Patchb's zx7r project (homemade carbon bits etc.)
Discussion
Cheers, yeah it's a decent enough example, not perfect but it is 19 years old.
The more I look at it, the more I dislike the rear seat unit, only due to the handles and seat cowl. I think a proper single seat unit is definitely on the cards, but the only ones I've seen are race ones so I will need to cut out for the rear light, not a problem. Either that or I can make one from glass or carbon as I've got a lot of experience with composites. Then it's just getting it painted which is not a problem as my dad owns a body shop.
One question, is a chain guard needed for MOT? Or is it one of those items that can't be tested if it's not there? Only ask as I'll need to put one on if so.
The more I look at it, the more I dislike the rear seat unit, only due to the handles and seat cowl. I think a proper single seat unit is definitely on the cards, but the only ones I've seen are race ones so I will need to cut out for the rear light, not a problem. Either that or I can make one from glass or carbon as I've got a lot of experience with composites. Then it's just getting it painted which is not a problem as my dad owns a body shop.
One question, is a chain guard needed for MOT? Or is it one of those items that can't be tested if it's not there? Only ask as I'll need to put one on if so.
patchb said:
One question, is a chain guard needed for MOT? Or is it one of those items that can't be tested if it's not there? Only ask as I'll need to put one on if so.
Officially I'm not sure although I have had a couple of bikes go through without. If it is a sticking point find another MOT station that are friendly is what I would do.
I still think these bikes look great btw! Would love an endurance rep as a track bike someday...
patchb said:
Right, I doubt anyone will care but I'm going to keep this thread updated with bits and bobs I do to the bike. I have always kept build threads for my cars and its a nice way to look back on my vehicles and see what I've done and how they've changed over time.
To be fair, this isn't going to change much but it'll give me something to do whilst I wait till next year to ride the damn thing!
So I paid for it and got the keys and documents sorted today. I was straight out to the garage to start tinkering, only to find nothing really needed doing, so I started cleaning instead. First thing that caught my eye was faded paint where a tank pad had been fitted:
Decided to try and polish it out, then realised it was lacquered so no chance of that. I don't particularly like tank pads but I think I'll try and find a plain, tasteful one to try and cover that up.
Broke out the machine polisher and started polishing anyway:
Gave it a quick once over with a couple of different pads. I didn't go mad as it's a 19 year old bike and the paint is never going to be perfect but it comes up alright. I never realised it was slightly metallic before!
I only polished the tank but will get the rest done at the weekend. I want to whip all the bodywork off anyway to clean underneath so I will polish the fairings when they're off. Gave the wheels a clean then just had a good look around it, sit on it and found some little bits I want to change.
Always loved the headlights on 7r's
Such a big old tank
Cockpit view. Love how retro this is, and the harris screen brace is a nice touch
My favourite shot. Shame about all the s
t in my garage!
Few bits I want to do, adjustable rearsets, as I'm 6'4 it feels very tight, I've read rearsets can help this a lot for taller riders.
I want a single seat unit really, gets rid of those nasty rear grab handles (although they are pretty useful for putting the bike on the paddock stand on your own)
I might get a rear hugger, I'm not 100% though as I like the look without one.
Lovely bikes these, massively underrated.To be fair, this isn't going to change much but it'll give me something to do whilst I wait till next year to ride the damn thing!
So I paid for it and got the keys and documents sorted today. I was straight out to the garage to start tinkering, only to find nothing really needed doing, so I started cleaning instead. First thing that caught my eye was faded paint where a tank pad had been fitted:
Decided to try and polish it out, then realised it was lacquered so no chance of that. I don't particularly like tank pads but I think I'll try and find a plain, tasteful one to try and cover that up.
Broke out the machine polisher and started polishing anyway:
Gave it a quick once over with a couple of different pads. I didn't go mad as it's a 19 year old bike and the paint is never going to be perfect but it comes up alright. I never realised it was slightly metallic before!
I only polished the tank but will get the rest done at the weekend. I want to whip all the bodywork off anyway to clean underneath so I will polish the fairings when they're off. Gave the wheels a clean then just had a good look around it, sit on it and found some little bits I want to change.
Always loved the headlights on 7r's
Such a big old tank
Cockpit view. Love how retro this is, and the harris screen brace is a nice touch
My favourite shot. Shame about all the s
t in my garage! Few bits I want to do, adjustable rearsets, as I'm 6'4 it feels very tight, I've read rearsets can help this a lot for taller riders.
I want a single seat unit really, gets rid of those nasty rear grab handles (although they are pretty useful for putting the bike on the paddock stand on your own)
I might get a rear hugger, I'm not 100% though as I like the look without one.
All the best with it
Edited by y2blade on Wednesday 25th November 12:59
BuzzBravado said:
I really like the look of these too. Would be interested to know what you think of it as a daily. Will the rear cowl from a zx7r-r not work? Probably super expensive i'd imagine.
I shan't be using it as a daily, so won't be able to let you know about that I'm afraid, although I will ride to work on it fairly often when the weather is nice but not every day as I have a long commute and don't want to pile the miles on it. The couple of zx7rr seat units I've seen for sale are around £300 which is too much I think. I've found a company that does a choice between super sport and superbike single seat units, the difference being the super sport one uses the stock seat rather than seat foam. However I would ideally like to be able to access the storage under the rear seat so might have a look at cutting a flap behind the riders seat similar to that on an rs125.
So I was thinking about my bike whilst I was at work today, theres a few bits on the fairings that are annoying me so I decided, fk it I'm going to repaint them.
Got home, measured all the decal positions etc. DA in hand ready to start sanding then I thought, actually I'll see about getting some paint first. Kawasaki Firecracker red is a 2 stage paint plus lacquer and the Pearl Alpine white is the same, so I'd need to buy 4 different paints plus lacquer plus replacement decals. The idea was prep it and get my dad to paint it but it's gonna cost me £200 minimum just to prep it.
Is it really worth it on a bike I paid £1500 for? As I say its in tidy condition, just a few little bits on the fairing lowers that are bugging me. (I wasn't going to bother painting the tank or the Jetski Purple bits)
However it would give me something to do over winter. Unless anyone has any other bits they can recommend doing!?
I'm bidding on a set of full carbon air intakes, and am planning on making a few little bits out of carbon at work, such as the coolant bottle cover etc.
On another note, I was bored at the weekend so whipped the fairings off and started cleaning. Not very exciting photos but oh well!
Before:
After:
Before:
After (No point having fancy levers if they look mank)
And an example of the bits of fairing that are pissing me off:
I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, I guess I just need to find stuff to do to my bike, I just want to ride the thing really! Ah well CBT on saturday so that's one step closer, just got to wait till january for my actual test.
k it I'm going to repaint them. Got home, measured all the decal positions etc. DA in hand ready to start sanding then I thought, actually I'll see about getting some paint first. Kawasaki Firecracker red is a 2 stage paint plus lacquer and the Pearl Alpine white is the same, so I'd need to buy 4 different paints plus lacquer plus replacement decals. The idea was prep it and get my dad to paint it but it's gonna cost me £200 minimum just to prep it.
Is it really worth it on a bike I paid £1500 for? As I say its in tidy condition, just a few little bits on the fairing lowers that are bugging me. (I wasn't going to bother painting the tank or the Jetski Purple bits)
However it would give me something to do over winter. Unless anyone has any other bits they can recommend doing!?
I'm bidding on a set of full carbon air intakes, and am planning on making a few little bits out of carbon at work, such as the coolant bottle cover etc.
On another note, I was bored at the weekend so whipped the fairings off and started cleaning. Not very exciting photos but oh well!
Before:
After:
Before:
After (No point having fancy levers if they look mank)
And an example of the bits of fairing that are pissing me off:
I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, I guess I just need to find stuff to do to my bike, I just want to ride the thing really! Ah well CBT on saturday so that's one step closer, just got to wait till january for my actual test.
Slightly more exciting post this time (although not much as I haven't got any finished products yet)
Decided to make myself some composite intake covers. Now these are readily available to buy, priced at around £100 so not mega expensive either. But I can make my own set for around £30 and it's much more satisfying than just buying some. Also once the moulds are finished I can lend them to people so they can have a go at making their own carbon parts (no point producing them myself to sell as they are already available.)
The first part of the process is very crudely done, purely as I don't have any laminating tools and limited materials at home and don't want to pinch stuff from work. This is just the mould anyway and I plan on doing a final finish on the actual product. I used silicon spray as a release agent which I've never used before so I'm hoping my originals come out undamaged! If not it's only £20 for a new set.
Scratched and faded originals:
Release agent added and first gel on them:
Skin coat (not very even as it was odds and sods that I found in my garage!)
That's as far as I got with making the moulds this evening, should have them finished by Wednesday. Need to order some epoxy resin as I only have polyester and decide what I want to make them out of, I really fancy Kevlar but I'm not sure how well the yellow cloth will go on a red bike. Probably go for twill weave carbon.
Whilst I was waiting for stuff to go off, I repainted the grab handles as they were chipped. These will be gone when I get the single seat unit on but thought it would tidy it up for now.
I should have some finished products out of the moulds by the weekend provided I order some materials tomorrow.
Decided to make myself some composite intake covers. Now these are readily available to buy, priced at around £100 so not mega expensive either. But I can make my own set for around £30 and it's much more satisfying than just buying some. Also once the moulds are finished I can lend them to people so they can have a go at making their own carbon parts (no point producing them myself to sell as they are already available.)
The first part of the process is very crudely done, purely as I don't have any laminating tools and limited materials at home and don't want to pinch stuff from work. This is just the mould anyway and I plan on doing a final finish on the actual product. I used silicon spray as a release agent which I've never used before so I'm hoping my originals come out undamaged! If not it's only £20 for a new set.
Scratched and faded originals:
Release agent added and first gel on them:
Skin coat (not very even as it was odds and sods that I found in my garage!)
That's as far as I got with making the moulds this evening, should have them finished by Wednesday. Need to order some epoxy resin as I only have polyester and decide what I want to make them out of, I really fancy Kevlar but I'm not sure how well the yellow cloth will go on a red bike. Probably go for twill weave carbon.
Whilst I was waiting for stuff to go off, I repainted the grab handles as they were chipped. These will be gone when I get the single seat unit on but thought it would tidy it up for now.
I should have some finished products out of the moulds by the weekend provided I order some materials tomorrow.
Reardy Mister said:
Yeah I was watching that the other day, kind of made me want to paint mine green!First mould is done, I'm well happy as the original has come out unscathed so I can stick that back on the bike until the carbon ones are finished.
The mould is made of glass and polyester resin, in a much heavier lay up than I will be using on the carbon items, the mould itself weighs the same as the original so the carbon one should be lighter. That is not the purpose of this exercise (there's many ways to shed weight from a heafty 7r before losing 50g from an air duct cover!) but it's a nice byproduct.
Original as it came out:
Mould:
Second mould is laid up and I'll break it out tomorrow. Just want to get the carbon and epoxy and lay up the final items now, doubt the materials will be here until the weekend though.
Finally did a bit on my air intakes. I've got a lot of laminating experience but never worked with carbon before, more difficult than I thought to get the weave looking nice. Obviously this one needs trimming,flatting, polishing and a few bits filling with a bit more resin but its getting there.
I only used 1 layer of 200g/m carbon, its much thinner than I thought so I'm going to quickly dust over the back with black spray then put a 300g/m powder bound glass layer over the back. Obviously weight savings are irrelevant on a 205kg bike but the originals weigh 171g and these weigh 70g
In the mould:
Broken out:
Before I do the other side I'm going to do the cover that goes over the back of the clocks and the header tank cover as they are a bit easier and will give me some more practise.
I only used 1 layer of 200g/m carbon, its much thinner than I thought so I'm going to quickly dust over the back with black spray then put a 300g/m powder bound glass layer over the back. Obviously weight savings are irrelevant on a 205kg bike but the originals weigh 171g and these weigh 70g
In the mould:
Broken out:
Before I do the other side I'm going to do the cover that goes over the back of the clocks and the header tank cover as they are a bit easier and will give me some more practise.
dukeboy749r said:
Hats off to you for the choice of bike and the dedication and effort you are putting into it.
And as for the money spent, nothing (perhaps more satisfying on an old[ish], cheap bike), than selling it for more than you paid for it...?
Thanks. I'm not really started on it yet, got a lot of plans for it, I want to do/make everything that I can myself, for one it keeps the costs down (as you say it's an old bike and never going to appreciate very much) and also it gives me a sense of satisfaction and helps my skill set as well. And as for the money spent, nothing (perhaps more satisfying on an old[ish], cheap bike), than selling it for more than you paid for it...?
I really wish I had access to a lathe and milling machine as I want to make some rearsets but unfortunately I don't currently.
Bought some carbon frame protectors as they were really cheap. I'm not going to use them as they are plain weave and the air duct covers I've made are twill weave so they don't match. Will tidy up the clear coat on them and sell them on. Also think they are probably more suited to the later bikes with black
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