JR's Build Project

OK - so it is snowing again in CT tonight, and it will be coming down for the next 24 hours. Perfect time to finally get the build to the significant (for me) ROLLER milestone. I'm stoked ... I picked up the bike 11 months ago and have been plugging away ever since. Much more to go, but happy to get to this stage.

Picked up the frame, seat pan, side stand, and engine mounts on Saturday morning from American Dry Stripping / Prestige Coating. Powder coat is Textured Black, with a nice slightly raised finish.

Very happy with how the powder came out and they did a good job masking the engine mount flanges, bolts/threads, and bolt holes after a conversation with Mike at Prestige. I had to sand it off of the upper shock mounts, about 15 minutes in total and some aluminum oxide sand paper used for copper pipe took it right off.

Well - this is where i am now, going to get the seat done soon, then start figuring out the electrical. And yes this is my basement, so the engine is going to go in in the Spring AFTER i push and pull the roller up and out of the basement Bilco doors! May need to take off the wheels and bring it up in segments for reassembly. Love the Ducatii Monster S4R Comparo handlebars :bike: Oh yeah, and I have to throw my rear fender with tail light on there for the mock up.


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Looks awesome man, I like the direction. How complicated was it to cut down the RMZ forks??
 
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Looks awesome man, I like the direction. How complicated was it to cut down the RMZ forks??

Hey fox23. I will readily admit that I outsourced the suspension mods to Greg Hancock at Hancock suspension in Colorado. I measured up the rake on the stock front suspension, and to maintain the same geometry determined that I needed to reduce the travel by 5.8 inches to leave 6 inches. Greg recommended adjusting the spring rate for the bike weight and rider weight to .68 (I think). He did the rest. Although I'd have loved to dig into it on the bench, limited time. The great thing is that there are some seriously skilled dudes who support the community!

Refined the repurposed taillight mount. Not so
Stalky.

Starting the electrical this week - yikes.
 

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I cut up a bed frame for the angle iron and made 2 custom brackets; one for the headlight and the other for the turn signals.

More work than I thought for the headlight. The Aermacchi Harley headlight is a bottom mount, but doesn't have a pivot for adjustment of the headlight's forward tilt, so I had to cut a tab into the bracket and then bend it up by 25 degrees to angle the light forwards.

For the signals, I cut threads into 1/2 inch steel pipe and threaded the signals into each end. Then spent some time making up the bracket to mount it to the RMZ front end. Worked out well in the end, but lots of futzing around with the grinder, flap wheel, and drill bits on the bench.
 

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So moving along, lights are working thanks to help from DaddyG and since I came this far I figured might as well take a look into the top end. Cam chain guide was delaminated, it didn't fall into the engine case but it was about to. Replacing front guide and cam chain.

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Glazed and Confused: cylinder walls pretty glazed up, bringing them in for a honing
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Piston rings were frozen up too, the engine sat for a while so replacing them. That may explain the 90 PSI pressure test readings
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Will clean these up with a little blasting, good shape other wise
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Pretty bad carbonization in the combustion chamber I think, or is this about normal for 18,500 miles? Need to clean up the valves to see what I've got on my hands - they look like they're sort of crumbling?
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My son and I put the rebuilt motor back in last night. He was a big help, doesn't get better than that!
 

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Great job! Love the build thread! Can you provide more details on your front end build?
 
Hi fj - apologies for the delay, finally finished the build and was taking advantage of the warm December inCT.

So I purchased front suspension and triple trees from a 2004 Suzuki RMZ 250. I lowered the travel by about 6 inches to maintain the stock geometry. Then you have to mate the stock stem to the RMZ triple tree with a couple custom machined spacers and thread/bolts. When doing the swap it make sense to upgrade the bearings etc.

The front wheel set what's purchased from Warp 9 wand is designed for the RMZ as a Supermoto set up. I needed to do some additional fabrication / machining of the brake caliber hanger to make the rotor fit between the calipers correctly. It was off by 1.5 mm.
 
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