reviving the world's rustiest crustiest fifth gen

appreciate it, trying to do this somewhat on the cheap (so i have more money for fun parts) but that would probably be a good upgrade for later on.

 

went to clean and paint the exhaust and found some nasty surprises.



obviously this pipe is rotten and the correct thing to do is toss it in the fuck-it bucket. was that what i did though?







nope.

i know it's a bodge and i know it's not gonna last, but oe headers are going for about 100 bucks on fleabay, and if i'm dropping that kind of cash, i may as well save up a little longer and get the delkevics. so any extra time i can get out of this pipe buys me time for that.

in other news, valves are done on the new motor and it's ready to drop in the frame. found a new oem wax motor for the auto choke for 30 dollars, so i'll be sticking with that instead of trying to transplant the manual choke from the original motor; one less lever on my bar is okay with me. once the motor's off my bench and the giant pile of crap has shrunk down a bit i'll probably tear into the forks.

 

motor's in, so is the swingarm. threw on the front fairing to test-fit the new mirrors.



starting to look like a bike again.

 

Cool garage cat!

 

this thing's falling together now. next up is forks, then she'll be a roller. after that is fuel system, then she'll be a runner. outside of paint, that should be the last of the hard jobs. then i get to move into the easy but expensive jobs, like tires, chain and sprockets, brake lines, etc. (paint will probably be hard and expensive so that'll be extra fun.) probably time to start looking for a job....



also i painted the cluster for a laugh. (the trick was dish soap)

 

Watching this with interest - looks a really good project to be doing mate - just wish I had the skill and the time to do something similar

 

this guy did not wanna come apart at first....



but forks are done







rustoleum trim & bumper paint for the protectors, duplicolor filler primer+wheel paint+wheel clear for the fork sliders, 0000 steel wool and mother's metal polish for the fork pipes (plus some jb steelstik sanded to 1500 grit to fill some small pits, but don't tell anyone)



on its own weight again



exhaust, throttles, and airbox are all back on too



and now i have my kitchen back



i've also gone ahead and stripped off all brake components, in order to rebuild the calipers and replace everything else (new master cyls and braided lines). same for the clutch hydraulics, going to rebuild the slave cyl and replace the master cyl and line.



i know this is a bit of a touchy subject, but after much serious thought, i've decided that i'm delinking. for one, given the condition of the rest of the bike, and the condition of the brake fluid that i drained, i have absolutely no faith in the integrity of any of the small linking components, and am disinclined to rebuild them or hunt down new ones. and for two, a delinking braided line kit is about half the price of a stock braided line kit. i know there're better ways to do it, like swapping fork lowers and calipers, but keeping the stock calipers would be the fastest and easiest way to move the project along and get it that much closer to munching miles again. i'll probably do a "proper" delink later down the road though.

 

Delinking is an interesting topic and you are right, will make for some occasionally fiery debate. In the absence of any linking inputs, the front master controls 4 pistons and the rear does two, and I suspect that is enough to give "conventional" braking. When the linking kicks in, the third piston in each calliper comes into play. I think you could safely blank off the centre pistons and remove any associated hardware, but the only part that must remain is the secondary master cylinder, but only for it's value in locating the left calliper. I believe you need "something" in the SMC to prevent the piston from moving a lot; filling the cylinder with brake fluid and capping it off would work, or maybe a an epoxy cement in the bore?

There are also options to drill the centre piston bore to connect it to the outers which can bring all 3 pistons into action but you will need to adjust the master cylinders upwards in bore size if you do that; otherwise you may end up with too much hydraulic advantage and squishy but grabby brakes.

When I delinked my last 5th gen's rear brake, I left the hoses and calliper untouched and just joined both hoses at a new larger master with a double banjo. At the front the lowest cost option would be to buy some bent VTR1000F forks and just reuse the lowers, along with calipers off the VTR or (preferably in my opion) the CBR954/SP-2. The VTR lowers are a straight swap for the VFR but you will need to concoct a bracket to fit the mudguard.

 

appreciate the input. i've heard similar about the secondary master; one solution i've seen was to pack it with silicone grease, which will probably be what i end up doing.

nissin offers a 19mm radial front master for a reasonable price, which is what i plan on upgrading to. hopefully this'll allow me to use all pistons, either with a tee in each line or a double banjo in one port. but if it feels like crap, i could just disconnect the center pistons like you said and probably still be fine.

rear will be 14mm master, with a single line to a double banjo in the caliper with a short linking line.

another option for fronts that i've seen is sixth gen triples (which allegedly bolt right up) with CBR600F4 forks. that would probably be the route i go down if and when i decide to go back and do it the right way.

 

calipers handled.



i changed all the seals too, just forgot to take photos of it