my z650 / 1170 rebuild

i took some measurements from the gpz frame and transfered them to the 650 frame , the lower mount didnt line up with the lower frame rail so had to have a mount made and welded in

i had made a simple mount for the top but i decieded at this stage i might as well make it ride height adjustable while i was at it

as i had already put the box section cross brace in the frame it seemed like the ideal place to mount the shock so i made a mount that extended to the original frame rail and welded it in

when i put the cbr swingarm in the frame i had to enlarge the pivot holes in the frame , luckily the gpz arm had the same size pivot bolt and slipped straight in , that means i can swap back to twin shocks in a couple of hours.
painted mount in the frame ready for the rebuild

just a little something else i knocked up , people say cv carbs dont like to run with no air box or with pod filters , well i was never going to get a standard airbox to fit and i only had 2 pod filters so i made a stainless steel plenum chamber affair , the filters sit between the frame rails just in front of the battery

Wholly CRAP!!!!! Schwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Nice.... real nice... Are you re-producing these for others to obtain as well?

Old Man Rock wrote:

Wholly CRAP!!!!! Schwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Nice.... real nice... Are you re-producing these for others to obtain as well?

thanks for the comment but sadly these are, and will remain a one off . i was lucky to find some stainless pipe that was a really tight fit on the inlet stubs on the carbs so these dont use any rubbers , i had to weld them up on the carbs to stop them distorting , even then when they had cooled down they still twisted slightly on one intake , a small tap with a mallet and on they go , im not sure if they will help with the running but they do look kinda trick fitted .

VERY COOL INDEED.
This has turned out to be a pretty cool bike , hasnt it.
Congrats and thanks for posting.
Whats next ?

it seems carbon fiber gets a lot of interest so after being inspired by peoples attempts on this site i thought id do something i hadn't seen attempted before .

ten minutes after starting i thought what the hell have i let myself in for , no one says how hard this stuff is to work with , when you cut it it shreds at the edges ,holes appear if you are not really gentle and it doesn;t like sharp corners .

what i did discover that might be useful if you consider skinning something in carbon is , spray the back side of the carbon with rattle can satin black and force dry it with a heat gun so it doesn't have time to soak through ,give it a couple of coats and it goes almost like paper and can be cut with scissors or a sharp knife into almost any shape you want .you can still bend it , stretch it into shape but it doesn't fall apart .
the skinning kit i got comes with a two part base coat black , i found out it doesn't cover any colour but black so i had to spray the bare wheel black before i skinned it , it also takes upto 3 hrs to tack up before you apply the carbon , great if you're doing a panel but useless if you do a wheel with 12 seperate pieces of carbon to lay up
12 ? yeah i complicated things by doing the spokes in two pieces joined down the edges , 3 pieces between the spokes on the rim and 3 pieces on the hub.
so having tried the base coat i decieded not to use it , it doesnt add any strenght and only acts as a glue so i used spray adhesive on the wheel and applied the carbon onto it , sticks like a limpit to all the curves then its just a case of applying gell coat ,waiting over night , sanding it , applying more gell coat and after waiting for my finger ends to grow back more sanding and finally a coat of two pack laquer .
this little project took almost a week but the rear wheel should be a lot easier now i know what im doing .

the last pic shows the really hard part , getting some shape into the tight areas really is time consuming and your finger ends take some hammer , the rear wheel is much wider where the spokes meet the rim so should be a lot easier to deal with , hope you like it , kev