Prep & Mods
06/97

Maintenance prep this month:

Lotsa, lotsa mods this month:

I completed the number plate project started last month by replacing the allen bolts with Dzus fasteners. Here's a few tips I picked up along the way. Take the time to measure the thickness of all the panels in all locations. Don't assume that aftermarket fiberglass body parts are the same thickness across the part. Dzus fasteners from Lockhart Phillips come in two sizes: .150 - .190" (fiberglass panels) ands .190 - .224" (OEM ABS panels). They tend to run a little long, so either pick up a few of each length, or go for the longer ABS fasteners and plan on shimming them with washers to get a good, tight fit.

Last, but not least, unless you can drill a perfectly placed hole and there are no side to side stresses on the panel, drill the hole a little larger on the back panel. The diameter of the fastening end of a Dzus is larger than the middle part of the shaft. If there are any side stresses on the panel, it can shift and force the fastening end to catch on the edge of the hole, making it tough to remove the panel easily (the whole point of a Dzus). Don't make the hole so large, though, that the fastener can slip to the side of the retaining spring.

I decided not to push my luck and replaced the exhaust bracket that broke last month with a LP titanium piece. The hardest part was getting the right bracket! The first one was about 1" too short and bent 1" too far back. A call to LP had another one on its way. I suggested that they must have a batch of mis-marked parts and asked that they make sure the replacement was the correct part. Two days later UPS dropped off another bracket - it didn't fit either. One more call to LP, one more bracket on its way. The third time's a charm and this one fit. Turns out the other two were mis-marked - they were for a ZX-7.

The bracket bolted right up, though to maintain a decent clearance between the Yosh pipe and the swingarm, I bolted it to the outside of the frame tabs & increased the notch in the rear body panel to clear the bracket. Titanium is some pretty trick stuff - if the old billet bracket was light, this new one was weightless. Time will tell if it's strong enough.

The next project for the bike was mounting a set of Nemesis Race Group aluminum race spools to the swing arm. I was getting tired of the bike squirming around on the 'traditional' stand that lifted the bike from under the swing arm. If the bike was parked on a slant, a good wind would knock it off. If the person doing the lifting wasn't paying attention, the stand would slip and the swing arm would get scratched up and / or the bike would fall over.

The Nemesis spools are first class. There's a large selection of anodized colors (I chose gold to match the chain & sprocket) and they supply a set of weld-on steel blocks. I haven't welded anything since junior high, so Tom Aberle of Aberle Custom Aircraft took on the task. Tom's business is building / re-building / maintaining airplanes from his shop at the Fallbrook Air Park. The pride of a job well done and his high level of craftsmanship is evident as you look over the work-in-progress around the shop. When it comes to the type of delicate TIG welding required on the thin metals of a race bike (or plane), Tom is The Man. He understands the rigors that racing places on the hard parts, having built and raced more than a few planes himself.

Tom did a beautiful job on the blocks plus sandblasted and primed the swing arm. Color Rite Distributing supplied a can of color-matched paint (Honda NH259) and I did the painting / sanding / painting / sanding / painting / sanding ....... The finished job looks like it came from the factory. I ordered a LP race stand, wrapped the brackets with duct tape (the spools look too nice to scratch up!), and we were in business.

The last project of the month was one I've been trying to get at for a long time - Aramel Racing decals. Viewpoint Photography recently picked up an Epson Stylus Color 800 ink-jet printer w/1440dpi print resolution - armed with some of Epson's self-adhesive 8.5 x 11" paper, I printed up a few different sizes for Aramel, Data Management Systems, and TFBnet. I sprayed the sheets with Krylon clear acrylic to protect them from the elements.

The finished decals looked pretty damn good, but I discovered a some drawbacks to the Epson paper. The adhesive isn't waterproof, so the slight drizzle Friday morning caused them to start lifting. The colors fade pretty quickly in the sun - the red started turning pink after about a week. I found a company called Advantage Sign Supply that makes a waterproof printable vinyl that we'll try out for next month.

Bob

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