Project Newbie, FZR250 Project

yes i know it would be infinitely easier to just get new panels, but im time rich and money poor for the next year until im finished my degree so was just looking into it. i think i would enjoy learning how to do it, and if i screw it up i can always just go out and buy new ones in the end right??

 

Got the last few bits in the post so time to get cracking before the weather turns to shite again!! As mentioned in my last update the sight glass for the front brake reservoir started leaking, soaking my lovely shiny new paintwork in brake fluid, this obviously had to be addressed so a new glass and rubber seal was ordered and arrived so it was off with the reservoir and on to the bench.


the old glass was dispensed with a swift blow of a hammer, the groove for the seal was quite corroded so I cleaned it up with some wire wool and installed the new sight-glass, with a cloth underneath a well-fitting socket and some gentle taps of a hammer.








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The new intake manifolds arrived and were promptly fitted, this was the best moment of the build so far as the engine instantly settled into a lovely idle, so I bolted the tank back on and made a few shakedown runs of a few kilometres then to see how she ran and if I forgot to tighten up anything or anything needed doing.


the bike was a revelation compared to what I remembered it, she carburated really well off the throttle, even pulling high gear roll-on’s under load where previously it would have flooded itself and died, I was really happy with it and just had to make a couple of minor adjustments to the gear linkage and adjust the angles of the front levers a bit, its stull a bit fluffy around 10,000rpm and picks up again around 12,000 but I’m confident I can tune that out with a bit more fiddling.


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The bodywork is “all there” as they say, but it does need plenty of attention and a complete respray at the least if it’s to ever be back to its best, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do in that area just yet and it’s probably going to go on the long finger but regardless of that I still had to do some work on the fairings just to get them to fit the bike and not blow off and to prevent any further deterioration. Thanks to @my67xr and @Murdo's threads on the matter i decided to turn my hand to a bit of plastic welding and see how i got on..........nothing to lose right??


The right hand rear panel was missing both its lugs, so I fashioned some new ones out of some 10mm ABS plastic rods and welded them in.

Then I had to tidy up some severe cracks, one of which was so bad it threatened to split the panel in half so I reinforced it by welding in some ABS plastic strips so its good and strong for the time being anyway, we will see how they hold up.


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I only repaired them from the rear side for the moment as I will hopefully either do a proper job on them or replace them at some stage in the future, i just wanted them to be functional rather than pretty for now, so here she is all buttoned up.


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And for its first spin and bath in almost 13 years!!!


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So that’s that, the bike is done, well not done done, but done for now at least, just want to get out and enjoy her for a bit as winter is coming!!

it was great fun pottering around on it this morning, still seems a bit weird holding the revs at 12,000 rpm and looking over at the speedo and shes only doing 110kph!! it feels a bit anti-social but i suppose thats the charm of these wee things, it certainly feels a bit different to my R1 thats for sure!!

 

I'm not sure what sprockets she's running, must have a look, also there's about a 40 degrees C variance between the hottest and coolest exhaust headers after a decent 30km run, so the mixtures could probably do with a tweak but she's good for now.

I'm just gonna get on and ride for the last few weeks of decent weather over this part of the world, then worry about dialling her in over the winter.

edit: also if anyone knows what type of bulbs are in the headlights of the 3ln-1 that would be much appreciated, i brought the old one into the local motorfactors and they looked at me like i had 2 heads, so im thinking ebay will have to suffice!! i done a couple of searches but didnt come up with anything so said id ask here, pics below.

 

i got in off ebay heres the link:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/18mm-Moto...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

its a slightly different set up to the standard sight glass, the standard one is plastic whereas the replacement is glass, but its a direct fit, no problem.

being honest the original came out with a single blow and looked perfect, the seal was knackered though, i reckon you could get away with just knocking out the original and replacing the seal if you wanted to.

 

lovely stuff, the ones i were looking at were around 80 dollars!! thanks for that info