The transformation is over! (well... almost...)

Hey all!

Just thought I'd share the journey I've had with my little fizzer.

Just over 15 months ago I bought my 1991 3LN-3 as a bit of a mess and decided I'd fix it up. It cost my wife and I $900 to buy off this guy who wanted $1500 for it. It had no fairings except for the ductail ones, bent handlebar, stuffed right hand footpeg, the chain and sprockets were fuxored... It had generally been neglected for a long time.

When we got it, it looked like this.




We then proceded to strip the bike down and give it a damn good scrub.


We found out very early in the piece that parts for this bike were pretty hard to get, and when they were available, they were pretty expensive. It was going to cost us $120 for the right hand handlebar, $150 for a new right footpeg and the fairings, don't even start me on that one.

We took the bike to Midtown Kawasaki for a check to see exactly what it needed for roadworthy. Rear disc was shot, fuel tap leaked everywhere, tyres were cracked, needed front fairing and screen, chain and sprockets and the indicators didn't work consistantly. We got more than we bargained for, but that didn't stop us.

While at Midtown, we were told about this 1990 FZR that had been sitting in their workshop for a few months and the owner was looking to sell. The bike cosmetically was excellent, except for the colour, but mechanicallly was a bit of a dog. We scored that bike for $300. You couldn't even buy all the fairings on it for that much. It was a 3LN-1, which made swapping some electrical parts impossible, like the switch blocks. So the footpegs, handlebars etc were used from this second bike to get mine roadworthy.

I rode around with the 3LN-1 fairings on for a while until I sourced a 3LN-3 front fairing from Handcraft Fibreglass for $250. After putting the proper fairing on, I crashed about 2 months later. Grrr. So then I had to repair the fairings etc and was going to paint them myself. This took quite some time, so in the mean time I rode it around without the sides on.



It stayed this way for almost 12 months until just 2 months ago a mate offered to get it painted for me. I wasn't going to say no. So I got the panels back about 3 weeks ago, and needless to say they were on the bike within 24 hours of getting them back. The end result is a bike that looks like this.





Me on the bike


Some pics of it in the day







I am very pleased with the outcome. It took quite some time, but it was well worth the wait. Now when I get around to it, I will be getting the decals for it to finish it off.

Sorry about the long post, just thought I'd share our experiences with the little beast. Sorry to all dialup users too...

Thanks for reading!!

Chris.

 

It cost us a lot of time and effort to get it looking like that. Lisa (my wife) spent many hours sanding the back the panels with me (she did most of them, I love her so much!). Preparation is the key here, and it really paid off. As for the paint, it is two-pack and it was done as a favour by a mate. It cost us a carton of XXXX Gold!!! Can't get any better than that eh? The colour itself was colour matched to a 2005 R1.

Here is a pic of Liz on the finished product. It was about 11:30pm.

She's such a squid!!! <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s -->

 

Good luck with it all... It is well worth it <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s -->

 

Indeed.

When I got the bike rego'd for the first time, I got Arrowmax GT501??? I think that's what they were called. They were good, but I much prefer the Bridgey's. Although I think that it is a personal choice, as I never had any reason to doubt the Dunlops... ie I never had it slip out on me.