing to paint. My experience is that beads leak when fitted to corroded rims, that's what I think is happening on the front of the yellow bike. One thing that I am very diligent about is leaving paint to fully cure before handing rims over for tyre fitting, a month if possible, four days minimum. I am also extremely careful with regards who I ask to fit tyres. I've suffered several fitters who claim that they don't damage rims only to have paint scratched away or chipped or dented. I could name and shame some very large and well known organisations. I also had a good van tyre thrown away once when I asked for it to be removed from a rim, the manager of the branch gave me the choice of his catalogue for a replacement but the particular tyre I wanted was no longer available - seeing that tyres must match for me as a minimum I had to change all five tyres for that vehicle.

I've returned the clock case to MPW, sit and wait time for that now. I put the clutch cover in for bead blasting. New indicators have started arriving. I phoned Chromefix and they said that the headlight bowl is done, that will be £75. I know what I think of that price..... The damage to the front wheel from drill slippage is now black, awaiting lacquer, as are the silvered headlight mounting triangles.

Is that chromefix in Brum? I had quite a lot of work done by them for my Sunbeam and found them excellent and very reasonably priced - around £250 for a big pile of stuff including exhausts, which most people won't touch.

Much cheaper than others I've used.

Yes, Chromefix in Birmingham. I consider £75 a bit steep for re-chroming one part, but if, when it arrives, it's superb then I'll hold my hand up and concede that it's reasonable. Given that headlight bowls have gone NLA and were big money new then I suppose it's OK. I fully appreciate that it's a labour and chemical intensive process, neither of which are cheap.

In the post above I called this the clutch cover - my mistake, we all know that's it's not. Anyway, it's returned from blasting:



I'm intending to have a go at re-creating the factory finish on the larger circle part but don't hold out much hope.

Finally - and I'll understand if you don't quite believe it - the front wheel assembly is complete!





These seem to be the best of several pictures that I took, I've said before that I'm no photographer but I couldn't seem to capture the paint finish of the wheel and disks at the same time. Note the titanium disk bolts., I guess the new bearings and tyre would be assumed by now if the rest of this thread has been followed.

The latest box of genuine parts arrived as well:



hmmmm all clean and shiny!

As an aside would anyone like a couple of pictures of my other bikes to give an idea of standard of finish that I go for?

Yes please.