Absolutely - the best thing about the pics is you actually explaining your process as well. I have no real interest in this type of bike except in that I appreciate the time, effort and energy you are putting into it. Hopefully I will also learn from your progress with this vehicle and attempt to put it into one of mine so keep it going.. lots of pics please...lol

Pete

Show them the fazer!

I took the yellow bike to my squash club on Saturday, when I came to ride home (in the dark) the headlight would not work. (So I rode home anyway, lots of flashing cars!) It works via the 'passing' switch on high beam, otherwise nothing. Fuses are all good, I changed the headlight unit for the red bike unit, no difference, I changed the switch assembly for the red bike unit, again no difference. So I'm stuck with a daytime only bike for the minute, any help appreciated.

The red bike switch looked a bit manky but I was not prepared for what was inside - it was clearly a home for spiders. Dead bodies and egg areas and general dirt everywhere, so a sit down and some fiddly detailing ensued:



The outer casing plastic, once cleaned, has a subtle silver fleck in it, very nice! I would not have noticed.... The trouble with having done this side is now having to do the same for the other side of course. I have ordered some loom tape and will re-wrap the cables,

My Fazer 1000: it's difficult to describe just how good these bikes are. Owners know it and absolutely love them but until one is owned it's viewed as a bit 'worthy' or large commuter - it's so much better than that. It's comfortable, it handles, it's easy to work on, bullet proof and really very quick indeed. They are under two large (2.5 - 3k buys a low mileage looked after example) but as numbers of good ones dwindle prices are just starting to creep up.



Mine is very my style, clean and standard looking until examined more closely. Changes from factory spec (Yamaha claimed 142 bhp) are: 'full monty Ivanised' - a combination of carb and airbox mods that give a very very flat torque curve and, combined with a more open can, around 8-9 bhp. (These tend to give 138-139 rwhp when dyno'd.) Akrapovic titanium can and titanium (not the cheaper stainless) link pipe. BMW S1000RR (Sachs) rear shock. (From standard the Yamaha rear shock goes off after as little as 8k miles and is considered under sprung. The R6 or Sachs upgrade are cheaper than Ohlins (or similar) but just as effective. I bought my shock with it having covered zero miles (!) and had my local machine shop make up the shouldered bolts and spacers required. It literally transformed the handling and has the added bonus of lifting the rear which sharpens turn in. It's by far the best vehicle modification I've ever completed.) Shock installation promptly sparked a fork re-build with upgraded springs. Brakes rebuilt with stainless lines. Bobbin mounts machined and welded to swing arm. Adjustable levers. Genuine Yamaha touring screen (the shorter of the two Yamaha made available, now rare in good nick and around a oner used!) Note also the colour coded front mudguard extension and rear hugger. (I like huggers but dislike tail tidies or cut down mudguards - to my eye they make a bike look as though it's been badly repaired after a rear end shunt.)



I keep it quite clean, it's a a dry weather only vehicle. It took me around 5 months to bring to this condition when first purchased and then another couple of months when the forks were rebuilt while I stripped it again and freshened up the front of the engine area.



Before the Fazer I went though a sports bike or two, my favourite being this:



Hopefully that gives an idea of where the red bike is headed.

The headlight bowl returned this week:



Frankly I'm not too impressed. Granted it was rusty before and it's a 23 year old piece of steel but the dots visible in the picture are visible in reality too. The headlight is quite a large prominent piece of the front of the bike, I wanted it to look right. I found my local chromer and showed him, his face showed exactly what he thought of the job so I handed over my handle bar, steering stem nut and washer and various fasteners to him for re-chroming. (A good handle bar was sourced.) I also gave him a job lot of screws and bolts to be plated and he was much cheaper than Chromefix. I'll post the results when it's done. When the light bowl comes off the yellow bike I'll have that re-chromed and see whether it comes out any better.

I've painted the red bike headstock area, it's baking right now. I also finished painting a few other little parts such as the triangular headlight brackets etc. Removing three steering bearing races was tricky too, taking the one from the bottom yoke tube took considerable time and force.

I can see the red bike being on the road for spring this year. Have I just tempted fate?

The yellow bike headlight is fixed. I lost interest in it and handed it to my local mechanic, he fixed it for an hours labour fee. I don't know what he's done, I haven't looked, but at least I can use it after dark again.

That's a really poor result for the price.

Like I said before, I used them last year and found the quality and prices good. Probably I'll look elsewhere when I next need plating doing as wherever you go it's not cheap.

It does seem to me that quality, as well as price varies wildly.

Where's the pictures gone

Superjack44 wrote:Where's the pictures gone

I think I must have stolen them from you as they work for me

I finished painting the headstock area, the whole frame looks really smart:



I struggled a bit with removing the old bearing races, especially the one from the bottom yoke, but after some persuasion they came away. This enabled the new 'all balls' tapered bearings to be installed and the yokes and headlight bracket to be re-fitted which, in turn, allowed the forks to go in:



It had to stay like this for a while as although I had ordered a new top yoke nut I failed to order a washer and the old one was rusty and I was waiting for it to return from my local chromer.

Another exhaust arrived:



It has surface rust all over which has bitten quite hard into the mounting flanges so will require a fair bit of work to make presentable. I've put it away until the weather improves, I don't fancy it in the cold.

I was able to fit the front wheel assembly and mudguard:



I visited my local chromer having waited two and half weeks without hearing anything - and it was all done, sat on the shelf waiting. The bars and top pieces were chromed, the bolts below the bars were nickel plated:



£40 all in, quality very good indeed, the plating in particular is exceptional. I'll use him again, Calmac in Gosport for reference. It's a pig to get in and out of Gosport due to the constant heavy traffic but that's hardly his fault!

Once the top yoke nut was torqued the bars and headlight bowl, horns and brake line brackets could all go on. I really struggled to take a decent picture of this stage for some reason, this is the best (!!!) of many that I took, just take my word for it that it looks really good when seen for real...



I am now waiting for another set of orders. The brake master cylinder assembly has gone NLA from Honda so I've tried my luck with a Chinese copy. An order has been placed for a genuine clutch mount assembly and all new cables (2 throttle, clutch and choke, again not cheap) and some grip cement.

I fitted a kmh to mph converter to the yellow bike and I really like how the speedo needle moves at a more leisurely pace around the dial now, it's closer to every other vehicle that I've experienced. While I've been re-assembling the red bike clocks it's made me think about fitting the mph face - not only would the needle move too quickly for my liking but the mph lines won't align with the kmh cut-outs to allow light to shine through. Seeing as a decent speedo face came in the ebay bargain box I'm going to fit that. I thought, as a subtle touch, that I'd paint the needles the same alverstone red as the bodywork...

The clutch lever pivot bolt keeps working itself loose and up on the yellow bike, this is a bit worrying as if it comes out completely while in use it would be difficult to bring the bike to halt and to continue riding! Twice so far I've fitted a new nut to the underside only for it to be missing upon returning home. Yesterday I fitted a knurled flange nut with loctite, we'll see if that fixes it.

That nut that keeps working loose I think it should be a symonds lock nut or a nylock nut.

It is re-assembled:



and looking very smart indeed. It sits on its own two wheels for the first time in a long time. For now it has a set of new Chinese clocks rather than my re-built Honda originals (not quite finished yet) and the cables that it came with as the replacements haven't arrived yet.

I added brake fluid and bled the fronts and gained some lever pressure and left it there over night but I obviously had a little fluid spill that I didn't spot - it's damaged the fuel tank paint under the front master cylinder. Bugger. That's despite protecting the tank and wrapping a cloth around the reservoir and all that... It's only a small drip sized damage but it's too much for me to live with on a project such as this.

At least I do have the spare orange fuel tank but painting another tank was not something that I thought was going to be necessary for this bike. I really don't know whether to paint the spare tank myself or find a local body shop and ask them to paint a whole bodywork set, the red set could then go on the yellow bike. I'm thinking candy cherry red maybe? Thoughts, ideas and suggestions welcomed. Just don't suggest silver, I don't like silver.

Next stage is to complete the fluids (rear brake fluid, coolant and fresh fuel), new battery, check the electrics and then wheel it outside and see whether it runs....

My clutch pivot bolt fix worked for the yellow bike. I'm going to undertake a trip to Northampton soon, should I trust the yellow bike to take me there and back?