TR1X continued (now completed !!)

[dfh]

hey dude. im HANGIN for a ride.. been over 2 months now.. starting to go thru withdrawl symptoms.. might have to steal the missus NSR150 soon.. pitty its on seasonal rego (she is pregnant atm.. so she is too fat to ride).

How did that happen if you have no time for anything...

Before you move the reg/rectifier pop the shock and your new linkage onto the bike without the spring on it. The real travel of your swing arm is defined by the shocks travel. With a bit of luck it may not need relocating.

Hopefully I still have a licence by the time you are ready to go.. went for a blat on Sat and all the talk at the Garage was of the camera in the white ute on Ashborne Road.... What ute said I Ah well....

As for following bikes that shed bits.. no problemo. Use to run sweep for a mate with a Guzzi special and yes I remember "Reckless Kelly" almost worked on that one.. I did work on "Ned" - the comedy one not that silly amurikan remake. What I call a " Slab and Pizza film"

When you get your 'Rex on the road I'll do some nice shots of it. No point of all that hard work if nobody sees it.

DFH [/quote]

[Quan-Time]

heh.. the hills are alive, with the sound of "click"... err.. that sound the cameras make.. blah.. either way.

As for a slab and pizza film... i got a uber TV (read as 60" rear projection) and was thinkin a beer n pizza night of easy rider, ghost rider, and possibly any other bike movie that comes to mind.. could prove interesting over a bbq or somethin.. need to sort it out as a celebration of finishing the TR1X.. shouldnt be too much longer now..

Got me a new spray gun,, a nice gravity fed one.. Helps give a nicer finish and more control (imo).. and ill pick up paint next week soon as i get that bastard knuckle back. so should be set..

I actually worked on the rearsets a bit today.. work gave me some free time and i actually did a fair bit on them.. To be honest, by the time i finish spraying the fairings, i can prolly have the rearsets back from chrome plating.. which would be a bonus..

and as for colour of spray painting.. ill give you a sneek peek.. i been searching for AGES to find the exact colour i want... took some lookin around.. I had 2 choices.. find a factory sprayed car and get code.. or mix a custom colour..

Now mixing custom colours is a min batch to buy, and its WAY WAY expensive.. we are talkin over 1k per litre.. and you buy 5 at a time.. thats for the NORMAL colours.. you want pearls ? thats over 2.5k per LITRE..

subsequently i found a colour im happy with.. Its called "midnight purple pearl" and it only appeared on the Honda NSX (exotic eh ? ) and ive never seen it in real.. but im fairly confident its what i want..

forgetting the chick on the car, this is the colour


You can see its basically black, but in certain sunlight its got a very strong purple come thru.. And the car must be registered as purple because of it.. not black... so should be VERY interesting to take a few shots of..

and its only about $350 per litre.. and can buy it in 1l batches.. mixes 50:50 so i basically get 2l from it.. way more than i need..

anyway.. more on that later.

[Quan-Time]

OK, big update today... well, nothing huge, but theres pics which im sure many of you will love.

Id like to say that NOTHING is final currently. Ive found out many things which are going to annoy the crap outta me and thus, im going to mod quite a few things.. But you get the main idea of whats going on currently.

The stuff you see below is mearly "trial fitting" of parts, to see where i want everything to finally sit.. Im obviously going to re-make the battery box thing aswell as a mod a few internal things to make clearance for the under tail cover as you can see its not quite sitting correctly.

I also got a cheap can of black spray paint to help me in my cause for getting it on the road faster.. Sure its going to get a proper respray anyway,, but whats a few bucks for a crappy black can of paint to make it look some what presentable on these nice forums


didnt like the main shape i had.. so i went at it with a grinder, and some of that "expanding filler foam" crap.. let it set overnight, it EASY cuts with a hacksaw blade and some sand paper to get the shape you want.. It ends up like polystyrene foam.. think "the white foam that TVs come in boxes with".. its really good stuff.. but messy as hell... good fun tho !


Get the shape you want, actually a bit smaller than you want, to make room for bog filler.. This stuff is.. err.. plastibond filler.. dries REALLY hard and sands real good... so yer. smoothed it out and made it the way i wanted.. After that, i fibreglassed the lot.. took about 3 attempts because i did the underside, top and sides.. but was fairly straight forward.. came out sweet...



This one is major surgery in the making.. You prolly cant understand what im showing here.. But see the piece im holding ? i cut out 40mm from the middle to raise the battery's sitting location.. This was to get clearance for the swingarm..


Ive also "slimmed" it all down and cut of as much waste as i can.. Mainly because of the under tail cover which you will see at the end.


You can see the texta line (err.. magic marker ? we call them texta in australia) where ive cut along.. You prolly wont notice this either, but the bottom piece i rotated 180%.. because of those 2 holes.. This brings that little finned cooling thing close to the front providing yet again more clearance.


And heres how it all sits inside the bike now.. I still have a bit more work to do on it. But ill prolly just end up making a new one from scratch anyway and making it look tidy.


Got me my knuckle back from the welders..

Before you judge it as being ugly / too big / whatever.. ok.. I didnt want (at this point) to fabricate a whole new one, altho with the time it took i may aswell have anyway.. I needed to keep the leverage ratio the same and this is how i had to do it in the "quickest" method for trial purposes..

I would have had the bike rolling with exhaust on.. but i forgot to buy a new bolt to attach the adjustable dog bones to the swingarm !! otherwise its all sweet.


You can see the under tail cover, at the seat end, doesnt quite match up properly.. I know the cause of this and can fix it. but honestly im too lazy today, its WAY cold and i wanted another beer, came inside and basically stopped.. such is life.

Next 2 pics are the basics of how its going to look now.. Paint is dodgy can spray stuff but it does the job for aesthetics.



Enjoy.

[ss kustoms]

G'day Quan

Have you thought about using one of those Oddessy batteries then you can mount it wherever you like. Because they are dry cell (nickel metal hydride or something) You can mount them anywhere any angle upside down etc.

No I have nothing to do with them but i've been told they're great. I can probably find out applicable part no. and size (I think they're also smaller) if you want me to.

Regards

Steve

[Quan-Time]

heh.. the master plan.. yes i do have plans to do it.. But for the moment, i just want to ride !!

got my old rear sets back on and will have exhaust hooked up prolly tomorrow.. gues what.. basically finished !! need to mount number plate.. but thats a simple 2 sec job..

theory goes..

[Peter850]

Is there a belly pan to go on or is that it?

[Quan-Time]

no thats actually it.. i thought about putting on the lower panels.. the headlight is the cowl, the panels i have on are the mid left/right, and the other ones im missing are the lower left/right. At this stage im NOT putting anything else on..
2 reasons.
1: i like the naked look, and like the exposed engine..
2: i just wanna ride the bastard thing !!

As for why it wouldnt run.. a free cookie goes to the man who suggest spark plugs.. got it in one.. soon as i swapped em over. fired up instantly..

BUT i notice its coughing and farting and wont idle.. Im fairly positive my battery is borked as its not holding much charge (multimeter) and ran better when the portable battery jumper was connected to it (its the only way i could start it.. )

This being all said, ill get a new dry cell battery tomorrow, and take it to the dyno for a good tune up and a going over.. But it runs and stuff.. But should be sweet..
anyway. in a not-quite-completed state here it is



Please ignore the lack of licence plate and the quality of shot.. i had to run out and do many things after work.. oh.. like get a new job.

was given marching orders today.. work is at a stand still, so being a contractor, im out... such is life. ill prolly have a new job by this time next week.. im allowed to finish off this week.. so guess what.. im gonna be doing every last bit i need to make this thing nice.. its the last chance ill get for a while !!!

anyway... what ya think ?

[Glen1TRX]

was it worth loosing your job over

[Quan-Time]

heh.. i didnt loose my job over this.. long story short.. im at the mercy of the navy and engineers who release the work.

we are at a stand still for ~6weeks... such is life.. its not the 1st time this has happened at my work.. last time they got rid of like 12 guys in one shot.. but 2 of them are already back.. go figgure.

[Glen1TRX]

sounds like a staff cleanse to me

[youngy]

a muppet shuffle?

[bobtrx]

If your not getting 13.5 - 14 volts approx with the motor running ( no outside chargers etc connected to the battery ) then your not charging to the battery , putting in a new battery wont help . Only way to check the battery charge is with a hydrometer and battery discharge test

[Quan-Time]

the final update.. where to begin..

Id like to state before anything, this will prolly always be a "ongoing" mod.. Ive got MUCH more to do after ive discovered some things from riding it (yes i ride it now, more on that soon). I still have my entire spare TRX900 motor which i will focus on more now, to get it finished and fitted.. Im still unsure about carbies / injection, but either way i go, be sure to drop in and have a look, ive got a choice and design for each, so wait and see which direction i head.

Im now running a 17t / 43t in a 530 series (o-ring) chain.. This wasnt the easiest of conversions.. I had to get my old 17t, machine the gears off it, thin it down a bit, and use the internal spline part as a spacer.. I then machined the spline part out of the new gear, and welded the 2 together. Yes i lined them up.. i made a jig actually.. anyway, its more dished now.. I did this because the R1 rear wheel was wider, pushing the chain out more. And because there was no 525 conversion for the R1 sprocket, i could only make the front suit.. luckily there was a 530 conversion.. woot me.
Ive also put on a renthal 43t lightened alu sprocket.. Its actually bolted on backwards as to pull the chain close in by ~5mm or so.. every little bit helps here.. its surprisingly straight and is smooth.

Brakes are shuddering a bit.. Need to clean the rusty spots off them.. its my own fault

Bike handling feels "crisper" than im used to.. but after being on a limo and now this, its much better. There is a pic to show how i shortened the swinger and how it looks in the bike now.. hope you understand.




Well, here it is.. In its "finished" state.. im happy.



This shows my attempt to tidy up the wiring, and you get a fairly good look at how the front end actually will pull off via "R" clips.. ive got them attached to rubber bands.. im going to use thin metal wire (think guitar wire) and clamp em to the frame somehow.. so i dont loose em.. bastard things.



Forgetting the rust on the disks and the dodgy paint on the guard, you can see on the upper red circle, the speedo pickup, and the lower red circle is the magnet than it senses as the wheel revolves aronud.. works perfectly.



Ignoring the water stains (yes i need to rebuff it.. get over it) you can see how the red lines show where the new plate is, and how i cut it.. the blue line is the line it took previously.. basically by doing what i did, it shortened 72mm.. or was it 73... either way.. around there.. works well. is VERY tight in there now.. very little room for much of anything.

I took it for its maiden voyage today... fired it up, worked well.. went to take it out,, got up end of street and im "err.. this seat is low.. VERY low" so turned around, stationary, bounced up and down.. i could bottom it out

rode home.. checked it out.. id set my adjustable dog bones to "low rider" status.. tightened em up, set my rebound rate to 11/11 clicks, meaning there is basically no resistance on the oil in the shock, the bike will rebound fast.. set it 1/11 clicks, and it comes up VERY slow.. i wanted more response to feel what was going on.

Reride the bike.. still not perfect.. still a bit too "soft".. go back, check coil, its set to "omg im a small chick" compression.. i CANT stiffen it up as yet. i dont have the correct tool to rotate the lock nut.. Ill do that tomorrow i hope. set it to hardest and work my way back... since im a bit larger..

Front brakes give a slight shudder, but got better over time. ill clean disks n pads and re-asses..

The smoothness of the ride is amazing now.. i feel comfy in the position i set.. I lowered it ~20mm from stock TRX seat to lower centre of gravity aswell as change my riding position.. I feel more "relaxed" now.. bars need to be adjusted tho.. which will prove a BITCH... as you may notice they are welded.. /me slaps head.. BAD BOY

the 43t sprocket is a weapon.. the front is SO wheel happy now.. it just launches when you want it to.. its jsut scary if you want it to be. and thats with a soft spring.. imagine it will be uber with a hard setting.. i cant wait honestly !


Well, thats about it kids.. journey ends hear.. Sure ill update things here and there and answer any questions on it / help ppl.. but im not gonna be submitting many more pics on this unless asked.. or trying to explain somethin.

Might show when the bike is painted or track day or somethin.. wait and see..

Just a note.. by this time next year.. the bike will be different again.. Scary as it is, i have plans.. and they aint small.. what ive done is nothing to what i WANT to do.. but im gonna ride it for a few months before i de-commission it again for another rebuild..

hint: think new engine and... other things.

[twinlovin]

Hey Quan.
Looks good.
Nice to see you're out on the road again. Hope you can get your suspension all sorted ASAP.
How long till you'll get a chance to paint it and tidy it up?

BTW have you managed to find a suitable spot for the radiator overfill bottle?

[Ridgifumi]

hmmm not my cup of tea,would've been easier to put a TRX motor in an R1 wouldn't it?A+ for time and effort but i like the Rex just the way they are with a few mods here and there.

But what the f@#k would i know LOL