The cure

The wheel bearings checked out okay, and the head bearings were dry but possibly reusable but i thought I ain't come this far to put it all back together again and find out that there is still a problem, so I fitted new head bearing's and a new front tyre, and a massive improvement straight away! No more wobbly front wheel at low speed (always a bonus in my book) but still not holding a line like it used too, so what i did was dropped the forks through the yolks another 5mm and this seems to have cured it.

Time will tell, I need another good run on the bike to know for sure but tbh I am lacking on the motivation front, every time I get the chance to go for a ride I would sooner do something else, dunno maybe it's the pre-birthday blues that I get every year and with this one being a biggie I find myself doing a lot of recollecting and soul searching at the moment.

Long time no see

It's been a while since my last blog so i better bring you up to speed on recent event's of the fireblade.
For a start the initial test ride didn't go well! the bike felt like it was riding on knife edge and the front end was very unstable so back to the workshop and a bit of a loosen and a tweek off i went again and this time it felt better but still nowhere near right. I upped the pre-load on the rear shock and this definitely made it feel better and I thought at the time with changing the seating position i might have to try to get it to sit down more at the front, she certainly felt like the tail was wagging the dog, but the changes I made had made a vast improvement so I thought the old gal would be ready for a proper shake down, Wrong! by god was I wrong, the trouble with my earlier runs was the road is a bit of a one trick pony, its not going to throw any surprises up and its pretty uniform, also I was running her low on fuel so that I could change the petrol tank ( which I have done by the way) when I went too meet up with Al I filled the new tank and straight away I was fighting to keep her on the road, every bend the bloody thing wanted too pick itself back up as soon as you tipped it into a corner and then as the day went on the steering got progressively worse meaning that when i slowed for roundabouts it wouldn't steer.

So after a bit of discussion we narrowed it down to: wheel bearing's, head bearing's, the step in the front tyre although the con census was that this should make it fall into corners not make it harder to get it over or the bike was still sitting down too much at the rear.......... to be continued

Better Pic's

A few photo's taken from outside the garage, still got one or two little things to do but she will be ready for action at Easter.

Finished the bugger!!!

Well the deed is now done and I have finished fitting in the kit. I just had a few loose ends to tie up and make the fairing brace as well as checking everything was tight!

The eagle eyed will notice it still has on the old petrol tank, that's just a temporary measure as its nearly full so I will have to run it down a bit so I can change tanks.

Oh and the old tart needs a polish but that can wait till Ive had a test ride, can't wait!!!!!

Streetfighter comfort kit Pt 4

A bit late to change me mind now!

Nearly there....

The deed is done!

That was quite a struggle to cut, harder than I thought it would be, It didn't go to bad but i had one slip where I have marked the screen but a trim along the screen edge will cover it. Now I have got too profile the ends of the fairing, but I haven't quite got enough clearance for the throttle cables yet but I might use a different set of bar's so that might not be necessary, next time I go to the garage I shall make a decision on that as I start back full time at college next week so I need to get it finished ready for the spring.

New Tank

I have got a s/h tank for the blade courtesy of Brother Allan, big thanks dude you got me out of a hole with that!

Its a cracking tank right colour an only the odd little mark on it but most importantly the bottom is not held in with fucking fibreglass! A big plus in my book.

Streetfighter comfort kit Pt 3

Right its been a few weeks since I did anything to this project, mainly down to crappy weather we have been having just lately and I have just had other things I had to get finished first before my shed privleges would be granted.

I started off by removing the old brake hoses so That I could mount the master cylinder to the handlebars and then I fitted the new hoses, well one of them! The new hoses are in my opinion far too long, so what I have done is fitted the shorter of the two the l/h caliper and used the one that linked the two calipers that was already on the bike instead of having two separate lines to the master cylinder, luckily the original hose that was fitted is a braided one so it doesn't look a pile of mince. Bleeding the brakes what a task an a half that proved to be but half a day at it and I have a lovely solid brake lever so I am happy.

The next item on the agenda was too remove the clocks and see if I can re-route the switch gear wiring to the l/h side so that I didn't have to extend the wires RESULT no need to be farting with that so to say I am pleased is slightly understating the point.

The next an only major job left is too cut the fairing an screen so I can get full lock, I have marked it up but I am going too cut it tomorrow as I thought I don't want to rush the job as I might change my mind on how I want it to look so I will sleep on it.Then all I have left too do is mount the choke lever, change the handle bar grip on the throttle and check everything is tight .