1981 GS450E Rebuild

[pete]

*Still* no brake shim... the bloke I spoke to has no idea what's going on so he's ordered another one and if he ends up with two he'll just send one back.

On the plus side, I've gotten a lot of the tools sorted in the garage this week so the garage is now probably 50% sorted, which is about 100% more than it was before...

[Redneck]

Then my wife gave me an old coin purse thing to use as I couldn't find anything suitable at Supercheap or Woolies today and stuck all the tools in:



Yes it looks a touch on the girly side but it does the job right? And my wife promises she'll find me a more manly one at some point... haha

Yes but do your riding Boots match your uh ... tool bag.

[Johnny Drummond]

fashion certainties!

Hey Redneck, of course Petes boots will match the tool pouch because fashion rule NO.1 is:-black goes with everything.Johnny

[pete]

Yes but do your riding Boots match your uh ... tool bag.

Hey Redneck, of course Petes boots will match the tool pouch because fashion rule NO.1 is:-black goes with everything.Johnny

Hahahahahahaha yep Johnny's onto it! My boots are black

[pete]

Finally! disc brake shim arrived today, went and picked it up at lunch.



Got the caliper off tonight and got the shim on the pad:



And back together, really not happy with that 3M caliper paint:



Wheeled it forwards and backwards in the very limited space in the garage and no squeaks (it was squeaking as soon as the wheel moved) so we'll see how it fares tomorrow.

[pete]

Happy to report my squeaking seems to be gone

[pete]

Well it looks like one of my extra optional bits might actually do what it's supposed to... so here it is so far... I started this work back at the end of November before even getting the bike on the road, so it's been floating around for a while...

I really wanted a fly screen on the front to knock just a little wind out of the way, definitely don't want a fairing or bikini fairing.

There was one for about $45 but the distributor is no longer importing them and I haven't seen anything else that really took my eye, so figured I'd give making one a go.

So, got a sheet of acrylic perspex off eBay...

Put some round things to use that were floating around the garage:



And one cardboard template done:



Should do the trick, size and shape seem to be ok:



Marked it out on the sheet of perspex, plenty left for a few more goes if the first one screws up:



Figured out the mounting holes by guessing where the holes will end up after the perspex is curved:



Drilled the mounting holes after roughly cutting it out of the sheet:



Then, ages ago, I managed to get some time with the jigsaw during the day and cut the shape out properly:



And that's what I had done by the end of November, then I got distracted getting the bike registered and since then I just haven't had the same time in the garage available for whatever reasons...

Anyway, today I finally got into it again. Had an old T shirt as a rag that I stretched over my old bikini fairing to protect it, and then I could get some heat going on the perspex to get it curved.

[pete]

Whacked the cardboard template on and used some masking tape to work out where the perspex needs to sit to try to get it at least close to symmetrical:



I used a reasonably fine file to get the curves fairly smooth then ripped the protective paper off so I could heat and bend it:



Got the welding gloves and heat gun ready and started getting it nice and hot:



Ideally, an oven is the most efficient way to do this, but our oven is incredibly dodgy and it was just easier and simpler to use the heat gun, although it took forever on the high heat setting and I kept moving it over the surface to try and heat it evenly.

Anyway, once it was hot enough to flex easily, I whacked it over the T shirt and held it down until it seemed to be a reasonable shape:



I'd prefer if the top curved over a little as well but I don't think it'll do it so I'll leave it as is for now and see how it goes. Seems to sit well though:



Next up is some mounts, drew them up on the whiteboard and got the first marked out on some alu. ready to cut out:



And that's where I'm up to now. Hopefully I can get it finished and fitted this week and see how it goes.

I bought the perspex as it was listed as "smoked" but it's not as dark as I thought it would be. I was hoping it would do more to hide the ugly gauge cluster, but as it turns out I'm probably going the Acewell path so that should be a bit neater anyway.

[cowboyup3371]

Hey Pete, what do you do for a living again? Your ingenuity floors me some times and makes me wish I either knew more about the other side or was willing to take more chances of screwing up and burning money if I failed.

[Charlie G]

Well Pete, now you have smoke coming out of my ears. I always thought you had to make a form to lay the plexy over, while it was in a oven. Your free hand process has me looking for the scraps I had stored away somewhere.Cheers.

cg

[GateKeeper]

Hey Pete, nice work....just a note, if you don't need to see through the screen, just get some flexible spray paint (something like bumper paint or paint for plastics) and spray he inside of the screen, it will black it out, your gauges won't be seen, the outer side will make it look nice and shiny, and the inner side will be protected. We did this on our snowmobile screens, and they have held up for more than 10 years with out a scratch, or peel or anything. I will see if I can get a picture of the screens for you....now if you want it smokey and still see through it, there are paints available that smoke out the plastic but are still see through, I know we here in Canada have this, so it might be available in your neck of the woods as well, something like this

http://www.vhtpaint.com/products/niteshades/

[pete]

Hey Pete, what do you do for a living again? Your ingenuity floors me some times and makes me wish I either knew more about the other side or was willing to take more chances of screwing up and burning money if I failed.

That'd be IT Geek Scott

Let's just say you can look really successful if you only show people successful ideas right?

But seriously, the price of the perspex was so cheap it was worth a gamble, and I have heaps of alu. sheet here from other things. Something I learnt during all this is that places that cut and sell raw materials always end up with offcuts of some sort. Those offcuts are verging on worthless to them so if you know where to find them, they can be had at very cost effective prices...

Well Pete, now you have smoke coming out of my ears. I always thought you had to make a form to lay the plexy over, while it was in a oven. Your free hand process has me looking for the scraps I had stored away somewhere.Cheers.

cg

It would be better if I could've done that Charlie, and a lot easier.

However, between said dodgy oven and only having another sheet of perspex type material to use as the form, this was the only method available.

When I did this sort of thing during wood work at high school (many many moons ago), we did this method also. A wooden form was used so wasn't safe to stick in the oven. The trick was to know when to pull the perspex out.

Hey Pete, nice work....just a note, if you don't need to see through the screen, just get some flexible spray paint (something like bumper paint or paint for plastics) and spray he inside of the screen, it will black it out, your gauges won't be seen, the outer side will make it look nice and shiny, and the inner side will be protected. We did this on our snowmobile screens, and they have held up for more than 10 years with out a scratch, or peel or anything. I will see if I can get a picture of the screens for you....now if you want it smokey and still see through it, there are paints available that smoke out the plastic but are still see through, I know we here in Canada have this, so it might be available in your neck of the woods as well, something like this

http://www.vhtpaint.com/products/niteshades/

Thanks GK! I'm hoping the mounts turn out ok and it mounts up nice and straight, but we'll see.

Thanks for the paint tip! I'll keep that in mind.

Painting the rear is a good idea too, stones and things won't chip the paint, and it's definitely worth while thinking about...

[GateKeeper]

hey Pete, here are a few pics of the screens on the sled








.

[pete]

Nice, I like that! I wonder if I can score some moulding like it has around the edges too? That would be a nice touch.

That paint definitely does a good job though, will see how it goes as is and keep that in the back of my mind. Getting it over here will be the tricky bit though...

[GateKeeper]

that molding is just car edge door trim, you should be able to get it at any automotive store...




any plastic paint will do, as long as it stay pliable, see if you can find bumper paint, if your after the non see through look

.