And finally, Wookie's 82 begins !

Front end:I am using ZX9R C1 RWU forks as I prefer the look for what I have planned, I bought forks, trees, front wheel and brakes all for a C1 (I prefer where possible to use parts that were designed to work together by somebody far cleverer than me) The C1 stem is a little short for what I need so it looked like I would have to go custom, however in the interim I had an idea for a fork service tool that would hold them without damage in the vice. After a bit of research I found that some ZX6R's use the same 46mm forks (with shorter tubes) so I bought a 6R bottom tree with a broken lock stop for £7 to make the tool (I love the 600 parts mountain) When it arrived I had a happy moment, the stem is longer than the 900 as it uses an external top nut whereas the 900 is a recessed flush nut, also the top bearing is the same size as the KZ. So the next problem was the 900 bearing retaining nut is too big for the 600 stem, I looked these up and found they are £12 each and on back order. So back to evilbay for another 600 bottom tree with the retaining nuts for £18 (25% less than just the nuts from Kawa
So now it has all gone to a man to make it fit together, if the stem is the same size into the bottom tree it just needs the diameter reducing to fit the KZ bearing, if not he will make a new stem and also he needs to make a custom top nut as the 900 one is made for a thicker stem (25mm as opposed to 22mm)

Back end: I am using a GSXR 600K swingarm and linkage with a 1000K shock (taken my lead from Davido's build which was my inspiration) also I did a bit of research ref bearing sizes etc and this must be as close to "bolt in as it gets   the OD of the KZ inner races is the same size as the GSXR spindle therefore the KZ inner races fit side the GSXR inner races and the KZ centre tube also fits inside the GSXR counterpart therefore you simply insert the KZ parts inside the GSXR parts fit the GSXR grease caps and add a 2.5mm shim either side. I paid £25 for the swinging arm so if you where sticking with twin shocks all you would need is shock mounts and axle sleeves ( depending on what wheel you where using) so I recon on a budget you have a beady alloy swing arm in your bike for around $150 a $200   this went together so easy it was almost rude 

 

The vision: I decided to mock things up so I could share my vision (easily identified as a big Z but different to all the others) I am relocating the side panels which will mean extending and re-shaping them   I think to make random parts look like they belong together you need to look for some subconscious lines of symmetry (IMHO) so I am using the bottom line of the tank as my datum point, the top of the side panels will be parallel to the datum line from the bottom of the tank. I will probably need to re- work the tailpiece as well so the top line is parallel to the side panels and tank datum line. As a bonus the original splash guard still fits (will need a trim at the bottom) feeling good 

 

I guess I must have not clicked on the last e-mail notification cause I missed a whole lot of posts here!

Looking good! The mount looks pretty stable as well. Will the ZX-9 forks be long enough or will you extend them?

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I guess I must have not clicked on the last e-mail notification cause I missed a whole lot of posts here!

Looking good! The mount looks pretty stable as well. Will the ZX-9 forks be long enough or will you extend them?

Thanks Calum, it is absolutely stable on the lift even with the imbalance of no front end. The forks do need extending, I have taken on board that Davido still has clearance issues with a Harris pipe - if I extend 75mm that will put the fork length in the middle between a "J" and a "K" so with a 17 inch wheel I should end up pretty much at stock "J" height 

That should be plenty - although I missed where you're getting the 75mm from? Do you know if the back end sits up higher with the GSXR linkage? Mine is up a bit with a GSXR 750 swingarm due to the length but I'm not using the GSXR shock or linkage.

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That should be plenty - although I missed where you're getting the 75mm from? Do you know if the back end sits up higher with the GSXR linkage? Mine is up a bit with a GSXR 750 swingarm due to the length but I'm not using the GSXR shock or linkage.



 

Unloaded the J forks are 815mm and the  K are 840mm - The ZX9 forks are 755mm so with extension will be 830mm - the radius of the wheel is 31mm smaller so ultimately I should be 16mm lower than a J - I can do what I want with the rear as I haven’t made the mount yet and it will have a degree of adjustment- I need to watch the swing arm angle as Davido had an issue with his chain eating the swing arm 

Getting the balance of swingarm angle and back end height was a bit tricky with the 750 swingarm. I think I ended up with 10.5-11 degrees and had to compensate for the extra height at the front (zrx forks and custom triples made that a bit easier).

I misread your earlier post. I thought you wrote that the forks don't need extending - I was wondering where the hell you were getting the 75mm from! 

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Getting the balance of swingarm angle and back end height was a bit tricky with the 750 swingarm. I think I ended up with 10.5-11 degrees and had to compensate for the extra height at the front (zrx forks and custom triples made that a bit easier).

I misread your earlier post. I thought you wrote that the forks don't need extending - I was wondering where the hell you were getting the 75mm from! 

HaHa ! Yea it would take more than a few shims to make up 75mm   your custom triples are real nice but my aim is to use as many OE parts as possible carefully selected from a range of bikes, there are a couple of reasons for this. First is cost, (my complete back end including wheel, calliper and sprocket carrier have cost £250 so far, if I factor in another £200 for bearings and refurb etc I should be at about £450 - the starting price for a good pair of rear shocks !)
The second reason is that I want the finished bike to look like " it could have always been that way" at a glance. I'm not going for "hot rod" with this build and ultimately I'm not a good enough rider to benefit from a £5k front end !! 

Yikes! I swear I just looked away for a minute. You're making some beautiful headway. Carry on, sir!

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HaHa ! Yea it would take more than a few shims to make up 75mm 

 your custom triples are real nice but my aim is to use as many OE parts as possible carefully selected from a range of bikes, there are a couple of reasons for this. First is cost, (my complete back end including wheel, calliper and sprocket carrier have cost £250 so far, if I factor in another £200 for bearings and refurb etc I should be at about £450 - the starting price for a good pair of rear shocks !)
The second reason is that I want the finished bike to look like " it could have always been that way" at a glance. I'm not going for "hot rod" with this build and ultimately I'm not a good enough rider to benefit from a £5k front end !! 

Thankfully I'm not quite at 5k for the front end I am a bit jealous of your costs though - not that easy to keep the prices down over here due to the strict MOT guidelines. There is still a decent difference between £500-600 for the triples or getting the stem reworked with all the correct paperwork - but not enough of a difference for me to not get those triples

Anyway, back to yours... The ZX front end should look good with that GSXR back end, should be exactly the look you're going for. 

So managed to get a few hours on the bike over the last couple of days (I had taken a couple of days off to sort some things out) it has certainly been a day of mixed emotions. When I dropped the stem off on Saturday I was talking to the guy as he does chassis mods to classic strokes race bikes (check out his website NK Racing in Stoney Stanton UK) and he could not stress enough the importance of getting the bottom mount in the right location for the monoshock conversion (pivot point in relation to swing arm pivot, dog bone angle & linkage angle) as getting it badly wrong can result in the "rising rate" becoming a "reducing rate"  . First set of brackets have gone in the scrap pie but the second set seem to have hit the sweet spot, so I got them tacked in place and then *$~x?? The welder started playing up (the insulator for the gas shroud has disintegrated) so that was that for now