Project The Bedroom Bike Build

The challenges of being a poor student in Wellington, NZ are many and perilous; cost of shipping my cache of parts is prohibitively expensive, most of my tools are still in my hometown too. The police don't much like half torn-down bikes ripping through town on "test missions" nomatter the time. But most notably is the extreme lack of available work space!

My wee work around for this last problem was to build a full mezzanine in my bedroom in order to accommodate my new '91 zxr project! (more on the bedroom later) After picking up the wee beut (albeit in a slightly sad state) for the princely sum of NZD$0.00, I took her for a wee spin to see what gremlins lie in wait- all the usual suspects, slightly grumbly cam-chain, unwillingness to rev above 12,000 (carbs off for a rebuild) and a leaky exhaust valve guide in cyl#4- nothing particularly out of the ordinary for one of these wee beasties at the grand old age of 54,000km.



Very quickly I turned to what i do enjoy the most- tearing the guts out of the poor wee thing! I've decided that since the mechanical's will require a little time, money and attention before she hits the streets again- time to start delving into my "dream box" and set about finally building my cafe racer inspired "micro-GP" bike.



Get ready for months of delays, excuses, cursing and pleading, as I attempt as best I can to document my largest and most in-depth expedition into custom-bike-building thus far!

 

Hmmm those drawn lines don't denote the cough racer tv cough "divine proportions" do they?

 

So it's now 1am my time... Far far past my bedtime but hey, got some good preliminary work done for my tank and fairing "plug". Everything will be 'designed' by hand using foam core and wire modeling techniques which I'll endevour to get good coverage of as the project progresses. For the time being, a simple wooden mockup gives a fairly decent idea of the side profile that I'm going for.



When I went back over some photo's in the glorious program "MS Paint" and applied what little computing knowledge I have (yeah... none... you guessed it) along with using "the golden ratio"- I found that my beady little eyecrometer was pretty spot on with my proportioning!



Well, it's time for me to get some Kip now; I shall keep you lovely people up to date as bits of alloy wire, carbon and other goodies start to wend their way onto the frame!

Ciao!
Bryn

 

OOH you went a brought the golden ration into it - did you know that the pentagram also has the golden ratio in the lengths of the inner pentagon and the points of the star.

...and no I'm not a witch

There's a great video of John Britten doing the faring shape with wire and a hot glue gun for the primitive shape - you New Zealanders have form

 

We seem to find that bloody ratio everywhere in the universe!!! Lucky it looks so good right ;D John Britten style is exactly the method I'll be using! Easiest method given the space and tools I have available to me.

 

A few quick grabs from 1:50 in this video of the fairing form in hot glued wire

 

Looking forward to watching your progress, I'm a cafe racer style fan as well.

 

John Britten certainly was at the well spring of creativity

 

When we talk about motorcycles being a work of art, what better example than John Britten's "V" twin,
Just take a look at the spaghetti exhaust system for a start, beautiful.

 

Couple of days visiting my Grandfather, spinning yarns about his old bike andstereos, whilst drinking too much beer! Now back at it this evening:
Just the boring bits I'm sure we've all seen before!





I'll be heading down to my local bike shop in he next day or two to have the front wheel removed (I dont have a 14mm allen key, and far far too tight for the old nuts on a bolt trick, so I suppose now is as good a time as any to begin out sourcing! once she's totally bare, off to vapour blasting!

 

Hex couplers from Bunnings are perfect for many large allen head bolts - choose zinc plated over galvansied if possible as the glavanised ones have paint slop which makes them need work to fit properly

https://www.bunnings.com.au/search/products?q=hex coupler&redirectFrom=Any

 

Who can spot the tasty bit's




(anyone able to confirm this part number please? I know that I've never owned a "J" CDI






Rather happy to find these (had seen the forks before I owned her, but could not confirm carbs, very tempted to do a full refresh now so I can count the teeth on 1-2-3 gears.

 

Keihin CVK32 carbs from a B/D model ZXR

As for the TCI, I'm fairly sure my bike came with a 'K' one... @Frankster has it now so he could confirm

 

J cdi's are for the C model & K cdi's are usually off a Balius but can be used in the C model, never tried it though.


I doubt there would be many SP (B/D)model gearboxes that slipped through the cracks, SP models also had adjustable rear shocks, different forks & lighter wheels, and all SP models are identified surprisingly through the frame number & not engine number.

 

I have the SP model forks and carbs as a starting point.

 

Those forks on the bike are C model forks, A model forks are gold & have no compression adjusters, the SP forks are gold & both have adjusters.