Carbon Fibre essentials

Carbon fibre yoke protector and dash surround went on today. Always focus on the bling
first ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamJOllify

Rear Brake

I put the rear brake caliper on last night and it looks good with the red braided line although I can't fit up the master cylinder without the foot pegs attached. Still deciding on whether to get the footpegs now or wait till later......oh, decisions, decisions. Okay, rearsets have been bought in their luverly shiny silverness.

The hose kit arrived today and I've picked up the fender for my Gixxer, added to the huge mountain of bike parts.

You have mail

A lot of stuff arrived yesterday - engine, rear brake, carbs, SAPC box, CDI, and the Tyga rear-end and carbon fibre hugger. Engine looks good but I have to get out the remains of a sheared bolt from the power valve bracket. Judging from the amount of lock-wired components it's an ex-race engine so hopefully it's been well set up. I put the Tyga subframe on the bike last night but it looks a little crooked so may need a little "tweak". While putting this on I noticed what looks like a stress fracture in the mount for the rear shock but I'll stick with it. It's already been turned upside down to lift the rear so that's one less thing to do. The lads on RGV250.co.uk have given my power valves the thumbs up as ok to use but I'll still look at getting the billet centres to be on the safe side.

Powervalves

Okay, back to the RGV.

I've taken out the power valves and given them a good clean. They've been out before and as they're 5mm pins and not 3 or 4 mm I believe I either have a later engine or already replaced powervalves. They seem okay after a bit of a clean although there is quite a bit of wear on the valve bodies themselves. I'll wait till the spare engine arrives and check out it's powervalves as it may have some newer or better ones I can use.

Roll 'em

Grabbed another bargain - a $22 mini video camera for the bike. Just needs an SD card. I got the idea from a fellow http://brissyridersclub.org member (MB) and his video footage looks pretty good so I couldn't resist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlC6nFk7D9I

Buying is slowing down

I'm waiting for a lot of parts to arrive for my RGV250 so I picked up some rearsets for my other bike - GSXR 1100 streetfighter.

They should look nice on here:

Engine is out...well it's down on the floor

I've now removed the barrels and dropped the engine down onto the floor. Not too hard really but I have a feeling it'll be fun trying to remember where everything goes when I have to put it back together. The crank is hard to turnover so I believe it is the bottom end with some seizing trouble - I'll have to split the cases and find out what's going on.

More parts

After looking at the cylinder heads I have a feeling the spark plug hole may have been cross threaded on one of them. It also looks like there is some scoring on one of the cylinders so with that I was on the lookout for more parts and went and picked up these little trinkets:
One spare engine

and a full silicone hose kit by Roose Motorsports.

Had a look inside...

In a burst of motivation I took off the barrels - well I removed them although one is now stuck under the junction box and the other one is sitting on a box with the cables still attached. It IS easier to remove the engine first Doh! Oh well I'll read the manual on what to do with the cables and spaghetti all over the place.

There was a bit of brown sludgey chocolate milk shake in there so I'm thinking the water has gotten through the engine and I'll need to split the cases and clean it but from what I could see the bores looked okay and so did the piston but I will still need to get them out and give 'em a good clean.

1 Owner. Only ridden on Sundays.

Took off the power valve covers today and lo and behold a load of water fell out. Power valves will have to come out and I'm tossing up what to do here. The solid replacements don't seem to be rated at all but I would like the simplicity and cost saving as this bike will not really be used as a commuter. The Tekutaro billet centres may be the go but they're out of stock (http://www.tekutaro.com/powervalve/). Anyway I won't know till the other ones are out.

More parts

I've been on EvilBay and picked up another set of carbies and electrics as mine are Japanese spec and restrict the bike to 45hp. I've also grabbed a rear brake and master cylinder. Waiting for them to arrive. I'm going to need another radiator as one of the tanks on mine has an almighty dent in it.

Does my arse look big in this?

I've been spending a while looking at other RGVs and the Tyga (http://tyga-performance.com/) rear end is really a transformation for the RGV so rather than work on the obvious choice (engine) I have just ordered in the Tyga street rear end which includes a replacement subframe for the bike although I'll be keeping the standard RGV front bodywork. This is what the tail looks like:

Follow this link for more great photos of Andrew's bike: http://tyga-performance.com/site/index.php?cPath=230_556_785

Donor bike strip down

I got the broken and cracked fairings off the donor bike - tried to kick it and it won't move. Drags the back wheel on a push start.......this was supposed to be turning over when I bought it. Took the heads off, yes there are pistons in there. Took off the engine cover and turned the crank by hand and broke it free. Now we can use the kick start. Bottom cylinder looks fine, top cylinder has some marks. I'll have to take the barrels off to get a good look and maybe some photos.

Another "Filly" for the stable

As I trawled the for sale ads looking for parts I suffered an overwhelming fit of compulsive buying and went and bought an RGV based Supermono race bike. I've always liked supermono and had a long held notion of shoving a CR500 motor into an RGV but having found out from someone that did it that it was unrideable and shook itself to pieces I skipped the idea. Then came this one - RGV250 chassis with a Kawasaki KLX 650 motor shoved in there. I didn't really need this but at a low price I bit the bullet and bought it. Plans are to shove it in the corner till I've finished the 250. Now how do I get this back from Warwick?

It came from the deep

Looking about on eBay for a donor bike there were a few bikes around but nothing special for the money. I started to lose patience and found a bike for sale in Toowoomba. It had unfortunately been stolen and then pushed into a dam being underwater for over a week. How this qualified as a good buy I'm not too sure but I bought it all the same.

As an original runner it looked like this.

But after a week underwater this is what I ended up with.

Welcome to the first post

Well the background to my build is I started riding on an FZR250R but I've always wanted an RGV. Moving up in licence I skipped the RGV and went to a GSXR750. After writing that off I picked up a crumby RZ250 - 350 motor with wiseco kit and 350 front end for a song and I kind of turned it into a rat bike. It was great fun and I enjoyed riding it around even nipping it up racing an RGV on the highway. After a while it developed a bad rumble in the engine and I sold it for a pittance as I was moving back to Ireland for work. Back in Australia and after a brief time with an XT600 and then not riding for 8 years I pick up another GSXR except it was an 1100 streetfighter this time. This year I've decided that I want to improve my riding skills at track days so the hunt for an RGV was back on. Unfortunately while they looked great in photos the majority were munted basket cases.

I shifted focus and grabbed a fettled rolling chassis and body work from Coolum Beach, way up the Sunshine Coast. It's a 1992 model and comes with 6-pot calipers from a 91 TL1000R, goodridge braided lines, and with a load of race tech gold kit suspension.

I also snapped up the bodywork and it is all original plastics (except for the race seat).
One thing I didn't get was the key, so I'll need a new one cut. Now for an engine....