jaderd

Did some more today, sanded and sprayed the airbox - silver and cleared so that is ready for fitting. refitted the chain guards and also the rear metal guard and also the rear tail light /number plate part. cleaned the light and light sanded / polished the lens to bring it back to new looking. Also decided to use the old reflector holder mount to hold the rear indicators as i didnt want to use the stock mount spot. Also have decided to go with the second lot of indicators i bought of ebay as they are a little smaller and more era specific looking. really enjoying the build now...its all the nice clean less messy parts i get to play with.....still frustrating though wire wheeling all the nuts bolts washers etc and polishing them (mainly to protect a little from rust) before i can use them to remount stuff .....tedious but worth it in the end. cheers some pics below....seat and rear fender just sitting there.

ok got home tonight, looked at the motor and thought, bugger it, im going to crack the head and have a look see / clean up. so for all those with the tens of years worth more experience than me what do you see. i have done a basic clean of the head ? it look ok, notice that its not completely smooth it does have like a slight sandy grain texture on most of it, appears like how it was cast ? and is normal ? what is the easiest way to take the main part off, it says to use rubber sledge and tap away, i used some rolled up shirt and normal hammer lol, no go so far and dont want to tap too hard, is there another way to lever / loosen it off ? do i really need to take it off, all i really want to do is clean the top of cylinder, is that possible how it is, am afraid of bits of carbon falling everywhere....have vaccuum cleaner going at same time ? cylinder seems to make a nice fit when sealing top with hand etc.....so i feel it would be fine once heats up and fits proper etc. and yesterday i added some bikeit for guards quick and easy to fit and for under $10 look and will function alot better than the dodgy ones i made:) Cheers any info welcome.

Spent today getting into bike, Got my 525 chain all sorted, its Tsubaki japanese brand, cut back to 100 links for $72 which is great, pick up Tuesday night Also got some Dririder Assen gloves off ebay they were size 3XL and won them for $1.25c Fit perfect which is great. The guy then gave me a 8XL Dririder waterproof jacket for free !!, as the gloves and jacket were thrown in with bike he bought and he has no need, the 8XL is heaps to big for me im sure ill find someone who wants it at a cheap price :) After researching tyres i settled on some Pirelli MT43 as they are a great on / off road and brilliant for letting down to low psi for bush trips. Got them at Pablos tyres in mulgrave, great bloke scotty and nice shop with some vintage Maicos hanging around to look at. Then spent today cleaning and doing a basic polish of brake hub Front and Rear. Pulled apart all apects of brakes, cleaned, regreased changed some seals etc, cleaned all aspects of wheel bearings / axles, repacked bearings etc. I decided not to worry about replacing the bearings as they were perfect i will keep the ones i bought incase need in future. Fitted rear wheel so as a roller and fitted shocks and torqued up, fitted front axle and torqued up. Was great to be able to hop on the bike and bounce up and down a little, rear shocks are nice and stiff the balance of stiffness up front to rear seems fine, once motor and everything in will reassess, may need stiffer springs in front or extra spacer to make stiffer. Cheers.....i want it all together already :)

Little bit happened over last few days got my official VJMC membership pack which is great, bike will be permit rego'd through VJMC once complete reinstalled the swingarm and torqued it up reinstalled the steering stem and it feels a good level of tightness, will recheck prior to riding etc undid top bolt off forks, took out and cleaned the springs, both springs were identical lengths which is good neither have sagged. from pouring out oil and releasing bottom screw i got out around 135ml from each fork, figure there is atleast the other 30ml or so sitting in and around all the aspects of the fork so leads me to believe again that they were never leaking. Dont have a big enough allen key so didnt replace oil seals yet, refilled with 170ml of 10W oil per fork, all back together and feel great. Fitted forks and torqued up Fitted gauge assembly, cleaned instrument cluster wiring with circuit spray etc fitted headlight and oversize cover fitted handlebars and torqued up. Liking how it is all looking and am at least able to straddle bike to see how it will be, the trailtech is perfectly viewable from seating angle whilst still protected. boss was throwing out a single bed egg shell top, she thought of me n my shed work and gave it to me, works great. Cleaned chain and checked tolerance, tolerance for 10kg weight on chain and 21 link measure is 314mm to 324mm, mine measure 327mm so def gone :( so i need to buy a chain. Big thankyou to Graham from OZVMX, helped him out with some pics of rear rim n spokes and some F11 articles, he gave me the oil line that i need as mine snapped....save me a good 70$ which can go towards chain, great bloke. getting excited now coming together well. Cheers

ill be there hopefully on my old trail bike...will be cutting it fine, i hope to have it on the road by then. cheers

quick update, bought some more stuff over weekend, grease and degreaser etc. chain is currently soaking in degreaser to clean it up then ill check its tolerance, might be ok still. degreased the motor and stripped all the black off in anticipation of repainting black again....but since the whole lot is bare now i like it alot better. Also bit of a bonus i feel, the top cylinder head was painted black so has gone back to bare metal, though the bottom half with horizontal fins isnt painted black / gray it is black /gray metal i guess which i like and gives it a two tone look. Its hard to see in the pics but looks good. Also filed the fins, need to go over them with some light sandpaper and also the vertical fins although i like how it is coming along. Painted the fenders, came out well, primer then 4 light coats of enamel, perfect 21 degrees painting with 2 X 500w halogens on them.. Also some other stuff came Other indicators, which the 6V8W globes from them fit straight into the 12V indicators i bought off ebay which i will use as i like the way they look better. Kellys Enduro front fender bag arrived NOS Front brake cable arrived Pyramid Parts fork oil seal and fork dust boots arrived Trailtech dash and top mount arrived. Just waiting on Front sprocket and the little battery case i bought to hold the 9V battery to run the trailtech, it has an internal 3V battery but off that the backlight only runs at 10% and the shift lights dont work, so adding a 9V runs it for a good year or so and gives full backlight and shift lights and stays on for 20min after riding instead of quickly shutting off. The trailtech mounted on the stock guage bracket fairly well, i also chucked on an old MX visor i had laying around as a shield for it, from the angle it mounts and riding position the whole thing can be seen no prob, especially with backlight, shift lights may be a bit out of view but will fill the space with light and be fine....i may ditch it if it looks ****y once fitted on with whole front end complete. Some pics below

Cheers Guys Was thinking about my tacho / speedo and i know the speed doesnt work for some reason or another and is a vac sealed unit from factory. Pretty sure i should be replacing tacho cable and speedo cable (might fix problem) etc but adds more cost....i just ordered a new front brake cable Sooooo i bit the bullet and order a Trailtech Vapor (stealth black) Unit does speed / Revs/ motor temp / ambient temp/ clock and heaps more, shift lights internal 3v battery Though to use the full backlight ad warning/ shift lights needs 12V input straight from trailtech they reccomend as the cheapest easiest is to use a standard 9V battery with connection from radioshack, hide it away and it will run the unit perfect with backlight etc for around 1 year....very cheap fix for 6V bike guys like me and you dont have to splice into any bike wiring...completely independent. Complete kit including postage and Top mount dashboard only $170 fro ebay shop in the UK, pretty cheap and cheaper than the trailtech site without even including postage. I measured my stock guage mount and the top mount i bought fits perfect using the left tacho mount hole and right speedo mount hole and clears the ignition perfect. I will wait until i get a replacement mount before i cut off the other tabs or i have another idea lined up for there use, will see what pans out.... all going well....wallet getting thin ;)

Eventful few days, happy times thats for sure Got my Learners Permit :) Got a sweet Joe Rocket replica super sport jacket (kawasaki) and got a Dri rider climate control 2 jacket

Ok so the indicators arrived and are sweet, but globes from my indicators fit perfect just that they are too tall by around 6-8 mm and i cant put the lense back on. My globes say 6V17w on them so figured thats what they should be and thats what my wiring diagram states. Now the wiring diagram for the road going F11 250 TR only has 6V8W globes which are nice and small and would fit in the indicators great, now the only difference in the two wiring diagrams that i could see other than horn diff of .5amp and different look of voltage regulator, seems to have an extra switch within it in the 250 TR (need someone to tell me if that is significant) is that the turn signal relay is then a 6V8W X2 + 1.5w So do you think if i swapped relays to that 6V8w version which i guess is below and changed my globes to 6V8W in indicators they would fit and all would be sweet? From looking at parts manual online for the 1974 F11 (same as mine) the relay is part no 27002-013 RELAY-TURN SIGNAL no the part below on ebay states the same number: 6V/8W MATCHES KAW PART NO. 27002-010/013 though is in 6V8W which makes me think it is interchangeable ? and this little chart makes me think if i change the turn signal relay and globes it will work, seems most kawasaki were the lower watt option ure and Emgo # OEM Ref Application Volt/Watt A. 66-86706 38310-428-671 Honda - most 6v models 6v/17w B. 66-86716 27002-010/013 Kawasaki - Most 6v models 73-84 6v/8w Any info would be great http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/KAWASAKI-FLASHER-UNIT-6V-8W-/190554312339?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2c5dec0e93#ht_500wt_1156

Quick update, 7" oversize headlight gaurds arrived today, mocked one up on front, fits fairly well, also sat guard on and tested gauges, all looked goo and new ears keep headlight in closer not sticking out from of gauges by much more than 2cm. Also tested throttle and brake lever, all fits perfect behind the CRF handle bar guards and they are looking better the more I add parts, once chunky front tread on should all tie in nicely, like the contrast of chrome n black Cheers

Nice amount of post arrived home today. The petcock filter arrived along with the speedo/tacho NOS shieilds and the KL250 shocks. Also i found some of the headlight mesh guards i have been looking for incl postage for a good price so they are on their way via express post. Shocks are slightly longer which is great, best aspect though is that on the softest setting they are stiffer than the stock shocks on their hardest setting. Springs are 60mm diameter as opposed to stock of 50mm. I like the way they look tougher and more enduro whilst stock looked a bit cruiser like. Also the springs themselves still have the chrome with no rust, the stock ones i had to actually sand the chrome away to get rid of rust and pitting, very happy with these new ones. Does anyone know how to take apart the old tacho / speedo ? the silver back comes off no prob and then there appeared to be a fair bit of green like sealant stuff that sealed the screws that hold in the actual mechanism internal and then seals the internal case onto the plastic casing, it appears the plastic casing is then fused around the casing ? do you have to chip away the plastic to pull it apart then reseal it yourself afterwards ? they must be made to come apart. mine doesnt look exactly like this one below, mine seems trickier http://users.telenet.be/tups/speedo.htm My dad was chatting with my uncle last night (his younger brother), he owns dad old 1972 suzuki TS185, he wants me to restore it once i have done mine and he will fund everything, so looking forward to that once mine is complete. some pics below Cheers

Thanks for replies guys, my bike has a 6 volt system, not sure ill bother testing wires, was getting ahead of myself in little details like indicators i would like when i have so much cleaning and polishing / painting that really needs to be done. info from ppl and net has lead me to believe that 12 V indicators can be used not a problem as long as they are of an average size that you can swap bulbs over to a 6 V bulb. after hunting ebay etc i found some i live that are classified as mini indicators and from the pics on ebay it appears a standard 6 volt bulb should fit in, the case is 60mm X 47mm, so i snapped them up $25 inlc postage so pretty cheap. Its the tiny 12v indicators that you generally cannot interchange as the bulb is so small and no 6v bulbs are generally small enough....so fingers crossed. also the 1wire, 2 wire and 3 wire aspects got me a bit stuck until i read that 1 wire = 1 wire signal, ground via bolt 2 wire = 1 wire signal, 1 wire ground and generally bolt grounds also 3 wire = 1 wire signal, 1 wire ground and 1 wire marker (i dunno what marker is) these are two wire so should be ok.....current ones on bike are 1 wire rear, although the fronts do have two wire and seem to go back to a major ground from looking at the wiring diagram. list of whats i have bought / on way soon Steering Stem dust shield on way then i can properly put front end together...need some grease too Petcock filter, current one crappy 7" mesh headlight guards, one for front to slip over headlight and mount on front hole of headlight bracket (headlight on middle hole) spare one im going to experiment cutting it up and bending for a rear tail light cover NOS speedo / tacho covers, slip on top has a slight lip on then stops glare i guess and other debris...more just for looks / **** factor Indicators - basic style, i didnt want complete round....bit more current era look, will sit on 3rd hole of headlight brackets, closest to bike -$25 Honda CRF 450 handle bar guards - ebay $26.....shoulf fit fine, to paint black How it sits currently, back in garage so can fiddle with it easier, made some space, fitted a few parts just mocked up to keep me inspired, liking how it looks, headlight needs to come up a little. Bought some digital vernier calipers the other day to make measuring things easier come putting things back together and testing chain slack etc.....just need a 1/2" drive torque wrench and i have most tools i need then.

This arvo i spent hour or two and did the second fork so that i could do a mock piece up of some of the front end, need to see how it will look to keep me inspired and moving on. Happy with how it looks, some pics below, the tacho n speedo i am going to drop the bracket lower by around 5-8cm so that it sits flush with the top triple as opposed to stock, this will fit better as i have/will drop the headlight down so that is more inline with the tank/seat/rear tail...didnt like how it sat up high. Will also let the forks pop through the top triple by maybe an inch to lower the front end slightly. Just doing this mock up has made me heaps enthused to keep doing more of the cleaning/sanding/polishing/painting that is needed before any actual putting back together. Cheers *note headlight brackets were upside down in garage pics, rectified in pics inside house. [img width=770 height=577]http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/sberton/18d1ec90.jpg

some nice rivalry there :) Check your inbox marky mark, something you might be interested in.