From the desk of Robert Strong, confessions of a possible NC-21 resurrector

Discussion in '1st & 2nd Generation 1983-1989' started by Robert Strong, Feb 20, 2020.

  1. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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    The first time i saw the bike was on facebook's market place. I asked if it was still for sale, about 3-4 weeks later they got back to me and said it was. They explained it was a project that didn't happen, they wanted to do a clean out and it had to go. They lived in an isolated part of New Zealand known as Ruatoria, i could see this put alot of people off, the trip there and back was around 11 hours. They said they wanted NZ$250 for it, it was hard to know much about it, but it appeared damaged and missing parts. And the registration had lapsed... 12 years ago. I said i'd be there tomorrow, we left at 2:45am. Being back at around 2pm.

    When i saw the bike, i didn't really feel anything. It was just this battered VFR400 in the middle of no-where. I immediately offered $300 for the bike. I'm not really sure why i offered more than they wanted, but it totally felt right. As the person selling was counting the money she said her family had been given the bike for helping an elderly man work on his property. The bike had belonged to his son who was currently doing 10 ten years in prison and it had been sitting in his shed for years. I was assured all was good and all parties where informed and consented.

    I had of course done due diligence before driving there and had a report on the history of the bike as the owner gave me the old plate and VIN number, if it was stolen or had money owing on it, before driving way out there.

    Yeah, if i had of known all the details, maybe i might not of gone, maybe be i would of.

    If he wants it back, i'm sure he can find me, and i'll be extremely receptive. I have zero interest in owning something with bad energy around it. My total investment so far is around about $US400 all up.

    The bike was missing, both axles, the rear coils/leads/mounting bracket, fairings, wind shield, solenoid/leads, fuse box, ignition key unit, instruments, right hand switch block, carb intake trumpets, gear lever pivot, tank key, fuel lines, swing arm chain adjusters and twist grip. The list seems to grow..lol

    So now i'm working out what to do with it, my efforts focused on seeing if it runs. There is so much wiring missing. I'm currently trying to remake the bits missing in order to see if the engine runs using wiring and plugs i've saved from years ago. With a wiring diagram from the model after mine, that has been translated from Japanese, with well over 50% of the wiring colours wrong. But it is such a massive improvement over the NC-30 wiring diagram that is commonly available on the net.

    I've spent hours viewing it, i've never thought so deeply about what is electronically going on when i ride a bike till now. I've spent around 30 hours to make the wiring and switches that are missing just so i can try to make the engine run. It is truly some Frankenstein stuff going on there, with other honda, kawasaki, yamaha, ford and hyosung represented. It's weird, i feel like i'm in a battle alone, it's just me, my note book,my muilty meter and me mumbling to myself.

    I tired to complete and fire it today, but i failed to account for the rubbers that connect the carbs to the head, the years have been hard on them and I lost hours battling with them, they where like rocks.

    I was getting to the point i was just damaging stuff and had to stop, i'll try again tomorrow.

    I normally strip the carbs on any bike i get these days, i'm still learning and have made a number of errors with the 3 sets of 250/400 carbs i've cleaned in the last 6 weeks. There seems to be so much to learn about such a simple device.

    Removing the top off the vacuum chamber, is like hunting for damage. On the 11th top i removed off the vacuum chamber of a CV carb i found this.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    The tear is maybe 50mm long on one side of the brass locating pin and 30mm on the otherside of it. They had attempted a repair with a glue that was soluble in fuel. So it was like they had pasted them together . There was no seal there. But they had provided me with good piece of diaphragm rubber to attempt a repair with, it just took a couple of hours to clean all the crap off both bits of rubber.

    I follow some info on the net about repairing the rubber, as it can't be brought anymore. I used a foamable gorilla grip product, someone on the net recon'ed it would bond the rubber and withstand fuel.

    I did a trial using 7 different combinations of mold wax and PVA release agent, as I just didn't want to deal with the stuff bonding to the carbs and I intend to compress the rubbers bits in the carb while they cured. I winner was wax, wax, wax, as PVA release agent if anything made the gorilla grip bond better when you didn't want it too.

    I trimed the rubber back into a much narrower shape, and did a complete ring around the top of the rubber, and covering the damage with this ring where it was, and just extending it around the top of the right where there was no damage. So there are four pieces around the circumference of the rubber.

    here it is after 12 hours



    And after i trimmed the excess off of rubber that had not bonded.

    [​IMG]

    When fitted i couldn't tell it's action from the undamaged 3, but time well tell.
     
  2. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    that's progress but you still haven't done a compression or leakdown test. you'll probably end up replacing that bad diaphragm with a new one from the regular supplier or do all 4 at the same time.
     
  3. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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  4. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    nice work :aussie:
     
  5. Terry Smith

    Terry Smith Member

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    Bad Flag!
    Great work Robert!
     
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  6. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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    Busy day, I finally got around to removing the fake carbon stickers of the forks.

    Before

    [​IMG]

    After

    [​IMG]

    I also found some time to swapped the front end out and went with a 17 inch x 3.

    [​IMG]

    The workshop

    [​IMG]

    Living the dream

    [​IMG]

    Take it easy
     
  7. Diving Pete

    Diving Pete Member

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    I may have a set of diaphragms from a 24 that i'm happy to send...
     
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  8. Diving Pete

    Diving Pete Member

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    The NC21 & the NC24 are very close to each other - even if the part numbers are different. What do you NEED ?
     
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  9. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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    hello everybody (to be spoken like Dr. Nick)

    Thank you very much Diving Pete for the overwhelming offer of generosity, and i well may take you up on that but I intend to exhaust all available repair options first.

    There's so much to say, about persons vision for a motorcycle.

    I had an NSR250 MC-21 chassis. The engine had catastrophically failed before i got bike. I brought a damaged KLR650 engine to fit into the frame.
    At some point after this i realized I had projects that would take many times the maximum expected lifespan I had left to complete, I had to make a painful reappraisal of the entire scene. I decided putting an engine into a chassis that I would pay to have to have certified, if that was possible made no sense. So i sold the motor, complete with everything to make it go to a guy for $US1650 around $US1000 at that point. When i was carrying the motor to his car, just as i got to the boot (trunk) , i hit my shin on his tow bar and dropped the motor.......lol

    And i experienced that sensation of I have no idea what was going to happen next. He looked at me and i looked at him, and no-one said anything.
    But i had determined that if there was any damage, i would refund 100% of his cash, and we would start to re negotiate a price for the damaged motor.
    I rolled it over so it was horizontal and there was no apparent damage , as tough as life seems, sometimes it cuts you a break.
    Last time i heard from him he said he had fitting the engine to his KLR and was very happy.

    I tried to sell the NSR250 (MC-21) rolling chassis for $NZ600 ($US400), but had no bites.

    So i thought about a cheaper engine to re-power the chassis.

    I found an insurance write off for sale a hyosong GT250R, around 2016 model, the guy had brought it off the insurers, It was just cosmetic damage, and he rode the bike when he brought it.
    He just took the front end and fuel tank off it, and sold me everything else. Over time I sold all the bits i didn't need which more than paid for the purchase cost, so in effect i got the engine and everything to make it run for free.

    So i fitted the engine to the NSR250 chassis. In effect i'd had done as much as I could without committing a serious investment. I could see it needed a minimum of $NZ4000 to complete it and for it to be lawfully to use on the roads. Just so i could have a 30hp engine in a 60hp + chassis. Although I would of had one of the lightest GT250R hyosong powered bikes on the planet.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    HTF does this relate to a VFR400 you may ask......

    Take it easy.

    Robert
     
  10. Diving Pete

    Diving Pete Member

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    The vfr400 (NC21 / NC24 will take a VFR750 (RC36) with a little modification.... & painted in RC30 colours =
    YUM
     
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  11. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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    A Gullarm VFR (MNC-21)

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Take it easy.

    Robert
     
  12. NorcalBoy

    NorcalBoy Member

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    Don't be skeered, it's OK to take pictures with the lights on :D
     
  13. Diving Pete

    Diving Pete Member

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    Just not selfies !!!!!!
     
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  14. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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    27mm

    The next day, i had to check one of the biggest potential problems with this project, the clearance of the front wheel and the rest of the bike at maximum front suspension travel. I have never completely compressed my front suspension and bottomed the front out, but the travel is there and a clearance must be there to accommodate the front wheel in any suspension position freely. So I slide the forks as far through the triple clamps as far as possible. Till either the front wheel hit something or bottom of the lower front bottomed out on the lower triple clamp, meaning there was adequate clearance. if the wheel hit something before the than there is not enough clearance. My front wheel hits the front pair of cylinder's rocker cover with 27mm of travel of the front forks to go, with the position of the engine where it is rest now. The rear left hand side cylinder is fouling the frame, the frame can not be moved left to help accommodate that as that would push the gearbox box output sprocket further away from the gear box to maintain alignment to the rear sprocket.




    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    Take it easy

    Robert
     
  15. NorcalBoy

    NorcalBoy Member

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    It is clear as mud now. Initially, I thought you were just going to move the swingarm between the two frames, now I see you're trying to transplant a VFR engine into a complete NSR chassis. Sometimes it takes me a minute.....
     
  16. Captain 80s

    Captain 80s Member

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    Is that actually the same as the max travel with springs and oil? I know you're trying to find the safety limit. How about finding what the travel for those forks are in the specs. Extend them completely (with the forks in the triples where you plan to put them) then lower the bike with the caps off to that travel distance, plus a healthy margin of error for flex and see where that is.
     
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  17. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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    Heya



    27mm, I think it's a bit more complicated than 27 mm. It's all vectors and mechanisms.

    Why not just cut the chassis rails and extend them till the front wheel fits?

    A friend of mine suggested I put the 16 inch front from the VFR on it, when i heard that all I thought was "release the hounds'.

    I would like to achive what i want without butchering the visible frame or going backwards regarding wheel size.

    I always suspected there would be some degree of struggle, but it's been remarkably straight forward so far.

    If this is going to work there has to be a degree finesse shown. No really......

    I have to decide about how pure i keep the NSR chassis and geometry.

    What am i prepared to sacrifice from the NSR to make the engine fit?

    Not much, other wise i might as will cut and shut the chassis with 42.5 degrees of rake, fit an El Duce 43 inches over std. length springer front end, with 4 individual slash cut drag pipes, billet cast everything, a 500 shot of NOS and a stars and bars easy rider tribute flag on the fuel tank. Support the troops.

    I have to decide between purity and compromise. And I would like to think that is the essence modifying motorcycles.

    I have thought alot about how people here will feel about what i am doing, kinda weird but i have a feeling about how people will react to what i'm doing.
    I'm doing my absolute best to avoid offending anyone here, I have a thin skin and am sensitive.

    If you have any helpful suggestions, i'm all open, but you have to be familiar with what i'm doing.

    I really believe I can get there.

    Cheers

    Robert
     
  18. Robert Strong

    Robert Strong New Member

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    Heya

    Is it worth fighting for i or should i gave up and part it out?

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Cheers

    Robert
     
  19. raYzerman

    raYzerman Member

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    You're in this deep, not sure why you are suggesting parting it out, at least just yet.... but you know better than us where you are. Have you tried the Captain 80's suggestion... I'd go there before deciding anything else.
     
  20. Terry Smith

    Terry Smith Member

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    I salute your ingenuity Robert, and hope you can make this work. I'm not sure that you are correctly positioning the front wheel to simulate full travel; you'd be better to leave the fork in it's normal position in the clamps and take the fork caps off so you can lift the wheel and bottom the forks out; I would expect the top of the fork leg would not go anywhere near the lower triple as you show in your photo, so you may have more clearance than you realise. However don't forget the mudguard has to fit in there too.
     
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