Here we go again ...

It's the beginning of a new year and, once again, a time for new year resolutions. This year it's a case of FJ2day or alternatively, FJnoway. I'm opting for FJ2day but we'll see what the rest of the project team want to do.

But really, does it need to be a group to move forward? If one of us wants to continue with the project then that's enough. So there .... the project is still on. Now where do I start? Maybe I should say "Where do I recommence?"

2013 saw the whole back of the bike being "trimmed down". The seat especially; it was re-carved into a narrow one -seater with the customary cafe racer hump at the back of it.

The drop bars were also modified, bringing them closer into the bike.No photos to show progress but they will come.

Little steps

Christmas 2011 came and went and the FJ remains in the garage. Now that we are close to "new year" and "new year resolutions" all thoughts have again turned to the bike. What can we get done in 2012?

In a matter of days Peter came over and with full intentions of sorting the wiring. However we got sidetracked and ended up installing the "four into one" headers and an exhaust that looks like a Milo tin. But it certainly doesn't sound like one.

Back into it

It is raining, a bit cold and I am at a loose end so what better thing to do than wander down to the garage and see what stuff I can progress on the FJ project.

For some time now we have been talking about "cutting" the frame to give the bike a more aggressive and "street-fighter" look but there has been indecision. What do we cut off, where do we cut, what if it doesn't look so good once it is cut off?

"before"

I thought "Aaahh ,,, stuff it". Got out the Dremel and started shaping the front fender. Then I got adventurous and got out the angle grinder and shaved a couple of "inches" from the frame at the back. End result looks OK.

"after" (with a bit of plastic fender attached to under the seat)

The seat looks a bit "dicky" but there are moves afoot to have it reshaped into a single seat. I also had a go at reshaping the broken plastic front fender.

Cut off the cracked bit and then cut even further (where line marking is)

Cafe racer with back frame shortened, new headlight and front fender

Now it's starting to look like a cafe racer ......

I'm going to spend this afternoon searching the web for a suitable exhaust system and handlebar mirrors.

Will it ever start

It's now getting towards the end of March and still we can't get the donor bike to run. Our intention was to get the bike running then sell it to finance the "build" of the cafe racer.

We have replaced the diaphragms in the carburettors, installed a starter motor (for another donor bike), put in a new ignitor and ignition switch and still nothing.

Next step is to get some decent spark plugs and see if they make a difference. In the meantime I'm off to the coast ...

The Simple Plan

It's "workshop day" and Paul is at Yamba so Peter and I decided to go it alone. The plan was simple ... meet at my garage at 9am, fit the carbs and get the bike running, and then have a discussion on where to from there ...

Well we fitted the carbs ... did not get the bike running and then had some lunch. After fish and chips we bought a new speedo on Ebay and then Peter left as he was going out that night.

What do the army reckon about plans ... something about them being perfect right up until "execution".

Progress at last

Last Saturday it was hot; stinkin' hot! But that was no reason not to meet at Paul's place and try and make some progress on the bike. Peter was late arriving so Paul and I began work on putting the handlebars back together after we have positioned the clipons on the frame. Everything went surprisingly well and in no time the clipons were installed (even if they were upside down). Ooh well.

Next step was to change the oil and filter. By this stage Peter had arrived so he took the lead and emptied all the old oil into a bucket and then filled the "Yam" with nice new Motul.

At the same time Paul decided to start reassembling the old motor. Once we have it back in one piece we plan to sell it to some cart racers who apparently love the old FJ 1100 motors for their go-carts.

The "workshop day" was productive. Next week we plan to buy the headlight brackets and headlight along with some rear vision mirrors that fix to the ends of the clipons.

Well .. what have we been doing? Aaugh now let me think. Ooh yes, we have bought another 2 FJ's to help with the cafe racer project.


After pulling apart the engine of FJ1100 (no 1) and discovering that we had a cracked (but welded back) engine block, a chipped piston crown (sorry that was me getting a bit brutal) and no special tools to get the clutch plates out, we lost a bit of interest in the project ... until.


Peter saw two FJ1200's for sale on ebay for $2,000. We checked them out and before we knew it we had bought both bikes for $1,100. Actually one of the FJ's cost $1,000 (No 2) because it was in running order and easily ready for registration and the other was a "barn job" that had been stored out on a farm at Laidley for the last 2 years. It (No 3) cost us $100.

Not a lot happenin ....

Can you believe it? It is almost a month now since the last blog entry and what has happened. Well to put it bluntly ... not a lot.

Peter has been frigging around with the carbs and we have finally decided to get them dynojetted. He will then clean the casings with "carb cleaner" and polish the tops. They should come up a treat when this has been done.



Ian and Peter spent a lazy Sunday grinding off all those useless fittings on the frame in preparation for getting it powdercoated.

The decision has been made to get the frame done in "shiney black". I think we are all leaning towards a completely black bike (frame, motor and tank) with the odd bit of orange here and there ... I think.

Off with its' head !!

Last Saturday (3rd July) was "workshop day". We all assembled at Paul's place and debated why we were going to take apart (what we thought was) a perfectly good FJ 1100 motor.

But this whole project was about getting to know a little bit more on motorcycle mechanics so really there was no debate; we would strip the whole motor down, identify what was worn, replace stuff that needed to be replaced, and then put it all back together again (bit like Humpty Dumpty).

Ian was in charge of "manual reading" whereas Peter and Paul were to be the head "stripper-downers".

At Paul's suggestion, we placed the motor on a table that allowed us to "attack" the thing from all sides. First it was off with all peripheral stuff like starter motors, and miscellaneous leads. This was where we discovered our first "issue". The metal lug where the starter motor was attached to the engine donk had broken off (see picture on left). We would need to get this welded back on at some stage.

In between Ian hitting his head on the (far too) low floor beams under the house, we also noticed that the starter assembly was fixed to the engine casing by only one bolt. Some "brilliant" mechanic from the past had screwed in a bolt too tightly and it had broken inside the casing. That would also need to be drilled out at some stage.

The cylinder head cover came off easy enough as did the cams and associated gaskets. The lobes on the cams looked straight and true but Paul knows someone "in the game" who he will ask and get a second opinion as to whether we need to replace anything in this neck of the woods.

On inspection, the end of the cam chain tensioner was damaged and it is the usual story; you can't just buy a replacement part, you need to buy a complete new assembly. Ian will try and pick a secondhand one up from a motorcycle wrecker sometime during the coming weeks after he sees someone about the damage done to his head from hitting the beams no less that five times.

Thankfully, it was at this point that lunch was served (love that Beck) and we all feasted on burgers and little homemade pies.

After lunch it was off with the head !!! and (to everyone's surprise) the cylinders looked clean with little scoring. See picture. We are all hoping that the scoring that can be seen is "normal" wear and tear.

Well into the afternoon Pete got the "rescue call" from Laura and excused himself and then disappeared for a while. It was getting late anyway and so Paul and Ian tidied up the mess (that's OK Pete ... you just go off ... we'll clean up) and adjourned upstairs to marvel at Paul's new kick-arse tellie in the recently renovated lounge-dining room. As we have come to expect, Beck was on hand with cake and tea for all.

When Pete did return we all decided that we would need to do "other jobs" in between the "workshop days" if we were ever going to bring this project to completion in a year or so. It was organised that people would be allocated the following "in-between" jobs.

Paul

Keep the engine RP7"d and covered

Remove the bolt that is broken in the engine casing

Peter

Break down the carbs and rebuild with new jets and filters and replace all worn parts e.g. diaphragms or floats

Ian

Continue to break down the rest of the bike

The next workshop day is on Saturday 7th August and that day will be spent finishing off the breakdown of the motor.

Need some critical advice

Wanna laugh ... then read this ... it's comes from a mate who stole it from the internet somewhere.

This is a "Dear Abby" letter from an FJ1100 restorer and reads as follows ..

I have never written about this before but I feel I need to so that I can get some advice on what could be a critical decision. I have suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me.

The usual signs ... phone rings but if I answer, the caller hangs up. My wife has been going out with the girls a lot recently although when I ask their names she always says, "just some friends from work, you don't know them."

I always stay awake to look out for her taxi coming home, but she always walks down the drive.

Anyway I have never approached the subject with my wife. I think deep down I just didn't want to know the truth, but last night she went out again and I decided to check on her.

I decided I was going to position the FJ1100 that I'm restoring next to the garage and then hide behind it so I could get a good view of the whole street when she came home.

It was at that moment, crouching behind the bike, that I noticed that the valve covers on the engine seemed to be leaking a little oil. Is this something I can fix myself or should I take it back to the dealer?

Now if, after having read this your computer "locks" then just hit any key to free it up. It looks something like this ...

Just call us the "polish" boys

In a moment of madness Ian attacked the carbs and polished one of the "caps" to within an inch of it's life ... but just look at the result. Now the question is .. should we buy a bench grinder to do all this stuff or what?

I think I already know the answer ...

ps ... what is that squeaking sound I can hear?

Fake carbon fibre ???

Yes ... there is such a beast. Apparently the motorcyclist can part with some hard earned dollars and buy "stick-on" carbon fibre. Maybe we should use some of this on the bike?

http://tapeworks.com/CARBONLOOK/carbonlook.html

And if we really want to go all the way ... maybe we should have a "tape job" done on the bike that looks something like this ... that glows in the dark.

http://tapeworks.com/GENERIC%20Images/5576.139.jpg

No ??

Wiring all gone

Yesterday I decided to go down to the garage and put in an hour on the bike. Since it has been at "Twamley" I've been progressively stripping stuff off the frame. All the wiring has gone and the handlebars have been removed along with the back (blue) frame and exhaust.

"Before" (on left) it was just spagetti and we discovered that the bike had been rewired because all the wire colours were wrong! Great ! (Now we need to get our hands on a wiring diagram and Peter will need to rewire the whole bike ... maybe).

Even though the wiring was the wrong colours I tagged everything with coloured bits of electrical tape so that ... if we did keep the original wires ... we would at least know what to connect to "what" when we put everything back together again.

The rear frame came off easy enough as did the handlebars and other bits and pieces. Everything is in cardboard boxes now ... all labelled and tagged. What's left of the bike "after" stripping the wiring off. (see right).

Engine has been extracted

Last weekend (19th June) We all gathered at Paul's place to begin dismantling the FJ. It was decided to take the engine and gearbox out and take the rest of the bike to Ian's place. Peter and Paul could work on the engine whilst Ian could continue to dismantle the rest of the bike.


It took most took most of the Saturday to get the engine out and then get the rest of the bike and bike ramp back on the ute and over to Ian's place.

By the end of the weekend it was all done and all we have spent so far is about $42 on a set of large allen keys because we needed a 10mm key to remove one of the engine mount bolts.

We can now safely say that the bike has bits and pieces spread all over Brisbane; Fenders, fairings and engine and gearbox at Pauls, and most of the rest of the bike at Ians.

Still have not decided on what colour and graphics will be on the racer but Ian is pushing for "something" that looks mostly black and chrome but with a checkered black and orange strip down the centre like the graphic pictured.

FJ1100 Stock exhaust vs Vance and Hines SS2-R

A "chopped" FJ1100

What colour, what graphics ??

I'm thinking that a cafe racer created in Australia needs to be just that ... Australian. When people see it they should immediately say "Ooh, that's an aussie cafe racer". Therefore the Australian flag (or at the very least the Southern Cross) needs to be featured in the graphics.

Don't know what Peter or Paul think of this idea ...

It's all about allocating jobs

One bike, three "bike rebuilders" and several thousand opinions on where to start, what to do and how much to spend.

Our first big decision was that we would turn the bike into a cafe racer. Something like the one in the photo.

Our next decision was the budget. We decided that we would each "bank" $100/month into a joint account. Therefore, with $300/month coming into the account the "budget" (by default) is $3,600 as we figure that the project should be finished in about 12 months i.e. by around June 2011.

We also decided that we needed to allocate each person sections of the bike to research and come up with ideas on what to do and possible costs to do it.

Peter got:

1. The rear suspension

2. The brakes and

3. The front suspension

(as well as "combining" with Paul on researching the engine)

Paul got:

1. The engine (with Pete)

2. The clutch and

3. The electrical system

Ian got:

1. The transmission and shift mechanism

2. Fuel, power valve and exhaust systems and

3. The body and frame

We all need to go away and research our particular areas and then we will all meet again and each one of us has to "present" what he thinks we (collectively) need to do in relation to each specific section.

We need to find a home for the FJ

It was March 2010 when Peter and Paul decided to work on restoring a project bike together. The project bike is an FJ1100 which was purchased from a guy at Lota for $400. The bike "ran" after liberal amounts of "start ya bastard".

Currently the FJ resides under Paul's house along with a motorcycle work platform and several other bits and pieces.

The most immediate issue is "where" to house the bike whilst it is being worked on. What is required is a shed that is ...
1. Away from living quarters because of the smell of degreaser that will be prominent as the rebuild progresses,
2. Able to be accessed at anytime by any of the "restorers" (i.e. Ian, Paul or Peter)
3. Big enough and secure enough to house the project bike, bike platform, spare parts and various tools and
4. Is cheap to rent (i.e. is free!!)

Paul is following up on a possible place and we do have a "plan B" is all else fails.